Sid Meier's new "Pirates" game is insidious

[Forward Observer]

I just picked up Sid Meier's new "Pirates" game this week, and so far I am totally impressed. I got the DVD version and it installed without a hitch. Also on the DVD version is a video interview and "making of" movie amd concept art plus the complete original "Pirates" game that Sid put out years ago.

Also included is something you don't se much now-a-days---a really nice 150 page ring bound instruction manual.

I am now officially hooked on this damn game, and I can't remember when I have spent this much time straight, sitting glued to the PC since maybe-- RedBaron 3D or the Total War games.

I played all day Thursday, only taking meals and bathroom breaks. When I finally went to bed it was 4 AM Friday morning. Friday, I got back up at about 9 AM and played until 2 AM this morning.

I got up at 9 AM today and could not wait to get back into pillaging and plundering the Spanish Main. I decided to finally take a real break and come here to post---besides, my back and butt are hurting from setting at the PC so long.

For me this game is so much fun on so many levels, I can hardly begin to describe it. Everything is fun, but I guess I like the sea battles best. It is an absolute shame they didn't implement multiplayer for this aspect of the game. It's a bit simplistic, but still chalenging at the same time.

While not as graphically realistic looking, the open endedness and depth of gameplay of Pirates makes Akella's Pirates of the Caribbean suck big time in comparison. Heck, I'll admit it, except for the sea battles, PTOC pretty much just plain sucked on its on.

The little ships are just beautiful. They are scaled perfectly and seem quite right for the period depicted. The cannon fire is done with a slight slow motion effect, so you get to see your cannon balls, chain, or grape shot slowly arc through the air and then get to enjoy all of the destruction when you score a hit.

I just never get tired of watching the damage animations for the sea battles------tumbling masts, splintering wood, and deck explosions, which in turn cause crates, debris, and little sailors to go flying through the air and into the drink.

The sounds effects are perfect, and you can even hear the little sailors screaming.

All of the music is extremely well done, and it's good enough that you don't get tired of it after listening to it for hours on end. It's mostly origina, they did throw in a few melodies from some familiar sea shanties like "blow the man down" and "Farewell ye Spanish ladies".

There's even a little Carabbean steel drum music, which of course isn't period, but it works.

The whole game has a stylized Disney animated feature quality about it, but believe me it looks great, and it works well for the subject matter.
In fact that may be a good description of the game--it's like being in an animated Disney pirate movie--just no hanging, rotting in a gibbit, or scurvey

There are so many sub--games. Trading, collecting useful items, collecting pieces of treasure maps, searching for the treasure, searching for famous pirates (defeating them is the best way to acquire better pirate ships), following quests, searching for family members ( if you want to follow the loose story line), reading a map, navigating, learning to use the wind, sword fighting, sneaking through unfriendly towns, and lastly dancing. I suck at the dancing---it's actually one of the harder things to do in the game (or maybe it's just me}, but when you make your dancing partner happy, she instigates new quests and gives you new inventory items.

I almost forgot about the land battles---they are quite fun, but do require at little tactical thought. The pirates only get 3 units types--pirates, buccaneers, and officers, while the town defenders get infantry, cavalry, archers, Indian scouts, and artillery. Your units are in little groups of 30 or 40 men and the battles are turn based.--Its very much like chess==only animated with killing--it took me a while to get used to it, but after a couple of tries I finally took and ransacked Havana last night.

If your forces vastly out number the town---you will simply duel the captain of the guard, just like you do the captain of a ship after you board. The duels are quite fun, and somehow they have managed to seamlessly integrate your dueling moves with fully animated segues from one point of the duel to the next. Believe me the duels would do Errol Flynn proud.

One big hint if you try this game--do not play on the easy level other than to maybe get familiar with the controls.

The beginning difficulty level is just too easy and will make things seem shallow and repetitive. Believe me they are not if you start out with at least the middle of the 5 different difficulty levels.

You also have a choice of 5 different starting periods, which span the 100 years or so that is considered to be the classical age of piracy.

I have been playing only one of these start dates for almost 40 hours now, and I'm maybe only a little over 2/3rds finished. I think I just turned 50 in the game, but I have a magic Indian potion that is supposed to extend my life, so who knows how long I'll go before I have to retire to my island estate.

I also have not encountered one bug, lock-up, or glitch in game. The game just screams total polish.

Sid Meier--you insidious b*stard--I hate you!

Cheers

[Kraxis]

So is the Fast Galleon still the best pirate vessel? Or has it been scaled down to a more proper level?

What kind of ships are there?

What are the three types of pirates in land battles? Cavalry? infantry? Well I suppose infantry, but still, what is the difference between them?

Are you still on a quest to find familymembers and can you marry the governors daugher and then plunder the city afterwards (hehe I use to do that, what can be worse than to steal his daughter and then plunder his city)?

The good old Treasure Fleet and Silver Train are still in right? And you can follow in the wake of the Treasure Fleet and pick up fat galleons right (I managed to bag a 37,000 gold galleon once off northern Cuba)?

This definately sounds like a good investment for an old buccaneer like me. Yarrr!

Now Sid only needs to recreate Colonization, then I'm happy. ~D

[Kraellin]

i always enjoy your reviews, f.o., especially when you enjoy whatever it is :)

i dont have the game yet, and was a bit dismayed that everything in every preview basically just said, this is the same old Pirates. every feature is exactly the same. almost all those items in the present game match up with the features in the old game.

however, after reading your review, i may have to re-evaluate. it seems they did keep true to the original game, but added enhancements to each aspect, and not just in the graphics and music. and one can never discount the end user's marathons as a testament to the game :) so, perhaps i will pick this up.

K.

[Forward Observer]

In the interviews with Sid, he pretty much said he wasn't going to fix what wasn't broke, but using today's PC technology bring everything up to date while maintaining the spirit of the original gameplay.

He did remove a navigation feature called sun sighting and ship versus land battles. Now you have either ship to ship combat, or you can land your ship a stretch of beach up from a port and attack by land.

If you win you get to sack the town, and even put a new governor in place on some, but not all. One neat thing here is that you can enlist the aid of local Indain tribes or local pirate clans to also attack a port.

Even if they fail, the battle will have the effect changing the port's economy from population reduction and best of all---reducing the number of soldiers protecting the port

That's how I managed to ramsack the city of Havana. They had 400 soldiers to my crew of 220. I got the closest pirate port to attack. They lost, but Havana's forces were cut in half from the battle, so I marched right in with superiour numbers, defeated the remaing soldiers, and sacked the town.

You only have 3 types of pirate land units---Officers and pirates which are both melee, and buccaneers which are ranged units with muskets.

