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

[Grandpa Troll]

sounds kinda interesting..is there a demo?

I guess I could take me sorry butt and look for one

Thanks for keeping the posting coming folks

[Guynemer]

Loving it so far.

[Raion]

No demo for the game. This is the third version so it is a little bit harder, than before, and different a bit.

In the game, it seems repetitive but Living the Life, is what you are doing.

That means, that the game is open--ended and the player decides what to do.

Don't want to dance, don't have to. Don't want to align with any Nation, don't have to.

Anything else, except getting chased around the map, and the game, by being a Pirate --- good Pirate or bad Pirate.

One can view the Official Trailer 2 (or something like that listed at Gamespot -- made around 10/06/04 or something like that.

The game is more to 'feel' the life of being a Pirate during that era of time, by the 5 time periods in the game, the individual skill level you use (there are 5, you get to choose one), and the 5 different skill levels of playing the game, with the lowest being like a tutorial, and very easy, while the hardest is Swashbuckler.

Then, it is up to the player, how difficult you make the game for yourself.

And if you are a crazy or insane type player after playing the game awhile and really getting good, at it and going through all the motion of the game or not then:

Well, you can help out the Indians to use to Attack the Nationalities in the game and:

You can try and use your original ship and crew, with some added crew and maybe some ship upgrades, and go after all of it, because you are just so good at the skill level that you can defeat garrisons of 500 soldiers at the drop of a hat with your 125 crew, and can defeat anything.

Afterall the crew will sing, after downing a Fast Galleon with 192 men and 40 cannons on the Adventurer level (middle level), with your Sloop in the 1660 time period, and your crew of 64 men anyway, even if you do not get the gold, you were hoping to get. But when the ship goes to Davy Jones Locker, you crew will still be happy and singing anway.

You can also do a couple of Invasion Forces like that, and still not get the gold. Or you can get a bigger ship, and bigger crew, and have a real no-holds bar battle, cannon to cannon if you like.

The battles can go into the night if you do not lose sight of what you are fighting and the ship slips away in the darkness, taking all day, and all night, until the next day, when you finally win (as I had one battle that way).

When all said and done, they (the Spanish mainly) enslaved your family, they enslave other families who can not pay their bills by taking their land away, and enslave the Indians, but hey you can right all of that, if you want.

But anyway, since you still work for a King even with the other Nationalites, and have to do the Govenor's work to get promoted, and all of that lovely civilization of the day stuff you still can:

chuck it all, and shuck it all, and fight all of them as long as you keep some form of decency to get rid the goods, or dump all the goods, and just keep the gold, until they come after you, and try and sink you.

Afterall, the New World should be yours, and since they always war, and jobs were hard to find in those days, and they did not care, and you did not feel like being a Merchant of a Shipwright, or a Bishop, or a Fencing Master, or another one of those Govenor, well, shuck it all, and chuck it all.

I guess, then, that I would consider to be playing the real game then, and dancing, well, Pirates dance on the beach with the rum barrels, and sit around with the fire, and nary a look at the Governor's Daughter, who will also have you doing more for her, then Living the Life as a Pirate!

Feel the experience and the adventure, and the joys and the woes and feel like a Pirate by playing the game.

Simplified of course, for the only holodeck you have is your computer monitor, and until which time, well, it can be like that with the Chase View, and using that funny compass and knowing that Caribbean Sea like the back of ye hand!

Afterall, one map piece, and you ought to know where that map is going to lead to, to get that gold.



And there are fansites also.

You know you have been playing Pirates too long when you use your spyglass (right mouse button click when out on ye ship) to try and find the Govenor's Daughter, when sailing into or outof Port.
Whether in real life or not.

You know that you been playing Pirates when every ship you see coming in has a pop-up text you see stating, "Stay clear you scurvy Pirate".

You know that you been playing Pirates! too long when you try and book a real vacation to take a vacation to a deserted island to sit there and wait months or years for a passing ship to come along, name you Captain again, so ye can go out and start to plunder again.

You know that you been playing Pirates! too long when you expect to go out to a dance club playing R&R but you want to dance as you do in the game, and then on the way home you want to sing the dance songs from the game.



Then and only then after playing a long time the game will we well consider, that you went 'bonkers' from the game!

[Grandpa Troll]

thanks..makes me wanna scrap..argh be darrr..after a bit of beef 'n ale

[Raion]

Here is the original game -- try screenshots:

http://frigate.free.fr/

and lots of activity over at the Gamespots' forum for the game!

[Grandpa Troll]

Thanks Raion

[Fake Boris]

Been playing for the last few days, I love it.

