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Author: Sashanan (sashanan@gfmods.com) Date: 22 February 2005 Version: 1.2 |
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| Disclaimer |
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Arr, this document be a copyright of Sashanan, 2004-2005. All rights reserved.
Ye be allowed to do the following with this document, by thunder:
Disclaimer in landlubber terms Use to play the game. Do not use to make a profit and do not steal or rip off. |
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| Table of contents |
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| [1] Introduction |
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Arr! Only one more arr in this document, promise. After the release of Pirates!
in 1987 and the subsequent appearance of Pirates Gold, it's been very quiet for
years. November 2004, however, brought a full remake of the game to the PC, all
updated to meet modern expectations in terms of graphics, and with the gameplay
fully redone as well. The concept is still the same: sail around the Caribbean,
plunder ships and ports, and retire a wealthy and high ranking privateer who
has saved as many of his missing family members as he can. That part hasn't
changed. Everything else has, though; the game centers around a set of fully
redone minigames, and to be successful at Sid Meier's Pirates, you'll need to
master them. Additionally, an overall strategy is still required to get the
most out of your pirating career.
Sid Meier's Pirates comes with a very good manual, and the purpose of this FAQ is not to restate what's already in there. Consider this a hint book, rather, meant to add to the information already in the game's documentation. This FAQ is based on my own experiences and those of others I've discussed the game with online, and has a twofold purpose: to inform you about the game's concepts in more detail than the manual does, and to give you the advice you need to become a superior pirate. This FAQ was written with the PC version of Sid Meier's Pirates in mind. The XBox version, when it comes out, will have differences in terms of controls and installation procedures and possibly in bugs/glitches as well. Gameplay will likely be identical, however, so this guide should still be of use to XBox players. As FAQs tend to be, this is a work in progress. Future updates will come as more information is uncovered or I've devised new or updated strategies. And, of course, if quality reader input comes in. The latest version of this guide can always be found on GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com), so be sure to check there if you got this guide anywhere else. Might just be an updated version waiting for you. So, without further ado, on to the 17th century Caribbean! |
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| [2] Overview |
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When you are still a boy, your family is enslaved by the evil Marquis de
Montalban, and only you manage to escape. Ten years later, now a lad of 18, you
decide to set sail for the Caribbean to try your luck there, and hopefully find
a trace of your family and get your revenge on the evil Marquis while you're at
it.
Every game of Sid Meier's Pirates starts with the creation of a pirate. Except for the very first game after installation, where you only enter a name and all the other options are preset to the easiest available, as a tutorial of sorts. You also choose a starting nationality by signing up with any of the four captains. Your choice between the Dutch, English, French and Spanish has some consequences on your starting position, but you are in no way required to stay with the nation you decide to start with. You can work for or against anybody you choose and change allegiances however much you want during your career. Once you've chosen who to sign up with, a short scene describes your voyage to the Caribbean, and how a mutiny on board eventually sees you as the ship's new captain. As the game begins, you have one ship and a small crew under your command, and you'll start outside a random port (usually one of some consequence) of the nation you've chosen to start out with. From there on, the game is completely in your hands. Where you sail and what you do there is now up to you. Some of the activities you might engage in are: - Buy and sell various goods in the ports of the Caribbean; preferably buying low and selling high. - Attack the shipping of one or more nations, plundering the gold aboard their ships and selling off the cargo you steal from them. - Work either as a freelance pirate or attack the enemies of a specific nation to win their favor as a privateer, and gain rank and land grants for your trouble. - Add ships to your fleet by stealing them from other nations, and add to your crew by recruiting new men in taverns. Upgrade and repair your ships at various ports. - Get special items that help out with various parts of your career from mysterious travellers, or gather information about poorly defended ports or fat prizes sailing around nearby. - Attack and plunder ports, and possibly get the chance to install a governor of another nation if your attack is overwhelming enough; definitely getting the favour of said nation. - Get introduced to governor's daughters, impress them with your dancing ability if they invite you to the ball, and eventually court and marry the one of your choice. Or just have a girlfriend in every port if you prefer. - Cross swords with 9 famous, historical pirates who are also active in the Caribbean and establish yourself as the most notorious pirate of your era. - Receive information on buried treasure, lost cities, the whereabouts of your enslaved family members, and the hideout of Marquis Montalban himself. Then, of course, act on that information. - Retire a wealthy, high ranking, married and happy man when you become too old for piracy. Or disappear in disgrace as a penniless pickpocket if you did not do so well. The majority of the game takes place sailing on the world map of the Caribbean, and conducting your business in ports. Apart from that, most activities are structured as a minigame of sorts, which includes naval battles, land battles, swordfighting, dancing, and sneaking in/out of hostile ports. All these activities are described in detail in this FAQ. |
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| [3] New Since Pirates! and Pirates! Gold |
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This section is specifically aimed at veterans of either or both of the
previous versions of this game. If Sid Meier's Pirates is your first game in
this series, feel free to skip this section. If it's not, you'll probably want
to know how much is the same and how much has changed, so here's a handy
overview.
- You still sail around the Caribbean plundering ships and ports, finding treasure and lost family members, getting wealth, acres of land and ranks, and hoping to retire in the highest social standing possible before you grow too old for more expeditions. You still have to strike a balance between a crew large enough to fight your battles with and small enough to keep happy, and you still get more ships only by capturing them. - The 1560 era "The Silver Empire" where Spain controls 95% of the Caribbean is no longer available. All the other eras are still there. - A new difficulty level has been added between Adventurer and Swashbuckler, named Rogue. Rogue captains get the 20% share of the loot that Swashbucklers used to, while you get a whopping 50% as a Swashbuckler now. Assuming you manage to bring any loot in at all, that is, because it's a brutal difficulty setting. - There are many more ships now; 9 classes which each have a small, medium and large ship variant, for a total of 27 different ships. - When you sail in the Caribbean, you don't run into other ships randomly anymore; you see them sailing now, and can pick your targets with impunity. You'll also find the world a lot more interactive now; trading vessels get escorted by military warships and attacked by pirates and raiders of other nations. The appearance of new governors, pirate and indian attacks and even the outbreak of peace and war no longer happens spontaneously; they're all triggered by ships reaching their destination. It is now perfectly possible to foil pirate attacks by sinking the pirate before it reaches its target, or prevent nations from making peace by capturing the ship carrying the treaty. - Trade has become a lot more profitable, if you know where to buy low and sell high. Cannon value has been nerfed a lot though, so no more getting rich by stealing and selling cannons only. It's now all about Luxuries and Spices. As a side effect, working for the Spanish is now a viable option; trading goods in their wealthiest towns is a working alternative to plundering them. - In addition to regular ports, there are now various settlements, missions, indian villages and pirate havens on the map, with various functions. The pirate havens are of particular interest if you'd like to be completely freelance and attack everything that moves regardless of what colors they're flying. Even if all four nations have a price on your head, pirate havens will offer you refuge and let you repair your ships and recruit new crew. - Naval battles are a lot like they used to be, with slight tweaks. You can now buy various upgrades for your ships to make them faster, turn better, shoot more quickly etc. You also have 3 different types of ammunition available for your cannons; the regular round shot, and two special types meant specifically to kill off enemy crew or destroy their sails and make them easier to catch. - Swordfighting has been redone, and the overall style is now much more defensive. Rather than going berserk on your opponent right away, you now get the best results from dodging and then countering his attacks. - Land battles are now turn based strategy where you move your units over a grid, trying to outmaneuver the enemy units and either beat them all or reach the gates of the town. Attacking a town from the sea is no longer possible; any attack on a port is now a land battle. However, you still go straight to a sword fight instead of a land battle if you grossly outnumber the enemy. - You can now get special items that make certain parts of the game easier, such as better swords that swing more quickly, or musical instruments that help keep the crew entertained on long voyages. You can also find specialists on board other ships that enhance your crew, such as an expert gunner that helps your crew load cannons faster. You also get special service in ports as your rank rises; Dukes can get their ships repaired and upgraded for free. - Marrying a governor's daughter is a lot more work now than just proposing if you're rich and famous enough. You will have to win their heart on the dancefloor first, in a rhythm-style minigame. You will have to go through several more steps before one will consider marrying you. Alternatively, you can just dance with beautiful women all over the Caribbean and gain valuable items and information in return. - There's still buried treasure to go after, but each treasure now belongs to a specific pirate, and they will not be pleased if you steal it. On the other hand, beating the pirates themselves tends to earn you good, upgraded ships as well as a good amount of gold from their holds. - You still chase evil Spanish noblemen to learn about your missing family members. The Incan treasures that your rescued family members would point you to have been replaced by lost cities that work much the same way. You also get a chance now to track down and defeat the evil Marquis that enslaved your family in the first place, and get a huge reward in the process. This can be considered the game's main quest now, though it's as optional as everything else. - The Silver Train is no longer among us, and the Treasure Fleet cannot be caught in port anymore. It can, however, be attacked on the high seas if you manage to find it. Its relative value has declined a fair bit, though, and it's now a nice bonus rather than one of your most profitable targets. - Plundered ports recover their economy much more quickly as trading vessels go in and out, and new governors are assigned to them. The danger of ending up with a Caribbean plundered dry, as would happen on the lower levels a lot in the previous games, is effectively gone. There's always more loot for a daring (and aging) pirate to go after. |
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| [4] Character Creation | ||||||
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Except for your very first game session, every game requires you to select
various options before you begin. Specifically, you must choose a name, a
difficulty level, a special skill, an era and a starting nationality. The last
two also determine your starting ship.
