Today I invented a new card game.  (Actually woke up with the idea, and have just been refining and play testing till now).  It uses a standard poker deck of cards, and can be played by one or more players.  (Add an extra deck for every 4 players).  Jokers are optional, but they make the game more interesting.

Premise:
Each of the players are 2nd in command of their respective vessels.  While docked in a neutral town, their captains get into a huge bar brawl and are arrested.  The winner is the first player to complete three missions, thus raising enough money to bail out their captain.

Start of Game:
Ship Card
Deal each player one card face up.  This is their ship card.  The value of the card (Ace is 1, Face cards and Joker are worth 10) is the size of the ship.  The suit is the allegiance of the ship and crew.  Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades represent English, Spanish, French and Dutch respectively.  It's not really important though to remember that.
Anything but a non-numeric ship card carries a special ability.

Card	Meaning	Description
Jack	Man-o-War	Players sailing a man-o-war can add a bonus point to any of their combat tests
Queen	Well Trimmed Ship	Players sailing such a ship can add or remove one point to any of their navigation tests
King	Has the Kings Favour	When visiting a magistrate, the player draws two mission cards, picks one and discards the other.
Joker	No Allegiance	Can enter any town and visit any magistrate.  Can be friendly or attack any vessel (but not both)

Mission Card
Each player is then dealt a second card, face down.  This is their Mission Card.  It was what the captain had been tasked to do prior to being arrested.  Each player keeps their Mission Cards hidden from the other players until completed.

Card	Mission	Description
Numeric Card	Delivery	Deliver a number of units equal to or greater than the value of this card to a neighbouring town of your allegiance.  The suit of the card is the type of thing that needs delivering.
Jack	Prisoner of War	This prisoner must be delivered to a town of the allegiance specified on the card by its suit
Queen	Expand the Empire	Conquer an enemy town for your country
King	Writ from the King	Sink an enemy vessel of the allegiance specified by suit.  Note, this could be your own suit!
Joker	Spread the Word	Meet any friendly vessel at sea to pass along important information about the empire.

Once a mission is completed, you turn it over for all to see.  First one with three completed missions wins.

Crew Cards
Finally, each player is dealt two cards to hold in their hand.  This represents the current and accounted for crew.  The face value on each card is the number of members.  You can not hold more crew cards than the size of your ship, and must discard extraneous cards.  (Note: This means if your ship is size 1, you must discard a crew card at the start of the game)
If you are ever at sail and run out of crew, you're dead in the water and lose the game!

Cargo
The size of your ship determines how many cargo cards it can hold.  At the beginning of the game, your ship is empty.  Cargo cards are placed face up on the table, below (but not covered by) your ship card.
Any and all cargo may be dumped at any point prior to surrendering or losing a battle.  During navigation tests, each cargo card dumped gives you a one point bonus.  Dumped cargo is placed on the discard pile.

The Deck
The remaining unused cards are placed in the centre of the table face down.

Basic Turn Structure
1) Player declares action
2) Player draws a card from the deck (to determine outcome)
3) Resolve action

Winning
Complete 3 missions

Losing
You run out of crew while sailing

Things to do While in Town
Gather Crew
Draw a card from the deck and place it in your hand.  If your hand now exceeds the maximum number for you ship size, you must discard until you are holding the proper amount.

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Joker Bonus:
A joker is a valid crew card, and may be played at any point instead of drawing from the deck.

Visit the Magistrate
If this town is the same nationality as yours (as indicated by the suit of your ship), you may meet with the magistrate.  This allows you to draw a card from the deck and keep it face down as a new mission.  If you already have an unfinished mission, you may not request additional missions from the magistrate.

Trade for Goods
You may discard any number of crew cards to purchase goods.  You then draw cards from the deck, until the total number of units meets or exceeds the number of relieved crew members.  Face cards are worth 10.  Note: You may dump cargo to make room for the next card.  Dumped cargo is not subtracted from the owed amount.
Example:  Let's say you have a ship of size 2.  You discard 2 crew cards.  A 3 and a 4.  This will buy you at least 7 of something.  Draw cards from the deck and place them in your ship's holds until the ship is full or the total value is at least 7.  The first card you draw is an ace.  Place it in the ship's hold.  The next card you draw is a 5.  Place it in the ship's hold.  Now your ship is full, but you are still owed one more unit.  You can either stop now, or dump some cargo to find out what that next card is.  You dump the ace, thus freeing up one hold.  Now you may draw the next card.  Oh, it's a king!  That's worth 10.  You can place it in your ship's hold where the ace used to be.

