Pirates!
 

Anybody have some detail about the new Pirates! (Sid Meier).
Release date? Requirements? etc?

The offical site might be a good place to start: http://www.atari.com/pirates/pirates/index.php :rolleyes:

Thanks! (To lazy/dumb to search myself)

Mate, a better idea might have been to look it up yourself? How hard could it have been? Then you could have come here armed with some details to kick off a discussion.

All I have to say is that this game is gonna rock....I remember playing the original on the apple 2gs when it came out and that was hella fun....I cant wait especially since its more up to date, better graphics and way better computer to play it on...though...I could never figure out how to keep the crew happy..

I wonder if you're still going to have to unfurl a huge A2 map to chart your next course? I loved that aspect. Thing is, I invested a lot in that game, I umm, acquired it for my Atari ST when I was in my teens, and actually painstakingly copied out the map by hand on graph paper.

If the new version doesn't have a paper map, I'm goingto be disappointed.

Man, this game will rock. I've been waiting for a great pirate game for a long long time, and Sid Meier doesn't dissapoint. I played the original for years.

One of my all time favorites. Got it for christmas one year for my C-64 and played the snot out of it. Can't wait for this update.

Pirates! is THE best game, ever. I'm hoping the remake won't disappoint, and from what I've seen of it so far, it won't.

Well there goes my free time. I loved the original and still play it on a c64 emulator. Looks good,

Ok, I’m a little confused, I thought Pirates!(I must be thinking of a different game) was bought by Disney at the last moment and turned into Pirates of the Caribbean the game loosely based on the movie and was not very good.

Apparently I’m wrong, which is good, because I want to play a good pirate game.

Is this anything like the old Commordore 64 game? I spent hours and hours on that game. From the looks of this, I will be buying this.

Hmm, even tho I made fun of joedog in my initial post I am glad I caught wind of this game. I remember an old Pirate game for the original Nintendo (I think it was called Pirates) that I played the hell out of back the 90's.

I am gonna have to check this one out, thanks.

That game was the sequal to Sea Dogs. Disney got a hold of it and slapped the movie name on it even though it had nothing to do with the movie.

This Pirates! is the true update/sequal to Sid Meier's Pirates!, which was first published by Microprose back in 87 for all major home computers.

Ultra Games, a subdivision of Konami, bought the rights from Microprose to publish an NES version of Pirates! around 1991. There was also Pirates! Gold for the PC and Sega Genesis a few years later. That was essentially the same game as the original with some graphical updates.

If you can get a hold of Pirates! Gold for the Sega Genesis, you should, that was one excellent port.

This game looks sextacular

I must own it

This is quite possibly the best game EVER. I just played it for about 3 hours, and it (for the most part) plays exactly like the original (which is a great thing). Awesome graphics (though not extremely detailed), sound is alright (not much going on until you get into a battle or sword fight), and the gameplay is amazing. From steering your ship from town-to-town, to plundering towns, to swordfighting on the deck of your enemy's ship, to dancing with the governor's daughter, it is all fluid and extremely entertaining to play and watch. I have no real complaints for this game, the loadtimes are very minimal, no gameplay hindering glitches, etc. So far this gets my vote for Game of the Year (Yes, even passing Half-Life 2).

Jesus, another game I'm going to have to buy

great

Well I bought it, I'm installing as we speak, but let me tell you... the package contents alone were worth the buy.

I got the Limited Edition DVD copy, so it's just a single DVD, which comes with the original game, theme packs, behind the scenes interviews, artwork, sketches, diaries and all that jazz... Plus its a single disc.

It also came with these extra goodies from EB Games... A Warcraft novel, and a Metroid Prime 2 CD Case...
http://upload.cybermart.ca/2004/Picture 101.jpg

Here's a picture of the box, sleeve, and manual
http://upload.cybermart.ca/2004/Picture 102.jpg

And here's a picture of the badass fold out map they give you... SWEET!
http://upload.cybermart.ca/2004/Picture 103.jpg

I can't wait to play this game

Holy shit! i didn't even know this game was being made!
I have to get this game, i've been playing the original on my amiga emulator for ages now, its awesome

K, after playing the game for a while, I have to say this is instant GOTY matierial... Yes, even over Half Life 2

I've been so addicted to it I didn't even think about playing CS:S or HL2 last night, I played till 4 in the morning

I've been having so much fun just sailing around plundering ships and ports that I havent even thought about doing the quests yet.

The only gripe I have is that I wish there was an easy way to switch cargo between your ships, or a place to actually buy ships instead of just stealing themn.