---- NAME ---- This is purely cosmetic, so pick whatever has your fancy. My only advice here is to remember that if you name yourself Jack Sparrow, you are not the first player to do so. You might also want to steer clear from naming yourself Blackbeard, as there already *is* a Blackbeard among the other pirates in the game. Otherwise, your name (obviously) has no effect on gameplay, so if you want to go into history as Duke Bob the privateer, nobody's stopping you. ---------------- DIFFICULTY LEVEL ---------------- There are five difficulty levels in Sid Meier's Pirates, and they affect many different factors. As such, the difference between the levels is quite significant, to the point where the first one is very easy (at least once you get used to the game), and the highest is almost sadistic. I strongly recommend starting low (especially if this is your first Pirates game) and going up once you grow more confident. The following aspects of the game are affected by the difficulty level chosen: - Apprentice level has a lot of tutorial messages and visual hints during minigames that you don't get on any other levels; - Enemies, on the whole, strike more quickly in sword fights on higher levels. It varies per enemy and depends on the advantage bar as well, but in general you can expect harder fights on higher levels; - Enemy AI in naval battles improves on higher levels, and the enemy is capable of quicker turns and sailing. You'll find enemies circle or escape you much more easily on higher levels. In addition, enemies appear to cheat a bit with their top speeds on the highest levels, sailing faster than their ships should be able to; - The damage dealt by your cannons and those of the enemy is dependent on level. On lower levels, you'll do a lot of damage while enemy cannons barely faze you. On higher levels, it will be the other way around; - Your crew will remain happy for longer on lower levels; - You require less map pieces for the various map quests on lower levels; - On higher levels, dance sequences contain more complex move combinations and there are also more different music styles (including quicker and trickier ones); - You tend to lose more crew in naval and land battles on higher levels, making it harder to keep your crew at a decent size; - Guards are more numerous during sneaking sequences on higher levels, making it harder to remain unseen; - Nations are much more forgiving to pirates on lower levels. The higher the level, the more likely you are to get a reward on your head and pirate hunters after you if you attack a nation's shipping or towns; - The wind is less predictable on higher levels, and harder to sail against. On Apprentice, the wind is *always* straight west. On higher levels, it changes much more, though it will still tend toward west. There are also two advantages to selecting a higher level (apart from making the game more exciting): - Your share in the loot when you divide up the plunder is directly based on the difficulty level, allowing you to get much richer if you're successful on higher levels. Share is as follows:
- If you play on Apprentice, you are not allowed to select a different era than 1660 (which is, incidentally, the easiest one). Be aware of a jump in difficulty level from the fourth to the last. Difficulty goes up gradually until Rogue level, but the difference between Rogue and Swashbuckler is greater than usual. ------------- SPECIAL SKILL ------------- You can choose one of five special skills when you start the game. Each offers an advantage in a specific area. You can use this to tone down the difficulty somewhat in an area you have trouble with; for instance, if you like the Adventurer difficulty level but find that swordfighting becomes too hard for your taste there, you can compensate that by picking the Fencing skill. Which skill is the best to pick depends on your playing style; they're fairly well balanced. Your options are: FENCING Makes your character quicker in sword fights, both on the attack and the defense. All moves can be pulled off quicker. This skill also appears to improve the chance that dodging at just the right moment makes your character counterattack automatically. This is a solid choice because you will probably do more swordfighting than anything else. Especially on the higher levels this might be your best bet, especially once your character's swordplay slows down because of old age. NAVIGATION Makes your ships move quicker both on the world map and in battle, which is especially useful when sailing against the wind. You'll find this a good choice if you get annoyed by the long time it takes to sail from west to east, or if you get outmaneuvered during battle a lot. Navigation skill basically makes the game more forgiving in these areas, allowing you to focus on the action. It is my personal favorite. GUNNERY Lets your crew load their guns more quickly and makes the game more forgiving in terms of accuracy. Since hitting enemies on higher levels can be tricky, Gunnery skill can make the difference there. This one's not particularly popular since many people prefer not to fire on enemies too much to keep their ships intact. But don't discard it too quickly; it also makes the difference when using different types of ammo that don't harm ships so much, and having the ability to get off good Grape Shots can be very important on higher levels. WIT AND CHARM This skill makes the dancing minigame a lot more forgiving, and since most players consider that the hardest part of the game, that is a very important consideration. Like the dancing items, this skill gives you a set percentage to avoid stumbling when you input an incorrect move. It does not appear to protect you if you fail to input a move at all (which the dancing items do). While the scope of this skill is limited, dancing *is* considered one of the hardest minigames by most players, yet it is a primary source of items and information. As such, you may find Wit and Charm every bit as useful as the more direct special skills. MEDICINE If you feel you don't really need any of the skills above, Medicine will prove useful. It basically extends the health of your pirate, allowing you longer careers before your health gets in the way of your ability to fight properly. You'll be able to stay at sea for longer, and hold off the ill effects of age for longer as well. The difference is significant but not earth shattering; expect to get a couple of years more out of your pirate but less than a decade. ------------ STARTING ERA ------------ Except on the Apprentice level, you can pick five different eras to start your career in. The era you choose affects the balance of power between the nations and the relative wealth of each. Generally speaking, the effect is like this: - In earlier eras, Spain is much more powerful and the other nations only have a few small colonies. In later eras, the other nations become more powerful at the expense of Spain. In 1660, all nations have a few viable ports, and in 1680 Spain is only a little more powerful than the rest. - The overall wealth of all ports increases in later eras. In 1680, all nations (not just Spain) have a lot of wealthy ports and ships full of gold sailing around. On the other hand, Spain is richer in the earlier eras; you can definitely become a very rich man in the 1600s, but you won't have nearly as many ports to run off to for repairs (and you likely won't have any good places to sell off goods). - In earlier eras, nations have less resources at their disposal to ward off piracy. There's less to be plundered, but it's also not as well protected. As time goes by, piracy is taken more seriously and nations work harder to prevent it. In 1680, pirate hunters are as common as pirates and any attempt to make off with the great wealth of just about any nation will result in harsh retribution. For the most part, 1660 is the most balanced and easiest era. It's the default era for a reason, and if you play on Apprentice you can't even choose a different one. Picking different eras makes for a slightly different and more challenging experience. 1680 is of special interest to players who'd like to work *for* Spain instead of against it for a change; it's the only era in which the other nations have almost as much to plunder. Just be aware that you'll face a lot more resistance than usual. ----------- NATIONALITY ----------- What nation you work for and who you pick as your enemies can affect your game quite a bit. However, your starting nationality has very little impact on this. You don't have to keep working for whoever you start out with; you don't even have to work for them at all. You can betray them right away if you so choose, regain their trust a year later and then betray them again. In that sense, what nationality you pick to start with is mostly a cosmetic choice. It affects the following: - You always start out near a port of some significance belonging to the nation you signed up with; - You get a ship based on the nationality and era you chose. In 1660, this is always a Sloop, but in the other eras your starting ship changes depending on the nation you choose. Check just below in the 'starting ship' subsection for the whole list; - The nation you start out with gives you a free Letter of Marque when you visit a governor for the first time (though on Apprentice level, they all do this). Regardless of which nation you start out with, the following is of note when working for specific nations (assuming the 1660 era): DUTCH Ports of call aren't very widespread if you side with the Dutch. You've got St. Martin and St. Eustatius next to each other in the east, and Curacao as a lone haven (quite a wealthy one, even) on the Spanish Main. The English and French don't have any ports near the Spanish Main, so Curacao is actually an important advantage. If you decide to side with the Dutch, you might find it a good idea to either stay friendly with the English or the French as well, or capture some more home ports for when you're a long way from both St. Eustatius and Curacao. Port Royale is a good place to have on your side, one way or another. ENGLISH The English have their ports spread out pretty well, so they're easy to work for. The only place where you won't find any refuge is on the Spanish Main, so if you do your plundering there, you may find it beneficial to keep the Dutch on your good side so you can flee to Curacao when necessary. Or you could just try to take over a few of those easier to capture ports like Rio de La Hacha or Gibraltar. One disadvantage of the English is that Barbados, the best place to