This game is the latest entry in a line of games of the same name, the first of which debuted in the 1980s. Sid Meier's Pirates has since been updated for post-2000 AD Windows platforms (though it has since been ported to other platforms).
As in the previous games, the player takes on the role of a pirate. Starting a new game has the player choosing the talents of his/her player character; this is a permanent choice. The player also selects the starting port of the game and also its timeline. Choosing which one of three centuries determines the distribution of prosperity in the Caribbean. The starting conditions also determine which type of ship that the player starts with.
The backstory has the player character's family being wronged by nobles known as the "Evil Spaniards". The player character escapes by smuggling himself aboard a ship. After some time as a deckhand aboard the ship, he staged a mutiny and rose to its captaincy, thus starting a career as a budding pirate lord.
The player is then thrust into the sailing mode with his/her ship immediately moving in a certain direction, albeit very slowly. If the player did not choose to start with tutorials, he/she would be quite unsure of what to do. If he/she did, there are on-screen indicators to inform the player on what to do. The game conveniently repeats the conditions that allow the player to follow the instructions, such as repeatedly spawning new merchant ships if the player fails to attack and capture one as instructed.
Once the player gets the gist of the gameplay fundamentals, he/she may find that the game can be surprisingly engaging. The player can have the protagonist building up his/her fortune as a pirate, privateer and/or merchant, or to pursue those who have wronged the family of the player character. There is no overbearing shoe-horning.
The sailing mode has the player's ship moving about a disproportionately scaled model of the Caribbean while a compressed timer ticks away the days. Although the player can turn the ship to control its direction, its speed is dependent on the fickle winds of the Caribbean. If the player's ship is sailing against the wind, its progress will be sluggish; if the player's ship is sailing downwind, it can achieve top speed easily.
Unlike its previous incarnation, Pirates (2004) has other ships appearing in sailing mode as actual models of their own, instead of popping up only in random encounters. Sailing up to another ship raises on-screen prompts to engage in battle or to simply hail the other ship (which does nothing much). The player can also choose which ship to engage, if there is more than one in close proximity.
However, engaging a fleet of ships, e.g. a treasure-bearing ship with its escorts, will have the player engaging the entire fleet in the same battle. This can be a problem, as the player can only bring one ship into battle, as will be elaborated later. Furthermore, the player can only ever capture one ship from such a battle; the rest are simply sunk, even the ones that the player has successfully boarded. On the other hand, naval battles involving multiple ships were not present in the previous Pirates games, so this is somewhat an improvement over its predecessors.
If the player chooses to engage, the game loads up a magnified version of the current location in the Caribbean that the player is in. This is a surprisingly quick process.
If the player fights near any land, there will be bodies of land to worry about. Although ships cannot crash onto land due to design conveniences, the bodies of land do prevent sailing, which can be a hazard in battle. Furthermore, weather conditions are also brought into the fight. In addition, if the other ship is not already hostile, the other ship won't start firing until the player does; it will only take evasive maneuvers to avoid contact.
All these pre-battle factors require the player to time his/her attacks on other ships wisely, which is a good design consequence.
However, it has to be mentioned here that naval combat does not necessarily occur within the dedicated naval combat mode. A hostile ship may actually fire its cannons in the sailing mode; hostile ports can also fire their cannon batteries. The player's own ship cannot fire cannons in sailing mode, so this gives NPC ships a rather unfair advantage.
A naval battle has ships on both sides trying to outmaneuver each other, in order to gain a favourable position to fire its cannonade at the other ship, to direct the ship to ram the other for a boarding action, or to simply flee.
The manoeuvrability of a ship is its most important asset in positioning, but even agile ships would have trouble if the fickle winds go against them. To gain some measure of control, the player can attempt to raise sails to mitigate the effects of bad winds, but changing the states of sails can take a while. Moreover, changing sails causes the crew to be occupied; they cannot reload cannons when they are busy with this, thus making the ship unable to retaliate.
On-screen indicators inform the player of the speeds of participating ships, their general directions, numbers of their crew and such other important statistics. These are handy, but if there are more than two ships, the indicators can clutter the screen.
Ships can only fire from their sides, that is, their "broadsides", to use a sailing term; there are no prow- or rear-mounted cannons (which is a lost opportunity for more sophistication in the gameplay).
The momentum of a ship and even the wind may affect the direction and concentration of the broadside volleys. A volley may be spread out as a result of wide turning as a ship's cannonade fires, whereas turning against the wind may concentrate a volley, which is useful if the target has a large profile relative to the position of the player's ship.
The player does not need to wait for all cannons to be loaded before firing a volley; even if just a few cannons have been loaded, the player can fire if he/she just needs a few more shots. Unfortunately, the player cannot choose to fire some of the cannons that have been reloaded instead of all of them in the next volley. Such additional control over cannons would have been much appreciated.
If the player is fast enough, he/she can even switch the type of rounds used when a volley is being fired, thus causing the volley to be a mixture of rounds. There is no need to reload the cannons to switch rounds, which is a convenient if unbelievable design.
However, regardless of the player's attempts at controlling cannon-fire, all cannons appear to have the same range, regardless of the shapes and sizes of ships; only ammo type affects range. This is a disappointing design omission, as it would have made the game more sophisticated otherwise.
A ship has several factors contributing to its durability: its hull, its crew and its sails. All three are damaged by any cannon-fire, but the distribution of damage depends on the type of rounds used.
A ship with a ruined hull is guaranteed to sink. It is usually not in a player's interest to completely sink an enemy ship, because a captured ship can be repaired to be sold. There may also be precious cargo to obtain from the ship. Its remaining crew may also join the player's own, which may be advantageous when sailing the open seas.
If the survival of the enemy crew is not of importance and a boarding action is desired, the player may choose to use grapeshot rounds, which do more damage to the other ship's crew than any other component. Being a "T"-rated game, crewmen who are slain by grapeshot is never shown dying in any graphic manner; instead, they simply fall overboard or just disappear.