Alternatively, you may trade cargo for different cargo.  Discard one cargo card from your hold, and then draw a new cargo card from the deck.  This is the "best deal" your quarter master could bargain.  Note: You can not combine exchanging crew for cargo, and cargo for cargo, in the same turn.

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Joker Bonus:
If the joker turns up while trading for goods, all the ships holds may be selectively filled from the discard pile.

Attack the Town (while moored)
Your crew rushes in and attacks the local militia.  Follow hand-to-hand combat rules with one exception: The town will not give up until all its "crew" are killed.  If you win, you may draw cargo cards until your ship's holds are full, and this town counts as a friendly town until you disembark.

Disembark
Draw a card from the deck.  If the suit matches your ship, you may set sail next turn with all the crew cards you're currently holding.  Otherwise, only the number on the card actually showed up.  If you discard down to that many crew cards, you may set sail next turn.  If you decided to stay in port, discard the number of crew cards that showed up.  They are now disgruntled and refuse to be part of your crew.

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Joker Bonus:
Eager crew!  Draw cards to your maximum number of crew cards for your ship size, and set sail this turn!

Things to do While Sailing
Find a Ship to Attack
Draw a card from the deck to determine the ship you discover.  The suit represents its nationality.
If another player shares the same nationality as the discovered ship, you can elect to attack that player.  This is true even if you are allies!
Otherwise, if you share allegiance with the discovered ship, they are friendly.  You may draw a crew card from the deck and place it in your hand.  This represents a transfer of crew.  Discard if you're over the maximum number of crew cards for your ship size.
If the ship is of another nationality, it engages you in combat.  Follow the combat rules to resolve the conflict.
If the ship is an Ace, you must pick another player at sail as your opponent.  If no other player exists or is at sail, you must've spotted a ghost ship.  Discard it.

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Joker Bonus:
You found the treasure fleet!  Draw another ship card to represent the escort you have to fight.  If you win this battle, it counts as a mission success.

Head for the Nearest Town
Draw a card from the deck.  This represents the town you approach.  The suit is its nationality, and the number is its size.  Note: By the time you're close enough to determine the town, they are within cannon range.
You must now choose to dock, attack or flee.  
If you dock in an enemy town, your cargo will be confiscated, and the magistrate and merchants will refuse to talk to you.  You can still gather crew however.
If you choose combat (either attack or flee), normal ship-to-ship combat rules apply with the exception that the town will not give up until all its militia is dead.

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Joker Bonus:
You found a pirate cove!  You may either:
a) draw up to your maximum number of crew cards
b) draw two ship cards.  You may trade your ship and cargo for one of these.  Discard the rest.
c) draw a mission card (even if you already have unfinished missions) and one cargo.

Combat
Combat Order
1) Attacking Player
2) Defending Player (or persona)
3) Additional ships in order of appearance

Steps in Combat
1) Player (if any) declares action
2) Draw a card from the deck (to determine outcome)
3) Resolve action

Ship-to-Ship Combat Actions
Flee
Draw a card.  If the value is greater than the size of the ship, flee succeeds.  Discard this card.  Combat ends.
If everyone involved in combat attempts to flee, combat ends.

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Joker Bonus:
Another ship appears, covers your escape, then resupplies your crew to its maximum size

Shoot Cannon
Play a crew card.  This is how many of your crew are working the cannons.  Note: You must always have at least one crew card in your hand to sail the ship.  Draw a card from the deck.  If the suit matches your crew card, it's a hit!  The face value is how many enemy crew is killed, up to a maximum of the number of crew you assigned to the cannons.  Your opponent must immediately discard crew cards until the total value matches at least that number.
Return the crew card manning the cannons to your hand, and discard the drawn card.

Board the Enemy
Subtract your ship size from the enemy ship size.  If the result is less than three, consider it three.  Draw a card. If the value on that card is less than or equal to the result, you successfully tie up the enemy ship and begin boarding it.  Switch to hand-to-hand combat actions.