sell goods for high prices, is somewhat remote. But Port Royale is nice and central, there's a bunch of ports huddled together on the east side of the map (perfect for recruiting) and a few desolate havens in the far north. FRENCH Like the English, they have a good presence in different parts of the Caribbean. No less than four ports are available just off the east of Jamaica, and south of the Dutch and English presence in the east you'll find three French ports in a row. To the north, Florida Keys is nicely situated for raids on Havana and further west. The Spanish Main itself, however, has no French ports anywhere near it. Once again, you'll find it useful to either befriend the Dutch and sail from Curacao, or capture a smaller port or two for your own use. SPANISH Working for the Spanish appears counterintuitive at first, because that means the best targets are not available for you. However, there are advantages: all those wealthy ports will buy the goods you steal from the other nations off you for very high prices, and wherever you are sailing, there's almost always a good sized Spanish port nearby to replenish your crew and get your ships repaired. Just how viable working for the Spanish is depends on the era you chose; in 1600, there's not much to attack that isn't Spanish, but in 1680 there is plenty for you to prey on, and you can easily afford to be hunted by all other nations at the same time. The one thing you might want to refrain from is to take over other nations' ports and give them to the Spanish, lest you run yourself out of targets. ------------- STARTING SHIP ------------- This is not something you get to choose directly. However, what ship you start with is determined by the era and nationality you chose. In 1660, the default era, you get a Sloop no matter who you sail for, but in the other eras there's quite a different selection. This alone may be a reason for you to pick a nationality that starts with a proper ship. For instance, if you decide to play a 1600 game, you probably don't want to be Dutch, unless the idea of capturing a proper ship with only a lousy Fluyt at your disposal sounds like a fun challenge. I've included a 'suitability' column for a quick idea of which ships are viable for piracy and which aren't. Starting ships based on era and nationality are as follows:
1: there's something very sadistic about having to start with the single worst ship in the game for piracy purposes. Capture something slightly better, but easy to catch to start out with; a Merchantman, perhaps. Then use that to get something even better. Trying to capture a Sloop or something with the Fluyt is pointless unless you're playing on a low level; you'll never catch it. 2: this is pretty much the best starting ship in the game. Brigs are very powerful and well balanced. 3: while the Fast Galleon is a combat ship, it's pretty slow, worth it only for its high gun count and max crew. Neither of which you will have early in the game, and its inability to catch smaller ships at high levels will likely infuriate you. You'd need to capture a Merchantman or something to have a shot at getting a Brig or a Sloop next. |
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| [5] Strategies |
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This section describes overall gameplay strategies, not specifically related
to any of the minigames. For those, refer to section 6.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [5.1] Crew and recruiting -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Your crew is central to all your pirating efforts. They sail your ships and fight your battles. The more crew you have under your command, the bigger the targets you can face, and the more you can afford to lose. This doesn't mean, though, that a bigger crew is always better. The more men you have, the more food you need to stock to keep them fed, and the harder it is to keep them happy. Unhappy crews perform much worse in combat, and may even become mutinous if you don't tend to them soon. Keeping your crew happy is mostly a matter of satisfying their greed, but there are a couple of factors. You start each game with 40 men, and the first thing you'll want to do is recruit more. Since you always start just outside a friendly port, the best thing to do is visit it and go to the tavern to pick up a few more men. After that, for the rest of the game, your options are as follows: - Recruiting from taverns. Can be done at any town and pirate haven; not at settlements. When you've just done this at a specific town you can't do it again for a while. How many men you can recruit is affected by the following factors: - your rank with the nation in question; Captains receive a bonus to recruiting, and Barons receive an even bigger one; - the wealth of the town (richer towns have more job opportunities and thus less people looking for a captain to sail with); - the size of the town (bigger towns yield more recruits); - whether or not you have recruited here before recently (new recruits take time to amass); - the happiness of your current crew (you get less new recruits if your crew morale is already low); - your reputation for having profitable voyages. Basically, if this isn't your first expedition in this game, the crew share of your past voyages will apply a positive or negative bonus to all recruiting. - Recruiting from other ships. If you defeat an enemy ship and a lot of its sailors survive, some of them might be willing to join you instead. The size of your current crew and their happiness are also a factor in this. For the most part, this method is less reliable; it's good to replace losses taken in battle, but if you need to get more men you're generally better off finding them on shore. You have a maximum crew size determined by what ships you have. For instance, say you have one Royal Sloop (max 125) and one Barque with the Triple Hammocks upgrade (max 100, increased by 50% for Triple Hammocks, so 150). This lets you have a maximum crew of 275. Contrary to what the manual states, you cannot go over this. Excess crew is lost as you lose/sell ships, and any excess you recruit is ignored. Losing crew this way is, by the way, painless. They do not take any gold along. Your crew is automatically divided among all your ships. Each ship has a minimum crew requirement, which is higher for bigger ships and also goes up a lot if a ship is damaged. After each ship you have has been assigned the minimum number of men, the remainder fill up your flagship; these are the men you'll use in ship battles. If you change your flagship, your crew is immediately and automatically rearranged. If you capture extra ships, always make sure to check how many men remain for your flagship. If you're in the habit of badly damaging ships before you capture them, you may be surprised by how many men have to be relegated to keeping them afloat. You do *not* want to accidentally enter a difficult ship battle and then notice there's only 20 men on your flagship. Crew are lost in ship and land battles. However, not all the crew that goes down in either battle is necessarily dead (or at least too injured to continue sailing); some of them are only down for the duration of the battle. In land battles, this is particularly noticeable. In ship battles, you only seem to get wounded men back after the battle if you have a Surgeon. Surgeons, incidentally, cut permanent casualties in half. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [5.2] CREW HAPPINESS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- --------------------- DETERMINING HAPPINESS --------------------- Recruiting a crew is one thing; keeping them happy is a different story entirely. Crew happiness is one of the most complicated (and, unfortunately, obscure) calculations in the game. I've done my best to gather what information I can on how happiness works, what exactly affects it, and just as importantly, what having a happy crew vs. an unhappy one affects in your game. Nonetheless, this information is far from complete and if anybody has additional info - especially hard numbers - please do share. Crew happiness is primarily a factor of three things: - the size of your crew; - the size of the loot in your holds; - how long your current expedition has lasted. Basically, your crew happiness is directly determined by the size of everybody's share. Your greedy men always know precisely how much gold they can expect to get when you divide up the plunder, and the longer your voyage has lasted, the bigger their demands are. In other words, the longer you are at sea without dividing up the plunder and dismissing your current crew, the larger everybody's share needs to be for your crew to remain happy. The share can, of course, be increases in two ways: either find more gold, or reduce your crew size. Your crew doesn't care if you have 20000 gold to be divided up among 50 men, or 40000 among 100. It's the same to them. Thus, losing crew in battle can boost happiness among the survivors as much as plundering a fat target can. Your crew *does* care how much of the share belongs to them. On Swashbuckler level, half the loot goes to you, leaving a lot less to be divided among the crew than on Apprentice. Happiness is determined by how much is left for them. Apart from this basic calculation, there are other factors that impact the happiness of your crew. Having the Cook and/or the Quartermaster specialist helps delay unhappiness on long voyages, as does having the 3-Stringed Fiddle or even the Concertina. These four effects are all cumulative with each other, and they will basically make your crew more forgiving, and let you get away with longer voyages without loot to match. But with or without them, in the end it comes down to keeping your loot growing, and the larger your crew, the more loot it takes. This is the primary reason why you should not keep a bigger crew around than you need. If you're only hitting small ships, don't take 500 men with you. That kind of crew is only needed if you intend to attack large cities. For the most part, I find 200 men sufficient for expeditions that don't involve attacking well defended towns. Plenty to win even tough ship battles. If you're going to capture ships along the way, you may want to have a crew closer to 300 so you always have about 200 remaining for your flagship. Since crew happiness becomes harder to maintain late in an expedition, you will find it relatively easy to have a large crew to start with. If you have both city and ship attacks in mind, consider getting a large crew quickly at the start of an