The colonial units have infantry, town guards, cavalry, archers, artillery, and Indian scouts. Taking the high ground and fighting in the woods seems to be the best tactics for the pirates.

You can also marry a governor's daughter, but first you have to make her swoon with a perfect dance routine. Then you have to court her and duel another suitor.

I have only managed to get through 3 dances with out totallly messing up.
This only got me some clues to some fugitives with prices on their heads. You have to do it perfectly with lots of fancy twirls to make the daughter swoon. When this happens you get the girl plus clues to find lost cities.

As far as the best ships for piracy, that depends. Sloops and Brigs are quick and maneuverable, but their cargo space is limited. Of course you can have several in your fleet and even include large mechantman along for cargo capacitiy.

You only fight with one ship on your side at a time although you may be matched up to two enemies in a sea battle--usually a trade Galleon and her escort.

You can usually pull this off with a bargue, a brig, or a sloop because of their speed and maneuverability, but the the absolute best in my opinion is a frigate.

It's fast, sturdy, and packs a punch with 32 to 40 guns, according to size. I think I got mine when I finally defeated Henry Morgan in the game.

There are 10 historical pirates that you have to track down and defeat in the game--including Captain Kidd and of course---Blackbeard. You also collect pieces of maps to their buried treasures hidden all around the West Indies. Altough not true to the period they did throw in the pirate Jean Lafitte.

As I said earlier the little ships are beautifully modeled and appear to be scaled right---plus they all look correct for the periods coverd.

Here are the models included:

Barque
Brig
Brig of war
Brigantine
Coastal Barque
East Indiaman
Fast Galleon
Flag Galleon
Fluyt
Frigate
Indian canoe
Large fluyte
Large Frigate
Large Merchantman
Mail Runner
Merchantman
Ocean Barque
Pinnace
Royal Galleon
Royal Sloop
Ship of the Line
Sloop
Sloop of War
Trade Galleon
Treasure Galleon
War Galleon
West Indiaman

Hope that answeres some of your questions.

Cheers

[Bob the Insane]

arr me hearties....

Pirates don't land on UK shores unitl next Friday and I will be acquiring a copy...

Could this be the only game where is it appropriate to get a pirated copy???

Just joking... ~D

[Kraxis]

Ah yes the Frigate, but doesn't it only come in late? I alwayd preferred to play early.

Buw WOW that is a lot of ships... Ship of the Line, GAH! Wouldn't want to fight one of those or is it just an even more unmaneuverable version of the war galleon? And Treasure Galleon, YEAH! Can't guess what such a ship transports hehe...

[Forward Observer]

Ah yes the Frigate, but doesn't it only come in late? I alwayd preferred to play early.

Buw WOW that is a lot of ships... Ship of the Line, GAH! Wouldn't want to fight one of those or is it just an even more unmaneuverable version of the war galleon? And Treasure Galleon, YEAH! Can't guess what such a ship transports hehe...

Yes, I was probably 20 years into my career before I managed to capture a 32 gun frigate.

While privateers working for a national power may have had some large ships--in real life pirates usually used small fast ships like sloops or brigantines, and they usually only picked on undefended merchantmen--avoiding contact with real disciplined naval vessels at all costs.

Of course most pirates were cruel and barbarious villains who lived very short lives and met very unglorious ends. Henry Morgan being one of the exceptions to this rule. A game depicting true pirate life would probably not be much fun, so "PIrates" obviously treats the subject with a romanticized eye while maintaining some historical accuracy.

I never played the original "Pirates" game and only have two other pirate games to compare this one to. Akella's original "Sea Dogs" was a wonderul pirate game, and even though it was not a dynamic world as Sid's game is, the naval combat of it was great.

Akella promised an updated sequel with both multiplayer and a truly dynamic game world. They failed miserably when they released the game unfinished and renamed as Pirates of the Caribbean because they snagged a movie tie in with Disney. While the graphics and sea physics were wonderful, the gameplay was buggy and basically sucked bigtime.

Akella is supposedly working on a new pirate game called Captain Blood, but after being burned by both PTOC and their other piece of buggy naval crap==Age of Sail 2, I will really be hesitant before I purchase anything else they develop.

Cheers

[Kraellin]

yup, frigates were always my choice. fast enough and manueverable enough and all those guns and cargo space made it a natural choice. i remember in the old 8 bit days playing this and getting a fleet of frigates. i was pretty much king of the carrabean.

i also tried playing the old game as a merchant, rather than a pirate or pirate hunter. that was much harder, as the trade game wasnt really the main line of things and your profits were hardly ever enough to manage to get anywhere. that was an area that could have been developed a lot more.

i also own pirates of the carrabean. the sea travel and battles were the best i've ever seen in a game. but once you hit land it deteriorated pretty fast. and age of sail was that one with the ultra realistic sailing, wasnt it? that one was just too cumbersome. i've also noticed that almost all of the pirate/sailing games borrowed heavily from sid's original concepts and it got almost humorous that they were all copying from the original Pirates.

i also find it somewhat interesting that sid seems to have run out of original ideas and is just re-working his old titles to the modern day systems. even alpha centauri, which a lot of folks seemed to like, was little more than a re-work of a game and set into the distant future. sorry sid, i dont mean to be catty, but we've not really seen a new eye-popping title in a long time.

K.

[Forward Observer]

Yeah Krae, I guess pretty much everything in gaming today is derivative to some extent and PC gaming been around long enough that just like the movies they are beginning to re-cycle old game plots and ideas.

The great thing here is that for those like me who never got to enjoy some of those original games, we can all now now play them with up to date graphics and features.

Now, if someone would only re-make Red Baron 3D and Panzer Commander, I would be a happy camper.

Cheers

[Kraellin]

hehe, yup. would love to see a few re-makes myself, and not just for the graphics. my list of 'boy, if they'd only done this or that, this would have been a great game!' is quite long :) but then i go, 'well, learn to code, you bum, and you can have any of them you want!'. ah well, i suppose it's like voting, if you dont vote, you've no room to complain ;)

btw, if there are any coders and graphic artists out there that would like to collaborate on a project of a re-make of an old title, i know just the one to do ;)

K.

[The Scourge]

Think he might re-make Sword of the Samurai ?
Good review btw.I think you've sold me on it.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

isnt it a cartoony?

[Forward Observer]

isnt it a cartoony?

I wouldn't call it cartoony, but would rather compare it to the graphic style of a fine Disney animation.

Believe me--given the context of the gameplay, the complexities of the environment, and the sheer size of the "Pirates" game world, it works perfectly.

