Treasure Haul

Treasure Haul is a piracy puzzle. It has been likened to the duty puzzle bilging, with the main difference being that the puzzle pieces can only be switched vertically as opposed to bilging which flips horizontally. This also means that you're switching pieces along the same axis as they fall, which makes the puzzle in some ways quite different to bilging.

Specifics
Treasure Haul is found during flotilla combat, sinking blockades, and Sea Monster attacks, and becomes available when a vessel has been adjacent to or on top of sunken treasure for all four moves of a turn, including just before the first move. The puzzle can be initiated in two ways:
 * Dismissing the station, and selecting the option from the radial menu on a 'Ship's hold' hold. People with officer privileges on the ship can also use the booty chest.
 * After another turn, a pop-up appears on the ahoy panel, with a button to allow people to treasure haul.

It can also be found during a sunken ship expedition obtained during a pillage. In this case, when an officer elects to visit the expedition, the Ahoy prompt appears immediately. There is also a sunken ship's mast added to scene (off the port bow) with a Treasure Haul station.

The better pirates are at 'hauling', the faster the treasure will be brought aboard. Hauling while your vessel is directly on top of the wreck is more efficient than hauling from an adjacent position. The treasure consists of PoE, which is added to the ship's booty chest for division if the ship manages to leave the board and port.

To play, coins are moved up and down the board until they form threes, fours, and so on. The combos work exactly the same as bilging, where clearing coins forms new lines of three and four etc. which then clear themselves, repeating until there are no more lines.

Sometimes gems will appear in the puzzle. These consist of a red gem that clears all the puzzle pieces in the same row and column (cross pattern), and a green gem that clears all the puzzle pieces diagonally to the gem (X pattern). The gem effects can be chained by placing another gem into a gem's "clearing area".

Scoring
Scoring is based on the rate and the value of treasure being hauled up. There are three performance indicators in the game. Good performance is indicated by: 1) the pile of gold behind the pirate figure is growing, 2) the pirate figure is merrily pulling on the ropes, and 3) coins are flying up the screen. Combos are far less important than they are in bilge; if you spend fifteen seconds working out how to make a donkey, that's fifteen seconds that you haven't spent getting more coins.

Atlantis and Haunted Seas
During Atlantis and Haunted Seas battles, treasure chests will also sporadically appear. If they reach the top line of the screen (accomplished by clearing coins above them) they will be added to the booty chest. Coins that are cleared in one of the two columns above the chest will not reappear, meaning that sometimes it may be necessary to have a gem positioned correctly to clear the remaining coins to allow the chest to reach the top. For example, saving a ruby on the very top row is a good way to clear the last coin blocking the chest from being recovered. One way to help keep chests from getting stuck is to focus on making clears towards the middle of the board if there is not a chest on it already, as chests will have a higher likelihood of spawning wherever coins are cleared.

In an Atlantis battle, it is strongly encouraged to focus on hauling up the treasure chests because they can potentially contain more PoE than all of the regular pieces of eight hauled from a shipwreck.

External/other links

 * Commonly discussed ideas from Game Design
 * Treasure Haul Videos
 * Official game documentation for Treasure Haul
 * Ice testing discussion
 * Developer's tips on scoring
 * Reichi's Treasure Haul Guide