expedition, plundering the fattest cities in the Caribbean, then reducing your crew size and going after ships for a few years before dividing up the plunder, after which you can repeat the cycle. Crew reduction can be accomplished by deliberately losing men in battle, or by selling so many ships that you're forced to leave some crew behind. You'll also need to make sure you keep your crew fed. If it's large, you will need to take a lot of food along, which can get expensive and takes up a lot of cargo space. A Cooper specialist helps keep food from spoiling, effectively reducing the rate at which it is consumed; thus you can get away with buying less. Running out of food is no fun - your crew can go from full happiness to full mutiny very quickly if you starve them. Don't let it happen. If you're going on a long voyage with little food, restock at settlements and villages along the way. If you are really running low on food, attack any ship you see to plunder their food stores. If it actually belongs to a nation you are trying to win the favour of, too bad. You can make it up with them later when your men aren't hungry. In the end, you'll find it harder and harder to keep your crew satisfied as your expedition goes on. Eventually you will *have* to divide up the plunder and start with a fresh crew if you intend to ever see them happy again rather than bordering on mutiny. Dividing up the plunder has two disadvantages: - You get to keep only one ship (so you'll have to sell off the rest, like it or not); - You lose around 6-8 months of game time starting your new expedition. You also start with a small crew of 40 again, but if your last expedition was profitable, you'll be able to recruit new men very quickly, so that's usually not a big concern. You'll have it right back up to size by visiting just a few ports. The real pain is if you used to rely on several ships. Perhaps you used both a Royal Sloop and a Ship of the Line and switched depending on what you were attacking. In that case, you'll now have to make a choice as one of the ships has to go. Most players prefer to stretch their expeditions for as long as possible to minimize the downtown between expeditions. How far you can stretch is mostly dependent on the difficulty level. On Apprentice, I've done 10 year expeditions without too much trouble. On Swashbuckler, you'll be hard pressed to keep your crew happy for a few years under the best of circumstances. There appears to be a cutoff point where, if your loot is especially big compared to your crew size, your men will never become unhappy even if you keep them at sea forever. Several readers reported this effect and I've experienced it myself as well. It appears to happen on or around 3000 gold per crew member (minus your own share); not something you'll obtain very often. You'd need to have a pretty small crew and have things like Montalban's loot and/or Lost Cities to bolster your loot. Nonetheless, it's something to keep in mind. On low levels you may be able to get away with never dividing up the plunder until you're ready to end the game. ------------------------------- CONSEQUENCES OF AN UNHAPPY CREW ------------------------------- Unfortunately, the manual isn't very clear on which aspects of the game are affected by having an unhappy crew, and it's hard to tell in playing the game exactly where happiness factors in. There's a few clear spots, but rumours fly on forums about a host of other things it might or might not affect. I'll stick with the facts in this FAQ, but bear in mind that the list below may very well be incomplete. The following have been confirmed to be affected by crew happiness: - If a crew becomes mutinous, some of them may abandon you while in port; they do not appear to take any gold along if they do, though, so this is mostly painless. However, if it has come to this, you'll find it hard to recruit new crew anymore and should consider dividing up the plunder soon. - At sea, only if you have more than one ship, mutinous crew may attempt to depart with one of your other ships. If they do, they take more than their fair share of cargo and gold along as well. You can, however, overtake and recapture your mutineers to get your gold back. This kind of mutiny never occurs on your flagship. - If your current crew is unhappy with you, it becomes harder to get fresh recruits. Eventually you may find it impossible to maintain a crew size you can get anything done with. - Unhappy crews are poorly motivated in ship battles, and will take noticeably onger to reload your cannons, or raise and lower your sails. The following have been *suggested* to be affected by crew morale, but I have been unable to confirm them one way or the other (though they seem likely enough): - Unhappy crews may perform poorly in battle, increasing the chance that you lose crew instead of the enemy while you are duelling the enemy captain. - Unhappy crews may perform poorly in land battles, although it must be noted that the morale your units have within those battles is unaffected by crew happiness. You'll never see units starting at 'angry' or worse even if your crew is mutinous. - Unhappy crews may cause your turning rate to drop in ship battles. - Unhappy crews may cause your sailing speed to drop in and out of ship battles. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [5.3] GOLD AND PLUNDER -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Although wealth only makes up a fifth of your final fame score, you'll likely be pursuing gold as your main objective throughout the game anyway. If only because that is what your crew is after, and if you don't keep gold pouring into your holds, they will soon become unhappy. Some good ways to make gold are: ---------------- PLUNDERING SHIPS ---------------- This is the most obvious one and probably what you'll spend most of your time doing. Any ship you capture is likely to at least carry some gold which goes directly into your hold, and possibly valuable cargo as well which you can sell for gold later. How profitable this is depends a lot on the targets you are striking. Bear the following in mind: - Indian War Canoes bear either no or very little gold. Not worth it; only attack these to win the approval of European nations. Warships of most kinds also have little in the way of gold and goods, though there are exceptions. For the most part, neither of these targets will be a good choice if it's gold you are after. - Grain Transports usually have little gold, and only food on board. You can safely ignore these if your crew is not close to starving and you're not particularly interested in attacking ships of that specific nation. - Regular merchant ships (the ones without any special label on them) tend to have a decent amount of gold and cargo, sometimes low value (goods/sugar), sometimes high value (luxuries/spice). Loot varies a lot on the small ship types (Trade Galleon/Merchantman/Fluyt), but if you see a bigger ship in one of those classes, it's usually bigger for a reason. They tend to have a good supply of gold and cargo. Also, if any merchant ship has an escort, that's a clear sign it has something worth protecting on board. Escorted ships rarely disappoint, but obviously you do have to deal with the escort. - Smugglers tend to have nice cargo (a small load of Luxuries or Spice) and a little gold as well. In addition, smugglers have a higher than usual chance of having specialists on board. As an extra bonus, they tend to be easy targets; only the lucky ones sailing Brigantines pose some threat. - Unnamed pirates are sometimes down on their luck and sometimes they had a good run before you catch them. You can never be sure, but it's usually worth it to go after them. They carry only gold and usually no decent goods. - Ships carrying immigrants or transporting new governors tend to have a good amount of gold; presumably the personal fortune of their passengers. Immigrant ships have the added advantage that they have the best chance in the game of carrying specialists. Both are fairly easy targets, too. - Military payroll and treasure ships have good amounts of gold on board, easy profit which doesn't require you to sell cargo first. Payroll ships tend to have hard cash only; treasure ships often have a good load of Luxuries and Spices in addition to it. The Treasure Fleet, if you can find it, consists of several Treasure Galleons with a better amount of gold than normal, depending on how far it was on its route when you grabbed it (see paragraph 7.8). - Named villains are always fat targets. Mendoza has 2000 gold, Raymondo 3000 and Montalban 5000, every time you capture their ship. If you spot one, take them out immediately; but be wary, they're among the tougher targets. - Named pirates have the best loot of all, especially the most famous ones. Furthermore, their loot increases over the course of the game. I've heard of one lucky player who got no less than 70000 off Henry Morgan's ship. More realistically, you can expect to get at least 12000 off him, and up to 30000 if you capture him after 15 years or so in the game. Do make sure you have what it takes to take these guys down, as the more notorious pirates sail very powerful ships. - If you frequently talk to barmaids, you will be dropped hints about nearby ships with a lot of gold on board. This can be any ship that carries at least 700 gold; I've once been pointed to Raymondo's ship this way. Usually the ships that get pointed out like this are payroll carriers or treasure ships, but occasionally it's a completely random ship (I've even gotten 1200 gold off an Indian War Canoe after a barmaid told me to grab it). Long story short, if you get a hint about a fat target, check its route and see if you can easily go after it. It is almost always worth doing. - It appears that the overall wealth of all ships belonging to a nation is directly affected by the power level of said nation. Spain's ships, in particular the larger merchant vessels and the payroll carriers, always seem to be richer than English and French ones, and those in turn seem to be richer than Dutch ones. However, if you capture ports for a certain nation and have them become more powerful, their ships seem to gain slowly as well. This also appears to cause a weird calculation bug if a nation runs out of ports completely (due to you capturing them all for other nations). Players have reported seeing ships with ridiculous amounts of gold in them after they've taken out all ports of that nation, and one player reported getting *negative* gold from a ship after this (which also caused his game to crash directly