If a player prefers a ship and its crew as intact as possible, ripping into its sails may be preferable. Chain-shot rounds happen to be very good at tearing sails apart.
The different rounds have different effective ranges; the regular rounds have default range, whereas the others have shorter ranges. Handy indicators at the bottom left corner of the screen will inform the player which kinds of rounds are within range of the target ship.
All ships have access to unlimited ammunition, which is a convenient if a bit unbelievable game design.
Successful hits on a ship impart secondary damage, depending on the location struck. For example, hitting the broadside of the hull of a ship causes it to lose some crew and cargo, which spills into the water, and also hurts its manoeuvrability. Damaging the hull also reduces the number of working cannons on the other ship.
Hitting the masts is quite difficult, but masts have hitpoints that are separate from those of the (comparatively bigger) hull of the ship. If the player can hit the masts, most of the damage goes to the mast. Yet another example is hitting the deck of the ship, which damages the crew more than the hull or sails.
Although the mechanism for secondary damage is sophisticated, taking advantage of it is challenging, as the player has to control the direction of the volleys by having his/her ship lurch and turn before firing.
Sometimes, an enemy ship, after taking too much damage either to its hull, its crew or even its sails, may try to surrender. This is indicated by white flags being raised on deck (and any remaining masts). The ship also slows to a halt. When this happens, the player may board the ship and automatically claim it – or he/she can continue firing and condemn the ship to a watery doom.
The player may want to capture a ship, but there is a chance of accidentally sinking a ship that is surrendering. An enemy ship may refuse to yield until it is at the verge of sinking. It may raise the white flags just after the player has launched the last volley of cannon-fire, which of course dooms the other ship.
An enemy ship on the verge of defeat may decide to flee instead. It turns downwind, or in any direction that gives it a speed advantage, even if it is upwind (the A.I. can make some surprisingly good decisions on this). This can end the battle for the player with little gain for the resources that have been expanded. It is rare though for a heavily damaged ship to be able to flee, but it can happen.
This would not be frustrating if the game allows the player to end a battle and return to the sailing mode when he/she realizes that he/she has no chance at running down the other ship. Unfortunately, this only happens when there is a great distance between the player's ship and the fleeing ship – a distance that may take a long while to build if the fleeing ship is sailing upwind, but already has enough speed to outrun the player.
In addition to monitoring the other ship during battle, the player may want to look out for debris that either ship drops into the water when damaged; flotsam such as cargo and overboard crew is a mechanism introduced in this incarnation of Pirates. Simply having the player's ship sail over these adds them to the player's crew and cargo counts, though the reward is not as much as capturing a ship intact.
While the quality of the ships participating in combat is important, just as important is the number of crew on each of them, especially the player's. A ship requires crew to work its sails, its rudder and its cannonade. The exact amount of crew needed for full efficiency is not told to the player, but if the player has insufficient crew, he/she will be informed of this. Insufficient crew causes a ship to be sluggish and perform poorly in battle.
If the player wants to claim a ship but forcing a surrender is not possible or is simply not convenient, he/she can attempt to board, which is as simple as ramming his/her ship into the other ship (but which is not very authentic as boarding action during this era of the Caribbean is far from this crude); alternatively, the other ship, which is controlled by the A.I. may attempt a boarding action if it believes that it can win through this way.
It is also worth noting here that this game mechanism allows the player to win battles without firing cannons at all, if the player has the skill and experience to close the distance between his/her ship and the ship to be boarded.
Upon successful ship-to-ship contact, the game loads up the Fencing mode, specifically a version that was made for boarding action. While the crew of both ships fight each other and their numbers dwindle down, the player character engages the captain of the other ship in a duel. This duel is not too complex; the player needs to time attacks, dodges and parries to reduce the momentum of his/her opponent while increasing that of his/her player character.
The first duel that the player would engage in would be very easy with on-screen instructions if he/she has enabled tutorials. The player can choose to do a forward jab, underhand swing or overhead strike, or choose to defend. Although any action would be effective on a weak enemy (who is typically animated rather slowly), for more skilled ones (which have faster animations), the player has to choose which action to take wisely.
Before starting any duel, a player gets to choose the type of blade that the protagonist will use. There are three, each giving a different balance between animation speeds for parrying and those for attacking. However, the player may not know which blade his/her opponent is using until the duel starts, which is an inconvenience. The game also does not inform the player in-game or in its documentation that the "defence" and "offense" factors actually govern the animation speeds.
(It should be noted here that the game restricts the player to the Longsword on Apprentice difficulty. This is an odd restriction, considering that the other difficulties allow the player to choose blades.)
The player character's own animation speed is dependent on a few factors, one of which is somewhat outside of the player's control; these will be elaborated on later.
Every type of attack has one of type of counter, which may be either an outright dodge or a parry. A dodge must be well-timed, or the character would be hit; dodging or parrying successfully causes the attacker to lose his balance, making him vulnerable to a follow-up attack. Countering an attack with an attack of the same type staves off a hit, but causes both combatants to perform sword-clashing animations that last for a few seconds each time it happens (which may or may not be desirable when there is a battle raging in the background).
The relative momentum of either combatant against the other is visualized by the "Advantage" meter at the bottom of the screen. This meter represents a tug-of-war of sorts, which has one participant making a gain in this meter by simply scoring hits on the opponent; neither combatant has any health rating. Gaining momentum not only brings the player closer to the conclusion of the duel, but also makes the player character's animations faster and those of the opponent slower; conversely, this can happen in the opponent's favour.
Having the crew of one ship diminishing would cause the advantage of the owning captain to diminish too. However, the player does not have much control over this beyond having more than enough crew to join the boarding action in the first place, as the game decides on its own which crew diminishes quicker than the other.
Such designs mean that winning participants are more than likely to win, which may not necessarily be a good design. However, if the player is losing, he/she can stall for time, because over time, the Advantage bar returns to equilibrium, thus resetting both participants' animation speeds to default.