And by way, the barmaids and Governor's daughters in the game have cartoon bodies that are that absolutely hot. They must have discovered silicone during the 17the century--lol

Cheers

[dessa14]

i loved playing the original, it think if it tried to look realistic it would explode your brain, anyway realism is for sims and FPS not for adventure strategy games.
yeah i used to go around with two frigates in a fleet and about 100 galleons (I always used to follow the treasure fleet around and pick off a whole heap)
i'm disappointed about the removal of the landing, but it was generally a giant PIA trying to land enough troops to win a battle, you'd need a war galleon to carry the amount of men needed, and then you would have to be good to avoid being hammered.
thanks,
dessa

[frogbeastegg]

Sounding good. I have never played the original; sadly I found out about it a few years after its release and by that point it was impossible to find.

I saw in one review that your character ages, and as he gets older he gets less agile, weaker etc. True? I'm not sure I want to end up as Creak-knees the Pirate limping around battle with my deluxe Zimmer frame with frame mounted mini cannon.

[dessa14]

yes you do get older and such, but i don't know if you get weaker, it just means that you can't handle getting stranded as much, and if you die then the game is wasted for your ranking.
thanks,
dessa

[Kraxis]

I still preferred the Fast Galleon over the Frigate, it just felt like it could endure more punishment while being as fast and maneuverable (they were the same size, 100 tons capacity).

But I meant Early as in the earlier periods, not early in a career. As far as I remember there weren't any Frigates in the 1560, 1600 and 1620 periods perhaps even later.

So now the ships within the classes are different? Nice.
So you can still have one or two primary fighters (ships) and then a whole fleet of transports to carry goods and troops?

[Navaros]

i have some questions:

1. is ship vs. ship combat done better in Pirates of the Carribean?

2. can you customize the appearance of your pirate? i didn't really like the look of the pirate shown in the screenshots

3. can you have kids to continue the game after your first pirate dies of old age, or do you have to start over from scratch?

4. are there different endings to the game?

5. do you get to choose which girl to court or is it always the same one every game?

[Spino]

I LOVE the modern remake of Pirates! It's great! It's as addictive as the original and is extremely well polished. While it can be really repetitive it is packed with tons of little details make the game really fun and keep you playing into the wee hours of the night.

Since Forward Observer pretty much covered the bases in his review i'll touch on the negative aspects of Pirates!

My problems with the game are the same that I had with the original; it's simply too easy to kick ass with a smaller ship, even on the harder difficulty levels. The smaller vessels can literally sail circles around the bigger ships and when sufficiently upgraded they become absolute terrors. True, a few good hits from a larger vessel can really ruin your day but if you know what you're doing those moments are few and far between. Not that I haven't had my ass handed to me on a plate now and again but I feel that I'm not working too hard to achieve victory in the face of considerable odds. Unless my memory betrays me I don't recall things being this imbalanced in the original. I do remember the smaller vessels being preferable to the larger ones but I recall Barques having the best mix of nimbleness, toughness and firepower. With the remake if you have a good grasp of tactics and using the wind to your advantage it makes no sense to get anything bigger than a sloop. With a sloop (especially the upgraded variety) you can avoid enemy broadsides with ease. It's somewhat ridiculous actually.

The AI is ok, but in combat larger enemy vessels will too often trade a favorable course and wind to chase a smaller, quicker vessel even though it is an exercise in futility and even though you were the one to initiate hostilities!

The good news is you can still command a sizeable fleet of ships but unlike the original game's 'one ship icon represents my entire fleet' approach now each vessel in your fleet is represented on the strategic map. It's an impressive sight to have an entire fleet flying the skull and crossbones pouncing on a treasure fleet. However this also means that every single vessel in your flotilla is vulnerable to harrassing fire from nearby vessels and forts on the strategic map. This really forces you to keep an eye on those battered prize vessels you are escorting to the nearest port. It's a most welcome addition to the game.

The Ships:

While there is a very nice selection of ships to choose from I wish there were more!

I never go for Galleons, never. They are absolute sloths in anything but the most favorable winds. Bah!

Frigates are great if you want tons of firepower with modest maneuverability. I 'acquired' both a frigate and a large frigate by catching Henry Morgan and some other pirate. They're fun if you want some good old toe to toe broadside fun but personally I felt they made better cargo haulers and I gladly sold them off before dividing the plunder. I'll take a smaller vessel over the bigger ones anyday.

I like Barques, especially the Ocean Barque. In the absence of a Royal or War Sloop I use one as my primary vessel. I believe 16 cannons is the most an Ocean Barque can handle (have to check the manual on that). Barques make excellent secondary cargo haulers in a pirate fleet as they have shallow drafts and can haul ass when pressed and like sloops can make good headway even in unfavorable winds.

Sloops are the best. Without a doubt the best ship in the game is a Royal Sloop, preferably with the following upgrades; Cotton Sails for greater speed, Copper Plating for improved turning times and Chain Shot for crippling an enemy vessel's sails. Sloops are already fast and nimble but those upgrades will make one move like Flipper on crack. Chain shot will allow you to cripple most vessels without sending them to the deep and most will gladly hoist a white flag once they've been immobilized. But the real kicker is that a Royal Sloop can handle 20 guns instead of 16, which gives it a considerable advantage over barques and makes it an absolute terror in capable hands. With the Triple Hammock upgrade you can easily have more than 100 sailors on board which will make your 20 cannons reload and fire in no time at all. I always keep at least 22 guns in my inventory at all times in case I lose a few in combat.

I've also noticed that (at least in my current campaign) that there are too many buried treasures and captive relative quests in the same area! I've found no less than three or four buried pirate treasures near the same town! It's a bit too common to be coincidental.

[Nelson]

I played all day Thursday, only taking meals and bathroom breaks. When I finally went to bed it was 4 AM Friday morning.


I hope you sent the steward down to the galley for some turkey! :grin:

I'm glad you like Pirates! so much, FO. It is one of only a handful of games that I ever played from sunset to sunrise and my computer game playing days go back to Star Trek on a mainframe in the 70s!


Now, if someone would only re-make Red Baron 3D and Panzer Commander, I would be a happy camper.


Me too. We need a good WWI flight sim and a WWII tank sim in the worst way. I would add Task Force 1942 to the list.

[Kraellin]

ah, Nelson.... i had no idea! Trek on mainframes! my first foyer into the realm of computer gaming.... also on mainframes in the early 70's :) now, did you ever play the one in which you played as an alien race in a space ship? you played against about 3 or 4 AI players, all of different races and all having different ship capabilities. i normally played the one in which you had 'torpedoes' and you had to calculate the firing vectors in your head in simulated 3d. drive me nuts a few times :)

sorry, that was off-topic. we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

K.