after). ---------------- PLUNDERING TOWNS ---------------- While it takes bigger crews to pull off than plundering ships, you can earn yourself some serious money by sacking the various towns in the Caribbean. The best targets are Wealthy ones, followed by Prosperous; Modest isn't really worth doing and if you raid Poor towns for the money, you need to rethink your priorities. (It *is* a sound tactic if you intend to capture the town, though.) The size of the town is another factor. I'm not entirely sure yet, but it looks like the wealth of the town (in terms of poor/prosperous etc.) is a relative indicator depending on the size of the town. A big modest town might still have more gold among its citizens than a small wealthy one. So, basically, pick a target that looks profitable in all ways. Wealth and strength of defenses in a town are not necessarily balanced. Poor towns might have a surprisingly strong garrison and it's possible that a wealthy town - especially one that became wealthy only recently - is poorly defended. You don't need me to tell you which of these two examples would be the better target to go after. Here are a few tips on plundering towns: - Be sure to talk to mysterious travellers at all times, and to stop in ports whenever you have the time, to keep your information on as many towns as possible up to date. Visiting a port will update your information on it, and travellers can give you free information on a random other town. You can review this information when you click on a town on the world map. On lower levels, information about a town sticks on your map for longer, whereas on the higher levels you will have to rely much more on travellers and your own visits to keep your map updated. Often you get information about a town just by sailing close to it without actually having to enter. - When you attack a town, try to have at least as many pirates as there are soldiers defending it. You *can* beat greater numbers, especially on lower levels, but it's risky. If your numbers are as good as theirs, you can be pretty sure you'll win it if you don't make a lot of mistakes. Of course, if you're confident about your ability to win land battles, feel free to go up against superior numbers. The AI generally doesn't play these battles as well as you do. - A town's defenses can be softened up by going to a nearby pirate haven or indian village and convincing them to attack it. Note that each haven/village can only be set on whatever town belonging to a nation is closest to them, but you can usually find one (especially if you have the Rutter items). This approach is not entirely without risk, however. If the attack in question fails (likely if the garrison is bigger than about 300 soldiers, but never a guarantee), the garrison will be thinned out and the town is otherwise not harmed. If the attack succeeds, on the other hand. It's a different story. A pirate attack will reduce the town's wealth rating to poor instantly, and a successful Indian attack will scare of a sizable portion of the population. Both are detrimental to the size of the loot you're going to get. In other words, make use of Indians and pirates only if you don't care about the loot size (perhaps you just want to capture the town?) or if the garrison is so big that their chances of success are minimal. Unfortunately I don't have good stats on that yet. - If a town is particularly big and rich and poorly defended, you may sometimes find it worth it to plunder it twice in a row. If your first attack went well, you will hopefully still have most of your pirates whereas the garrison is battered and bruised. The second attack will be a piece of cake and you can milk that much more gold from the town. As an added bonus, the second attack will often let you capture the city for another nation if the first did not. - It is possible to soften up a town with a coastal bombardment by pressing the space bar repeatedly when you are close to it. However, if it's plunder you are after, this is not a good idea. It will only damage the garrison slowly, and do a lot more harm to the town's population and wealth rating. Reserve this for towns you intend to capture, when you don't care about how much gold it'll earn you. - It may be worth it not to always intercept governors of enemy nations if you see them sailing. You can chase them until they enter their destination port and upgrade its economy, then sail in right after them and plunder the town's newfound wealth before it has a chance to strengthen its garrison. - If you are serious about robbing a specific nation's towns, aggressively attack its troop ships and military payrolls to keep it from strengthening its garrisons. Payroll ships are a good idea anyway; they tend to have a lot of gold on board. Towns will still gradually increase their garrison size if their economy is in good shape, but without troop ships and payroll carriers to help them, it's a slow process. ------------- SELLING GOODS ------------- Goods of all kinds can be obtained in two ways: they can be purchased from merchants in towns (and in the various types of smaller settlements), or they can be stolen off ships you capture. Unlike in the previous Pirates games, you don't get any goods when plundering towns anymore; only gold. No matter how you obtain your goods, you can then sell them in any town you desire, and if you pick the right place for the right commodity, you can make a hefty profit. It's even possible to have a moderately successful game as a peaceful trader by buying low and selling high. Some tips for getting a profit off selling goods: - You have better results selling in the towns of a nation you are a Colonel in, or better yet, a Marquis. These two ranks give you trading bonuses: the town will have more goods for sale and also have more gold in reserve to buy your goods with. Prices won't be any higher, but at least you won't run the merchant out of gold before you've unloaded even half your cargo. - Bigger towns don't necessarily offer better prices, but they do tend to have more gold in reserve. This is a bit of moot point, however, as you can sail out of a port and right back in after you run the local merchant out of gold, and he will have a fresh supply of it. The only thing this costs you is time (which you might actually find significant; every town visit takes a full week). - Wealthy towns pay better and also have a better gold reserve. If you don't sell in the right towns, you might find they run out of money before you've unloaded more than a fraction of your cargo. The best towns to sell in are, unfortunately, Spanish. Since you won't find yourself on Spain's side in most games (presumably because you're plundering all those wealthy towns), you'll need to know the good places that other nations have to unload your goods. Which towns are rich varies a bit from game to game, but safe bets are Curacao (Dutch), Guadeloupe and Martinique (French) and Barbados (English). Otherwise, any port that happens to be Prosperous or Wealthy at the time is typically a good place. - If you do keep Spain on your side, you will find you can make almost as much profit selling stuff to their richest ports as you can stealing from them. This is particularly true in 1680 when the other nations are rich enough for a Spanish privateer to succeed. Cartagena, Havana and Santiago are all very good places to trade. Vera Cruz as well, but it's really out of the way. Panama tends to be the single richest Spanish town there is, but it's not a port, so you'd need to walk there every time you want to visit it. Panama's the kind of place that easily pays 40-50 gold for 1 ton of Spice and has enough gold to buy it in bulk. - The False Mustache and Theatrical Disguise items let you trade in Spanish ports even if Spain is hostile to you. Regrettably, they don't help you actually get into the ports, making them fairly pointless as far as I can see. They only help if Spain is so hostile that they won't trade with you, but not so hostile that they'll open fire on you if you try to enter one of their towns. That's a pretty narrow window especially on the higher levels. - Goods and Sugar sell well in smaller ports. Spice and Luxuries fetch the best prices in larger ports. Both fetch better prices in rich ports than poor ones. For the most part, Spice and Luxuries are more profitable; give these priority if you need to choose what to steal off a captured ship. - Settlements often pay very well for goods and missions pay well for food, but both always have very small supplies of gold. Barely worth it. You *can* do the same thing as you can with ports and just sail out and back in to sell more, but this is a very tedious process if you have to do it after every five tons of cargo. Not to mention that this could take weeks, even months of game time. Better to spend all those days attacking ships. - For the most part, Spice and Luxuries are worth grabbing off captured ships, and Goods and Sugar less so. They're a nice bonus if you have the room for it, but they're not where the profit is. Excess food, similarly, can net you some extra gold but nothing stellar. - Cannons aren't worth it in terms of selling. This is new to Sid Meier's Pirates, as they fetched a good and consistent price in the previous games. Never take cannons along instead of any other kind of cargo; just the max you need for your flagship. You can take extras if you like in case you lose some in combat, but as soon as you need the room for something else, ditch the cannons. ------------- SELLING SHIPS ------------- If you capture a ship at sea, it's not just its gold and cargo that is of value to you. The ship itself can be quite valuable as well, up to 1800 gold for the bigger ships if they have a lot of upgrades. You can actually make a decent profit just nabbing and selling ships, if you know what you're doing. Here's what you want to keep in mind: - Try not to damage your prizes. The repair cost of a damaged ship goes off its selling price, and if the ship is heavily damaged it may well exceed the prize, leaving the ship at the minimum value of 10 gold - for firewood, probably. Even if you have a Sailmaker and a Carpenter working for you, the repairs they can do to ships are only minor. Try to board ships without shooting too much at them, and rely mostly on Grape Shot and a little on Chain Shot if you do need to fire a few broadsides. Round Shot is devastating, especially in numbers, and you can forget about getting much of a profit if you shoot a lot of holes in the enemy's hull. Not to mention the fuss of actually bringing a heavily damaged ship home. - A