Besides that... wow

Yea, I couldn't wait for this to come out.. I played the shit out of Pirates:Gold on the genesis.. best game ever..

Pirates! and Pirates Gold for the Genesis are my favorite games of all time. I remember calling every single used game store in the phoenix metro area when I was in college trying to find an old sega cart of Pirates Gold. The one I did find they charged me retail new price for and I was more than willing to pay it. I play it on an emulator now though.

Definitely going to pick this up as soon as I can get the funds together. I also want to finish Doom 3 and HL2 first, otherwise I am sure I will forget they even exist.

I've already forgotten about HL2

I just beat the "guardian" in doom 3 today, so i must be close to finishing it. Maybe I should just ask for Pirates for xmas.

THanks for the detail Ace! I'm so looking forward to getting this. It's on my christmas list with asterics!

Been playing it for the last two nights.. Great game. I loved the first one and they did a really good job with this one.. The duels get a tad repetative, but I can handle that.. and I CANT dance, I just end up fumbling around.. I'll stick to being a privateer

for the record:

Flagship
Royal Sloop Agamemnon (I prefer the Royal Sloop over the Frigates or Galleons because I can dip in, dip out, and avoid shots, and I still have a good number of cannons, and Im fully upgraded).. The only ship Ive had to retreat from in a battle was the Spanish Treasure Galleon.. and that was because he got some good shots in early and I was having problems with getting a good angle.

My flagship is a Ship of the Line (48 Guns, 450 Crew, Fully Upgraded), with a few War Galleons/Royal Galleons/Large Merchantmen as my cargo carrying ships.

Ouch.. Most of that must be food for your.. um.. army

Sid does it again...
man this game is excellent

excelllent.
no complaint other then the dancing...two left feet and all.

Seriously every time I read "dancing" as a feature in one of the reviews/preview articles I cringe.

Yeah, but buying food isn't that much of a problem, I have around 175,000 gold, and the amount of food I get from ships I destroy isn't too bad.. :thumbsup:

I don't attack many towns, so I don't need a big crew

I have a frigate with 90 crew, and I'm doing fantastic

Do you get the fold out map with both the limited and the standard edition?

I had no idea this was released already, can't wait to get my hands on it. I can still remember my first time playing it on the C64. I still go back to play the original version from time to time. Now I don't have to.

Well I can't speak for the standard edition

but i know for sure they give it to you with the LE

and at the EB i was at... they cost the same.

So i had no reason to get the standard edition.

Think I might have to pick this bad boy up. Never played any of the previous editions. I hope it's not anything like Cutthroat: Terror of the High Seas or whatever it was. That was a turd of a game.

Excellent game.

And to the natural dancers out there: visit taverns until the shady guy at the corner table sells you the dancing boots. They will sometimes cause your character to do the right move even if you click the wrong button. I haven't had any problems succeeding since I got them, although I've played the game so much that I've come to recognize a lot of the dancing patterns. There aren't that many.

I just got this game and it totally rules. It's fun to get gigantor war galleons for your capital ship, but it's tough to beat the nimble war swoops in terms of effectiveness. Dancing is strangely enjoyable too; everything is all in all awesome!

the map came with the standard as well

This game is really Fun I loved the Original and I really like this one too!!! I suggest you all pick it up!

I wonder why they cost the same price? Is the game that good and it isn't selling well?

The sloops are very maneuverable so I use them against slow ships like the galleons or merchants. That way you can keep your distance and knock out some guns before you move in for the kill. You still have to be careful though because some of the larger ships have so many guns that you end up destroying the ship before getting all the guns. If you use chain shot to bring down their sails then they automatically surrender which is nice.

In general though, I use ships from the frigate class for my flagship. Right now I have a large frigate that I stole from Henry Morgan. Frigates are very maneuverable and fast for their size and the large frigate has 40(!) guns. It's just an all around great ship, and I can't wait until I finally find a ship of the line so I can take it on.

This really is a great game, the kind where you lose track of time, where you think to yourself 'OK I'll take a shower as soon as I capture one more merchantman...'

The only thing that bothers me is that you fight Baron Raymondo and the Marquis over and over again. I think it would've been better if you fought Raymondo's lieutenants and they gave you the information then you finally fight Raymondo before you can rescue your family member. Ah well, it's a minor quibble and the good far outweighs the bad. The simple pleasures of pounding Spanish galleons into splintered wood or dueling enemy captains can keep me playing for hours.