[Kraxis]

Ah yes Sloops were possibly one of the most fun ships. But in old Pirates! it simply didn't have the punch to take on Galleons, and it would be ruined from a single broadside. So at least that has been remembered. But it is sad to find out you can cram 100 men onto one, as that was also a factor to keep in mind.

[nokhor]

i remember capturing war galleons with a pinnace? in the original pirates. it was extremely difficult. if you got broadsided once, you were done. you had to board it from behind and then you'd be heavily outnumbered and had to defeat the enemy captain quickly or your troops would all be killed. that was the most nerve wracking part of that game.

[Spino]

i remember capturing war galleons with a pinnace? in the original pirates. it was extremely difficult. if you got broadsided once, you were done. you had to board it from behind and then you'd be heavily outnumbered and had to defeat the enemy captain quickly or your troops would all be killed. that was the most nerve wracking part of that game.

Well nothing has changed in the new Pirates! It's still nerve wracking if you board a large vessel and your crew is seriously outnumbered. You have to be virtually flawless in your duel with the enemy captain so as to outpace your crew losses. The only difference is that in the new Pirates! the Triple Hammock ship upgrade allows smaller vessels to carry much larger crews, thus improving their odds in ship boarding actions.

FYI, when battling a ship belonging to another pirate or villain do NOT think that the white flag means you win and hostilities are over. I learned this the hard way when I pummeled Baron Raymondo's galleon into submission. As I drew my ship along side to take it as a prize I got the enemy captain surrenders screen followed by a custom pirate/villain impending duel animation. Basically regardless of whether you beat them in battle you still have to cross blades with pirates and villains in order to defeat them. However, the duels with pirates & villains following a successful sea battle seem to be easier than usual, at least that has been my experience. So once a pirate or villain vessel raises the white flag be sure to keep pounding them with grapeshot to knock their crew numbers down to a more manageable levels.

On another note I'm not sure what happens if you hit a villain's powder magazine during combat thus blasting his vessel into oblivion or simply damage its hull to the point where the ship breaks up and sinks. Do you still get a confession from the villain and a piece of the map that leads to a lost relative?

[LordTed]

The new pirates sounds really good. Played the old one on the Amiga 600. What are the system specs needed to play it?

[Blodrast]

sorry to be slightly OT-ish, but Nelson and Forward Observer, if by "Panzer Commander" you were referring to SSI's Panzer General, then there kinda is a kind of remake.
I say "kinda" because it's not actually a remake with spiffier graphics, but it's just porting the old PG to Windows. Which, however, makes a lot of difference. You have a much much improved UI, some movies, and I'm not sure what else (haven't had time to play aronud with it). But believe me, the UI makes a lot of difference in intself.
I'm not sure if graphics are "better"; however, there is probably a bit of extra stuff in there besides the short movies, because the game is around 100 MB, as opposed to the 12MB or so that the DOS one occupied...

So if this is not what you're looking for, sorry to waste your time reading this.

Btw, thanks for the nice Pirates! reviews, everybody.
(it also has a windows version, fyi).

[Kraellin]

blodrast,

you have a link to that updated port of panzer general? i played that one online a bit and would like to see the update.

K.

[Blodrast]

aye, and what a link.

[snip]

and for all of you nostalgic guys out there, who are reminiscing about the "good ol' times" and games that meant a heck of a lot to you (yeah, I'm among you), you should definitely check out the underdogs site ([snip]).
They have huge loads of abandonware, it's pure gold.
IIRC, you can find the Pirates! God for Windows that I mentioned in my earlier post there as well.

And before anyone raises any legal or moral issues, from what I've been able to tell they only host abandonware games, i.e. games that are no longer on shelves or that the companies are no longer selling anyway. You will notice that even though they do have pages for some more recent games, they do not host them, but instead point you to amazon or EBgames or the developer's/publisher's site where you can _buy_ them.
So their content is legal, as far as I (as a non-specialist-in-copyright-issues) can tell.

Enjoy.



Abandonware is a tricky issue; the legal opinion is that unless the copyright holders release the game for download themselves then it is piracy. Some developers get very upset by abandonware.

[nokhor]

somebody needs to start a grognards old games thread. did any of you ever play viking kingdoms of england? it was an amiga strategy game that was very good. it included ireland, norway and iceland. and castles were king in that game. a few bowmen in a castle could stand up to 10 times their number if the attackers didn't have catapults. sorry for being ot.

[Kraellin]

thanks blodrast,

i shld have known :)

K.

[Nelson]

ah, Nelson.... i had no idea! Trek on mainframes! my first foyer into the realm of computer gaming.... also on mainframes in the early 70's :) now, did you ever play the one in which you played as an alien race in a space ship? you played against about 3 or 4 AI players, all of different races and all having different ship capabilities. i normally played the one in which you had 'torpedoes' and you had to calculate the firing vectors in your head in simulated 3d. drive me nuts a few times :)

sorry, that was off-topic. we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

K.

Krae, we have definitely flashed our Old Fart Club membership cards for all to see! Were you a programmer? Back in ’75 I started out writing COBOL in a shop with CDC and Burroughs mainframes. One day after Star Trek came up in a conversation with a CE, he says to me, “Let me show you this game.” So a friend and I went off with him to learn more about this underground extravaganza.

You could play with other people and/or the AI. The player was the Enterprise, an E in the center of the screen. When your shields were up, you looked like this (E). That was the extent of the graphics. Kingons were Ks, Romulans were Rs and torpedoes were Ts. Yeah, the vector had to be computed in your head! Stars were * of course. All in beautiful monochrome green. It was written in ALGOL. I learned ALGOL just so I could modify the game to include M5 robot ships to help me out. I could give the M5s simple orders and they would fight my enemies. It was geeky but life was good in the soft glow of late night coding, testing, pizza eating and Klingon bashing. Little did I know that in just 9 years I would own my own C64!

Go get ‘em, M5! The @ was an explosion!


* . * (K@ *. T T (M) *

* *
* (E) *

And just so I'm topical, I bought Pirates! for my wife to give me for Christmas. Every man needs toys for Christmas. $40 on sale at Best Buys.

[Nelson]

sorry to be slightly OT-ish, but Nelson and Forward Observer, if by "Panzer Commander" you were referring to SSI's Panzer General, then there kinda is a kind of remake.


Bloodrast, the Panzer Commander FO and I refer to is a first person WWII tank sim published about 6 years ago, IIRC, also by SSI. It looked great and was fun to play but was limited by the omission of infantry and a truly dynamic campaign (the lack of which has been the bane of many a sim). The graphics were very good though.