Major gets cheaper repairs in port, and can thus get away better with damaging his prizes a little. If you're a Count, repairs are free, and at that point it doesn't matter anymore if you bring half-destroyed ships in. But they will still slow you down while you've got them in your fleet, and tie up a lot of your crew. - If you can have a ship repaired for free (Count rank or higher), you do not need to have your ship repaired before you sell it. The selling price is automatically fixed to that of an undamaged ship, saving you a mouse click. - A Duke gets to upgrade ships for free. If you're lucky enough to be a Duke with any nation, bring your ships there to sell, and upgrade them before selling to increase the value of the ship. - You can only have a maximum of 8 ships in your fleet. Plan a return to a friendly port (preferably one where you have a high rank) when you get close to that maximum. And keep an eye on your crew, so you don't end up short as it is divided over the ships. If you have little crew left on your flagship you will find it hard to win any more battles. Even worse, if you don't have enough crew to meet the minimum requirements of all your ships, you will slow down a lot. ------ QUESTS ------ The most important source of money in the game is undertaking quests. There are a bunch of different ones, some random and recurring, some set. And some are worth a lot more than others. The following quests will bring in money for you: - Capturing a fugitive criminal: a reward between 1000 and 5000 gold, and easy to get. Get these quests by dancing with governor's daughters. You get them with a moderate dance from a plain looking daughter already, and as a substitute for various other (better) rewards if they no longer apply. See paragraph 7.1 for more information. - Finding a buried pirate treasure: between 2000 and 10000 gold. Talk to travellers in taverns to get map pieces for this. See paragraph 7.3. for more information. - Defeating a named pirate: depending on the notoriety of the pirate and how long the game has run on, you get a sizable chunk of money off their ships. They start with roughly as much money as their buried treasure (slightly less), but their wealth increases over the course of the game as they plunder more ships. You can easily get double or even triple the value of their buried treasure if you only take them out many years after the start of the game. - Finding a lost city: this brings in a whopping 50.000 gold, but it's hard to do. Get map pieces by rescuing family members or kidnapped governor's daughters, or by dancing perfectly with a beautiful daughter. See paragraph 7.5. for more information. - Vanquishing Marquis de la Montalban: the main quest of the game; it's complicated, takes a lot of preparation, and ends with a fairly tough battle (depending on level, though). But for 100.000 gold it's hard to say no. See paragraph 7.6. for the whole story. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [5.4] RANKS AND PROMOTIONS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- One of the most important aspects of your final fame score is the rank you achieve with each of the four nations. Furthermore, getting rank with any nation gives you certain benefits in their ports which are worth having. Getting promoted by any nation is a matter of making them happy with you. The following things help to achieve that: - Attack a ship belonging to a nation they are at war with; especially a warship. It doesn't matter if you only damage it, capture it or sink it. However, if it's a warship, you might only get the full score for it if you do indeed capture it. - Plunder a town belonging to a nation they are at war with; the attack must succeed for it to count. - Capture a town for a nation. It doesn't matter if they're at war with the one you captured it from or not. If they are, you get the bonuses for both the sacking *and* the capture; they're cumulative. - Damage, capture or sink any indian or pirate vessel. All four nations are happy if you do this. Named pirates are worth even more points; you get a point for stopping the ship *and* some points for taking out the named pirate. - Stop (= capture or sink) a special ship belonging to an enemy of the nation; like a governor or an invasion force. You get extra points for this in addition to the ones you already get for capturing an enemy ship in the first place. - Escort a special ship belonging to that nation to its destination - e.g. help a governor reach his destination. For this purpose, it doesn't matter if you were actually assigned to protect this ship, or even if you're near it when it reaches its destination. If you've just spotted the ship once and it reaches its destination safely later, you're considered to have helped protect it. Obviously, while attacking a nation's enemies will make that nation happy, these enemies will become unhappy with you at the same time. The impact of attacking a nation's towns or shipping depends on the difficulty level. At Apprentice, you can often get away with helping both sides in a war at once, making a profit off the shipping off both, and having both nations forgive you because you are also fighting their enemy. On higher levels, the penalties for preying on a nation are much higher, and the same approach would soon make both of them mad with you. Note that if two nations have a peace treaty - not nearly as common as war, but it happens - they consider an attack on their ally to be equivalent to an attack on themselves. However, they do not care about you helping their ally in any way; you still need to make them happy by attacking individual enemies. If you score enough points with a nation, they may decide to promote you. How many points it takes is dependent on the difficulty level; you also need more for higher ranks, so that going from Captain to Major is easier than going from Marquis to Duke. The ranks and their benefits are listen in paragraph 8.6. Here are some tips to get promotions the easiest: - Check who is at war with whom, and pick your allegiances early on. Stick with at least one nation, or better yet, two. For instance, if England and France are both at war with Spain, fighting Spain early will win you the support of both of them. - When you become a Duke with a certain nation, there are no more promotions to earn. This is the time to backstab them and work for their enemy if you want to become a Duke with them as well. You can, however, get easy land grants from a nation that has made you a Duke if you keep working for them. So decide what you're after and pick your targets accordingly. - To win a former enemy's trust, attack whoever they are at war with. Also, you can convince Jesuit missionaries close to that enemy's ports to speak to them on your behalf. If you pull this off, the nation will immediately drop the price on your head immediately, allowing you start working for them with a clean sheet. Individual ports belonging to that nation may still be hostile if you harassed them badly, however. Finally, if you don't mind spending a little gold, you can also "buy off" a price on your head. For this you will need to get to speak with a governor, so you may have to sneak into an enemy town to do this. - Remember that hunting pirates and indians makes you popular with all the four nations. If there aren't any around, you can go to a pirate haven or indian village, incite them to attack a nearby town, then immediately attack them as they sail out of port. It's nasty, but it works well. Particularly with Indians who tend to send out three War Canoes at once. Easy to beat, and lots of points scored with all nations. - Check back with your benefactor frequently to see if you have a promotion waiting. You will also get hints if you're close to it ("Soon you'll be promoted to..."). If you wait for a long time and score more points than you needed, you still get only 1 promotion, and the excess points are paid off in a land grant (50 acres per point). These land grants are very good for your wealth score, but you can also get these *after* you become a Duke for a certain nation if you keep working for them. They're probably not a priority for you while you are still rising in rank, but the choice is yours. - If you've done a lot for a nation, yet you get just one promotion and no land grant, try visiting the governor a second time immediately. Sometimes, land grants do not trigger appropriately for some reason. In this case you usually get a second promotion straight away and you do get whatever land grant you were entitled to afterwards. - If you have a rank with a certain nation, particularly a high one, you can afford to betray them a little and get away with it. If you persist they will eventually become hostile to you, but they are more forgiving than usual, and the rank is never lost. Contrary to what the manual states, you do not lose the benefits that come with the rank either. No matter how hostile Spain is to you, if you're a Count they will repair your ships for free in their settlements. (In their cities as well but those you likely won't be able to enter.