Sid Meier's Pirates!: Difference between revisions

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'''''Sid Meier's Pirates!''''' can refer to any of three related games. The original game was released in 1987; an [[Updated Rerelease]] called ''Pirates! Gold'' came out in 1993; and the latest game in the series (reverting to the original title) was released in 2004. The basic premise of the games is the same: You start out as a new [[Pirate]] captain in the [[Welcome to The Caribbean Luv|Caribbean Sea]] with a Letter of Marque issued to you by one of four nations (England, France, Spain, or the Netherlands). The game is a [[Wide Open Sandbox]], allowing you to take a wide variety of actions: Go the traditional pirate route and attack other vessels for [[Pirate Booty|loot and plunder]], [[Casanova|romance]] [[Love Interest|beautiful governor's daughters]], search for other pirates' buried treasure using [[Treasure Map|Treasure Maps]], clear the high seas of all rivals who would stand in your way, or even [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|go the boring]] [[An Entrepreneur Is You|"peaceful trader" route]]. One notable feature of the game is that the protagonist can never actually ''die''; defeat in combat (or failure in other regards) generally leads to being either thrown into a [[Cardboard Prison]] or marooned / cast away on a desert island, both of which you can eventually escape from. Also, [[No Stat Atrophy|unlike many other games]], age ''does'' affect your character; his fencing and dancing skills decline noticeably with age.

 

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* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: In older versions, the different nationalities and starting years would actually give you different background stories. Montalban wasn't selling families into slavery through the ''entire'' 1600s. (Or was he?)

* [[Anachronism Stew]]: Named Pirates from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries all sail together. But [[Rule of Cool|how cool is it]] to take on Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, and Jean Lafitte in the same game?

* [[Armor Is Useless]]: Played with. Certain captains - particularly Spanish military - wear curiasses and breastplates, but they don't seem to be any tougher than unarmored captains. On the other hand, the Leather Vest and Chain Curiass that you can buy are so useful that they're practically a [[Game Breaker]] on any difficulty short of Swashbuckler, especially since the latter makes your character virtually immune to sword thrusts. In the ground combat minigame, certain defender units will be shown as wearing armor, and while they are more powerful than unarmored militia, they aren't by a great degree.

* [[Artificial Brilliance]]: If you start greatly weakening a faction's overall presence in the Caribbean, they ''will'' start launching a number of naval invasion fleets to recapture their colonies. Enemy ships also react differently based on what they are. Trade ships surrender very quickly, especially if badly outnumbered or outgunned. Smugglers will ''always'' try to run away, and since they're sailing in Sloops they've got a good chance of escaping. Pirates, warships with invasion forces aboard, and Rayomondo/Mendoza will try to ram to bring you to grips, but if you've got a large enough crew they'll try a few broadsides with grapeshot to tip the odds in their favor. Pirate hunters, however, will try to wipe out your sails with chain shot and beat you with grape shot before moving in for the kill, making them one of the more frustrating opponents to fight. Big, powerful warships - especially Spanish treasure ships - will try to destroy you with massed broadside fire.

** You can do this to other pirates and natives. Tell them to attack a city, and the moment they set sail, assault and destroy their ships. Then cruise around to every faction's ports in the area and get points for destroying the pirate/native threat.

* [[City of Gold]]: In older versions, they're lost Incan treasures.

** In the new version, being the last man standing means that you automatically surrender to the opposing captain the next time you're hit, regardless of how well you were doing in the fight beforehand. Theoretically, though, it ''is'' possible to win a battle with only yourself as the remaining boarder/defender; you just have to avoid being hit at all. This is not as easy as it sounds, as once your crew is completely wiped out, the enemy captain will become extremely aggressive and be able to dodge attacks you were connecting with just moments before.

* [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: AI ships seem to take no damage from sailing into rocks. Also, while your character's swordsmanship decreases with age, it seems that ol' Marquis Montalban drank from the Fountain of Youth.

* [[Cool Boat]]: The Brig of War, Mail Runner, Royal Sloop, and Ship of the Line are the best of their respective classes. The latter is the rarest and most powerful ship in the game.

* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: {{spoiler|After the final battle with Montalban, he will hand over a ''ton'' of gold and any specialists you're missing in exchange for his life. He also becomes your cabin boy (though there are no in-game consequences).}}

* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: Every single ship you encounter in the Caribbean actually has a "mission" that it is set to complete, be it sailing from one port to another to deliver people, supplies, or soldiers. Allowing them to complete these missions causes the target port to grow larger and stronger and wealthier, so blowing up every ship you see might not be in your best interests. Different ships also have different effects; smugglers, for example, won't boost the target port at all but will boost the port they launched from. Military payroll ships boost military strength across the entire faction's ports by a small but noticeable amount. An invasion fleet will decrease the strength of the port it was launched from. Grain and regular trade ships will boost population when they arrive at their target port.

* [[Diagonal Speed Boost]]: Land battles allow diagonal movement in this manner.

* [[Disney Villain Death]]: Strangely averted with the Marquis de la Montalban, considering how grievous his offenses were and the fact that your climactic battle with him takes place on the top of a tower.

* [[The Dragon]]: Baron Raymondo is one of Montalban's henchmen, and the guy you have to go after to get any news about your family members' locations.

* [[An Entrepreneur Is You]]: Possible, but not really that exciting. Made difficult to do as a long-term strategy by the fact that a week passes whenever you enter a town, and the town's limited supply of money for that week.

* [[Exactly What I Aimed At]]: Used amusingly in the duels with the "named" pirates. After you do this a couple of times, the pirates start [[Subverted Trope|subverting]] it with their [[Genre Savvy]], but it's always immediately [[Double Subverted]].