[Kraellin]

nelson,

well, i've got ya beat by about two years :) somewhere after '71, but before '74, a friend showed me that we could sneak into the local and very new computer department of the local community college. they had a computer lab, with terminals set up around the room and on desks. they also had a few trs 80's on one side. the terminals, of course, were hooked to the mainframe(s).

we spent many an hour in there and finally came to find out that we didnt have to sneak around at all. they actually welcomed 'outsiders' as a promotional thing to try to get folks interested and signed up. i never took any classes, but i did buy a couple of the basic books for the trs 80's and learned to write my first code in BASIC. naturally, my first lines of code were of the entrance, in first person, to a cave (or castle, since it was all drawn line by line in straight lines only :) man, that thing was slow :)

and yes, good old Trek!

. . . . . . . . (8 by 8 grid or, one sector)
. . . . . . . .
. . *. . . . . (*'s were stars)
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . E. . (yeah, E or X was the Enterprise)
. . . . T. . .(T was indeed torpedo)
. . K. . . . . (yup, K was for Klingons)
. . . . . . . .

you also had phasers, but in the early versions there was no representation for this. you simply got a text message of a hit or miss. i believe we had shields, but they werent represented graphically either, as i recall. but another text thing kept track of it.

the overall game had the 8 x 8 grid for the sector, but the overall game was 8 x 8 sectors. you were given the mission to move through the sectors and find a known quantity of klingons and destroy them. you had a limited amount of turns/time to do this. the overall map was a simple display of:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
a . . . . . 1 . .
b . . . 2 . . . .
c 1 . . . . . . .
d . . . . . 4 . .
e . . . 3 . . . .
f . 1 . . . . . .
g . . . . . . 2 .
h . 2 . . 1 . . .

so, you could warp to sector 1a or 5b or 3c, and so on. the numbers in those sectors represented the number of klingons in each. but, they moved each turn, or at least could move each turn. you never knew. and yes, your display was that ugly white on green :)

the game was just about as simple as you can get with a computer game, but i was entranced. that was just too cool :) a year or two later i hooked up with a guy who worked on mainframes, repairing and maintaining. we decided we could make a business of this and what if we linked up computers in 'arcades' and let folks play this sort of thing.....and, and, what if we hooked up with someone like 'Playboy' and introduced this 'network' to all the playboy mansions so that folks could play anyone else in any other playboy mansion! hehe...my creative processes were going full tilt.

alas, my friend only had a passing interest in all this, and i, sadly, wasnt trained and knowledgable enough, nor did i have enough captial, to start this up by myself. and, inevitably, others finally made the creative leaps to all those things i had envisioned earlier :) i was WAY ahead of the pack on this one.

i could also give you a clue as to where computers and computer gaming are going, but that would spoil the surprise :) trust me, there's some cool stuff eventually going to be produced. this industry is still in its infancy, somewhere around the crawling stage. there's lots more to come. things like multi dimensional logic...oh wait, you're not quite ready for that yet ;)

K.

oh yeah.... i like Pirates. ;)

[Quillan]

Did you know that Trek game was still around in the early 80s? I ran across it in about 1984, at the computer lab at the university I was attending. ~:)

[Blodrast]

Bloodrast, the Panzer Commander FO and I refer to is a first person WWII tank sim published about 6 years ago, IIRC, also by SSI. It looked great and was fun to play but was limited by the omission of infantry and a truly dynamic campaign (the lack of which has been the bane of many a sim). The graphics were very good though.

oh, I see. My mistake then. Damn, how come I missed this one ? :)

[frogbeastegg]

Gah! Froggy is now officially an addict; got it, installed it, played for 5 hours straight. I only stopped because my eyes are tired and I probably should eat sometime this evening.

Are you supposed to get a choice of difficulties, time period and skills at the start of the game? I didn't; I only had chance to change my name. Looks like you should, from my very quick look at the manual.

[Spino]

Gah! Froggy is now officially an addict; got it, installed it, played for 5 hours straight. I only stopped because my eyes are tired and I probably should eat sometime this evening.

Are you supposed to get a choice of difficulties, time period and skills at the start of the game? I didn't; I only had chance to change my name. Looks like you should, from my very quick look at the manual.

I was able to choose the difficulty and time period before beginning my current campaign. However you don't need to start over to change the difficulty level. Each time you divide the plunder with your crew the game gives you the option of progressing to the next difficulty level.

[solypsist]

me too! ~:mecry: ~D

good thing i have four straight days off



Gah! Froggy is now officially an addict; got it, installed it, played for 5 hours straight.

[Efrem]

I'm glad I'm waiting for the holiday season to get this.

[BDC]

This game is so fun. Stupendously hard though on higher difficulty settings. Especially duels when you are outnumbered... Not too fun that.

Some sort of campaign and proper battles would have been funner though. Maybe we will see Pirates: Total War... ~:)

[Bob the Insane]

OMG!!!

I have never play a game which is by turns so much fun and so fustrating...

Fustrating not because of any technical issues (though in the heat of the moment I often accuse it of cheating... ;)) but simply because here is a game that is capable of giving the player a genuine arse kicking...

I am totally addicited and played for hours and hours over the weekend...

The only way I could think to improve it would to have more of the game... More quests, even more backdrops for the subgames, maybe more subgames but I can't think of any... I don't think anything actually in the game could be any more fun or polished than it already is... Simple controls with challenging gameplay and too much fun for it's own good...

And to anyone playing on Swashbuckler level and being successfully, I am hard serious respect for you reactions and game skills.. :D

Is it just me or is there a huge step in difficulty between Rogue and Swashbuckler??? I am playing on Rogue and doing okay but on Swashbuckler I just get my arse kicked all the time...

P.S. anyone else find the dancing more nerve-racking than then fighting???

[solypsist]

as you've probably discovered, on the higher difficulties the dancing gets really tough; the keypad is no longer highlighted so you have to follow your partner's hand movements.

[BDC]

as you've probably discovered, on the higher difficulties the dancing gets really tough; the keypad is no longer highlighted so you have to follow your partner's hand movements.
I can't do it. ~:(

The foreward and backward stuff is especially hard.

[frogbeastegg]

:blinks: The keypad highlights? I was playing on the easiest level for a good few hours before I was offered the chance to ramp things up and I have always followed the hand movements. I'm getting good now; I've done a couple of flawless dances and most of the time I only make 1 or 2 mistakes. I'm only playing on the middle level though, slowly working my way up as soon as I'm offered the chance. I'm still annoyed I wasn't offered the choice of difficulty and era right at the start; I hope they didn't remove it from the UK version.