The version of Fencing Duels in boarding actions can be ended in one of two ways: one of the duelists managed to force the other off the ship that they are fighting on, or the crew of one ship has been annihilated by the other, thus forcing said ship's captain to either surrender or abandon ship (though only on the next successful hit).
The latter solution can be especially convenient if the player has a lot more crew than the other ship, but is facing an enemy captain that is of particularly high skill. The player can attempt to stall for time by parrying or dodging attacks, waiting for the other captain's crew to be depleted.
In ship-boarding duels, there may be items in the environment that can be used in the player's advantage. There may be buckets that may be kicked at the opponent to stun him, or ropes that can be swung from to dodge an attack. These are much more potent than regular attacks and dodges, so the player would be wise to utilize them whenever the opportunity arises. On the other hand, some enemies (especially the more skilled ones) may perform special moves of their own too. They often perform this at random, which can be an unpleasant surprise.
If the player wins in a boarding action, he/she gets to claim the other ship as his/her own and add it to his/her fleet, as well as all of its cargo and perhaps some of its crewmen.
If he/she loses instead, the protagonist abandons ship and loses his/her actively controlled ship, switching to the next one in the fleet – if any. If the player no longer has any ship, he/she is captured and sent to prison in the nearest port aligned to the other ship's faction; there will be more elaboration on incarceration later. The player may also be dumped on a nearby island or land mass with some crew, but said land mass usually has a port or two that the player can enter and attempt to procure another ship.
Duels like these do not just occur for boarding actions in the game, but also in other segments of the game, as will be described when appropriate.
(It should be mentioned here too that the previous games have implemented a cheesy form of copy protection involving a duel right at the beginning of the game; if the player failed the verification process, the duel quickly ends in a game-over. This version of Pirates omits this, which is fortunate.)
Eventually, the player will find himself/herself with more than one ship in his/her possession; the player can have up to eight ships in total. The actively controlled ship is called the "Flagship". The Flagship's size is slightly exaggerated than its default size during sailing mode, in order to differentiate it from the rest in the fleet. That the camera is always centred on the Flagship in sailing mode is another visual indicator.
The ship that has been designated as the Flagship gains the benefit of being unsinkable when in sailing mode: any damage incurred to its hull, no matter how severe, will not sink it.
Every other ship is controlled by the A.I. and attempts to keep up with the Flagship. This means that if the player's current Flagship is a ship that is faster than the rest, the rest risk being left far behind. The game will not remove and replace them near the player's Flagship when they have been left behind too far. Instead, it slows the player's Flagship down until the rest catches up. This can be very frustrating, as the A.I. is not competent at keeping up at anywhere other than open ocean. Archipelagos can be a major headache, where the less-than-competent A.I. gets lost among the clusters of islands.
Moreover, these other ships are treated by hostile NPC ships in the same manner as the Flagship would be treated, so they risk being damaged by attacks made in sailing mode. Unlike the Flagship, they do not have the benefit of being unsinkable in sailing mode.
These other ships carry cargo and crewmen, but only the crewmen on the Flagship matter in naval combat and boarding. This is because only the Flagship engages in combat; the rest do not participate. The absence of fleet versus fleet combat is a disappointing omission, especially considering that the player can be pitted against two or more ships in a single battle, which can place the player at a disadvantage. Moreover, the other ships require skeleton crews to sail at full speed, which takes away crew that could have gone into the Flagship.
It has to be noted here that boarding action occurs in what is an instant in game-time. Therefore, the player can board and capture one ship in a naval battle against more than one ship, and then continue the battle against the rest as if no time has passed. However, only the ship that the player has specifically targeted can be captured; the rest are sunk.
If the player has reached the maximum number of eight ships, he/she simply cannot capture any new ship until he/she has gotten rid of one before the battle; a prompt to exchange one existing ship for the newly captured one would have been much welcome.
After a battle, if he/she has not enough crew to sail all ships including those that have been captured, he/she is prompted to scuttle enough ships. Scuttling ships results in the loss of excess cargo and cannonade if the remaining ships cannot take them on. The other alternative is to have the fleet slows down to a crawl.
Moreover, if the player loses a ship due to it sinking, cargo (and crew) is automatically removed without any chance to redistribute them. At least, the game will dump the non-essential cargo to make space first, only dumping Food and Cannon later.
All these drawbacks for the mechanisms for fleets mean that the player is likely to end up controlling just one ship throughout the game, as it would not be convenient otherwise. Fortunately, the game at least prompts the player to pick which ship to be used in an impending naval battle, though this one will be assigned the status of Flagship once the battle ends, even if it was not the Flagship before.
Hostile ships are not the only dangers in the Caribbean seas. There are other dangers due to the climes and geography.
One of the most avoidable is shallow water: this can be seen where there are shoals (that is, sandbanks that are rather close to the surface). Sailing over these automatically damages the hull of the ship, as well as slowing it down, thus discouraging anyone from going over them except for the most foolhardy of players.
Another is the oncoming of storms, which can be seen as storm-clouds flying over the water at various speeds from the edges of the screen. These can be avoided too, but if the player has a fleet, he/she would discover that the A.I. is generally not very skilled at avoiding storms.
A game about pirates in the Caribbean would not be complete without a variety of ships. The game does not disappoint in this aspect.
The ships in the game are categorized according to their roles and/or weight. Every category in turn has three variants: the smallest variant is the lightest and most agile, the largest variant is the slowest of the three but generally has the most staying power for combat, and there is one in the middle with balanced statistics.
The most common of ships are the Sloop category of ships. Sloops are fast, small vessels that can sail far more easily than bigger ships, but are generally weak. They cannot hold much cargo and cannot accommodate many crewmen. However, Sloops are very advantageous if the player's intent is to sink another ship that happens to be bigger and slower. Sloops are also very good at following much larger ships around, mainly due to their smaller hitboxes and greater maneuverability, which means that if the player wants to have a fleet, these are likely to be secondary vessels.
