Port Royale - the spiritual succesor of pirates! ?

[child of Thor]

http://www.ascaron.com/gb/gb_portroyale/gb_portroyale_frameset_ie.html

i've found a beast of a game! which along with FM2005 is helping cater for my desire to find some games with longevity(longer than 15hrs play time) and depth.

Its an older game - but has some advantages over the newer Port Royale2 from what i've read. Its the harder of the two games to play succesfully apparantly, and it is indeed a very challanging game

Its gripped me pretty hard - and has been succesfull in pulling me from my FM2005 game. not many games could do that.

All in all i feel it probably is a better sequel to sids origonal pirates! than the recent new sid version of pirates(its much less cartony etc). Ok its a different game in respect of its hardcore economic model, which is as good a supply+demand model i've seen in an accesable pc game.

So what do others think of it - how many people have played this game etc? Is it as good a Carribbean/pirate simulator as you can find on pc?

[DrSpike]

Well, my view is it's not Civ4. This is bad.

[child of Thor]

not all of us lesser beings can curently play Civ4........[sob] and there are no real pirates in Civ4 anyway.

So If you like Pirates and long playing involved games this could be for you?

As an example, i've started this game in 1600(you get to select a variety of start era's like in pirates!) and after a week of heavy playing i'm in the early part of 1602!

And you have to change your strategies as you go along. I've been forced to take out a pirate hunting fleet so i can capture and sell their ships to make up the growing shortfall in my economy as my trading routes have gotten more saturated!!

So its nicely balanced overall - not just a game where by building more infastructure means you get richer. I bank- rupted myself trying that one time, not being able to afford all the extra workers wages and building repairs cost. So it becomes a game of decent strategic choices.

Right now i got my pirate hunter fleet helping with the cash flow - but i can sense i'm going to have to expand my trading venture to other under exploited trade routes(which will mean trading with a potential enemy like France/Spain or Holland). Not to mention i've had to rescue my wife for the second time from the clutches of an evil pirate wanting way too much ransom!

you can tell i'm loving it can't you

I found this in Game(high street store in the uk) as a budget release(7.99 i think) - so its worth looking out for if you may be into this kind of thing.

The only downside of the game is the Auto resolve option for ship battles. The computer uses so much ammo that it makes it rare to come out on top - so it kind of forces you to always take control of the fight. The total war games also had this flaw. Still the ship to ship combat is pretty good, so i usualy look forward to the encounters

[child of Thor]

I've only been playing this game since i last posted on this - and its good to see my most succesful poll so far

So has no-one here played this at all?! or even its sequel?(which i've now also got as a late xmas pressie - it features the sword fighting thing like in Pirates!).

Game summary: Its like Pirates! for grown ups.


Current game in progress:

I had to start over after a mission to deal with a pirate stronghold got out of hand and i lost all my ships(10 of them!).
Shortly after an infamous Pirate(anyone remember Anne Bonney - one of the few female pirates of the period?) attacked and captured/sank my one remaining tradeing fleet. So that left me with a very steep hill to climb. I guess i could have carried on(Iron-man style) and tried to rebuild my fleets(20 ships in all).

But i was weak and as this was my first game, i thought i'd take a different approach.

So i'm now French(yes i know ) and there is one reason for this.
The English have some of the best millitary ships in the game - impossible to get if your of English nationality as you cant buy them; and pirating them from your own nation probably wont go down well with the Govenors either!

So i'm le Frenchie sacre-bleu and loving it. My wife in this game is way better looking than the last wife and i know i can look forward to some juicy english vs france action(edit: er as in wars!) at many points in the game. All of which will enable me to build the most kick-ass fleet in the Caribbean composed of the latest english military ships. Well thats if my Galleons(I suspect it will be them by then) can take them when the time comes.

Its possible to set a trade route in the game, and then let one of your captains run it automaticaly(you set up the configuration of the trade routes details for the NPC captain to follow. Which towns in which order to visit and which goods to sell/buy/stockpile etc). I currently have a nice little number running around the NewOrleans route, earning around 60,000 gold per trip(which takes about 12 days on average when the ships dont need fixing in the docks).

Your Captain has stats(out of 5) that effect how profitable his trade runs are, luckily mine is a good trader so he does a good job on the prices he bargins for.

As i mentioned i've now also got Port Royale2 - i dont think i'll be able to play untill i've got my new pc, but i've stalled on getting older games before to find them very tricky to find at a later date. But i've been so impressed by what i've seen in Port Royale - i'm getting ready to try out the later version also, to see which is the better

Oh if you've played any of the Patrician games(which i also have+enjoyed) by the same company i would say that the Port Royale games are just more interesting and slightly less 'dry' in what the game offers you.

Ok its still a pretty hard core economic sim at its heart, but this is much less the be-all and end-all i found it to be in the Patrician games. If your economic plans are falling down around your ears, then in Port Royale you can just become a full-time Pirate and say good-bye to all that repectable merchant stuff. Ahaargh!

