Sid Meier's Pirates

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I need some opinions on this game. Keep in mind that I am OLD SCHOOL. I remember when the original was released back in 1987, and I was completely and totally addicted to this game. Keep in mind that I didn't even have a real PC in 1987 - I was playing this game on my Commodore 64.

So, how is the new one, almost two full decades later? It seems like a lot of the original made it into the newer version - a variety of different ships - land and sea battles, numerous ports, etc. Is it campaign style like the first one? And perhaps, most importantly, is it worth my $50?

Edit: I just realized I typed "Mid Meier's Pirates" in the title. I intended to use his real name - Sid, not Mid.

[You can edit your titles just as you can the body text - BTA]

[ September 09, 2004, 19:17: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

I didn't even realize that it was out yet - last I heard they were aiming for a November release. From what I have read it is supposed to be very good and quite faithful to the original in feel/play but with modern graphics.

 

Hmmm... Evidently you are correct JSBB. The link I saw to purchase it was to pre-order it. It appears it just entered Beta testing this week. The intended release date is November 16th.

Another thing I'm not too happy about is the system requirements:

1 Ghz processor (which I don't have)
128 MB RAM (which I don't have)
GeForce2 or equivalent video card (which I don't think I have.

Computer is nearly 4 years old - a new purchase may be in order.

 

Damn, I bought my old PC secondhand in very early 2001 and it met those requirements. You do need an upgrade

I've only played Pirates Gold, which was very unstable on my machine. But I am looking forward to this. Nothing like sailing the Spanish Main and hijacking the Silver Train.

 

I haven't read much about the new pirates but I hope you're able to field ALL of your ships and engage in fleet vs. fleet battles rather than just sending out one of your ships at a time.

 

Well, I'm sure there are going to be a lot of enhancements from the original. My commodore 64 would explode if I tried to field 8 ships at once. While the computers have improved to be able to handle such a thing, I have to wonder if trying this would be practical. There would have to be some way to pause the game, or do some type of round-based system, because micromanaging all of your ships (I think up to 8 in the original) would be a nightmare.

That having been said, I only used one or two different ships in the original game for the fights. I usually had one small ship (a sloop) that handled 90% of my battles and one large ship (frigate) for the big guys, like the galleons and war galleons. All of the other ships I had were merchantmen vessels, and were pretty much there just to carry cargo and all of my sailors for the city conquests.

 

I am a big Civ addict and Meier fan but I have to admit to never playing Pirates!. Too young I guess. I am however very interested in this new one. What exactly was the original Pirates! about?

 

You're a privateer captain issued orders to beat the hell out of other nations' shipping routes from the New World. The Spanish Main! Oogh-Arr! Best thing about it is that the game has a very fun 'free' mode where you can take heaps of time before completing your quests.

@Aldeth I played a game called 'Sea Legends' (found it at 'The Underdogs') and it has multiple ship battles and is very similar to Pirates. The other ships are managed by captains that you hire and the captains have varying degrees of ability (some are better at boarding, some are better sailors, some have more accurate gunning, some are more loyal to you (captains can suddenly leave, taking the ship you delegated to them) and others are more brave than others). It was managed well apart from the game possessing horrible AI and controls. You could give orders to your ships by pausing your game and zooming out to a map - pity none of them actually did as you told them. The idea was there but I guess technology at the time prohibited the abitious design.

 

Please tell me this isnt going to spark off renewed vigour for all the Pirate addicts in SP, i mean, one speak like a pirate day a year is enough isnt it??

 

@Abom: Don't forget you could find long lost family members and buried treasure and get married too

 

I'll definately be taking a look at this one. He did the first one just right (I used a sloop, too!!), and I'd expect him to up the ante with this one.

YARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

 

@AtFI, don't complain on that you'r computer are old, my are from '97.

 

@joaquin

There is no one set story line, as you could play the original as one of four different nationalities (Spanish, Dutch, French, or English), and the nationality you chose had some bearing on what you did. For example, if you played Spanish, you most likely were hunting English Privateers, whereas if you were English, you were attacking Spanish shipping lanes. There were also a whole bunch of different eras that you could play in, with the earliest dating to the early 1500s, to the latest being in the late 1600s, with spacing of about 40 years to separate the eras. If you started early in the era, almost the entire Carribbean is controlled by Spain, and as such, it's much easier to play Spanish than any other nationality.

Another thing that is cool about the eras was new cities appear when they did historically. For example, the English founded a city called Port Royale in modern day Jamaica. If you play in one of the earliest eras, Port Royale isn't there, because it wasn't founded yet.