An even lighter category of ships is the Pinnace. The Pinnace is the weakest of all ship categories, but it does have designs that fans of the game would find special in their own right. For example, the Indian War Canoe, the lightest of the Pinnace ships, is associated with players who resort to boarding action duels to capture ships, as they consider the ship to be the best at closing the distance.
Then, there is the Barque category of ships. These are the lightest merchant vessels in the game, sacrificing slots for cannons for more cargo space while still retaining the speed associated with light vessels.
The Fluyt is perhaps a category of ships that is not used by most players, except by those who are especially enamoured with trading. This ship sacrifices a lot of agility and firepower for cargo space, which is not the best of trade-offs. In fact, the player is likely to go after such ships if he/she is working on piratical activities. Still, the game designers have included this category of ships for the sake of authenticity, as this category of ships is almost exclusively used by the Dutch.
The Brig is the lightest category of ships intended for protracted battles. They are often favoured by players who prefer a balance of firepower, durability and speed.
The Merchantman, as its name suggest, is a category of ships that is mainly intended for trading. Having ample cargo space facilitates this activity, but being among the slowest of ships, the Merchantman is more than likely to be the target of boarding actions. However, with a thick hull and a sizable array of cannons, it is more than capable of taking on ships with the intention of sending it to the bottom of the ocean.
The Galleon category of ships is perhaps one of the most interesting. It is associated with the Spanish in the real-world, and it so happens that Galleons are very often in the possession of the Spanish in this game. There are two further subcategories of these large ships: one that is intended for trade and transport purposes, the other for combat.
If the Spanish have their Galleons, the other two colonial powers have Frigates. These are the toughest combat ships in the game, making them ideal for battles where the goal is to simply sink the other ship. Indeed, the A.I. scripts appear to realize this; it will attempt to resort to a protracted battle when it is in control of a Frigate, but attempts a boarding action instead when the player is using a Frigate.
In addition to statistics in cargo, combat capability and speed, ships also have some more nuanced designs. These are the sails that they use and their width-to-length ratios (which govern their hitboxes), to cite a few, and these are sophisticated enough as to make each type of ship different from the others.
For example, the Indian War Canoe is the least affected by wind speeds, retaining its high speeds even when sailing upwind. Another example is that the Combat Galleon's broad square rigging gives it the greatest top speed when sailing upwind, but also terrible agility and rather wide hitboxes for their sails.
The player will be visiting coastal establishments a lot to perform various activities. More prosperous establishments look more elaborate and larger in sailing mode, which is a convenient visual cue.
These establishments are typically accessible by ship, though the player can also choose to anchor and disembark somewhere nearby and go in on foot. The player can always visit the Pirate Havens, but Ports only allow the latter safe entrance if the player is on good terms with the colonial power that controls them. Otherwise, the hostile Port would fire on the player's ships if it has cannons, though the player can still attempt to approach and enter the Port.
Every Port has places within them that portray the activities that the player can engage in while having the fleet/ship harboured. These places include the Shipwright's docks, the Tavern, the Merchant district and the Governor's palace/mansion.
Every Shipwright offers ship repairs, which the player will be paying for the most. A Shipwright also offers one of eight kinds of ship upgrades; thus, to obtain all upgrades for one ship, the player must visit Shipwrights at multiple Ports to obtain them all. This is daunting but rewarding, as an upgraded ship is always better than a stock ship.
Some upgrades are obviously most useful for the Flagship, which as mentioned earlier is the only ship in the player's fleet that goes into combat. These include the two types of rounds other than regular rounds, Fine-Grain Powder that increases the range of cannons, and Bronze Cannons which increase accuracy (though the improvement is rather subtle).
The other ships in the player's fleet may not be able to participate in combat, but some of the other upgrades are still useful if the player wants them to carry more crewmen, sail faster and be generally tougher. On the other hand, this difference in the utility of different upgrades for the Flagship and other ships in the fleet would reinforce the impression of a lost opportunity for fleet versus fleet battles.
Also, the cargo space of a ship cannot be upgraded. This is another lost opportunity for more sophistication in the game's designs.
A ship of a more powerful category costs more to upgrade, but ships from the same category can have the same upgrade for the same cost, regardless of the ships' buying prices. The costs of upgrades also depend on the type of coastal establishment that they are obtained from. Barring discounts at Ports controlled by colonial powers that have good relations with the player, Pirate Havens generally provide the best prices. It is also worth noting here that different types of upgrades still cost the same.
Buying upgrades increases a ship's value, but not by the same amount that the player paid for the upgrades. On the other hand, currying favour with a colonial power reduces prices for these upgrades and eventually for free when the player has the best level of relations with said power; there will be more elaboration of colonial powers and other factions later. Afterwards, a player can turn a profit by having ships upgraded at ports belonging to said colonial power and then selling them (often at the same ports that provided the upgrades).
It is worth noting here that the mechanism of ship upgrades is not in previous Pirates games. It is also worth noting that NPC ships sometimes spawn into the game world with upgrades; this is more than a certainty for NPC ships that are on important missions and the ships of pirate lords and the Evil Spaniards.
However, the player cannot easily know what upgrades another ship has in sailing mode. There are visual cues like a ship turning rather quickly for its size (which indicate that Copper Plating has been installed) and brighter sales (which suggest that a ship has Cotton Sails), but these are subtle.
The exception to this (deliberate) design omission is information on the pirate lords. The player can gather intelligence on these individuals, which include upgrades on their ships. There will be more on Pirate Lords later.
Regardless, it is only in Naval Combat that the player is given information on the upgrades that the enemy ship has, if any.
The player can visit the Tavern in a Port or Pirate Haven to gather various pieces of information by talking to the NPCs within it. This information is often randomized and stays the same for some in-game time regardless of how many times the player tries to talk them up within the same Tavern.