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [5.5] SHIPS TO USE -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- As you will notice if you study paragraph 8.1, there are a lot of different ships in Sid Meier's Pirates; many more than in its predecessors. It can be quite daunting to make a choice from the 27 ship types. Fortunately, it's not as complicated as it looks. For one thing, there really are only 9 different classes of ships, and 3 variants of each; a small, a medium and a large one. In nearly all cases, the medium and large variants perform just as well as the smaller ones, they just hold more crew, guns and cargo. Within whatever ship class you prefer to use, you are therefore always best off getting the biggest ship you can get. Frigates are good, but Large Frigates are better. It's that simple. The question remains, then, which of the 9 ship classes to use. Which is best depends on what you intend to do with it. Presumably your fleet will consist of one flagship, or two that you alternate between if you like to have different types availble (we'll get to that in a bit). Any other ships you have are likely only cargo or crew haulers, and the only thing you want from them is that they balance out speed and capacity. The best choice for that is Frigates, but they are typically hard to get. Most players are happy to get a good Frigate as their flagship. If you can get additional ones, great, but you'll likely have to settle for other types. Merchantmen strike the best balance between capacity and speed; Galleons carry more, but they will slow your fleet down quite a bit. Your flagship is a different story. You'll be taking this into battle, and thus you want it to be a sturdy warship that's fast, agile and well armed. Let's have a look at each type of warship: ------- PINNACE ------- The Pinnace class includes the smallest ships in the game; they have very low capacity for guns, crew and cargo, and are very vulnerable in battle. If they get hit, that is; because they are also the fastest and best turning ships, and perform well even against the wind. In the end, though, the weaknesses are a bit too pronounced. I'd say only the Mail Runner is viable whereas the other two simply don't carry enough guns and crew to be suitable in battle. To get a Mail Runner, talk to friendly governors and see if one of them will offer you a mission to escort a ship carrying a peace treaty or an ultimatum. These ships are often either Mail Runners or Royal Sloops. You will obviously have to betray the nation to capture the ship, but this is about the only way to get a Mail Runner. ----- SLOOP ----- Sloops are far better as small ships go. They are still fast, hard to hit and very agile, and they can carry larger crews. The Royal Sloop, biggest in this category, is the second most popular ship in the game among the players I know. Many people stick with them exclusively for their high speed and the fact that they never seem to take hits in battle. And with Triple Hammocks on them they can carry a respectable crew of 187. To get a Royal Sloop, either see if you can backstab a nation allowing you to escort a treaty carrier (see under Pinnace), or track down and defeat the notorious pirate Roc Brasiliano, who sails one. ---- BRIG ---- Brigs are a bit larger than Sloops, but still have a good speed and can sail against the wind with some success. They basically strike the balance between the agility of smaller ships and the heavy armament and ability to take a beating that the bigger ships have. The Brig of War is an excellent ship that doesn't have as many supporters as the Royal Sloop and the Ship of the Line do, but is still easily the 3rd most popular. It's also a lot easier to obtain than the other two, and my personal favorite. To get a Brig of War, the easiest way is to track down and defeat Captain Kidd, who sails one. You may also see them as pirate hunters and new warships. ------- FRIGATE ------- Frigates are the best choice in terms of large ships. They can carry huge crews - plenty for any ship battle - have room for a ton of guns, and can take quite a bit of punishment. Their inability to dodge salvos as easily as the smaller ships is offset by this, and for such large ships, they are still quite fast and able to make fairly tight turns. The famous Ship of the Line is the biggest of the Frigates and probably the most popular ship in the game. It is also the rarest, however, not in the last place because Spain doesn't use Frigates of any kind. Getting a Ship of the Line is tricky. There's no real way to make this easier; most will be New Warship types and those are completely random. You may see them as pirate hunters, but only very few will actually use this ship. Still, if you want to boost your chances of finding one, getting more pirate hunters after you is the only real way to do it. Pissing off a nation consistently (particularly by attacking shipping outside a big port), playing on higher levels and choosing the 1680 era all help. -------------- COMBAT GALLEON -------------- The Fast Galleon, War Galleon and Flag Galleon fall in this category. The Trade Galleon, Royal Galleon and Treasure Galleon do not; those are merchant ships, unsuitable for combat. Actually, the combat galleons aren't particularly suitable either. Their power is comparable to that of Frigates, but they are far slower. They are fast enough when running before the wind, true, but going against it is almost impossible in a galleon of any kind, and their turning circle is horribly wide. Smaller ships can and do run circles around these cumbersome vessels and pelt them with one broadside after another. If you like to use large ships, you really should stick with a Frigate type instead. Even the smallest kind of Frigate is a better bet than the otherwise very powerful Flag Galleon. To get a Flag Galleon, either keep your eyes open for Spanish pirate hunters or New Warship types (though you won't see many Flag Galleons), or find and defeat Marquis Montalban. He always uses one. Summarizing this, the Pinnace and Combat Galleon categories aren't your best choices. It's a toss up between Sloops, Brigs and Frigates, and it's mostly a matter of personal preference what works best. I personally am a fan of Brigs, but many people prefer the big bad Frigates (the Ship of the Line in particular) and there are also many Sloop fans. All are solid choices for a flagship. Just make sure that if you do use a larger ship, you recruit a crew to fill it up with. Not much sense using a Frigate if you're not going to put more men in it than you could fit in a Sloop. Your tactics in ship battles will probably change depending on what kind of vessel you are using. Sloops will want to thin out the enemy crew before boarding, and avoid enemy fire as much as possible. Frigates will probably be a lot more aggressive, heading for the enemy straight away with just a single broadside to soften them up if needed, and accepting the fact that they'll take a little counterfire in getting there. Use whichever ship works best for your style. You could even have both a Sloop *and* a Frigate available and pick a ship to use for every battle; for instance, using a Sloop against smaller targets and a Frigate against any enemy Frigate and Galleon types. Whichever ship you choose, however, be sure to get all the upgrades you can find for your flagship. They're all worth having and can make a lot of difference. There's only one you might want to skip on purpose: Triple Hammocks. Think about how large you want your crew to be; perhaps you want to keep it small on purpose. In that case, upping the maximum may not be in your best interest. |
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| [6] Minigames |
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Much of the gameplay in Sid Meier's Pirates consists of playing its various
minigames. The premise and controls for each are in the manual, but of course,
it does not go into too much detail about how to play them. But that's what
you're reading this guide for, no? Each paragraph in this section highlights
a different minigame, giving an overview and a set of tactics to improve your
results at them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [6.1] NAVAL BATTLES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------- OVERVIEW -------- A naval battle is always initiated by you. Enemy ships can never initiate naval battles, though they *can* bombard you on the world map, causing some sail and hull damage (but never sinking you even if they hit you a lot). When one or more ships are in range of your flagship, press 5 and you will be given a list of ships you can attack. The size of the crew and the number of guns on the enemy ship will be mentioned and you can compare to what you have on your flagship, or switch flagships if necessary. Note that you can't see the guns/crew on a ship if it's a special type, like a Treasure Ship or a named villain like Raymondo. Those ships tend to have close to the maximum for their ship type, though. Please refer to section 8.1. for more ideas on what to expect certain ships to have in terms of defenses. If you choose to attack a ship, you will be thrust into naval battle mode. The positions of your ships relative to each other is the same as it was on the world map. A naval battle is usually against one ship at a time, with two exceptions: - If the ship has a dedicated escort sailing along with it, you'll fight both ships at once; - If another ship was actively chasing you at the time (normally a pirate hunter but it can be any hostile warship), it will join in. This can happen even if it wasn't strictly in combat range when you initiated the battle; in that case it'll need a while to catch up, but it will. In a naval battle, you and your opponent(s) will be able to exchange fire, run away from the other by creating enough distance, or start a boarding (and a sword fight) by sailing into the other. Controls during a naval battle are as follows: 4, 6: turn your ship left and right, respectively. Turning rate is dependent on the type of ship, whether or not you are turning into the wind (which is a lot slower), and any damage/lack of crew. A ship with Copper Plating gets a slight bonus to its turning ability. 8: raise sails. By default, sails on a ship are raised. This allows the ship to sail faster than with reefed sails, but the sails are also vulnerable to combat damage. 2: lower sails. This reduces the ship's top speed, but allows for slightly tighter turning circles, and provides a lot of protection against sail damage from enemy cannons. 1: switch to grape shot. This ammo type has a short range, but is effective in taking enemy crew out of the fight while doing little damage to the enemy ship. Great for preparing for boarding while leaving your prize intact. You can only switch to this if you ship has the Grape Shot upgrade. 3: switch to round shot. This is the default ammo type; it has the longest range and does damage mostly to enemy hull and cannons. It also damages crew and sails, but not as much as the ammo types specialized to do so. Remember that enough hull damage will sink a ship, which is rarely your intention - its treasures will sink along with it. Use round shot carefully, especially against small targets. 7: switch to chain shot. This ammo type has a shorter range than round shot (but longer than grape shot), and is meant specifically to destroy sails with. It does little damage to a ship otherwise. Excellent for reducing an enemy's speed, either to be able to catch up with or outrun them. It will rarely do any significant hull damage, but be aware that totally destroying the rigging on ships you intend to capture and keep will really reduce your fleet's overall speed. You can only switch to this ammo if your ship has the Chain Shot upgrade. 