I've never got the fabled 'dip' dance ending, but then I'm not interested in a clevage shot of my partner anway. :tongueg:

[ShadesWolf]

I just love this game.

I still believe the SLOOP rules the waves, But I must admit I cant dance.

I find the town attacks a nice board game type addition and sea battle are wonderful.......

Still on my first game and curretnly classed as a preachers (or somethig similar)

I have killed four pirates and curretnly rated as an English and Dutch Baron.

[Nelson]

What will become of me if I never master dancing? It always sounded like something I wouldn't like much. If I don't dance at all will it be very crippling to my character? If I never get to marry the guv's daughter, well, I could live with that.

Please tell me that you don't need to dance well to be a good fencer.

[Bob the Insane]

I'm still annoyed I wasn't offered the choice of difficulty and era right at the start; I hope they didn't remove it from the UK version.

I have the UK version, being in the UK and all, and it is in... What is happening is that the first time you play it automatically starts you at the lowest difficulty on the 1660 era...

But when you start a new game you get a form where you can select difficulty level, era and special skill... Add to that certain eras are only avaliable at certain difficulty levels I believe...

[Bob the Insane]

What will become of me if I never master dancing? It always sounded like something I wouldn't like much. If I don't dance at all will it be very crippling to my character? If I never get to marry the guv's daughter, well, I could live with that.

Please tell me that you don't need to dance well to be a good fencer.



~D

Seriously...

1. Romance is only worth a maximum of 10 points of your final total and there are only one or two quests exclusive to it (I think)..

2. It has nothing to do with fencing (other than having to duel with her other man at some point)...

Additional: Technically speaking the dancing is no harder than the fencing, you have only 6 different controls on the num pad (one less than fencing) and you have a short time to react to on screen prompts, her hand signals. It requires approximately the same skill as fencing IMHO... It sometimes requires slightly faster reactions than the fencing at first, but if you spend a little time you will actually learn the dances and so you will know what comes next unlike the random fights... It can be quick but no one is dodging out of your way... ~D

[Jeanne d'arc]

Sounds like a fun game and its an enjoyable review to read, will this come out on the pc?

[Forward Observer]

Well, I finally got the dip/swoon response from a dance routine. This netted me a choice of 3 gifts rather than two. Acquiring items this way can really save you some gold over having to purchase them in the taverns.

Here are a few pointers about dancing that I have picked up by experience and by info I read at the Pirates Ahoy fan site.

There are three responses possible from your partner--distaste if you mess up, a kiss on the hand if you don't make many mistakes, and a big dip/swoon if you have lots of twirl flourishes in your dance. Although the last result may get you an extra item to choose or an extra piece of information, either of the last two will get you on to the next step in romance sequence--that of being told of another suitor which you will have to fight on your 3rd visit.

The prettier the daughter, the harder the dance routine is. You will notice that the plain daughters give straight forward signals while the really hot babes will wave their arms around making the signals harder to read.


The dance moves all seem to have four reps. They may consist of the exact same single move repeated four times. or the same move alternated and mirrored for a total of four, or a sequence of two moves repeated four times. The one exception may be a back--forward--left twirl-left twirl move that is reversed on the next rep.

You only have an allotted amount of time to press the correct key, but you can hit the wrong key and still correct if you quickly hit the right one.
Of course getting the dancing shoes will auto correct a certain amount of mistakes. To get the flourishes, you have to hit the key on the next first beat of the music. The songs are either in 3/4 or 4/4 time which may help those who are musically inclined (that leaves me totally out.)

By the way, I also got a famous pirate defeat cut scene variation just last night that I had never seen before. Up until now for at least 15 or 20 pirate battles, all I had ever seen were the two versions of the pirate being knocked off the ship by the swinging crate---one on the first swing and the other version on the back swing. This time the pirate ducked and then somehow managed to jump on the crate---he then cut the rope with his saber just as he realized that this stupid move sent him and the crate flying off into the ocean.

I also finally got married on my second career, but I only managed to snag one useless piece of a lost city map, before I had to retire.

On this--my 3rd carreer, I chose medicine as my starting skill since this is supposed to let one have the longest career possible. I was forced to retire in my mid forties for my first two careers. I am also playing from the second starting period. There are a lot less ports in total, and Spain has the most by far. My goal is to convert every port I can to English to see how close to world domination I can come.

I have also discovered that if you ransack a city and install your own governor, it is wise to stay in the vicinity for a while for a couple of reasons.

First you can head on off any invasion force which will come pretty quickly. and secondly you can both visit the closest mission plus the closest settlement of same nationally This will allow you to bring immigrants from the mission and a new governor from the settlement. Both of these assignments will require fighting a couple sloops, but they both will help insure that your new port becomes successful and also remain in your country's hands.

One last thing--the manual mentions but does not show a picture of a ship of the line. It also says these ships are rare in the game, and that if you capture one the country you got it from will chase you constantly to get it back.

Has anyone seen one of these yet?


Cheers

[solypsist]

I didn't either, on my first game. So I started a new one and got all the options.



I'm still annoyed I wasn't offered the choice of difficulty and era right at the start; I hope they didn't remove it from the UK version.

[solypsist]

I did, with a Spanish one,and was harrasssed unrelentingly by 20-gun pirate-hunters whenever I got near a Spanish port.




One last thing--the manual mentions but does not show a picture of a ship of the line. It also says these ships are rare in the game, and that if you capture one the country you got it from will chase you constantly to get it back.

Has anyone seen one of these yet?
Cheers

[Red Harvest]

I'm going to have to try this "Pirates." The last sailing game I bought was Age of Sail II by Akella. It is one of only two titles I have returned for refund because they were unusably bugged. I doubt I will ever get conned into purchasing something with Akella's name on it again after watching their BS patch dance. It was an eye opener into how some of the Russian designers operate. Too bad, because the game had some beauty...if the underlying engine had worked.

The game that got me interested in sails was "Ironsides" or something like that for the Commodore (another student down the hall had one.) Simple, but very entertaining, and logical compared to Akella's AOS II which appeared to have purely random gunnery. Anyone know where I could find some sort of PC version of Ironsides (or whatever it was called?

[Bob the Insane]

Sounds like a fun game and its an enjoyable review to read, will this come out on the pc?


It is already available on the PC (at least in the UK) and only on the PC at the moment, but suspect it is heading for the XBox as well, it would certainly fit well on a console..

[Spino]

The game that got me interested in sails was "Ironsides" or something like that for the Commodore (another student down the hall had one.) Simple, but very entertaining, and logical compared to Akella's AOS II which appeared to have purely random gunnery. Anyone know where I could find some sort of PC version of Ironsides (or whatever it was called?

