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[superseagull7]

I'm pretty new to Dominion, but I have introduced it to a lot of friends and am really enjoying it. We were playing with the High Seas card set to try out some of the cards in Seaside. Does Pirate Ship dominate this card set? I found that I pretty much ran out of treasure cards, and the only way I could have money to spend was through Pirate Ships and Bazaars. Is there a good strategy to counter Pirate Ships in this deck?

[Thisisnotasmile]

Embargo them?

[BaruMonkey]

For people's reference, this set consists of:
Bazaar, Caravan, Embargo, Explorer, Haven, Island, Lookout, Pirate Ship, Smugglers, Wharf

For another answer to the question:
If you play Lookout as your last draw action, then you can significantly drop the chances of PS hitting a treasure that you want to keep.
Besides that and Embargo-ing them, you could invest strongly in Bazaars, and then Wharfs and Caravans to get them out there.

A (much!) more generic and longer answer, useful for similar questions, can be found here: http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/12/27/your-guide-to-beating-attacks

[Davio]

We have to keep in mind that he's probably playing it with more than 2p and in that case, Pirate Ship is a really nasty card.

I think your best option is to Embargo it immediately. Getting coins from Bazaars only is not really that great although it can help to set up something with Wharf and a couple of Golds and hope those don't get PS'd.

[Deadlock39]

Lookout is not going to defend against Pirate Ship because the card you left on top of your deck will be drawn into your next turn's hand before your opponents are going to be playing any Ships.

As others have said, a quick Embargo will slow down the Ships.  You can get some money that can't be hit by ships with Bazaar, possibly stock up on cards like Caravan/Haven with buys from Wharf to reduce the chances of the ships hitting treasure, or possibly even use Explorer in attempt to gain treasure faster than it can be destroyed. 

I have no idea how reasonable any of those ideas are, but Embargo into money and Wharfs/Bazaars or both seems like it ought to beat Ships with one or two opponents playing them.  In a 4 player game, it is possible you would have to join in on the Pirating.

[BaruMonkey]

The relevant paragraph from the article I linked to:

Now when Thief hits Copper, you’re glad and they aren’t and that’s that. When Pirate Ship hits Copper though, everyone’s happy. You don’t want the Copper and they want the token. You don’t want them to get the token. In a two player game, trashing your Coppers first can help here. With more players, you probably can’t get everyone to slow down the Pirate Ship enough. Instead, just coast to victory by building your own efficient Copper-free deck, courtesy of them stealing those Coppers for you. Pirate Ship can cause some groups problems, I think because it’s an answer to itself – Pirate Ship makes you want an action that makes money, and hey Pirate Ship is one of those. So everyone plays Pirate Ships and Pirate Ship seems unbeatable. It is so beatable though. Trashing your Coppers is normally something you give up several turns to do; having it done for you leaves you in fine shape. And you don’t even have to do without money – eventually the Pirate Ships will stop attacking. You can even feed Pirate Ships by gaining Silver – say, with Explorer – and it can all work out.

[greatexpectations]

consider more than one embargo.  if it is >2p, pirate ship might still be worth a single curse each, especially with a competent trasher on the board.

[superseagull7]

Thanks for the advice. The game was with 4 players, so it sounds like I would have to use a lot of my own Pirate Ships. I think that with 4 people, the Pirate Ship is still worth a single curse, because you can build it up to be worth 5 treasure pretty easily. I'll probably go with the Bazaar/Wharf combo along with the Pirate Ship at that point.

[jsh357]

Yeah Pirate Ship gets more dominant with each extra player, IMO.  It's pretty mediocre in 2 player games though. 

[Kahryl]

Bazaar/Wharf sounds great on this board, and you can use Caravans to bootstrap your way up to them.  It's not fast, but if everyone else is goofing around with pirate ships, you don't need fast.

[dondon151]

If everyone's goofing around with Pirate Ships, you're going to run out of money fast.

I actually think Explorer may be worth using if everyone else goes Pirate Ship. Build a draw engine with a combination of Caravan, Wharf, and Bazaar, grab a first Province, and Explorer gets you a Gold every turn without you having to spend your buy on one. Furthermore, it's like a +$3 on the turn that you play it because the Gold goes into your hand.

[Robz888]

If you're playing with four people, Pirate Ship will absolutely dominate. I don't see Embargoes really getting in the way of that.

With two people, Caravan/Bazaar/Wharf should beat the Pirate Ship person.

With three people, it will be borderline. If both your opponents buy Pirate Ship... it might be hard to overcome them with the Carvan/Bazaar/Wharf strategy.

It's also worth noting that Haven and Explorer can mitigate the Pirate Ship attack: Haven, because it sets a card aside until your next turn, and Explorer, because you get to use the Treasure at least once before Pirate Ship has a chance at trashing it. But I doubt either of these things could overcome three Pirate Shippers (perhaps not even two).

[ecq]

I don't have much experience in multiplayer.  If everyone is playing Pirate Ship in a 4-player game, what ends up happening?  It seems like yes, you'd get tokens more consistently, but wouldn't everyone run out of money quickly, meaning fewer total tokens?  What's an average Pirate Ship worth in such a game, once everything has been trashed?

[jsh357]

I don't have much experience in multiplayer.  If everyone is playing Pirate Ship in a 4-player game, what ends up happening?  It seems like yes, you'd get tokens more consistently, but wouldn't everyone run out of money quickly, meaning fewer total tokens?  What's an average Pirate Ship worth in such a game, once everything has been trashed?

The table position tends to determine it in my experience.  First player to get a Pirate Ship gets most of the tokens then dominates (especially if he has + actions and can afford to steal any new money that shows up).  Some boards can fight it with Festival, bazaar, etc, but a lot of boards can't do so well.  It's the only card I ever veto on purpose (and only in 3+ player games)

[Robz888]

I don't have much experience in multiplayer.  If everyone is playing Pirate Ship in a 4-player game, what ends up happening?  It seems like yes, you'd get tokens more consistently, but wouldn't everyone run out of money quickly, meaning fewer total tokens?  What's an average Pirate Ship worth in such a game, once everything has been trashed?

Someone (probably the person who goes first/gets to play the ship first) gets better luck, more tokens, and probably triumphs.

Okay, here's a crazy idea. Use your opponents' Pirate Ships, and maybe a Lookout of your own, to trash down to a deck of less than five cards. Now your cash is safe, and as long as you bought an Explorer before this point, you can generate Silver easily enough. You can buy Islands to clear out the Lookout along with your eventual Victory cards... and hopefully never have a deck above 5 cards.

Might be way too hard to achieve this ideal deck, though.

[DG]

Here's a quote from Donald X. that probably deserves a sticky note on the forum somewhere.

"Well I don't want to get involved in discussing strategy. I have seen all of the varying numbers of Pirate Ships lose, sometimes to treasureless decks and sometimes not.In the very first game with Pirate Ship, it was a 3-player game, and we all bought it. It necessarily won. At the end of the game, someone said, "well that was obv. broken." We debated this for a few minutes, then played again with the same set of cards. I didn't buy Pirate Ships, and won. So this has been the story from the beginning."