Does anyone have any good ships that can defeat:
Crow's Nest: Cannon
Fore 1 - Cannon
2 - Cannon
3 - Pillage
4 - Pillage
5 - Pillage
6 - Black Spot
7 - Call to Quarters
8 - Captain
9 - Captain's Monkey
10 - Broadside
11 - Treachery
Aft, 12 - Treachery
Without using a similar ship?
Neat question.
The overall strategy I think I'd try would be to begin with a Captain's Monkey fore and two Treacheries aft. The starting move is to soak up Cannon-shot over multiple attacks with your Monkey, and/or force your opponents to use up his Treacheries. Like this:
Crow's Nest:
1 (Fore): Captain's Monkey
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11: Treachery
12 (Aft): Treachery
Now, what to fill in the rest of the ship with? Bombs are good against a Cannon-based ship, because your opponent will want Cannons in both open positions to maximize damage. So something like this:
Crow's Nest: Mate
1 (Fore): Captain's Monkey
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7: Captain
8: Bomb
9: Bomb
10: Bomb
11: Treachery
12 (Aft): Treachery
This arrangement presumes that your opponents bites on the Treachery gambit, exposing your Bombs. But even if he doesn't, you can use your Treacheries to negate the initial (and most damaging) Cannon fusillades and expose them yourself.
You'd probably fill slots 2-6 of the above ship with Cutlasses or Pistols (choose one, to concentrate your damage on one end of your opponent's ship), and more Mates. Maybe a Broadside, for monkey hunting and good measure.
A ship like this also hurts your opponent for his reliance on Pillages, because your Mates and Cutlass/Pistol/Bombs are inefficient for him to steal, since he's not set up to use the Mate combos.
What do you think?
That is a good start, but I cannot seem to make it work.
A Captain's Monkey "behind" the Captain is invincible from everything except a Treachery. If I use my Treacheries early in the game, I cannot get to the captain from tha aft, therefore negating a strategy based on Pistols and attacking from the aft.
That leaves a strategy of attacking to the fore. When I try that, my opponent just uses Pillage to steal my coins, then uses them against me, and I never seemed to win, especially when he goes first. In fact, even when I know his stacking order exactly, I cannot win if he goes first.
Is there any stacking order that can win against this ship, if that ship goes first?
Still working on this. Here's the best I've been able to do so far, which at least gets him down to having to use his Captain to kill us.
Our ship:
Crow's Nest: Mate
1 (Fore): Captain's Monkey
2: Mate
3: Mate
4: Mate
5: Treachery
6: Cannon
7: Cannon
8: Cannon
9: Captain
10: Bomb
11: Bomb
12 (Aft): Bomb
We'll spot the Cannon/Pillage ship the first turn, since the challenge is to beat him even when he goes first.
1-him: He double Cannons our fore. We save the Monkey and lose our slot-2 Mate.
1-us: We Bomb his open coins. He uses his slot-12 Treachery.
2-him: He double Cannons our fore. We save the Monkey and lose our slot-3 Mate.
2-us: We Bomb his open coins. He uses his slot-11 Treachery.
3-him: He double Cannons our fore. We save the Monkey and lose our slot-4 Mate.
3-us: We Bomb his open coins. He must allow it, and loses two Cannons.
This leaves the ships in this state:
Us:
Crow's Nest: Mate
Treachery
Cannon
Cannon
Cannon
Captain
Him:
Crow's Nest: (Empty)
Cannon
Pillage
Pillage
Pillage
Black Spot
Call to Quarters
Captain
Captain's Monkey
Broadside
I think the most obvious play would continue like this:
4-him: Use Cannon to attack Treachery, which reacts to take the Cannon with it.
4-us: Sacrifice crow's nest Mate to kill fore Pillage.
5-him: Pillage fore Cannon.
5-us: Move fore Cannon to Crow's nest and double Cannon his fore, killing fore Pillage and Black Spot.