I used to have Pirates! on my Amiga 500. Lost many hours to that game. Well, just picked up the new version last night. Fark. The game rocks. I haven't even looked at the manual or map yet but it's an easy game to get into. I actually bought it because of this thread. To anybody who might be debating the purchase: Buy it! Oh, the deluxe version might be cool but compUSA didn't have it. Not a big deal as the normal version is only 2 CDs. And it has the map.

i love this game

:)

lots of twists and turns

I don't like how you can't go for more than about 20 months without dividing the plunder...I found that limiting.

I found it to easy and to boring (running it on the hardest setting, cant think of the name. Something like Rogue Pirate).

After a while fighting ships are no longer a challenge. I've killed all the pirates and half way into finding my family but that's annoying as hell. Sail from one end of the map, kill some one, then try and sail all the way back, against the wind, to kill another.

Good for a few days, boring after a while (in my eyes anyway).

The only difference is the fact the special one comes on DVD.. Its a new trend with games

Aye, and a good one at that.

I haven't seen the limited edition in stores, only on ebgames.com. Anyone seen this at best buy in store? I might have to drive over to the eb games at the local mall. I am going to call them and see if they sell the dvd version in store.

I just got the game and played for about 3 hours and I must say I am loving it. I've taken down just about everything I've run across in my little sloop. Nice ship.

I love it is extremely non-linear and totally open-ended. Great fun.

I love this game. I originally had it for the Amiga, then later got it for the Sega Genesis. I was thrilled when I heard it was coming out for Windows. I gotta say, I think they really did a great job with this new version.

It has kept me busy capturing cities for the Dutch, buahahaha!

I love this game as well, but I really wish that it had a multiplayer component to it, that would rock playing against your friends to see who could become the #1 pirate in the Caribbean

Has anyone found a freaking lost city? Ive been wandering allover mexico with my damn map for like 3 hrs and cant find the damn thing.

Yes I have found some lost cities. They kind of look like a pyramid temple if I remember correctly on the screen.

This game is great, but the fact that you have to divide up your plunder every once in a while kinda takes me out of it. Other then that it's an amazing game with some fun elements. I'll admit, I kinda like the dancing part.

damnit! I played the hell out of Pirates Gold and have always had a huge love for pirates (I just finished reading 'The History of the Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates' - And I own the Blackbeard Pirate boardgame (Avalon Hill).

I just bought Sid's new Pirates game, and my damned video card doesn't have enough memory. I've got a 1.2ghz system which is fine, but i have to get a new video card for this sucker to run. Crap. An upgrade is in order. quickly.

Has anyone found a 'Ship of the Line' yet?

I am currently macking around in a Treasure Galleon, 40 guns, but slow as crap and pretty hard to manouveur.

This game rocks hardcore.

Haven't seen a Ship of the Line in my travels. I'm cruising around in a Brig of War. Although this heap feels too slow, I think I may have to go back to a Royal Sloop.

I have been using Black Beard Frigate it is a great ship, I am just sick of spliting the treasure with the other crewmates, and I want my own pirate hideaway

Finally found 1 lost city, looking for the rest. My main ship is a flag galleon. Not bad, but I havent seen a shipoftheline yet. I belive they only show up after 1680 and im in 1650 right now.

I scored a Flag Galleon off the Marquis, but once I get Henry Morgan's ship upgraded I'll be cruising in a large frigate...

Sweet.

Any word of a port to XBOX for this?

Man, this game is WAYYYY to addictive.

For instance, I don't know about the rest of you, but I spent a good hour trying to figure out the best way to prop up the economy of the Spanish Main in order to keep the plundering prospects high.

Got a royal sloop, am a duke in the dutch and french nations, and have seriously pissed off the english and the spanish.

And yes, way too addicting.

I am running Morgans Large frigate, just way to powerful sometimes (40 gun's yikes) Love the Chain shot and need a friggen carpenter now. I have a 26000 reward on my head from the spanish, all of the others love me. How long is your life in this game?

Well I hate to say it because it has been posted over and over, but had this on my C64 and loved it! Got the game last weekend and forsee many hours on the high seas! A must buy!

I now have Duke for everyone except the Spanish. I'm pretty damn old, but I'm not going to retire until I find an Incan city or two I reckon.

Definitely concentrate on finding Montalban, if you defeat him at his hideout, he gives you 100 000 and all the specialist crew members too!

Also, I find if you let the pirates just plunder unabated for a long time, when you finally come after them they're carrying absolutely obscene amounts of gold.

Henry Morgan had 60 000 on him when I defeated him.