Though my GeForce3 is struggling when there are many things on-screen, guess I should upgrade it.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
That's a sorry reason to play a game, just to beat your high score (or get the highest score). Frankly, I play games to have fun and enjoy the journey. Not to powergame.

Well isn't part of the fun the feeling of getting better at it?

Anyway, Pirates! becomes quite easy after a few days, even at the highest difficulty. Then it becomes a question of setting personal objectives (like, never have a crew of more than 50, never buy special items, etc).

[Jeje2]

My list - version 1.1

OK - time to update my list - here comes part one v1.1 of ideas.
(Changes &new stuff in darkred)

Comments, improvements are welcomed.

---

Improvements for Sid Meier’s Pirates! Live the Life to patch one

1. Romance

1.1 Dancing

Must be the biggest common complaint on the net of the game. Apparently it is considered too difficult currently. (I admit it’s difficult, but when has finding a wife been easy? ) So maybe a way of adjusting the level is needed

1.1.1 Moving when not needed

As has been seen the penalties only apply for moves that haven’t been made in time. Now what I do is that when a new dance series starts I normally am little late on move one – but move one is a clue to next move. Ex. First move 1 – second move can be a fast 2 or slow 1. So I just hit 2 after move one to make the fast series and I know that there is no penalty if we are in a slow series.

1.2 Wives???

This isn’t a problem

1.3 Balls

Read in an another thread (on another site) about a guy who danced with his wife -> got a piece of a map to a lost city -> left city -> returned following day -> danced with wife -> got a another piece of the map -> … … … -> until full map -> go for it -> danced with wife -> got a piece to next map -> left town -> returned following day -> … … (This happened in endgame, when had all the special items already)

I think you see the problem. Is this challenging and/or fun? So how about making the reward “uncertain” - I have two (2) possible solutions

1. There is in one town only one ball per month (/two months). (If you return too soon the wife just greets you –no invitation to a ball that night)
2. Takes some time before wife has a new piece of a map (month or two) -> get only a wanted criminal (or even nothing) when returning too soon

(Some Gaussian randomness can of course exist in the duration before next map is given …)

With these time delays one has to think how to keep his crew happy while waiting …

1.4 Flirting that begins from beginning

In my last game they’re where beautiful daughters in Villahermosa and Campehe, but my wife was in Curacao (Dutch). In endgame I then danced with these girls and got maps. When flirting it goes like first time dance, second gift (ring/necklace), third dance, capture-rescue and dance. So can get five map pieces.

Problem rose when after dancing finished in one city (The Spanish Villahermosa) the city was captured by France -> well I visited governor with nothing with the daughter -> so captured the city back to Spanish -> to my surprise started off with the first dance (and new five map pieces…)

1.5 Hiding in the same city

In my last game when the governor of Villahermosa told that her daughter is kidnapped and the kidnapper is hiding in Villahermosa I was pretty astonished. Same city!!! Well sometimes things just are easy.

2 Maps

2.1 Locations

Make sure the maps always have some seamark, city/village (or clear land curve) that one can navigate for in the Caribbean (Including the areas to Mexico and south USA. Pacific ocean doesn’t count as seamark, one has to be able to sail that sea.

Maps totally on land are very bad idea.

2.2 Getting maps

Make sure there is some logic behind this.
See 1.3 of this article

2.3 X marks the spot

Maps without the X have been reported.

3. Walking on land

3.1 View

Make it possible to change the view to south north as when sailing (numpad: 9). Walking on land pretty difficult

3.2 Going to Gran Granada, Puerto Principe or Panama

At least on easier levels, make it possible to just give on landing the order “Go to: ….” for these three cities. Or make a new specialist – “native” who is good at showing the direction (Ex pointing in right direction with regular intervalls)

3.3 Map following on land?

While walking on land a cross where you currently are would be good. (Helps navigation)

4. Sword fights

4.1 Hero’s speed

Currently the “speed” of my hero varies depending on the opposition. (When good opponent my guy moves slow…)

Make it so that my guy moves with a constant speed (depending on shirts, sword-choice, sword item, skills and physical health) in every battle – then the opponent’s speed can also vary.

4.2 Different types of fighters

Playing so far haven’t seen any real difference in skills – for ex. A real good fast defender, who could easily parry most attacks. As is I just attack all the time (take occasionally some hits), but haven’t lost yet a single fight.

4.3 The different swords

Is there a difference in longsword, rapier & cutlass?

5. Animations OFF

We all know you (=Firaxis) have done a real fabulous work in creating these beautiful animations, but after 100+ times they have been seen. So insert an option checkbox where the amount of animations is automatically reduced (You can sure easily think of which animations one gets tired of)

5.1 Land battles

The worst case of animation I guess – make them faster, but an option to remove the movement animation is also badly needed.