Another reason for the player to hit the Tavern is to meet potential recruits for the player's crew. There are ragged but fit sailor types sitting around in one part of the Tavern, who can be approached to listen to their offer of joining the player's crew. There is no up-front payment; the player has only to consider the amount of crewmen that would join upon accepting the offer. The number of recruits depends on the relationship that the player has with the faction that controls the Port, its prosperity and whether the player has performed anything dashing in the Tavern.
Speaking of dashing things to do at the Tavern, there may be an NPC known as the Annoying Captain (who happens to be the Captain of the Guard for that port, no less) who may be harassing the barmaid, who is also one of the most reliable sources of information that the player can have. Confronting this person initiates the Tavern's version of Duels. Winning this one gets the player the approval of anyone else in the Tavern, leading to benefits like more crewmen to hire (if the player has not hired them already) and more juicy pieces of gossip. Losing this duel gets the player imprisoned in the jail of the Port instead.
The Barkeeper is also another source of information, but his information is usually only about the Port that his Tavern is in.
Finally, there is the "Traveller", who is also a source of information (but about other ports instead). However, his information comes at a price, though a trifling one as getting the information elsewhere can be troublesome. He is also a peddler of special (but often expensive) wares, such as Special Items and pieces of Maps that lead to treasure or the player character's family members (more on these later).
The Merchant district is another location that the player will visit frequently. Here, the player can trade cargo in return for gold or other cargo, and vice versa. The prices of goods are dependent on the prosperity of the settlement and its main produce, e.g. locally made goods are traded at lower prices, while scarcer goods fetch for higher. There are other factors, such as sudden scarcity of certain goods, but these depend on the whims of the game's automated event-introducing system.
The types of cargo that a player can obtain are limited and most of them have no practical purpose other than for profiteering. The player can buy cargo at Ports, but it is more convenient to pilfer them off ships that the player has captured. This is because earnest trading is a time-consuming activity that is subjected to fickle winds.
Due to the "Gold on Hand" statistic for Ports, a Merchant can only buy so much cargo from the player before running out of gold for trade. On the other hand, the player can replenish this by buying goods from the Merchant.
Cannons are also a form of cargo, in addition to being weapons. The player can carry in his/her Flagship as many cannons as it can hold as cargo, but the Flagship may not use more than a certain number in battle, depending on its type. Cannons that have been disabled during battle cannot be immediately replaced by those in the cargo hold either; they are only replaced after a fight. Extra cannons can be obtained through trade, or by seizing those used by captured ships. The player can also seize cannons from sacking Ports that have cannon batteries (though these can be daunting targets; see Raids later).
If the player wants to pursue personal relationships with Governors' daughters or curry favour with the colonial powers, the Governor's mansion is the place to go to at Ports. The game mechanisms associated with these activities are rather sophisticated, so they will be described later.
Ports are different from other establishments in the game, in that they can have variable prosperity, which is a status that is visibly reflected by their appearances in sailing mode. The richer ones are visibly larger and have plenty of buildings, as well as more than one battery of cannons.
The player can pull up a list of ports and arrange it according to several aspects of their prosperity (as well as more practical factors, such as distance between them and the player's fleet). These include understandable but vague statistics like population and wealth, but the most relevant of these are Gold (the gold that a Port would yield when sacked), Cargo, Cargo Price and Gold on Hand (which determine how much worthwhile trade that can be had from a Port).
These statistics can change very easily, depending on circumstances that affected the Ports. Moreover, these details will become obsolete quickly, which is an occurrence that will be reflected in the list when their entries are marked as outdated. The player can update their entries with information gathered from Taverns.
The player can change the statistics of a Port by taking missions on behalf of its Governor, which when upon completion, often upgrades the status of the Port; the mechanism of missions will be elaborated later. The status of a Port can also be altered by random events like economic downturns and supply shortages.
A statistic of Ports that is not told to the player in accurate terms is the size and mix of the defence force that it has. The player can try to gauge these using the Population and Wealth rating of a Port, but the exact composition is only known when he/she attacks the Port in a Raid. In fact, the game randomizes the composition every time a Raid starts. This can be a source of frustration, as the player cannot abort a Raid like he/she can flee from a naval battle. (There will be more elaboration on Raids later.)
Pirate Havens are similar to Ports, but they are smaller and often not shown prominently in the sailing mode. They have Shipwrights, Merchants and Taverns, but no other facilities. The player also cannot divvy up the booty that his/her fleet has gained at Pirate Havens. (Dividing plunder will be described soon.)
Pirate Havens do not have Governors, but these are replaced by Pirate Captains that may just be a source of information or may ask the player for his/her opinion on where to direct the piratical activities of the pirates under their command.
However, as the player cannot change his/her relations with the pirates of the Caribbean, these Pirate Havens cannot be developed to reap the benefits like those that the player can get by improving Ports. Therefore, these places are at best just convenience stops, which can be disappointing if one expects more exciting things from Pirate Havens.
Other kinds of places include Abbeys and Indian Villages. These are associated with minor factions, and so will be described later.
Throughout the entire game, from start to end, the player will depend on his/her crewmen for a lot of things, as have been mentioned earlier.
Crewmen are mainly obtained at Taverns, but they can also be obtained from having impressed the crew of a captured ship, which is handy as this allows for opportunities to replenish the crew when exploring the seas. However, although it may seem as if crewmen are hired for free and are not paid, they do expect to be paid sooner or later.
Nevertheless, the player has to keep them happy and feed them as long as they are still with him/her. Keeping them happy can be done by having money and booty rolling in steadily; failing to do so for a week or two will diminish the morale of the crew.
Poor morale causes some of the crew to abandon the player the next time that he/she calls into port (the player does not need to pay them, though they may alight with some of the player's cash and cargo). If morale dips into dangerously low levels, the crew may mutiny and attempt to wrest control of the player's fleet. This does not occur without warning, so the player may attempt to boost morale by bringing in booty from the next ship that is unfortunate enough to cross the player's path.