How old are you? I had all the indian life life stuff but was still in poor health by 32yrs old. I was playing on the second to hardest setting, so I assume that affected me. I did retire with a 107 fame, so no prob, but I would have liked to go on longer without risking sudden death.

I'm 49 and in shitty health, but I'll dog those filthy Spanish till I'm at the bottom of Davy Jones Locker!!!

The Dread Pirate Hornblower pillages for niether fame, nor love, nor money. Even though he's the most famous pirate in the Carribean, married to a Dutch Beauty and carting a good 300 000 around in his ship.

What affects health? It's not like I can opt to get two tons of lemons in my food.

As far as I can tell there are two ways to prevent early health deterioration.

1. Select medicine as your specialty.
2. Find the Incan herb and potion items.

However, just because you're in bad health doesn't mean you have to give up pirating. I've been in failing health for a while, but so long as I keep winning sword battles I don't really have a problem.

Getting hit in sword combat also lowers your health.

My crew is mutinous, I'm in failing health, and I'm determined to find the rest of my family.

I have to resort to whittling down crew members because I can't win sword fights anymore.

And while I found Montalban's Hideout, I can't defeat his army of mercs. :(

And where the hell is that lost city? I must have spent like 3 years looking for one of them...never found it. :(

You should try to get montalbans hideout and a couple of lost cities with one crew. After a certain period of time the crew morale drops no further, so it is only dependent on how much money you have (gold per crew member).
I now hav 500 000 gold and my crew stays happy. The last time I divided the plunder was 150 month ago. I'm now aiming for a perfect game, I just need the last spanish title :)

Are you all sailing with a fleet? I only sail with my large frigate and just keep all the ships i capture to store the stuff. In harbour I sell all the ships.

Pretty much my strategy too.

I find I can maintain a content crew of 200 with about 500 000.

I have Duke in all nations, I only need to find a couple of lost cities and two more pirate treasures.

I maintain a small fleet of three trade galleons to haul cargo and basically sell it at the highest prices I can find.

I've been at sea for ages.

I have been focusing on taking over Spanish cities, and installing Dutch leaders. The Spanish Main is slowly becoming the Dutch Main. ;) I should start on something else though, my crew seems to be kinda restless.

I've wondered if I've pissed the Spanish enough to ever be able to get those ranks, heh...

My second go-round, im trying to majorly piss of the spanish. So far im up to $49000 for my head. Anyone know if it tops out? As a side-note, notice how as the girls get 'prettier' their chests gets larger? Just like in real life!

I had 90 000 on my head. Some guys in a Pirates forum had way over 150 000 on their head. So I dont think tops out, but you need to do a lot of work to get and stay that high.

At one time I advocated an extermination of Spain from the entire map, but after leaving them alone for a while I noticed that some of their cities traded at phenomenal prices.

56 gold for luxuries anyone?

Still going through my first play through, so I haven't tried the other eras or different starting abilities.

I did have a question though. If you're only firing half of your cannons at an enemy vessel, why do you need to wait for ALL the cannons to reload before you can fire a full load?

Good question. I don't know.

Did find a ship of the line the other day. It's quite nice. I suppose it goes without saying, but if you see one, snag it. Holds 450 men, and functions as a one ship task force for raiding cities or destroying other ships.

That said, the Royal Sloop is probably my favorite ship for general piracy. You're fast enough to control the range of engagement, more agile than anything that can hurt you, and you pack enough guns to hurt the bigger ships. On top of that, you're also a small target, which means that only part of a large broadside will hit you. Say you're fighting a large frigate. Your entire broadside will hit, but only about half of his will. Sure, he has more armor, but you have just as many effective guns as he does, and you can dodge everything he throws at you.

Well, my Pirate is still living it up on the high seas. 61 years of age, still tearing about propping up the economy of Barbados so he can sell off his spices and enduring the indignity of dancing about with govenors daughters so he can find that last lost city...

I've got a question and I know I'm missing something stupid, but i just played it for the 1st time last night and cannot figure out how to raid a city... If I sail into it I just dock there.. If I land nearby and march my men in, I just walk in friendly-like. How do I go in with plundering on my mind??
And btw, great game. I'm playing it on my laptop so using the numeric key pad sucks, but I'm slowly learning to feel it out with the Fn key. I need to upgrade my desktop's video card in order to play it there.

I think you can buy USB keypads. I was thinking of getting one so I can play on my laptop too.

If it is an enemy city and you have = or < the number of militia, you go to a strategic attack game. If you have > you sword fight. But the city has to hate you for you to attack.

Man, that strategic attack game is hard. But then again, the game's called Pirates and not Landlubbers.