5.1.1 Enemy “wait”

Many times the enemy could have moved its units better by just changing the order of units to be moved. One Ex is a battle where the cavalry had to spend one turn runnig around own infantry. (Resulting in my buccaneers to finish them of before damaging me)

Easy fix is to simple prioritise the unit types – I always plan first where my buccaneers are to be, then where my officers should go and finally the pirates. (Of course some variations can occur ex. Letting a group of pirates first pass through the square where I’m bringing a group of buccaneers) But mainly a simple prioritising works.

6. Ships

6.1 Available ships

In the last version the Frigate wasn’t available on all eras – make it also so in these new version. (And don’t feel restricted to only the Frigate – Large Frigate – Ship of the Line availability)

6.2 Battles

Some times when I press space to fire I do hear the sound effect of my cannons firing, but no cannons are fired.

6.3 Sailing speed

In my last game noticed on one game session that the seed wasn’t working at all. Also I’m not convinced of its reliability.

7. Time

7.1 Length of one voyage

Build a foolproof system to limit the length of one voyage.
(See http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...64#post3545164 for a reference on what’s not desired)

7.2 When in harbour no movement on sea

Do the ships just stand still for a week that you are in the harbour? Big problem is the time after divide up the plunder – its roughly ½ a year… The game engine should play the game. (If I stop moving the earth still rotates)

8. Scoring

As people are already receiving the max-points a modification to the calculation is needed.

Here’s my suggestion – I’ll explain each number after the table

Category	Max Now	Suggestion
Wealth	24	31
Rank	32	32
Pirates	9	18
Treasures	9	9
Relatives	16	30
Lost Cities	16	20
Romance	10	10
Villians	10	10
Sum MAX	126	160

8.1 Rank, Treasures, Romance and Villians

These can be the same as previously.
But the treasures size should be double of what they are now – more rewarding.

8.2 Mappoints

For “Lost Cities” and “Lost Relatives” you get the max four points by
a) getting the four map pieces
b) finding the treasure

Now I wanna make this more challenging and rewarding.
(One problem is that some maps can be found with only two or three pieces. OK it’s good, but do I deserve still full points?)

Rules:

1. Each map is four pieces (as is now)
2. Receiving each map piece is one point (as is now)
3. Finding the
   a) lost city: one point
   b) sister: two points
   c) uncle: three points
   d) aunt: four points
   e) grandfather: five points
4. Finding the relative/lostcity with an incomplete map doesn’t give you the point’s for the missing parts -> So finding your sister with three map pieces gives you only a total of five points (Were MAX would have been six)

This way, if I can with an incomplete map know were it is – I have to deside: Go take it fast and miss a point or two or wait and try to get the full map for a better point score.

8.3 Pirates

Make the reward bigger – suggestion 2point/pirate
Also make them harder to find – and mostly make them better on swordfights.

8.4 Wealth

The points gathered from wealth still ~20% (from 24 to 31 [wanted a total of 160 points ])
But in the upper end from 24 to 31 make the scale logharitmic somehow…
(Pure logharicmic would require doubling of wealth+land for one additional point … - this way getting max points would be very VERY hard )
You can surely think of something for a nonlinear scale in the end…

9. Harbour visits

9.1 Treasure fleet info

Yeah – this one’s pretty annoying. Please fix it to something more useful

9.2 Harbour dock speciality

Occasionally the harbour has offered some other upgrade that the harbour’s speciality is.

9.3 City info – Cost?
Is there or isn’t there a cost to get info city info from the stranger? How much?
In my opinion there should be a cost.

9.4 Pennies from heaven
In my last game I was dancing a lot in the end to get the lost city maps. Well returned to same city a-two after leaving and off to governor to dance, but before he always gives me some land 50-300 acres. ( I had only left the city and returned) Pennies from heaven or what?

10. Don’t loose the fun

All changes must apply to this most important rule

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please PLEASE give more feedback

[Barinthus]

Raion, that was a terrific link. It sure brought back some memories. I recalled playing the Mac version but I completely forgot that I did rent NES version once.

[Barinthus]

Disclaimer: I haven't even touched the game.

That flirting subsection - wouldn't it make sense that there's a new Spanish governor with a new daughter to woo after the re-capturing? After all who knows, the old governor got himself killed?

[Nikolai]

Woo? None of that, just dancing.

[Muad'Dib]

Raion,

Thanks for the link. I can't believe how primitive it was (C-64 version) for a game that I played every day almost 20 years ago.

[Muad'Dib]

Jeje2,

If I'm going to be your poster-boy, you better update that section. Here's my latest screenshot of the Rich Old Man of the Sea.

[Nikolai]

Wonder if your pirate can die while at sea...?