General description:
Sunken Treasure rides a very fine line; as fine a line as any unique treasure in the game rides (with the exception of Revolution's Explosives). Next to speed, cargo space is a goldrunner’s bread and butter. ST offers the possibility of wealth along with the certainty of cargo space restrictions. This review is written to inform you to the point where you will add ST to your own treasure pool armed with both knowledge and confidence.
Uses:
Sunken Treasure can provide a gold windfall greater than any single treasure coin in the game. It would be next to impossible to unload ST at your HI with its value at the 12 gold maximum value and it would hardly be worth your while to outfit a goldrunner with the crew allowing you to perform this trick (so kill that pipe dream right now). Rolling a 12 lets you haul back a decent sized ST in conjunction with a few other non-unique treasures for the 16+ gold victory requirement.
The Revolution UT Fruit shares the same cargo-clogging drawback as Sunken Treasure but provides a less useful positive ability (immunity to the Crimson Coast UT Scurvy), thus making ST more pro-goldrunner than anti-goldrunner. Unlike Fruit, ST can be unloaded at your HI, making it even less of an anti-goldrunner UT.
Strategies and game play:
The simplest way to circumvent the 2 cargo spaces which Sunken Treasure takes up is to use a goldrunner with an above average cargo rating (5 or higher). If you favor this kind of ship, well, good for you; you'll most likely never have to deal with the downside of ST but this review is mostly written with average cargo holds in mind so bear with me.
Similar to the Barbary Coast UT Spices, ST has the potential to cause ocean-wide chaos when revealed. If you find it, the strategy is simple: Haul your stern back to your home island as quickly as possible and unload this puppy. Pirates is already a race against time but with ST added to the mix, a player can cut that time in half. If your opponent finds it, hope for a low roll. If the roll is high, either do whatever you can to keep the enemy ship from reaching its HI or fort or grab a gold victory yourself before it can unload the ST (which is far riskier and trickier to do). There’s an important note about forts in relation to ST in the “Ways to counteract it” section so don’t skip it.
Combos with other miniatures:
One ability which cannot be understressed when dealing with a Sunken Treasure is the reroll ability. If you are adding ST to the treasure pool, it would behoove you to outfit your chief goldrunner with a reroll ability. You’re giving up two whole cargo spaces to cart this unique so you might as well reap the maximum reward for your troubles. While Poseidon’s Breath and MI-107 (whose name I cannot type in full due to the site's language filter) have the potential to expedite your journey back home, they are loaded face-down and as such, they take up further spaces on your already strained cargo hold. You can only activate them when the ship is being given a move action, making the free action of loading more treasure coins from the wild island post-activation impossible. Should the wild island on which ST is found be a distant one, your best speed boosting option is Hidden Cove which, thanks to certain mysterious islands, can be granted from outside of the game in addition to another HC which you may have purchased prior to setup.
Ways to counteract it:
If you’ve found Sunken Treasure and want to counteract it, you can remove it from your ship by docking at your home island; the sooner, the better. If your opponent has found ST and you want to counteract it, the events Becalmed and Mermaids can stall the ship which carries it until it dwindles down to a less threatening gold value. Similarly, the Revolution UT Natives, which works much the same as Mermaids, can also stall a ship. Kharmic Idol can remove all face-up UT’s from the game so keep it in mind if there is a Mysterious island which allows you bring in a UT from outside the game. Another deterrent is a HI raider (“This ship may dock at an enemy home island and load one treasure. If able, she must leave on your next turn."). These raiders work extremely well against ST because they can basically hold your opponent hostage. If the enemy ship docks, you can steal the ST from the HI and carry it home at its now fixed value. If it hesitates or changes course for another WI, the gold value diminishes and ST still takes up 2 cargo spaces aboard her. A catch-22 for your opponent but a win-win situation for you! 
The Barbary Coast UT Wolves (one of my personal favorites) has the potential to render ST useless. ST specifies that the die roll to determine its initial value takes place when it is revealed, not when it is loaded. Wolves disallows the loading of treasure until it is shot by a Musketeer or a Marine. If the exploring ship finds both ST and Wolves and does not have the proper crew, ST will melt away to zero gold as it sits on its wild island. Perhaps the least desirable UT to find in conjunction with ST is Mysterious Island’s Enemy of the State. EotS gives a ship the Mercenary keyword, preventing it from docking at its HI.
NOTE: Whereas most Mercenary ships get around its HI restriction by unloading its treasure at a friendly fort, ST specifically states that it value reduction ceases when it reaches zero or is unloaded at your HI. Meaning, if you do not win the game immediately upon unloading ST at your fort, the value will continue to drop by 1 at the beginning of each of your turns until it reaches zero. Unless the Merc ship can lose its Mercenary keyword via a cancelation crew, that ST will be whittled down to zero aboard her; ditto if left in a fort long enough.
Strengths/Pros:
- Sunken Treasure’s most obvious strength is that, should the fates smile on you, it can enable you to win the game in a single treasure run.
- It is immune to the South China Seas event False Treasure which, due to its whopping cost of 10 points, is much likelier to see play more often now that there is a mysterious island which allows you to bring in an event from outside the game.
Weaknesses/Cons:
- Sunken Treasure’s most obvious weakness is that, should the fates frown on you, your 2D6 roll will yield so small a number that it will diminish to zero gold before you can reach your HI, which in turn makes its cargo-clogging ability sting all the more.
- As is the case with most UT’s worth gold, your opponent has a chance of finding it before you.
Artwork and aesthetics:
All UT’s have artwork that is cropped for space considerations and ST takes it a step further by sporting artwork that is irritatingly dark in addition to being cropped. It looks like it could pass for a rake or a menorah.
Overall rating:
Sunken Treasure is similar to Trade Route in that it’s not a clear cut “good UT” or “bad UT” and relies on the status of the game at the time it is revealed to determine its true value. One thing is certain: when revealed, ALL players take notice of it. Resources that might normally be saved for emergencies or other tasks are immediately deployed to deal with it should the die roll be a favorable one. It’s either that or risk defeat. For its game-altering presence and its original “beat-the-clock” aspect, I rate Sunken Treasure a 6 out of 10.
Tomorrow I will rate it a 5 out of 10.
The day after that, I will rate it a 4 out of 10. 
Miniature Trading