Land nearby and walk into the city. then you can attack wahtever city you like, even friendly ones.

Yep, that's the way I bankrupted the Spanish Main for a couple of decades, picking up the land grant from the next city, then attacking it, replacing the governor and getting more land from him too...

ive never played the original games but this game sounds great and the pictures ive seen of it looks great.... i cant wait to get it

The more of a meticulous pedant you are, the more you will love this game.

It's open ended, so some people will start multiple games and pillage and pillage until they can pillage no more.

Other people, strange peopl, like me, prefer to have a single game where they get unhealthily obsessed with the finer aspects of economic exploitation, moving spices across the map, propping up key ports, sacking towns to get bargain sugar...

I really, really like this game...

played long enough and figured it out. Though I don't see how you can attack a friendly city. Attack enough ships around a city and they'll hate you. easy enough. Then you can attack away.
I agree with the others. If I start playing this game when i get home from work and settle in, say 8pm... I'll look up at the clock and it'll be 3am, and i convince myself i can play another hour so I can get an even 4 hours sleep before going back to work. This game is way too addictive. I have to struggle to stay away from it.

Dude, simply park your ship on the coast nearby to any city, and walk over to it. You then have the option to attack.

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a fantastic game. The open-ended gameplay alone makes it worth trying out. Everything is well excecuted and highly polished. This is one of the best games I've seen.

I've spent about 15 hours playing. I rented the XBox version with my gamepass so I have played without a map or manual. I have used the Brig of War mostly but will try the Ship of the Line. I am at 3/5 difficulty and rely on sword combat so the royal sloop doesn't pack enough crew for my comfort. I may try it again as my skills improve.

Avoiding stumbles while dancing seems extremely easy. Maybe I'm overlooking something or maybe it's just easier on XBox than PC. Am I imagining it or can you throw in extra flourishes like spins or half spins during some of the moves? It doesn't count against you if you don't do them but a ring of tiny hearts develops if you do. If you have to fill that circle to marry, then I see how difficult that would be.

My focus so far has been on earning rank and riches. Conquering cities and donating them makes the process smooth and easy. I never could find an option to park my boat and walk anywhere in the XBox version but it's easy enough to make a nation angry.

My main frustration has been looking for buried treasure or relatives after you complete a map. Over and over I make landfall in the area indicated but I get the "your search found nothing" popup. I've only found what I was looking for 3 times in spite of many attempts. I wish you could get out of the boat and walk around a bit.

If anyone has questions as I did you may find this helpful.
http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/dosw...sm_pirates.txt

I, too, have the XBOX version, and it doesn't allow you to walk on land. Weak-sauce.

It's still an amazing game, though. I find myself playing for hours on end.

Flourishes in dancing only happen if your timing is spot on with the beat.

i love this game, nothing better than unleashing 40 guns on some scurvy bastard!

Word. I've been sailing around w/ Henry Morgan's ship, which has all the upgrades and 40 cannons. Fun as hell.

Oh yeah, when it comes to ground battles, just stay in the wooded areas. Most of the defenders will have guns or bows & arrows, and it's extremely difficult for them to hit you if you're in the woods. When they run out in the open, gun 'em down, or if you have a squad of swords nearby, rush 'em with a flank attack. Easy wins every time.

There are a few interesting subtleties in the ground battles. The wooded areas are indeed a big help. There are also some interesting bonuses that affect things. Melee types have a bonus when attacking most ranged fighters. You don't want to use melee fighters against any sort of indians but ranged attacks seem to work better than usual. Having the higher ground helps some, especially since it increases the distance of ranged attacks. I've had occasional success at creating bottlenecks or cover for my ranged attackers with the rocky ground.

I have a few questions. Are cavalry weaker in the woods? Is it just superior numbers in the attacking unit that give a morale bonus? Is there any way to affect the distribution of troop types or the size of units (such as what nation they're from or how many are recruited at a time)? When do you get a flank attack bonus?

Henry Morgan's ship sounds amazing. I won't sell it off so quickly next time. I have been using Captain Kid's.

I have achieved 15 dancing flourishes in a row and ended a dance with 12. I think the only difference is a slight change to the cut scene at the end of the dance. It still beats collecting stars in a platformer.

*edit* My mother-in-law is visiting this week and I have her addicted to SMP now. Arrgh! */edit*

I tried this out for the Xbox and was pleasantly surprised - it's a hell of alot of fun! There were a few games that Sid Meyer made back in the early 90's that I used to play as a kid, and I forgot that Sid Meyer was behind this game. Great game, lots of fun, I approve!