* [[Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels]]: A hallmark of many [[Sid Meier]] games.

* [[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Ship]]: The Ship of the Line.

* [[I Surrender, Suckers]]: If you pummel the ship of an Evil Spaniard ([[Big Bad|the Marquis of Montalban]] or [[The Dragon|Baron Raymondo]]) hard enough, the ship will raise the white flag and surrender as soon as you board it; however a swordfight with the villain in question will ensue.

* [[Joker Immunity]]: The older versions had a variety of evil Spaniards to chase down, but the 2004 version recycles Montalban, Raymondo, and Mendoza, giving them this status.

* [[Mayincatec]]: [[My Friends and Zoidberg|And Olmec!]]

* [[Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode]]: In the Wii version. Player 2 gets to adjust sails and control a parrot.

* [[Nice Hat]]: In the 2004 version, part of the dress uniform for Admirals and above. Lower-ranked characters may obtain a hat that nets them more invitations to grand balls, and therefore more romance opportunities.

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: The highest difficulty level, Swashbuckler. Getting a perfect score of 127 on this level takes a great amount of patience and skill, and probably a bit of luck.

* [[Obvious Beta]]: The game shipped with several intended features [[Dummied Out]]. For example, as originally intended, you would have needed to build up your relationship with the Indians and the Jesuits, but instead, they just trust you completely all the time, making the items that are intended to improve your relations with them absolutely useless. Firaxis claims this was due to a rushed release date.

* [[One Hundred Percent Completion]]: A perfect score is 127 points. Strangely, you don't get points for rescuing your grandfather (if you already have all four map pieces to find him) or finding the final lost city (under the same condition), meaning you can get a perfect score without completely fulfilling your quests.

* [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: The family locket, in the newer version's introduction. It's actually the [[Berserk Button|final straw]] that launches your career in piracy.

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: In each of the games, your character's [[Backstory]] always involves his parents (and the rest of his family for that matter) disappearing, and it becomes up to you to find them. The 2004 version plays it even more straight, as your parents are notably absent from the intro and are not among those you rescue.

* [[Pirate Parrot]]: Referenced by the bartender when he has nothing important to say. In the Wii version, a taunting parrot is controlled by Player 2.

* [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]]: Averted like hell -- you are actively encouraged to attack peaceful ships, plunder cities, and cause mayhem. However, it is theoretically possible to get a half-decent score without engaging in actual piracy [[Self-Imposed Challenge|if you really want to]], by making ends meet as an honest merchant and picking fights only with pirate ships.

* [[Romance Sidequest]]: Governors' daughters. You can even romance more than one, though of course you can marry only one.

** [[Dance of Romance]]

* [[Speaking Simlish]]: In the newer versions.

** And in four distinct accents, one for each nationality!

* [[Surprise Difficulty]]: Playing at any of the four (originally three) lowest difficulty levels isn't terribly difficult. Sure, Rogue (the second highest) is hard, but it's not impossible. But when you're no longer satisfied with a scant 30% of the plunder, you decide to bump it up to Swashbuckler for that 50% share and discover you have entered ''Hell itself''. Storms will rip your ships apart when before they did little damage. The captains of Mail Runner ships (the smallest, least defended ship) will fight as if they were captaining a fleet of Brigs. Land combat, previously difficult, will become nigh impossible. The wind will change constantly, and ''always'' against you in naval battles. Swordfights will become a test of luck rather than skill, as apparently everyone you cross swords with trained specifically to defeat ''you''. Suffice to say, Swashbuckler difficulty is excruciatingly hard, never lets up, and makes sure you ''earn'' whatever ending you get.

* [[Thicker Than Water]]: Your poor, enslaved family.

* [[Treasure Map]]: In addition to the fairly straight examples, there're also maps that help you locate long-lost kidnapped family members.

** But if you succeed and rescue your grandfather (who is always rescued last), he'll always be alive, [[Take Your Time|even if he was an old man when you were a child and you've been sailing for thirty years]].

* [[Vestigial Empire]]: Spain is slowly sliding into the morass of becoming this throughout the game's years, and players are openly encouraged to help them along as they have the most valuables and targets without having some of the advanced units their Northern rivals have. With a good deal of effort, you can literally do this by stripping a colonial power of all but one colony. Guess who is one of the most frequent targets of that?

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: As the game is about piracy, this comes with the territory. However, a common tactic among players is to ''slaughter the majority of their own crews'' (by leading them into hopeless battles) before dividing up the plunder. This won't increase the portion the [[Player Character]] gets to keep, but it will for the rest of the crew. As a result, they'll be happier with their share, you'll be seen as a more capable leader, and more people will want to join you on your next expedition.

** Of course, if you're wildly successful in your current voyage, slaughtering extra crewmen could put you over the top of the bar, enabling you to sail until retirement without dividing the plunder. Usually takes most players at least three divvies to get that far, however, as a frigate of some sort is a must, and sometimes the bastards just won't spawn. (Using a Royal Sloop runs the risk of easy disarmament against Spanish nobles and Montalban by having too few crew members if they decide to ram you early, of course.)

** Get a Ship of the Line. Disable the enemy ship's sails with chain shot, wipe out their crew with grape shot, then circle around the helpless, drifting hulk and pound it to splinters with cannon fire. For extra cruelty, do it to an [[Curb Stomp Battle|Indian War Canoe]].

** Escort a fleet of immigrants to a port, boosting the town's size and wealth. Then sack it.

* [[Welcome to The Caribbean Luv]]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Commodore 64]]

[[Category:Western RPG]]

[[Category:Wide Open Sandbox]]