It was called "Broadsides" and I LOVED that game! It even came with a battle editor so you could change all the variables.

[Red Harvest]

That was it, knew it was something with sides. It is a lot of fun,

[Kraellin]

'Broadsides' was also originally a board game.

K.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Has anyone run into a "ship of the line" yet? I've been dying to go up against one of those and I can't seem to find one anywhere in any era. ~:confused:

[solypsist]

48 guns - huge.



Has anyone run into a "ship of the line" yet? I've been dying to go up against one of those and I can't seem to find one anywhere in any era. ~:confused:

[The Tuffen]

Has anyone run into a "ship of the line" yet? I've been dying to go up against one of those and I can't seem to find one anywhere in any era. ~:confused:

I have, nicked one of the french, i was coming up to Tortuga from the east and out of the other french port there i saw a ship that said new warship. I thought yeah i could liberate a warship of the french. went to go into combat and saw that it was a ship of the line. I scared the hell out of me when it fired its 48 guns at me. Didn't think my ship would survive the hit. Thankfully it did and i boarded the ship and beat the captain in a duel. It is now my flagship and one full hit of chainshot nearly takes down the mast of most ships.

[Lechev]

P.S. anyone else find the dancing more nerve-racking than then fighting???

The music is pretty good except too much of J S Bach "Brandenburgh Concerto (No 3,4,5). maybe should include some other composer's music of that era..

[Rosacrux redux]

Hmm... I can see Sid continues milking the same, old, tired cow... why doesn't he turn on "Colonization" and start milking that old cow for more milk... even a modern transition of the old game would a great gift to all us TBS lovers

[solypsist]

finally solved all the missions and retired, married and wealthy.

[Kraxis]

Hmm... I can see Sid continues milking the same, old, tired cow... why doesn't he turn on "Colonization" and start milking that old cow for more milk... even a modern transition of the old game would a great gift to all us TBS lovers

Yeah... Colonization all the way. That was a great game, and I can see its possibilities in the of today. Perfect.
It need not the complex techsystem and diplomacy of Civ3, it would benefit quite a lot from better graphics (I always wondered how the game would if it looked like when that first ship on hte intro made landfall).

[The Tuffen]

Absolutly loved colonization. Really hope an updated version is released as i can't get it to run in XP.

[ShadesWolf]

Hmm... I can see Sid continues milking the same, old, tired cow... why doesn't he turn on "Colonization" and start milking that old cow for more milk... even a modern transition of the old game would a great gift to all us TBS lovers

If only, my altime favourite game, I still got back to it now and play from time to time.

Please an updated version, with Total war type epic battle.....

[SwordsMaster]

Gah! Got the game 2 days ago, can't stop playing! It is addictive in the same way the good old Civ 2 was.

I still cant master the dancing thingy and keep destroying my lady's shoes, but we're getting there.

In the other hand, the only thing that can stop me from capturing a ship, is that it blows up ~D . Im playing on mrdium now, and the blowing up happens quite often. Im always too broke to upgrade the grape shot...

Anyway, a great game.... My assignments will suffer... :book:

[Tribesman]

First try yesterday , good fun , but havn't managed the dancing at all , once you stumble you seem to miss out on the next hand signal as well .
Grabbed a French line ship from the same location as Tuffen found his .
Raining today so no work , time to go Pirating ~:)

[SwordsMaster]

Anyone know yet what is the difference of being in "good health" and "bad health"? Or when you get too old?

[Sir Moody]

when the Health status changes it indicates ure getting older and as such are getting slower

my current Game is for Carribean domination by the Britich - im 29 now and theres only 8 Spanish Ports and 1 Dutch left to work with :duel: (i got rid of the french first)

its truely a damn fine game and so darn addictive

[BDC]

when the Health status changes it indicates ure getting older and as such are getting slower

my current Game is for Carribean domination by the Britich - im 29 now and theres only 8 Spanish Ports and 1 Dutch left to work with :duel: (i got rid of the french first)

its truely a damn fine game and so darn addictive
How do you do that? Get a big crew and just beat up everyone on land?

[Sir Moody]

to capture a Port the the first stage is pissing the nation off to the extent they wont let you dock anymore - then Attacking the Port.

In the majority of cases 1 attack wont be enough you will have to attack the Port a few times in quick succession until you are given the option of installing a new Governer.

and yes a large crew is very very helpful....

[doc_bean]

You can also piss off a specific city by firing at it from the world map (pressing the spacebar), after you sacked your first city you should be hated enough by that nation :-)

If you want to quickly get your ports up in rank (from poor to wealthy) it's best to install a new governor and send some immigrants in. This might be to much of an inconvenience at earlier era's though.

I've also noticed that city flourish when they have other friendly ports nearby, Margeritha went down hill quickly after I had isolated it (conquered the 3 neighbouring cities on the main) and my newly conquered cities grew very fast. Same thing with Havana (although much slower) after I had the keys for a while.

It might also help to attack ships trying to leave and enter a port, I'm pretty sure this works for troop carriers (lowers the amount of defenders, or at least keeps it the same).

Great game, much deeper than you notice at first.

[frogbeastegg]

Word of advice to any other Radeon users out there: don't try the 4.12 cats with Pirates. I did and my framerate went from glassy smooth to unplayable jerkiness. I am now happily using the 4.11s.

Is it my imagination or does your pirate slowly start to look ... um, less cute as he ages? I'm sure mine has unsightly stubble now ...

[Sir Moody]

yup frog as he ages he looks more and more haggered....

only 3 ports left now -all Spansih and all with 400-500 troops.... its gonna be a long battle :)

[Forward Observer]

yup frog as he ages he looks more and more haggered....

only 3 ports left now -all Spansih and all with 400-500 troops.... its gonna be a long battle :)


I'm too lazy to read back through this thread, but if it hasn't been mentioned before, a good way to prep an enemy port before battle is to get the either the local Indians or pirates to attack first. They will usually be defeated, but it can reduce the enemy forces by as much as 40%.

By the way the manual indicates that the enemy forces can have artillery units, but I have not seen this in any land battle yet.

Has anyone encountered this yet?

[Sir Moody]

yup i know but the 3 remaining (well 1 now ~;) ) are the land locked ones and you cant send pirates or indians to those

[Ja'chyra]

Is there a demo version of this out?

[Forward Observer]

Is there a demo version of this out?

There is nothing listed for a demo at the "Pirates" web site.

By the way I saw it in the CD version at Wal-Mart yesterday for only
$37.95. I paid like $54 for the DVD version, but regardless, I still feel like I got more than my money's worth.

Cheers

[Nelson]

This Christmas I received Pacific Fighters, Battle for Middle Earth, the Painkiller expansion, Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay and Pirates! .