If the mutiny fails to overthrow the player character completely, the mutineers may flee with one or more ships from the player's fleet (if there is more than one). However, the player can attempt to reclaim the ship, as it still appears in sailing mode and can thus be reclaimed (albeit violently).
Feeding the crew could have been a different mechanism, but the game treats it like it does morale; hungry crewmen get angry and lose morale. At the verge of their limit of tolerance, they simply desert; they never starve. Perhaps the lack of believable designs for hunger among the crew is deliberate in order to maintain the "T"-rating of the game, but this is another lost opportunity for more sophistication in the gameplay.
Each crewman consumes food at the same rate as a result of design simplification, so the number of crewmen and amount of food available are the only factors that the player has to worry about.
Despite how successful a player is at keeping the booty and food coming in, the crew under his/her command will eventually tire of life on the seas, causing an irreversible drop in morale; this is a design that is not emphasized by the game. To continue the session without ceaseless mutinies, the player must return to a port and divide whatever the player has gained, e.g. gold, ships and such, among the crew; the only stuff that the player gets to retain are the special personal items that the player character has collected and his/her Flagship.
Dividing the plunder will advance the timeline of the game and thus contribute to the aging of the protagonist, who is ultimately mortal, so this is not an action to be done lightly. There will be more elaboration on the mechanism of age later.
Anyway, some of the plunder goes into the player character's own savings (which cannot be withdrawn from in any way), some is retained for the next adventure, and the rest goes into the pockets of each crewman. The first portion decides the player's final score when a session has ended, the second is used if the player decides to continue the game instead of retiring (which ends the session permanently), and the third decides how big the player's starting crew is if he/she decides to continue the protagonist's career.
In addition to regular crew, the player can take on Specialists. These are only ever available from capturing ships; they cannot be obtained anywhere else. They act as ever-present benefits to the player's fleet, such as being able to apply hull repairs while at sea (which is very convenient) and reducing food consumption. However, like regular crew, they disappear after the player divvies up the plunder, so the player has to collect them all over again.
In addition to naval battles, there are raids on Ports. Unlike naval battles, raids are played out turn by turn instead of real-time; fans of Sid Meier's Civilization games would be quite familiar with this kind of gameplay.
Furthermore, raids are won by using only the crew; the player's ships will not play a part, not even as fire support. The player must also have more than 100 crewmen to qualify for a raid (and even so the player will usually need more).
Raids on ports can yield a lot of booty – in fact, more booty for the time that the player spent playing than any other activity in the game. On the other hand, raids are very risky; the port has a defensive militia, which is more numerous if the port is more prosperous.
Initiating a raid can be done in two ways, depending on the reputation that the player has with the colonial power that controls the Port. If the Port is hostile, he/she can start a raid simply by sailing into said port and selecting the option to raid it; however, there is no aborting a raid.
If the Port is friendly, the player has to disembark onto land near the port and run over to it on foot before initiating a raid. This is a bit finicky, and more importantly, not immediately apparent to the player unless he/she has looked up the documentation of the game.
Anyway, after a player initiates a raid, virtually all of the player's crew joins the battle, so the player may want to have numbers on his/her side – and he/she has to, due to limitations in the designs for the player's forces.
The game loads up a magnified version of the area around the Port, so the player should consider the terrain around the Port as well before deciding on a Raid. However, this at best only affects the boundaries of the battlefield, namely the area cordoned off by the coast. Any terrain features like rocks and trees are procedurally/randomly distributed, so there may be obstacles in between the player's forces and the defensive militia or none at all.
The player gets to have a zone within the battlefield that he/she can deploy his/her forces in, but she is not able to perceive the locations of the defending units, though the enemy's fort is visible to the player.
The goal of this battle is to either rout all of the defenders, or to get a unit to the gates of the enemy's fort. The latter goal is not described well by the game, and even if the player realizes it, he/she will find that trying to win by resorting to the latter method is difficult when the enemy has access to mounted units that can move a lot faster than any of the player's own, which are all on foot. Even if the player manages to reach the gates, the game will enact a fencing duel, so it is not an automatic win.
Every unit on the battlefield has two statistics that determine its staying power on the battlefield: number of men and morale. Number of men determines how much more casualties that it can take and its damage capability, and it will go down as the unit takes damage; this means that as the unit weakens, so does its potential on the battlefield.
Morale is a more unpredictable statistic. As a unit suffers casualties, its morale will diminish. If its morale reaches a minimal threshold, it will break and run from the battlefield (with amusing fleeing animations). Therefore, a player does not need to annihilate all opposing units to win, but so does the enemy.
The player can only have a very few types of units for his/her forces. There is the Captain's bodyguard unit, which is a stronger variant of the close combat unit. The third type of unit is the pistolier unit, which attack at range. There are no more kinds of units than these.
On the other hand, the defenders may have all of the above, as well as cavalry. This versatility can put the player at a severe disadvantage.
Worst of all, the outcome of a close combat fight is influenced by dice rolls. For example, the player could attack a diminished enemy unit with a fresh one, confident that the fight would turn out in the latter's favour, but the game may decide that the former has managed to stand its ground, causing most of the casualties to be on the player's side instead.
Most players would deduce by now that the only way to win when the defensive militia has so many advantages is to have overwhelming numbers. Yet, gathering the crew needed for such a massive assault is very difficult, due to the mechanisms for food consumption and fleet coherence mentioned above.
Worst of all, even when the player has managed to gather a massive force that outnumbers that of the defensive militia, the game apparently still wants to give the defenders a chance. The player is forced to play out a fencing duel instead, as the battle rages in the background. Although the player is likely to win as his/her massive crew has the advantage of numbers, the fickle system that governs the reduction of men on either side may give the defenders too much advantage if the player attempts to stall for time.
All of these designs make raids one of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of gameplay in this incarnation of Pirates, which is unfortunate.
