Pirateer is a board game meant for two or four players. The object of the game is to capture the treasure in the middle of the board, and then take it back to your dock in one of the four corners of the board. In order to take the treasure, you must move one of your ships to one of the bright spaces next to the island, and then put the treasure coin on top of your ship. Each player gets 3 pieces -- 6 if there are only two players.
Pieces are moved by rolling a pair of dice. Movement is limited to left, right, up, and down, unless your piece is within one of the "trade winds". The trade winds are 20 dark, wavy spaces that allow your ship to move diagonally. If a ship enters the trade winds, it is not allowed to move out until the next turn. Additionally, there are triangle spaces on the farthest sides of the board. These are spaces that are called straits and they allow passage from one side of the board to the other.
There are about 10 different variations of Pirateer that give special conditions or rules. We usually play an unofficial variant, which consists of dueling and capturing ships that we made up. Movement and victory conditions are normal, but whenever a ship goes into a space next to an enemy ship, the two can duel. Both players roll a die, and whoever rolls the highest, wins, capturing the enemy ship and the treasure if the losing ship had it.
After playing, we roll up the felt board and put the pieces in a long, metal container and put it away in our game closet.
