Sid Meier's Pirates: Who here has played it yet.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Any dancing tips? After 12 attempts i've managed 11 abject failures and 1 kiss on the hand and this is at beginner level

Practice makes perfect. I sucked at the beginning, but now can perform a flawless dance with an attractive daughter on Rogue.

Then also, calfskin boots help. They have you perform the correct move every now and then even if you screw up the sequence.

The biggest piece of practical advice I can give you though is, do not try to make your moves by the flashing hints on the keypad. They come too late, you won't know how to respond to the moves the chick makes, and overall you'll get screwed when you move up to higher difficulty levels.

[Kassiopeia]

I can't dance, I can't talk, only thing about me is the way I walk...

I have to chime in to agree that practice is the key here. It took me some time and the calfskin boots, but now I'm dancing like the best of them. Have dipped some beautiful daughters, no less, although even a perfect dance doesn't seem to be enough for that, and sometimes you can do mistakes to get the dip.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
Have dipped some beautiful daughters, no less, although even a perfect dance doesn't seem to be enough for that

Yeah, you gotta pull off some of those in-tune moves where the characters do an extra-fancy move when the game thinks you hit the right key at the right time. That's when the little hearts start appearing around the one big pulsating heart. The more of 'em you get, the better. Without 'em, even a flawless dance can't dip the beauty.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by vovan
The biggest piece of practical advice I can give you though is, do not try to make your moves by the flashing hints on the keypad. They come too late, you won't know how to respond to the moves the chick makes, and overall you'll get screwed when you move up to higher difficulty levels.

Yep, I noticed that after a couple of tries at staring only at the numpad. I'm getting on okay with some of the easy moves, its when she spins and points simultaneously I lose the plot completely. I had my limited success when I wrote down a set of dance moves then reloaded. The dance changed midway but I'd racked up a few hearts by being able to anticipate the first 18 moves or so before i ended up fumbling and stumbling.

[DrSpike]

Dare I ask what dipping is?

[Jeje2]

It's Sid-talk


I'm playing on my first real game on level 3 in the 1660 era with 11-12 years of seafaring behind me.

In dancing it's good to notice the repetions of 2 or 4
Ex
4-6 4-6
4-3-3 4-3-3 4-3-3 4-3-3
6-1-1 6-1-1 6-1-1 6-1-1
8-1-1 8-1-1

Try to find these seriaes - it helps a lot when you might miss the first move and get the rest right by knowing which series she's doing


Q: Which sword do you prefear to use in hard battles?

[Kassiopeia]

Yup, learning the series like that has really helped a lot, I can in most cases succesfully guess what the next move is. And rapier all the way, baby.

[vovan]

I use the longsword against generic people, the cutlass against famous pirates, pushy guards, evil bastards, and the kind, and the rapier against the fat revolutionaries, libertines, traitors, spies and such.

[Lemmy]

I've been playing it for 3 days straight now, and loving it.
My first character is 41 or 42 years old now with failing health, i'm still playing on the 2nd level.
I have completed all the quests, but haven't attained the highest rank yet with the Spanish and English.
I also married a beautiful French girl.

I had a lot of trouble with dancing in the beginning as well, but once you know the smaller sequences and have the dancing slippers it becomes much easier.
You can screw up the first move of the sequence a few times and the slippers will save you, and after that i generally know what the moves will be.

For sword fighting i always choose the rapier...don't know why really, never tried the other ones a lot...as long as i'm winning with the rapier i see no need to try out the others

Land battles annoy me though...the units move so slow and i couldn't find a way to speed them up...it wouldn't be so bad if you could have 2 or 3 units moving at the same time, but you have to wait for 1 unit to completely stop moving before you can move another
As a result i've avoided land battles and kept my crew small for the most part of the game, no more 200 and often less than 100 men...but now at the end of my career i want to try and install as many Dutch Burghers as possible so i have a crew of almost 400.

Btw, how low can you let your happiness drop before you're in serious trouble? I've always divided the plunder when my crew was unhappy for a few months and capturing a few ships with decent loot in a row didn't move it to content. Is there a "very unhappy" as well?\
I'm asking because my longest voyage was 70+ months, with <100 crew and about 280k in loot....the crew was unhappy but i wonder if i could've gone on for a few more months.

[PLATO]

I'm getting this for my son, BKWM, for Christmas. I can't wait until he gives me a crack at it!

[Dis]

so you guys still playing this?

I read a few on the negative reviews on gamespot. Some said it can become repetitive after the first 10 hours. I like to play games that have a lot of replay value. Seeing as most games cost $50.

[DrSpike]

I think you are supposed to replay with on different difficulty levels, and try to win faster and so on.

[Jeje2]

Well in my first reral game as earlier stated I run into some problems with finding my uncle (had all the maps, but with no seamarks -> couln't find him)

So stared a new game a 3^rd level Duth 1660 era.
(Had advanced to this in my previous game, but boy this is real hard now. I'm having real problems with fight's crew happines etc. damm what difference compared to last game start (was on second level)

So yes still playing...

[Adagio]

There's a difference between the first 4 levels (apart from the dancing)?

After I finished my last game a couple days ago I haven't touched the game, and probably wont for a long time...

[Jeje2]

Wow!!!

This game rocks for me totally on level 3.
Just finished my first sailing (22 months) with struggling amount of crew almost all the time max content, mostly unhappy.

But what earnings

• Ship of the line with all eight uppgrades - a gift from the Brittish (One just has to appreciate a genoracity of this magnitude... )
• Made Antigua French and conqured the Spanish city of Montserat
• All eight speciallists
• Ranks: Spanish (4/8), English 8000gold , French (1/8) and Dutch (5/8)
• 1/9 pirate defeated - ranked 7/10
• 1/9 full pirate treasurer map waiting for me near Santiago
• 1/16 Raymondo found - second hinted
• 16 special artifacts (Including 2/2 swords, 1/2 armos, 2/2 skirts, 1/2 shoes 1/2 hats)
• A perfect dance with the beautiful daughter of Curacao - my wife to be
• She gave me a clue to Marquis Motalban near Santiago

Was pretty nice with the Spanish almost to the end - had to take a treasure ship and payroll ship ...

On this level I find this game very good for my current skills.
(A very poor in fast movements)

Damm - almost time to so that can go to work tomorrow with enough sleep - it feels like -> I just wanna and paly some more and more and more and more and more and ... (Feels just like 15 years ago - damm it's nice to be a [pirate] kid again )


Writing after a good straight three+ hour gaming session might make me a little unobjective right now... but who the f*** cares