This leaves things like this:
Us:
Crow's Nest: Cannon
Cannon
Captain
Him:
Crow's Nest: (Empty)
Call to Quarters
Captain
Captain's Monkey
Broadside
Cannon
At this point, randomness enters into the picture, because I think the obvious next play for our opponent is this:
6-him: Move Black Spot to crow's nest and use Call to Quarters.
However, it doesn't really matter what he gets, because he can arrange like this:
Crow's Nest: Cannon
Captain's Monkey
(Random Coin)
Captain
Broadside
6-us: Double cannon, destroying his (Random Coin), with the Monkey saving itself.
7-him: He Cannons our fore Cannon.
7-us: We must Captain his crow's nest Cannon, or it will kill us next turn.
8-him: He Broadsides our Cannon.
8-us: We Captain his Broadside.
9-him: He Captains our Captain.
I still think there's a solution, I just don't have any more time to work on it tonight. 
Feel free to jump in anywhere in the above, if you've got an improvement.
(Incidentally, what have been your results when you use this ship against itself?)
It hit me on the way home from GenCon SoCal! The way to beat this ship is deceptively simple: Put your Captain in your crow's nest from the beginning of the game. Then you can beat this ship with any other collection of twelve coins, as long as none of them can be Pillaged to attack your crow's nest.
For example:
Crow's Nest: Captain
Fore- Captain's Monkey
2- Pistol
3- Pistol
4- Pistol
5- Pillage
6- Pillage
7- Pillage
8- Barrel of Grog
9- Call to Quarters
10- Buried Treasure
11- Treachery
Aft- Treachery
The only coin he can use to kill your Captain, in this case, is his own Captain. You have to be a little canny, since he will try to begin a turn with an empty crow's nest, then expose his Captain by moving a fore or aft coin to the crow's nest at the beginning of his turn, exposing his Captain which he then uses immediately to attack. If you have a Treachery ready, he can't use his Captain, for fear of losing it. (Unless he has a counter-Treachery remaining. However, with any luck, you will have used your Pistols to force him to use his Treacheries.) Or, if he doesn't realize you have a Treachery, you are hoping that he'll try to use his Captain against you.
I haven't tried this yet in a real game... but I look forward to hearing what happens when you try it out against your Cannon- and Pillage-wielding foe!
But you can't use that configuration, since you will have no attacking coins (if you use the captain one of the first three turns, he will destroy it with treachery).
True; perhaps move a Pistol to the aft, or place the Monkey more deeply within the ship. Or, simply use the Captain to attack on your first turn and use your Treacheries to stave off your opponent's (probably inevitable) Treacheries.
Actually, that last would work pretty well, since you'd then be in position to use your Buried Treasure to get back both of your Treacheries. Since they'd be the only coins in your hold, you'd be guaranteed to get them. This would leave you in an awesome position — you'd have two, and your opponent would have none!
I'm actually liking this ship quite a lot.
Great ship! It worked perfectly.
My only concern was to modify it so that it could compete against ships other than this Cannon/Pillage ship. Putting the captain in the crow's nest at the start seems pretty risky if there is a chance my opponent is using a different ship.
I love your thinking of using coins that cannot target the crow's nest. I expanded this to include Broadsides (which cannot target the captain at all). I replaced one of the Pillage and ended up with:
Crow's Nest: Broadside
Fore: Captain's Monkey
2 - Pistols
3 - Pistols
4 - Pistols
5 - Pillage
6 - Pillage
7 - Barrel of Grog
8 - Captain
9 - Buried Treasure
10 - Call to Quarters
11 - Treachery
Aft - Treachery
My strategy against the Cannon/Pillage ship is to use Broadsides to attack my opponent's aft hoping to draw out/destroy his Treacheries, then use Call to Quarters to put my Captain in the crow's nest to recreate the ship you designed. I have to hope to get a Treachery back from the hold to use against his Captain's Monkey, otherwise he is invicible from the aft. It is not as effective as your design against the Cannon/Pillage ship, but it may be more flexible. I am considereding using a Pistols in the crow's nest instead of the Broadsides (because in playtests, sometimes the Broadsides got "stuck" up in the crows nest.
