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Libertalia

2-6 players 40-60 min 7.1 Board Game Geek Rating

In Libertalia, players are competing pirates racing to amass the greatest treasure before retirement. Each player uses identical crew member cards with unique powers, simultaneously selecting which characters to deploy each round. Success depends on timing your crew's abilities strategically while anticipating opponents' moves. The craftiest pirate who accumulates the most wealth wins.

Published 2012

Libertalia

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

1
Place the game board
Put the board in the middle of the table
2
Assign player colors
Each player randomly draws a face-down crew marker card to determine their color
3
Distribute player components
Each player receives the den, crew marker card, score token, and 30 character cards matching their color
4
Arrange player area
Players place their den in front of them and their cards next to it
5
Set up score track
Place the score track to the side with each player's score token on the "0" space
6
Distribute starting doubloons
Each player receives 10 doubloons (1 of value 5 and 5 of value 1)
7
Create the bank
Set remaining doubloons aside to form the bank
8
Prepare booty tokens
Place all booty tokens in a bag and shuffle thoroughly
9
Draw booty for the campaign
Draw 1 booty token per player per day (6 days), placing them on spaces under the ship
10
Deal character cards
The youngest player shuffles their character cards, draws 9, and reads the rank and name aloud
11
Select matching cards
All other players select the same 9 cards from their own decks to form their starting hand
12
Set aside unused cards
Place remaining cards under each player's crew marker card for future campaigns

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

1
Understand game structure
The game takes place over 3 campaigns, each consisting of 6 days of looting plus 1 day of rest
2
Phase 1 - Sunrise
Each player secretly chooses a character card from their hand and places it face-down
3
Phase 2 - Day
Resolve "day" special actions in increasing order of rank (lowest to highest, left to right)
4
Phase 3 - Dusk
Share the booty in decreasing order of rank (highest to lowest, right to left)
5
Phase 4 - Night
All players simultaneously resolve "night" special actions for all characters in their dens
6
Day of Rest (Scoring Phase)
After 6 days, resolve "end of campaign" special actions for characters in dens
7
Prepare next campaign
Remove all characters from dens and graveyards from the game

Winning

How to claim victory.

1
Complete all campaigns
Play through all 3 campaigns, each with 6 days of looting and scoring
2
Track cumulative score
Final score is the sum of all doubloons won during the three campaigns
3
Determine the winner
The player whose score token has reached the highest value on the score track at the end of the third campaign wins
4
Achieve your goal
The richest player is crowned the winner and brings Libertalia to life

watch & Learn

Let the pros teach you with these top videos.

Hoe speel je Libertalia? (#299)

Hoe speel je Libertalia? (#299)

Instructional

Libertalia - Gamers Party Game! How to Play

Libertalia - Gamers Party Game! How to Play

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FULL rules

Looking for the full details? Grab the complete rulebook as a downloadable PDF.

PDF RULEBOOK

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