Full guide: rolling to move your ship, digging up treasure, storms, boarding an enemy schooner and returning to port. Controls on muta.pro and tactics.
Pirate Cove is an adventure on a 9×9 sea map. Captains sail their ships between islands, dig up treasures and hoard gold, risking a run-in with a storm or an enemy schooner. The winner is the first to collect all 5 treasures and return to their own port. If every rival sinks — the last surviving ship also takes the win.
A game has 4 captains (you and bots), each with a ship and starting gold. Hull strength is 5/5. Scattered across the map are treasure marks (✕), the port (⚓), storms (🌀) and the roaming “Black Schooner” (☠️). Play goes in turns; whoever is up is marked “AT THE HELM”, and the points leader is marked with a crown 👑. Points are counted as treasures ×1000 plus gold.
Press “⛵ Set sail” — two dice are rolled, and the ship moves the total number of pips, one square per step toward the nearest goal (a treasure mark or the port).
Landed on a treasure — press “⛏ Dig” to roll a die: its value multiplied by 40 gives gold. The mark counts as dug up, and the treasure counter rises.
A storm square 🌀 triggers a roll: 1–2 — no harm, 3–4 — minus 1 hull, 5–6 — minus 2. When the hull drops to zero, the ship is wrecked.
On a square with an enemy schooner you can join battle (“⚔ Attack”) or dodge. In a fight both roll a die: a win gives gold for the difference ×60, a loss — minus hull.
Ordinary island and open-sea squares trigger no events — just keep sailing and end your turn.
Having collected all 5 treasures, steer the ship to your own port (⚓). Entering port with a full hold is an instant win.
The main victory condition is five treasures and a return to port. The final screen shows the treasures collected (5/5) and total gold. While the game is on, the leader in the table on the left is decided by points: treasures ×1000 + gold, with a crown above the first player's card. If every other ship is smashed on the storms and in battles, the last one afloat wins by survival.
A hull of 5/5 is all your survivability. Don't wade into a storm needlessly, and don't start a fight with a breached side.
The ship heads for the nearest goal. Think about which treasure is best to open next so you don't take a needless detour.
A high die in a fight brings a lot of gold, but a loss hits your hull. Dodge if a wreck is at stake.
Five treasures are not yet a win: the hold must be brought home. Keep the way to port in mind well ahead.
Pirate Cove is a race across a 9×9 map where the dice decide how far you move, but you decide the direction. The ship always goes to the nearest goal, so “nearest” is what you steer indirectly: by digging up one treasure, you set where you'll head on the next turn. Plan not the current roll but a chain of two or three stops.
Five treasures plus the return to port make six key points. The winner isn't the one who rolls the most, but the one who builds the shortest closed path between them.
Don't dash from edge to edge. Open treasures along an arc that naturally curves back toward your port — that way the last hold ends up near home.
The mark right by the port is best dug last: having gathered four distant ones, you close the fifth and are instantly two steps from the winning entry.
Ring route: gather the distant marks along an arc and come back to the port (⚓), rather than running across the whole map.
Hull strength 5/5 is your only life reserve, and it's spent only on storms and lost battles. Gold is nice, but victory comes not from wealth but from a delivered hold. Weigh every “risk it for the coins” decision against how much hull you're willing to lose.
While the hull is 4–5, a storm is no threat: minus 2 at most. When 2 or less is left — steer around 🌀 and dodge fights, even at the cost of gold.
Boarding pays for the difference of the rolls ×60, but a loss hits your hull. Wade in when many turns still lie ahead and your hull reserve can weather a setback.
Collected the fifth treasure — switch to “maximum caution” mode. One extra skirmish right by the port can rob you of a win that was already in hand.
At a hull of 2/5, the short path through the storms (🌀) is riskier than the long way around — take the lower route to the port (⚓).
In the table on the left, the leader is decided by the formula treasures ×1000 + gold, with a crown 👑 hanging over their card. It's a hint about whom to chase and whom you can overtake. Remember: a crown on points is not yet a win — the real race is won by whoever first closes the loop back to port.
The one with 4 treasures and a shorter way home is more dangerous than the gold leader. Judge by the distance to victory, not by the score figures.
If the “Black Schooner” or another ship stands in the path of a catching-up favourite, a fight can knock down their hull and pace more than it brings gold to you.
Sometimes it's better to yield a distant mark to a rival and break away along your own arc than to take a detour for gold that won't save you from losing the race.
The crown (👑) belongs to the points leader, but your ship (🚢) with 4 treasures is closer to victory — chase the distance, not the figure.
Pirate Cove is more often lost not to bad dice but to greed and a forgotten port. Let's go over the slip-ups that cost games most often.