Spanish Main Game Review

Spanish Main

I've literally had to dust this one off. Not that it's a bad game - in fact its very enjoyable to play. The reason its not played much is the foam mat - neither me or Tom can stand the touch of it!!
The game comes in an 18xx sized box. Within, there is the (dreaded) foam mat, and various assortment of pieces on a par with the usual 18xx game series quality of pieces.
The 61 hexagonal tiles make up the unexplored territory of the Spanish Main, with the backs of the tiles showing lowland, hilly or mountainous terrain - a possible hint to what lies on that tile.
The treasures that can be found come as either yellow rectangles (chests) or irregular yellow areas (mines), or pale blue (silver).
A turn consists of four parts which must be performed in sequence. Part One: At the Players home port where a player buys ships and cannon and acquires sailing cards
Part Two: On the High Seas which involves moving on the Tactical Option Chart(TOC). Movement on the TOC is controlled by the play of Sailing cards. The TOC has sixty squares on it depicting positions of entry and exit, advantage and disadvantage; Events of importance, such as Board, Dismasted, Lee shore, Mutiny and ship ahoy; Other spaces depict effects of wind and tide. Battles at sea also occur on the TOC.
Part Three: On the Main a ship may explore any adjacent unexplored tile, Move up to 5 tile spaces, Battle with other players, load any treasure discovered.
Part Four: Arrival Home and Finance. Interest is received on existing investments then treasures are landed at the Home port. Ships and cannon can also be sold.
The game ends when either the last tile is turned up, the bank runs out of gold and silver or no sailing cards remain in the stack AND a card is required.
At this point a players assets are scored, with the player having the highest score the winner.
SUMMARY:
As I said at the beginning, this is quite an enjoyable treasure hunt game. I understand that the game was worked and a second edition released with some changes to the game. The rulebook was rewritten and the combat system changed. A new tile layout was introduced which was more tactical than in the original. The TOC was replaced with a simpler movement record chart. It is apparently a considerable improvement to the original game, but not having seen it, I cannot comment.
Review by Brian