Thanks for your help!
I like the use of Call to Quarters to get the Captain up into the crow's nest later on in the game. Nice thinking.
In multi-player games, where you've facing more than just the Cannon/Pillage ship, one strategy might be to put your Captain in the crow's nest to start, use him until someone kills him, and then just not worry about it. The game will continue, and you're likely to be able to Pillage a Captain later, of get him back with Buried Treasure. If neither of those work, you can always use Barrel of Grog to retrieve him from your hold.
I've continued to work on this, and I think I have come up with a few new possibilities of well-rounded ships that can compete with the Cannon/Pillage ship (including a new version of Cannon/Pillage in which the Black Spot is replaced by a Mate, so the the trick of putting your Captain in the crow's nest no longer works).
After using the ship you suggested in some playtests, it seems the key is to have your Treacheries in the late game. To to this, you must use Black Spot and/or Captain's Monkey to keep you alive long enough to use them.
Here are the three ships I made. All of them have the chance to defeat the Cannon/Pillage ship, and seem to be good ships in general.
Ship name: ANTI-CANNONS/PILLAGE #1
Crows Nest: Pistols
Fore - Black Spot
2- Mate
3- Pistols
4- Mate
5- Pistols
6- Broadsides
7- Treachery
8- Call to Quarters
9- Treachery
10- Captain
11- Captain's Monkey
Aft - Mate
Strategy: Attack the Aft
Ship name: ANTI-CANNONS/PILLAGE #2
Crows Nest: Pistols
Fore - Capain's Monkey
2- Mate
3- Mate
4- Call to Quarters
5-Broadsides
6- Pistols
7- Treachery
8- Treachery
9- Captain
10- Cutlass
11- Bomb
Aft - Mate
Strategy: Use Pistol to root out Treacheries in aft, then move Mate to crow's nest and blow bomb. Perhaps allow Captain's Monkey to die (if not already) to reveal Broadsides. Can attack aft or fore, but aft often works better.
Ship name: ANTI-CANNONS/PILLAGE #3
Crows Nest: Mate
Fore - Black Spot
2- Cutlass
3- Captain's Monkey
4- Cutlass
5- Cutlass
6 - Call to Quarters or Barrel of Grog
7- Captain
8- Treachery
9- Broadsides
10- Treachery
11- Mate or Pistols
Aft - Pistols
Strategy: Use Pistols to root out opponent's Treacheries. Need to keep your Captain's Monkey alive if possible. Normally works better attacking from aft, but may need to switch to attacking fore if opponent is calling to captain or using Pillage. Use your Treachery to negate opponent's Captain's Monkey or protect your Captain from opponent's Captain.
Why not to do a post on the forum with all the suggested ships?
Looking on the forum I got 11 ships... and one of the big problems players have playing Pieces of Eight at the first time is how to create a fast and playable ship.
So, I guess, giving out some "pre-made" ships is a nice add-on for the game.
HERE is a link to my "homemade" Ships list. 
Also, giving a name to ships, makes these really nice (as an example: CAGAFUEGO is a nice name to the cannon ship).
Try to use "real" historical names for ships.
Thought I'd get my idea up here. It incorps a lot of others, but has some of its own touches.
-both treach, then black spot 'em, buried to bring back either a bomb to use with the mate or get both treachery back! Have at with the Broadside and remember the Black spot still lurks behind the treachery(-ies). The let 'em have a taste of their own with your own cannons (also helpful at getting through the pillages fast, even if they get one of your cannons, punch through it still....
Name: Broadly Treacherous
My anti-cann/pill
Crow's Nest: Broadside
Fore - Treachery
2 - Bomb
3 – Buried Treasure
4 – Mate
5 – Cannon
6 - Cannon
7 - Cannon
8 - Captain
9 – Mate
10 - Cutlass (...or Bomb?)
11 – Black Spot
Aft - Treachery