Guess which one kept me up all night?

Dancing is very helpful and one can only get good at it by dancing a lot and learning the music. Consequently the game rewards long bouts of play. My first dances of a session are always lead footed.

I play at rogue. I might move to swashbuckler eventually but rogue is hard enough especially in the earlier time periods.

I always take the fencing skill as I remember that as being most important from the old version. Charm is useful but a social failure won’t get you captured or cost you your flagship! So I enhance the fencing skill when given a choice between say, a puffy shirt and a spyglass.

I could go on and on talking about Pirates!. My brother got it too and we spent the last week comparing notes. Any designer looking to remake an old favorite should talk to Sid. He knows how to rekindle the magic.

[Somebody Else]

Here's another person that can't handle dancing. I can't in the game either. Everything else comes fairly easily - I didn't notice much difference between the difficulty levels. Heh - I just captured two brigs and a galleon using a skeleton-crewed large frigate, Henry Morgan's one actually - stole that off him before my first ever division of plunder.

[ElmarkOFear]

I bought the game for my son for Christmas, but have yet to load the game onto the PC. He is busy playing thru the Neverwinter campaign and I have been preoccupied with Civ3 Complete. Sounds like a made a good choice in games though. :)

[Bob the Insane]

I didn't notice much difference between the difficulty levels.

I didn't either until I got to Swashbuckler and all of a sudden you need the reactions of a mongoose to keep up, especially if you start on that level...

[Somebody Else]

Actually - I just had to tone down the difficulty levels - I promoted myself up to swashbuckler late at night, whilst somewhat tired. In the morning (the next afternoon) I had to go down a level. I seem to have quicker reactions when I'm tired or something.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

I remember playing Oirates on the commodore 64 and I was totally addicted at that time. Looks like I may have found a game to buy with the exchange I have coming from EB for returning that crap game RTW ~D .

[Kraellin]

ok, i've been on vacation for the last 6 weeks and didnt have a computer available to me that was powerful enough to run the game. i bought it, but couldnt play it. i'm home now and have been playing this for 2 to 3 hours per day since. it's quite an improvement over the original and i'm enjoying it.

however, my machine seems a bit underpowered, even though it meets and exceeds the minimum specs. i've a bit of a lag in response time from when i hit the appropriate button, like in the sword fighting and to when the game actually responds. thus, the dancing is almost impossible. by the time i read the hand signals and enter my key press, my boy has already stumbled the move and so i naturally miss the next signal and stumble that as well. the sword fighting i can get away with as the anticipation/prediction is a bit easier and the moves are so exaggerated that i could go for a walk and come back and still beat the other guys. but the dancing is impossible.

along with that, the land battles are incredibly tedious. i like them, or would, but it takes just too long for the soldier groups to move from one square to the next. a battle that shld take no more than 10 minutes or so, takes about 30 to 40 if i have a large group of pirates.

the sea battles are great. i've a few things i might have done differently, but it's pretty nit-picky. the smooth transitions from sea map (strategy) to the sea battles (tactical) is impressive. if you meet a ship and decide to fight it, the relative positions of the ships and land masses are EXACTLY the same in the tactical as in the strategy map. that's quite a feat.

i played and quit the first game on the easy mode.... way too easy. i'm currently playing the middle level of 'adventurer' and now have a frigate as my flagship, and where this is better, i may have to jump up to rogue soon.

everything transitions better from one thing to the next, the sea battles, the land battles, finding the pirate treasures, the in town stuff and so on. much more professional.

however, they left out some obvious mechanical things ... or i think they did. the game is so intuitive that i've spent almost no time looking in the manual. one of the things i'd like is a hot key for the 'continue' button. in some screens you can use the '5' key on the keypad or the return key for the 'continue' button, but in others, you cant. this is a bit clumsy and shld be an easy fix (if it actually needs a fix). i also dont like that i cant save games in town. i can understand why not in a conversation, but surely you shld be able to from the town menu. that just seems obvious. i do like that there is an autosave that takes place when you quit. that's a nice feature, but i dont like that i have to go to sea to use a save slot to save. also, the save slots cant be named. i like naming my saves so i can remember them better.

i've also a bit of a bored feeling with the game. maybe i'm just playing on too easy a level, but there's something overall missing from the game, some sense of adventure or newness or something. there are few surprises and few areas where i cant predict the outcome.... or something. i dont know. maybe the royal navies shld be more active in pursuing me with a fleet of ships of the line or something, or maybe there shld be more of a fog of war.... something.

also, what happened to the routine of sailing into an enemy port and playing cannon fire from the fort to you and you to the forts? i've seen a few enemy forts fire at me, but i cant seem to engage them in combat. i always liked that aspect of the game. if you then won, you could enter the town and pillage it or take it. now, the only way i seem to be able to do this is to land on land and walk to the town and capture it that way.

i've also noticed that almost no ship can or will outrun me in the tactical battles. even the small pinnaces that shld be able to run rings around my frigates or at least outrun them, are easy prey.

also, wasnt it true that when you got captured and imprisoned that you either lost all your ships and plunder or only kept one at the most? now, i can get out of jail free (for 500 gold by bribing a guard) and, i get all my ships back. that just seems odd.

my impression is, then, that the game is more professionally done, but it also seems to have been dumbed down a bit and is a bit too predictable. it's still fun, but not quite the adventure the old game was. if you took the first person, limited view of the high seas that Pirates of the Carribean had and combined it with this game, added in charts and maps and more realistic navigation on the open seas, i think you'd get more of that sense of 'gee, i wonder what's over the next horizen?'.

K.

[Spino]

Word of advice to any other Radeon users out there: don't try the 4.12 cats with Pirates. I did and my framerate went from glassy smooth to unplayable jerkiness. I am now happily using the 4.11s.

Doh! Didn't realize the Cat 4.12s were not optimized for Pirates! However, I'm using the Cat 4.12s and the game runs rather well on my rig at 1024x768 (then again I have a XP 2400, 9800Pro & 1gig of ram). It could be better but it's not awful. I'm not touching the 4.11s, according to many user posts over at rage3d.com the 4.11s are more problematic with other games than the 4.12s.

There is good news for the ATI users, the Catalyst 5.1 drivers have been released and have addressed the problem with intermittent/choppy video playback when anti-aliasing is enabled.


Is it my imagination or does your pirate slowly start to look ... um, less cute as he ages? I'm sure mine has unsightly stubble now ...

~:confused: Who wants to be a pretty pirate? Aside from death by cannon, sword and hanging by local officals I believe death by unsolicited buggery is also in the standard job description. The uglier the better!