In an alternative past, there is little left of what we knew. Our world is in a disarray, society and civilization thrown into the blender and those of us left are divided into factions, searching out resources, survivors and other lost relics of the old world. Bikini Atoll went south, causing devastation throughout the world that flooded the oceans with the melted polar ice caps. What is left of us have all gathered into this massive structure in the middle of the sea. Will you gather enough in the sink or build up enough into the sky to win? This flotilla is the last stand for civilization as we know it. Today we are about to embark on an adventure into this world and see how we all fit into this world of water.
Flotilla is a new release from Wizkids for 3-5 players, designed by JB Howell and Michael Mihealsick and illustrated by Bartek Fedyczak and Gond Studios. It plays in 90-120 mins and can take much longer based on player count and familiarity.
Overview
Flotilla is a game that will allow you take on the role of a Sinkside or Skyside Captain, working to explore the ocean depths for supplies and survivors, build up your crew and gain influence with the different Guilds in the Flotilla. You may also decide to add to the Flotilla and give up the open seas using the resources you have gathered to help build on to the world we all know.
The unique aspect to Flotilla is the two very different styles of play-Sinkside and Skyside. You all start Sinkside but at any time you may chose to switch to Skyside and play a new aspect of the game for the rest of the time. The basic differences in the roles are that the Sinkside allows for easier access to resources and Ocean tiles, Skyside allows you to build onto the flotilla using tile pieces and resources already discovered.
Gameplay
In Flotilla the main action is card play which will determine the rest of the actions of that turn. Once a card is played, players will take the actions listed and then play passes clockwise. Let’s look at each card type and explore how the actions play out Sinkside and Skyside.
The Speakers
The members of the speaker crew will allow you to gain influence on one of the guild tracks underneath each particular guild. Gaining influence in the guild track will give you a bonus for each spot that you land in. Once you go all the way around the track you can place one of your guild seal tokens with that track. The player with the most on that spot will score 10 victory points at the end of the game and the player with the second possible score 5 victory points. These tracks allow you to skip the third step, quickening your advancement towards winning those majorities. The tracks are also a great way to gain new members into your crew in the form of gaining cards.
The Traders
The Traders will gain you currency and then a certain number of transactions as indicated on that card. The transactions are numerous in choice and can be listed as follows:
1-Gain a skiff. For 12 coins you can purchase a skiff and place it on your starting player tile, this will allow you to collect more resources as you go out and explore the depths of the water. You may only buy these while you are still Sinkside.
2-Outpost and Tower Objective tiles. When you purchase your top most outpost and add it to any of the outpost locations on one of your available construction sites, you may also pick one of the tower objective tiles that are either Sinkside or Skyside and score the appropriate points on the that tile.
The tower objective tiles are a great way to score victory points and you will want to plan ahead as these score immediately when you play them. These change each game as well and give some good variety between games as you have different objectives you can reach for.
3-Buy or sell a resource from the market. To buy or sell a resource from the market you pay or gain the coin amount per resource and at the resolution of the turn you will move that resource up or down the track for value of it based on your actions. Selling a resource back to the market will decrease its value since there will be more available for people to purchase. Conversely, buying resources makes them more scarce and increases their value. You will also gain victory points every time you reach either end of the track and can’t move the resource any further.
The Founders
This crew has members that will allow you to draw, place or build ocean tiles. These tiles are the lifeblood of your exploration on Sinkside, drawing and placing them to have more options to explore in the water. When you draw them you immediately check them all for toxicity and add that to your tracker. This will score positive or negative victory points at the end of the game based on your position.
When you are sinkside you may place the tiles and match them up according to the different depths list on them. Some tiles have a third of an artifact that once matched with other tiles on your turn will allow you draw an artifact and gain the benefit.
Skyside tiles are drawn with the flotilla side up and added to your personal supply. There are Founders that will allow you to play them from your supply and build them onto the flotilla. You will score victory points based on the dial setting of that particular color along with the amount of continuous tiles with that color of building on them. You must pay the resources listed on the hex to play them as well.
The Delvers
These crew members will allow you to roll dice both on the Sinkside and Skyside but the results and dice themselves are different. On Sinkside the dice correspond to the tiles that have your skiffs on them. Rolling these dice will get you resources, toxicity, allow you rescue survivors and check the Sonar track. Some will also give you depletion tiles which can shutdown the production of the tile one of your skiffs dove from.
Skyside delvers will allow you to roll dice to delve technology from the recovered salvage. Dice rolled here will gain you coins, knowledge from a guild to gain bonuses from that guild and technology breakthroughs to advance a guild dial allowing it to score more points when you add to the flotilla.