I cant have been the only one to play this can I?

[DrSpike]

I remember it - it was quite popular. Never played it much though.

[child of Thor]

thanks no i mean it - your the only person who has expressed an opinion so far still out of 40 odd views the two of us seem to be the only ones who know of this game!

Ah well i guess i'll let it die - i did try pretty well though to make a good thread - it even had a poll

[DrSpike]

With one (negative) vote.

[SirOsis]

I have the game but haven't played it in quite awhile. I found it enjoyable. The trading system is impressive from what I recall.

[Dis]

never heard of it. What year did it come out?

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by DrSpike
With one (negative) vote.

well if it was from you - i wouldn't expect anything less from an FPS fan

Originally posted by SirOsis
I have the game but haven't played it in quite awhile. I found it enjoyable. The trading system is impressive from what I recall.

Yeah the trade thing is about as good a simulation i've seen

Originally posted by Dis
never heard of it. What year did it come out?

if you click the link to its home page(at top) from when the reviews are quoted, sometime in 2002/2003. Port Royale2 was a year later i think?


Its not a perfect game, it has some rough edges in its production values(for example playing as the english gives you more+better game music than playing as the french).

I just like the subject matter being an origonal Pirates! fan. And it adds this realistic supply/demand economic model that you can influence by your actions(make your nations colonies grow - blockade your enemies colonies to make them suffer).

You have to invest some time in the game to get anywhere. I like this in a game,but many people might find the lack of quick progess frustrating? For example i've been playing this solidly for the last two weeks or so, and i've still not built up my overall situation to feel strong enough to get involved in any nation vs nation privateering etc. So it has plenty of game hours in it if you like that kind of thing.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by child of Thor


well if it was from you - i wouldn't expect anything less from an FPS fan

It wasn't me. If we assume you voted in your own poll it must have been you.

[child of Thor]

maybe i clicked by mistake? well ok then atleast two other people than myself have seen the thread. And some one doesn't like it.......hmmm wonder if it was Sid himself

[Arrian]

Looks interesting. That site also lists Tortuga: Pirates of the New World... have you checked that out?

What is it that made you pick the original Port Royale over its sequel?

-Arrian

[child of Thor]

Tortuga is a more action/arcade version on the theme. The only review on it i could find is here:

http://www.gamebiz.com.au/reviews.php?action=display&id=369

In some ways it does sound more like the origonal Pirates!, in that it is more of an action/rpg rather than the latter Port Royale games that were detailed trading sims in a pirate setting. I'd kind of heard bad things about Tortuga in comparison to the Patrician+Port Royale games? Still reading that review does make me interested in it, despite the low score it gets.

One thing i've noticed about Port Royale is that its quite 'dry' due to the constant attention and planning you need to put into the economic side of the game. And as yet i've not been able to get to a point where i can just set up auto trade routes and forget about them. The game gives you fairly powerfull tools to set the parameters for your auto-trade routes, but as it does such a good job of simulating a pretty realistic supply/demand model(for a game) - you can easily end up with your ships just carrying around alot of unsold goods from port to port.

Its certainly very challanging, and i dont find this a bad thing - just be prepared to constantly keep an eye on your trade routes.

The main flaw i can find in the game is the ship-to-ship combat.

At the game start it seems great, and it does all work excellently with just a few ships to worry about. After about two game years(which takes me a few real days of gaming to get to) you start to meet larger enemy fleets more often.
By year three these encounters become the norm, and become a drag as using the auto resolve battle option is pretty poorly implimented.
You can get around many of its short comings by carrying huge ammounts of ammo around with your ships(i find over 100tonnes of each type is just enough for one encounter, and means less 'topping up' at each port of call. Luckily the game doesn't acount for the weight of your ammo - which i suspect is a 'fix' Asceron used when they started to test the auto combat model

Still for me the main big problem with Port Royale is the above mixed with the possibility of playing this game for 30-40 game years, which is what i was hoping i could do. But if your looking to play this game on this scale, coupled with the comparatively quick way the game ramps up the ship-ship combat encounters and the poor auto resolve; it can become a game of trying to avoid combat - rather than see it as a fun side aspect.

So that has been dissapointing for me, as i was looking for an epic pirate game that could last me a few months on one game. It still can, but the mad 12 ships vs 12 ships, that happens quite soon in the games time span makes it hard work.

Still i'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to hard challanging games, even if it means having to find ways to fight against a possible game breaking feature

I tend to buy up all the ammo from as many ports as i can now - its one way so you can auto-resolve some encounters.

And reference Port Royale2, i'd been to the asceron forums before buying Port Royale, and that added to the reviews i'd read made me choose the origonal game. Still i've now recieved the second game for Xmas, so as soon as my new pc is complete i'll be able to give that a go to. I like the inclusion of the sword fighting......in theory(reminds me of Pirates!) - it might not be so great in game?

[DrSpike]

It's a shame when a potentially decent game is let down by one feature.