Hand-to-Hand Combat Actions
Attack
If 2 players are involved in combat, each player selects a crew card and holds it ready to reveal.  Simultaneously, the players show their single crew card.  The face value is how many crew are committed to the effort.  If the suit matches the ship, add 1.  Winner is the one with the largest value.  Winner discards their played crew card and takes the losing card into their hand.

Retreat
Discard a crew card.  These crew give their lives disentangling your ship.  Return to ship-to-ship combat rules.

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Combat Joker Bonus:
If a joker is drawn at any point during combat, another ship arrives.  Draw a card and add it as another combatant fighting on the side of the one that drew the card

Surrender
Any party in combat (except a town) may surrender at any time.  Any cargo and unfinished missions are forfeited to the victor.  Surrendering ships are allowed to leave with 1 crew card.  The rest join the victor.  (Discard if over limit)

Single Player Combat
Draw enough crew cards, face down, for the opponent.  Any time the opponent loses crew, the necessary amount is drawn randomly from this pile.  At the end of combat, any cards remaining in this pile are discarded.
Instead of declaring actions for the opponent, a card is drawn from the deck.

Card	Ship-to-Ship Action	Hand-to-Hand Action	Description
Spades	Attempt to Flee	Retreat	If the value on the card is greater than ship size, it succeeds
Diamonds	Surrender	Surrender	Add this card to your hand, and Player may keep either the enemy ship or their own, and whatever combination of cargo fits.  The rest is discarded
Hearts	Shoots Cannon	Attack	The value on the card represents the number of crew committed to the action
Clubs	Attempt to Board	Attack	The value on the card represents the navigation test / number of crew committed

If you surrender as a single player, you must discard your cargo and unfinished missions, and all but one of your crew cards.

Here's an example card layout for a single player:

Wow!  Ships!  Card version of Pirates!  Yes.

Why don't you put that ipad of yours to work and design a specific card deck for the game?

Quoted from Hawkeye

Why don't you put that ipad of yours to work and design a specific card deck for the game?

Well, 2 reasons actually.  Although specially designed cards would look nice,

1) The game was designed specifically for a poker deck so everyone could play at any time

2) I don't want to draw all those cards!

In order to use specially designed cards, we'd have to split the deck you draw from into all the different types of things you could be pulling (ship deck, town deck, crew deck, combat deck, cargo deck, decision deck, etc).  The key "ingredient" that inspired this game was that the reason for drawing a card defined how to interpret the card.  That's what makes it work.

If we drew special cards, they'd probably all have to be "multi-purpose" cards, depicting every possible interpretation.  Might get rather cluttered.

After play testing this game with Hawkeye (quite some time ago), we discovered the biggest problem is single player combat.  It's too long and other players will get bored while one guy finishes his combat against a non-player ship.  In that regard, I present the revised single-player combat rules:

Single Player Combat
Winning Combat or Fleeing Combat are automatic, but you must pass certain conditions to achieve either.  Otherwise your opponent defeats you, takes all your cargo and missions, and leaves you with your smallest crew-card.

Attacking
If you wish to attack the enemy ship, you must put "at risk" as many crew as the size of the enemy vessel plus one.  For example, if your opponent is of size 7, you must put at least 8 crew members from your hand "at risk".  Count and discard these crew cards.  Draw one less as many crew cards from the deck (to a minimum of one) and add them to your hand.  These are your "survivors".  Draw another card.  This was the enemy cargo.  You may keep it or discard it.  You may also swap ships if you like theirs better.

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Man o' War bonus:
Man o' War ships get to draw as many "survivor" crew cards as they put "at risk".

Fleeing
If you wish to flee from an enemy ship, you must pass a navigation test against their size.  If your ship is smaller, you succeed.  If your ship is equal in size or bigger, you must dump cargo till your ship size minus the number of cargo holds emptied (minus any ship bonus) is less than the enemy vessel size.  Dumped cargo gets placed in the discard pile.

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Well Trimmed Ship bonus:
A well trimmed ship automatically counts for one less than its actual size in navigation tests.

Following Hawkeye's advice, I've started thinking about a design for a custom deck of cards for this game.  I've attached a possible 5 of Hearts, for example.