The nationality you played in also affected your starting options by a lot too. For example, if you played as Dutch early on, you were listed as a Dutch trader, and given a Dutch trading vessel that was quite easily the worst ship in the game (I can't remember the name of it at the moment). It combined the worst of both worlds. You got the slower handling and turning ability of the large ships, and the smaller number of cannons and crew members associated with the smaller ships. It was the smallest of the "large ships" if that makes any sense, which made it none too useful.

As an aside, I always thought that one of the shortcomings of the original game was that the smaller ships were overpowered. You could easily take down a galleon with 5 times the number of cannons on board with a small sloop, if you had the wind in your favor because you could easily outmaneuver the large ship, and never allow it to get perpendicular to you to fire a broadside into your ship.

 

Haven't done a net search yet.

Pinnance, sloop, barque, merchantman, fast galleon, war galleon, galleon. 1580, 1600, 1620, 1640, 1660, 1680. 1660 was the "golden age", and 1680 was the "sunset".

Dutch started out with a barque (I think). It was the largest vessel with oars, that could tack against the wind. There was another, just under merchantman I think, and the Dutch may have started out with it instead. That would even up my ship list a little bit, as I know I was at least one off; I hex edited so much, I remember then by hexadecimal rather than ship.

A 06 was a fast galleon, and a 00 was a pinnance; there was an entry for the number of ships, so if you had 8 ships and all zeros, you had a load of pinnances.

You always took a sloop (or a pinnance, if you were really awesome) to drop a galleon. You could "weave" behind him, and he'd never be able to turn around fast enough to get a shot. Your shots would demoralize the enemy more than damage the ship, so you could easily capture it.

I always started off with "medicine" and in St. Kitts as an Englishman. South to Trinidad, west to Cumano/Caracas, and nail the Silver Train at Maracaibo (no fort!!). Most of the time, I had enough men to change it to an English town. Recruit as many men as possible, and plunder west to Panama. Then north to Port Royale (whatever it was called back then in spanish hands) and Havana. Then BEAT DOWN the Treasure Fleet in the Florida Straits (this is where the sloop/pinnance tactic came into play). I'd roll out of there with 7 galleons and one sloop. And 800-1000 men.

Then west to Villa Hermosa and all the other little towns, and make them all English (and maybe one Dutch or French). Divide up the loot, keep the sloop, and tack into the wind to St. Kitts to start another run.

[edit: Google says the Dutch started with a "cargo fluyt", and there was a frigate in the list. Dunno how I could have forgotten the frigate.

Also, This is nice to have, abeit not dialup friendly.

 

Ah yes, the cargo fluyt! That's the one I was forgetting, and I stand by my statement that it was the worst ship in the game. There were two divisions of ships, square-rigged, which were the bigger, more difficult to maneuver ships, and the fore-and-aft ships, which were smaller, more maneuverable, and had oars and therefore could sail directly into the wind, something the square-rigged could not do. All of the fore-and-aft ships are smaller than the square-rigged ships. From smallest to largest you had:

Fore-and-aft:
Pinnace
Sloop
Barque

Square-rigged:
Cargo Fluyt
Merchantman
Frigate
War Galleon
Galleon

I have never heard of the fast galleon, although you may have confused that with the frigate.

Something else I just remember regarding the sloop/pinnace difference when taking on a galleon. The sloop was only slightly less maneuverable than a pinnace, so for essentially giving up nothing, you were able to increase your firepower and crew size by 50%. A sloop could hold 12 cannons as opposed to 8, and 96 men as opposed to 64. That really helped as you were then outgunned 3 to 1 instead of more than 4 to 1. IIRC, the galleon had a cannon total of 36, so it definitely was better having as many cannons as you could. The big problem of course was if the galleon got a broadside off against your little sloop. One broadside and you had a badly damaged ship. Two and you were done. Conversely, you had to fire about a half dozen broadsides into a galleon to even get in moderately damaged.

[ September 15, 2004, 18:39: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

I played Pirates on the Apple //e and the Apple //gs. Later I picked up Gold for the PC, and still have it on DVD under my "abandonware" heading.

So that fast galleon may not have been in your version. It was definately on the //gs version, and I believe in the Gold as well.


Looks like I know what I'll be gettin' for Christmas. Pyrates rule!

 

Saw a tidbit about this in PC Powerplay:
http://www.worldofpirates.com

Perhaps this'll tide you all over until the release of the real thing