The Scholar
This card will allow you to copy any other topside card of another player which is the card on top of their discard pile. Timing this card up will be important as the game goes on, allowing you to copy a potentially powerful card of one of your opponents and use the same ability. Important to note that it only happens to copy topside cards of your opponents that are in the same Sinkside/Skyside as you are.
The Captain
The Captain will allow you to gain coins and rally all of your cards from your discard pile. This is how you can pull all of your played cards back to your hand to continue to use.
The other important role of the Captain is that she will allow you to turn to the Skyside if you chose to when played. It is important to time up the play of this card for the moment you think you are going to go Skyside.
Sinkside vs Skyside
The game really does exist as two separate worlds, where everyone starts Sinkside and at some point can decide to go to Skyside. When a player decides to switch with the play of a Captain card, the breakdown is as follows:
1-Sell all of your skips from the ocean tiles back for the printed value on the dock tile. Interestingly, the sooner you leave to join the flotilla the more your skiffs are worth.
2-Pick each of your non-starter tiles without outpost markers on them and return them to the bag and return the outpost markers to the game box. Pick up all of your remaining ocean tiles, flip them over and add them as a reserve pool for yourself on the side of your game board. These are all going to now be Skyside tiles.
3-Flip all of your crew cards over to the Skyside and flip your starting tile over to Skyside.
4-Flip your player board over as well while leaving the toxicity board in the same location.
5-Finally you may build the number of ocean tiles from your supply as indicated on the docks tile. The sooner you join the flotilla the less tiles you’ll be able to build so coming in later gives you more tiles to build at the start.of the skyside journey for you.
The game ends when someone takes the last victory point and players then finish the current round so everyone has even turns. Then each player gains one final turn. Victory points are scored based on amount collected and extras are given based on coins and resources left over.
Impressions:
What could be better
Components. This is going to go under both, but there are a few things that could be better. The victory points are awkward as star cutouts and are already showing wear after a few plays. The resource barrels are so small I have personally found it dificult moving them from the skiffs to supply and around. I would have liked to see them as cubes or something different.
Clarity. The rulebook gets the job done but it is not easy to follow. It could be laid out so much better, the information about each crew is detailed but not separated as well as it could be. Differences in background color for example of the pages explaining how the Founders play could have been separated by Sinkside/Skyside instead of rules/examples.
The game setup, crew deck and personal play area graphics on the page are missing number references for preparing the game boards, trackers and all the other setup info. A small thing like that can make the setup and play of this so much easier. We already have an FAQ and errata for this game before it has even hit mass release-there could have been more time put into this one to make sure everything in the rulebook was more clear.
Things I liked
Variety. This game screams variations in game play. It has so many different things being smashed into one game, and I really like how it all fits together. There is tile drawing and laying, hand building and management, card play, dice rolling, pick and deliver, market play-you name it, it is in here. And then you add in the chance to jump from Sinkside to Skyside and it really opens the game up even more, giving you so many more choices. For a lot of players it could be conisdered almost overwhelming but I love the variety.
Components. Like I said earlier, this category goes both ways. I really like the player boards and all the individual player bits, the skiffs and towers are great. This game is heavy-there are a lot of cardboard pieces and parts to this game and it is a dense little box of goodness. It all fits back in very nicely as well.
Overall:
Flotilla is definitely one of the more unique games to hit the market in recent past. There is so much do and explore, you will never really feel like you have done it all in one game. I’ve played this game numerous times and can’t tell you that there’s a definitive time when you should go Skyside, it really does vary from game to game. I’ve seen it done early, I’ve seen it often done in the middle of the action, and I’ve seen it on the last few turns.
You will have to play this many times to really play with and experiment on the best times to go Skyside for this one. I love that the game completely changes its direction and gameplay for the individual when you do switch, it really opens the options way up on this game. Skyside can be a great early move when players are still out exploring the depths if you can go into it with some money in hand and the right Crew members to help play out pieces to the flotilla. I also really liked how when I increased the sonar track for points in Skyside, it made the players in the Sinkside want to keep diving and trying to find more resources. This helped keep the game balanced as a tug of war back and forth between the two sides.
If you have players that are prone to analysis paralysis (AP) and take a long time deciding how and when to make moves, this game is going to be a challenge for them. There are a lot of different options and choices throughout this thing making it difficult if you really ponder turns longer than normal. The open choices is a strength but depending on your play group it may also work against your group.
The sandbox aspect of this game really draws me in I think the most. I love having so many options and love exploring the different aspects of the game. Once you get past the few production issues this game really shines. I would definitely recommend this one to players looking for a unique experience at your gaming table!
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