The goal is to keep the poker deck attributes (suit and value) while presenting the applicable meanings specific to this game.

In this way, if you play the 5 of hearts as your ship type, it's clearly an English Corvette with 5 crew cards, 5 cannons, and - oops - would need to mention the 5 cargo holds somewhere too.  If played as a town card, it'd be the English colony of St. Kitts.  If played as a mission card, it's a delivery of 5 tons of spices to a neighbouring English colony.  etc.  etc.

Then you don't have to look up the meanings of cards while playing, and if done well should look pretty smart.

Thoughts?

Using software called nanDeck, I was able to generate a deck of cards.  Here's a sample of the design I settled on for this first version.  You can get a low-res zip of the entire deck here: http://darkshade.homeip.net/stuff/pirate-deck.zip

I've submitted an order for a custom deck from printerstudio.ca.  Maybe some game night we'll give it a try!

Last night I put together a rule brochure for the game.  I think it looks pretty good, and is nicely concise.  Attached is a printable PDF.

The deck has arrived!

While play-testing, Chicky suggested that new players could find it hard to remember which cards represented different things.  To mitigate that, I've designed (and printed a few) playmats.  I've attached a printable pdf and thumbnail here.

Attached updated rules and playmat.

Changes:

• Sinking Non-Player ships is now more rewarding
  
• Fleeing is only possible if your ship size and tonnage of cargo is less than your opponent
  
• Joker drawn for Cargo is now a choice of using the cargo shown, or digging through discards
  
• Clarified docking at Pirate Cove
  
• Changed some wording for theme and consistency
  
• Playmat: short-rules modified accordingly
  
• Playmat: reminders added to Port and Mission card zones
  

Another update to the rules.

Changes:

• Added rule to handle running out of cards
  
• Removed exclusivity rule from Trading for Goods.  It only dragged trading out.
  
• Removed "highest value" from unfriendly port discard.  No way to enforce it.
  
• Clarified Mission Deliveries don't count as Trading for Goods.
  

Thanks to some great suggestions from my play-testers, I've started applying some of the ideas.

First off, I've tackled the appearance of the cards.  Danmick mentioned the fonts were hard to read, and he had trouble seeing the rows of icons.  I've made the icons bigger, and rather than have rows of them, just included their count.

Hawkeye raised the issue that playing as a tiny vessel puts you at a real disadvantage.  To alleviate that, I'm working on a rule to give bonuses to the smaller ships in a game.  The idea is if you don't have the biggest ship, you get a random bonus to make it interesting.  Some of these bonuses are single use (and then discarded) while others are persistent and stay as long as you keep your ship.  Hopefully this also satisfies the common request for some kind of "Captain Bonus".

Finally, I wasn't entirely happy with the appearance of the cards.  I always felt a solid background would look smarter.  So I've made that change too.

Since I'm still working on the rule changes for these and other ideas, all I'll post here is a sample card for the next design.

I like the new design!  Considering the background was changed to look like old parchment, what if it had an image looking like an unrolled piece of old parchment?  Dunno if that would work or not but thought I'd suggest it at least for consideration...

Thanks Shabadu.  I'll keep it in mind if I make any more changes to the design, but as it stands, I think that might be too much curling paper effect, given the titles already curl at the ends.

I've been giving a lot of thought to the idea of having two types of game-play: a short game, which is mostly what you guys played; and a long game, which requires starting small and building up your ship (or maybe even a fleet) to some bigger purpose.

At the moment, I think the short game will be the single deck as I've been showing.  The long game, I think, could require two different decks.  I have to think more on what is in that second deck, but it saves me from trying to cram more into the single deck used also for short games.  At the moment I'm thinking the 4 suits could be different things.  13 captains, 13 grand schemes, 13 "AI" for enemy ships, 13 weather effects.  I dunno.  Just thinking "aloud".  Please share any ideas this triggers for the game.

I'm sure this is what you meant but in case it isn't, consider using the same deck for both the long and short game and the long game simply has a secondary deck (or possibly various expansion decks).  But as the expansion deck(s) are created be sure to make them easier to distinguish in case the players want to quickly separate them for quick play (i.e. a completely different look or at least background).