It should be noted here that the mechanisms for Raids have been simplified greatly for this version of Pirates; the previous games have a bit more sophistication, e.g. the player can gain more rewards than just gold (and notoriety) from successful raids and there are more conditions that need to be fulfilled before a raid can be performed. The simplification may not please veterans of the previous game.
Throughout the game, there are factions that the player can interact with for his/her benefit, or just for fun. However, the colonial powers are perhaps the only factions that the player has the most freedom in dealing with, and perhaps the only ones worth the time.
When left alone, the colonial powers will perform things like sending trade fleets between its colonies (or those of other colonial powers if they are not at war with each other), sending troop transports to its own Ports to reinforce their defence, sending warships after other ships and invading the Ports of other colonial powers, among other activities. In the case of the Spanish, they often produce Treasure ships to be sent to the borders of the Caribbean, especially during times of prosperity.
The player can gain information on what each colonial power intends to do through talking to NPCs at ports or other establishments. The player can then decide to leave them alone, or to intervene, which may earn their ire.
It should be noted here that there are different magnitudes to the consequences from having defeated a warship (and not a merchant ship) from one of the colonial powers, depending on the outcome of the battle. The consequences are greater if the player has captured a warship instead of sinking it. This is a fact that the game does not inform the player (through neither in-game indications nor the documentation), unfortunately.
The player can try to curry favour with these colonial powers, which will grant benefits to the player character. These benefits include free ship upgrades, which have been mentioned earlier, and more gold and cargo for trading at ports that they control. If the player is on bad terms with them, the consequences are immediately apparent, such as Ports firing their cannonade at the player's ships (as mentioned earlier).
Currying favour involves working missions for these colonial powers. Getting a mission is as simple as visiting a Governor of a port that is on good terms with the player and seeing if he has anything that he would like the player character to perform.
The missions involve aiding or interfering with the activities that colonial powers usually do, as mentioned earlier. A player may escort a delivery that belongs to a colonial power in getting to its destination, or the player may attempt to waylay ships of other powers. The player may also be asked to raid the Port of another power and claim it for the power that requested it.
If a player fails a mission, then there is no harm done other than wasted time and opportunity. If the player succeeds, and returns to any port of said colonial power to report said success, his/her player character is rewarded with a promotion, increasing his/her standing with the colonial power. This determines the level of benefits that the player has gained access to, which the game describes quite well in its documentation.
In addition to the colonial powers, there are minor factions, such as the aforementioned Pirates. They can be pleased by simply attacking and defeating ships that have been designed for combat, regardless of which colonial power owns it. It is very difficult to anger the Pirates, even if the player has attacked a Pirate ship; the player has to consistently attack Pirate ships for relations to sour, which is not desirable as Pirate Havens are handy places to stop by in (and they are also the main source of information for locating Pirate Lords).
Then, there are the Indian natives, which are always aligned against the European colonial powers; simply attacking ships and other assets of the colonial powers (even when the player is under the employ of one) will improve relations with them. Benefits include access to the purchase of the rare Indian War Canoe, as well as being able to direct the wrath of the Native Indians on the Ports of the colonial powers (which can be handy if the player is preparing for a raid).
As for the Jesuits, the player won't have much to do with them, unless he/she has managed to garner a bounty, which can be cleared by doing an errand for them. Bounties attract the attention of Privateers and Pirate-Hunters, so clearing bounties may be desirable.
It is worth noting here that the player will not be stripped of any promotions if he/she angers his/her erstwhile patron; a bounty is gained instead, and any benefits will be suspended until it is cleared. The bounty can also be paid off by the player himself/herself; the other alternative is to get caught and jailed, which is not desirable.
Throughout the game, the player will encounter others who live on the other side of the law. These are other pirate lords, or fugitives on the run. The latter are small fries to be hunted down for small gain, but the former can be defeated to move up the ladder of notoriety.
Pirate lords always move about the Caribbean, never staying in one place for long, so tracking them down can be a quest in itself. Information gained on their whereabouts will eventually be outdated, upon which they will reappear at other locations. They may be challenging, but the rewards from defeating them are great; they have a lot of booty to claim, as well as maps that lead to hidden treasure.
Throughout his career, the protagonist may collect special items. There are quite a lot of these, each having two variants; one is obtained first before the other, which is more potent. They can bought from Travellers, gained as prizes from hunted-down fugitives, or obtained as gifts from governors' daughters. Even so, they are rare. Some improve his performance at duels and romancing governors' daughters, while others improve sailing and exploration. Some have very situational uses, such as lockpicks that allow the player to break out of jail. These special items stay indefinitely, unless they are expendables like gifts to governors' daughters.
A game about the glamorized lives of pirates is not complete without treasure-hunting, so it has quests to hunt down pieces of maps that lead to treasures. These pieces of maps can be bought from Travellers, taken from famous pirates or obtained from wooing governors' daughters, among other sources. The most lucrative of these treasures are the lost cities of the Incans, which yield tremendous amounts of gold and add to the player's fame. Although the player can view these maps while they are incomplete, the treasures will not spawn into the game world until they are completed.
As mentioned early on, the player character's family have been wronged by the Evil Spaniards. The player will fight them more than once; each time, they get to escape after having been defeated.
There are up to three Evil Spaniards, two of whom lead to the rescue of said family members and the conclusion of the protagonist's quest for vengeance. Both of them are difficult opponents, having very powerful ships and much better fencing skill than most enemies. Yet, the rewards from defeating them are more immense than any other, so there can be a lot of satisfaction to be had from taking the trouble to track them down and defeat them.
On the other hand, there is a contrivance with these confrontations. The player must always duel them, regardless of the outcome of the battles leading to these duels. This can be a problem if the player is not skilled in the fencing mini-game, or otherwise dislikes it.
One other personal pursuit that the player character can partake in is romance. The governor of every Port has a daughter, though he may not introduce her to the player character until certain conditions have been met (the most important of which is relations with the colonial power that the governor serves).
