When we reviewed Pirates of Maracaibo (dlp games) in 2023 we were at pains to point out that it wasn't an expansion to Alexander Pfister's Maracaibo (Capstone Games) and it wasn't a revamp of the 2019 game. It was a standalone game with a similar setting that made use of similar concepts and mechanics used in Maracaibo but in a shorter, less complex form.
Commanders is indeed an expansion, however. It adds a new double-sided exploration map board, tho' the board is semi-modular because its two parts can be slotted together in different ways. The expansion adds new cards and figureheads (with their individual bonuses) for players' ship boards and it introduces rum and cannons into the mix. Cannons are a ship upgrade, needed to assault the forts which you'll encounter on the new exploration map board. Rum is a new resource that's primarily used to add powers or scoring criteria to your pirate commanders. And of course it's the commanders that are the main focus of this expansion. There are 12. They add asymmetric powers but they also function as additional player boards, but again taking a very modular approach. All have different boards on their reverse and the idea is that you take two of the large commander tiles, using one as your face-up character, with their player power, and the other for the board on the reverse, on which you'll place out tokens during the game to activate benefits and/or score points. It's on your commander board, for example, where you'll place rum and the token for a defeated fort.
Often expansions simply layer complexity onto a game. The commander tiles in this expansion do that to an extent but their net effect is to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the core game. For example, 'Gemma Grimm' can perform ship upgrades in any order, 'Victor Vile' gets an automatic roll of 7 when carrying out raids, and 'Vicious Viviana' only has to satisfy the top (easier) part of quest cards in order to receive the higher victory points on the bottom of the card. Such strong powers inevitably have the effect of directing players' approach to the game.
As with Pirates of Maracaibo, Alexander Pfister is been joined by Ralph Bienert and Ryan Hendrickson for the design of the Commanders expansion. And it's labelled on the box as the 1st expansion, so we're looking forward to finding out what comes next in the continuing development of this excellent game...