These conditions also determine which of the three categories of daughters that can be encountered: Plain, Attractive and Beautiful; they have different visual designs depending on their category and nationality. These designs may seem rather subjective to a player that prizes political correctness. Otherwise, all of them essentially function the same way.
Every meeting with a governor's daughter generally leads to a dancing mini-game. In this mini-game, the player has to time dancing moves according to the lady's gestures. Failing a move elicits disapproval, whereas success delights her. A meter at the bottom informs the player of his/her performance. The player must complete the dance; it will not end prematurely.
If the player has enabled tutorials, the first dance will have prompts telling the player which move to make. However, learning to associate these moves to the lady's gestures is up to the player. As the dance progresses, the tempo increases and the lady's gestures become faster, requiring greater reflexes from the player.
At the end, the player is rewarded with progress in the relationship if he/she has performed well, but if the player flubbed, there is no progress and time is wasted. Success may also reward the player with useful information or gifts of Special Items.
If the player does not want to engage in a dance, he/she can choose to give the governor's daughter jewellery instead, which automatically advances the relationship.
Eventually, to advance the relationship any further, the player must give her a wedding ring. This leads to a duel with a Jealous Suitor NPC. Then, just before the last stage of the relationship, one of the Evil Spaniards will abduct the governor's daughter, thus requiring the player to pursue him. Having saved her, the player must now decide whether to tie the knot: this is a nearly irreversible decision.
If the player character gets hitched up, there is no option for divorce (likely because of the game's "T"-rating), short of raiding the Port that she lives in and converting it to another colonial power. If the player has cold feet, the governor's daughter never meets him again and the relationship is ended.
After marriage, the player character's spouse often gives useful information or gifts every time they meet up and successfully danced. This is a good way to earn special items and complete the player character's quest for vengeance, in return for no longer being able to romance any other ladies (which is, again, likely due to the game's age rating).
Almost everything the player does advances the timeline. The advancing timeline changes the conditions in the Caribbean, and more importantly, advances the protagonist's age.
Although he can start out at sweet 18, he will eventually age and become feeble. This leads to one of the game's ending when he is too old to go on, so there is pressure on the player to achieve what the player wants done. (However, there is a rare glitch that causes the game to fail to end the game this way; if this occurs, the player character can actually live for centuries.)
As he becomes older, the protagonist becomes slower in duels. However, this degradation appears to be limited; the player character does not become slower beyond the age of 40 years. Nevertheless, this can make fighting some especially skilled enemies more difficult, especially the Evil Spaniards and Pirate Lords.
The player character has a statistic known as Fame. Doing anything that can be considered an achievement, such as racking up large savings and saving his family members, add to his Fame. Fame is little more than just a score indicator for the amusement of players with completionist streaks, however.
The difficulty settings have the usual designs; they alter the ratio of damage that the player character takes from hits in battle to the damage that the player character can inflict. This can be a bit disappointing, as there is little reward for putting up with the higher difficulties.
From a technical perspective, the graphics for naval combat have been handled satisfactorily. The ships are well-contrasted against the water, volleys of cannon-fire are easily picked out and the camera pans out to give a good view of the participants.
The crew on ships are presented using sprites, which makes for an odd visual mix with the 3-D graphics of the game. The sprites are not just there for show; if the ship is winning, the crew would be elated, jumping up and down; if the ship has surrendered, the sprites for the crew are still, which is another visual oddity but which is otherwise a clear indicator.
The musical soundtrack that plays during naval battles is suitably exciting, if a bit ominous. There are also the noises of naval battles to provide entertainment. The awesome booms of cannon-fire is very prominent, more so if they hit the target, upon which the sounds of wood crunching and crew screaming would play.
Raids appear to use the same graphical assets as those used by naval combat, such as textures for land and water. Other objects like trees and rocks look believable enough.
The models for the units are not satisfactory though. Although these are smaller versions of the models seen in places like the Tavern, they are simply animated. Considering how well the game handled the animations of human characters in fencing duels, this simplicity is a jarring contrast. There are also clipping models, which is very rare in other parts of the game.
The sound designs for raids are just as unsatisfactory. For one, the music is very underwhelming, especially when compared to the other soundtracks in other game modes. The sound effects for fighting are actually lifted from those that play during boarding actions.
The sailing mode is perhaps the plainest looking one in the game. In this mode, many things in the game-world are presented with variants of their models that have less detail than the variants seen in other modes. This can make exploring the Caribbean a bit dull. At least the soundtrack is an inspiring piece of work.
When visiting Ports and other establishments, cartoonish models represent the player character and the NPCs that he can meet. Most of them just stand around staring at something while performing some idle animations, which can be a disappointment if the player had been hoping that they would be livelier.
At least they are presented in very user-friendly ways. These models are always tucked away in one portion of the screen, away from the text, which in turn is always against a high-contrast backdrop. In the Tavern, NPCs have their models highlighted when they are selected. All the while, relatively pleasant music plays, though the Tavern is livelier aurally.
The game perhaps looks most impressive in the cutscenes and fencing duels. Human models move fluidly in these, emphasizing the swashbuckling aspect of a pirate's life glorified. The exciting music serves to improve the immersion even more. On the other hand, a player may eventually get tired of the presentation after having engaged in the hundredth duel or so.
The game has very extensive documentation, in the form of the Pirate-o-Pedia that came packaged with the game as a HTML manual. This is good, but it is unfortunate that this documentation couldn't be added in-game, but there are in-game help-pages that give brief descriptions of certain game mechanisms.
In conclusion, Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) is a lot more sophisticated than its looks would suggest. However, to those who are veterans of its franchise, it may have been simplified a little too much since its predecessor, though the visual improvements are difficult to deny. To players who are especially discerning, there are a lot of lost opportunities to include more sophistication in the game. Nevertheless, overall, it is a refreshing and fulfilling take on the glorified life of a swashbuckling pirate captain.