9: change camera views between the overhead view and a "chase camera" of sorts which zooms in on your ship and uses an angle that lets you see the position of the enemy relative to your own ship. Which camera mode you should use is largely a matter of personal preference. I usually just stick with overhead. ----------- AI BEHAVIOR ----------- Depending on level and the relative strengths and weaknesses of your ships, the AI may behave in several different ways: - If the enemy has more cannons, it will try to weaken your ship as much as it can before boarding you. When in range it will use chain shot to slow you down and grape shot to thin out your crew, assuming it has these upgrades. The AI will frequently mix round shot and chain shot in a single volley. - If the enemy is at a disadvantage with cannons but has a crew comparable to or bigger than yours, it will attempt to ram and board you as fast as possible. - Note that damage you cause to an enemy ship during battle may make it switch between the two behaviors above. If a ship was going to ram you and you hit it with grape shot just before it can, chances are it will suddenly swing around and start exchanging broadsides with you again. - If the enemy is grossly outmatched, it will attempt to run away from you, possibly firing a few broadsides at you to slow you down first (most notably chain shot). Running is much more common on higher levels; on lower levels even outmatched ships will often keep engaging you even though they should be running. - If the enemy is too weak to beat you and too slow to escape - usually this happens after you've hit them a few times - they'll strike the colours and surrender their ship without a fight. They may still try to sail away from you, but they will no longer fire and as soon as you come close or board them, it's over. - If you damage an enemy's sails 100%, rendering them almost immobile, they will always strike their colours. There are a couple of exceptions to the behavior above: - Merchant ships are more likely to surrender than warships. For instance, if a Sloop contains a new governor, its crew will likely fight until the end even if you outmatch them. Pirates, too, hate to surrender. - Escort ships never surrender. They will fight to the death as long as they still have something to escort. If you evade the escort and take out the escorted ship, the escort becomes an independent ship which *will* surrender normally if you damage them a lot. - Named pirates are very unlikely to surrender, but they can. Usually only if you destroy their sails, though. - Villains (Raymondo, Montalban and Mendoza) never surrender. If you pummel their ship enough it will seem like they do - you get the victory screen and everything - but immediately after the usual ship battle scene starts anyway. Note that you also can't sink these guys - their hull damage will not go beyond 99%. ------- TACTICS ------- When fighting a naval battle, you need to strike a balance between defeating your enemy and not damaging your prize too much. It may be very tempting to just pummel them with round shot, especially if you outmatch your opponent. But if you intend to capture the enemy ship, this approach leaves you with a very damaged prize that will slow you down a lot and cost a lot to repair when you finally limp it to the nearest port. Even if you don't intend to hang on to a ship, you run a significant risk of sinking it if you hit it too hard, and all its cargo and gold will sink along with it. Especially if you are sailing a powerful ship on a low difficulty level, you may be surprised at how easy it is to accidentally sink an enemy! On the lower difficulty levels, many players prefer not to shoot at the enemy during a naval battle at all. They just head straight for them for a quick ram and settle the deal with a sword fight. This is a sound approach for enemies that have far less crew than you (and not enough guns to tear you apart before you reach them). On Apprentice and to an extent on Journeyman, this also works against enemies that are stronger than you, as you'll be able to make up the difference with good fencing. On the higher levels, however, this approach is suicidal against a powerful opponent. Their guns are more accurate and do more damage, they are better able to run circles around you and hold off your boarding as much as possible, and when you do manage to board them, you'll find them tough opponents in fencing. The size of your crew against theirs is a major factor in how difficult the swordfighting will be (see paragraph 6.2), and you *need* to do your naval battles correctly to cut them down to size first. As a rule of thumb, on Adventurer level and above, try not to board an enemy ship until their crew isn't much bigger than yours. Preferably smaller, but just about the same is good enough if you can handle a sword. Also, the bigger your own crew, the easier you can get away with fighting a numerically superior enemy. 100 against 200 I would probably dare to try, but 20 against 40 is a bad idea. Chances are you'll run out of crew before you win the battle. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your naval battles: - Pick the right ship for the job. Different players have different preferences, but the choice is mostly between Sloop, Brig and Frigate types. Sloops are fast and small, and perfect for running circles around an enemy. Frigates have a lot of firepower and can stand more punishment, as well as carry more men so that you can usually go straight for a ram and don't have to weaken your enemies first. Brigs strike a good balance between the two, and have the unique advantage of maintaining a decent speed against the wind. In each class, you're best off with the largest ship within it (Royal Sloop, Brig of War, Ship of the Line), but every type is servicable. Avoid using other types of ships for battle; only the combat galleon types (Fast/War/Flag Galleon) are somewhat suitable, and they are too slow and cumbersome to engage anything small. Pinnaces are also an option, but they come with small crews and not enough guns to really do anything with. - Use round shot at long range to knock out enemy cannons and do damage to all other parts of the ship. Be careful not to overdo it, especially against a small ship. A Large Frigate or Ship of the Line can sink a Barque-sized or smaller ship with ONE broadside if it's a particularly good shot. Some players prefer not to use round shot at all, but it's the only way to cut down the enemy's cannons. - At medium range, use chain shot to destroy the enemy's rigging. This will slow them down and make them much easier to catch. If you destroy an enemy's riggine entirely (you'll hear their ship groan and ground to a halt if you do this), the enemy will surrender even if they still have a good supply of cannons and active crew. Of course, if you intend to keep the ship, you probably don't want to leave it entirely without sails. It will really slow your fleet down otherwise. - At short range, grape shot works wonders in reducing enemy crew while leaving the ship almost untouched. This is *the* way to prepare for an imminent boarding; be careful not to actually touch the ship before you are ready to board it. They will likely try to board you before you can hit them with grape shot too often. Also, unless you've already destroyed some of their cannons with round shot, you may get hit just as hard in return. - If an enemy has struck its colors, stop firing at it; they will not fire back anymore and surrender as you draw close. A possible exception is when you are chasing a named villain, who won't surrender even now. Them you may want to hit with more grape shot if you want to reduce their crew size further. - The speed with which your cannons load is directly dependent on the size of your crew, their morale (happy crews load faster) and the presence of a Gunner specialist on your ship. Range of your shots is increased by the Fine-grain Powder upgrade. Accuracy is increased by the Bronze Cannon upgrade and by picking the Gunnery skill for yourself. - While it's easier to hit the enemy along the sides of his ships, a shot that rakes over a ship front to aft or aft to front does more damage. Keep this in mind for yourself as well: heading straight for your enemy through their broadsides is not usually a good idea. You can get away with it on low levels but you'll get slaughtered on Swashbuckler. - If you have a small ship, turning at the right moment may let you sail through gaps in enemy broadsides and take little or no damage. But bear in mind that the shots that *do* hit you will likely be raking shots if you do this, which is exactly why you should not try this with a large vessel. - If you have a lot of cannons, you can fire a "mixed shot" by switching to a different type of ammo just after firing. Your fire will come out in two bursts, and the second will be of the type you switched to. I haven't found much practical use for it, but the option is there. One player suggested using this when you are using a Ship of the Line or another heavily armed ship against a small target: start with round fire, then switch to grape shot to make half of your cannonballs fall short. Helps to keep you from accidentally sinking your target. - To dodge enemy fire at long range, sail in whichever direction is fastest due to the wind; even if that's straight away from your enemy. The shot is aimed at the position you were in when it was fired, so if you're no longer there when it lands, you're safe. If you can get your speed at like 10 knots or above and you're not too near the enemy, you can usually ignore its shots entirely; they won't connect. At short range, on the other hand, you must keep maneuvering to stay away from the enemy's sides. If you're a smaller ship, you'll be able to keep out of its sights and pummel it with your own broadsides. - If you lose a naval battle, remember you have the option to restore the 'battle' autosave. This will put you back to just before you initiated the battle, allowing you to try it again or avoid this (evidently dangerous) target this time around. Whether or not you consider this cheating (and whether or not you care if you do) is up to you, of course. In terms of sailing, there are a few things to be aware of: - You are, of course, much faster running before the wind than going against it. You are also more maneuverable, which is new since Pirates and Pirates Gold. Turning into the wind is slow and cumbersome and sometimes you might not even manage it at all; you just get blown back. Turn *away* from the wind whenever you can. Smaller ships do much better at turning into the wind than larger ones, and Brig type ships specifically maintain a decent speed even when they're sailing against the wind. Large ships like Galleons (and to an extent Frigates as well) handle very poorly against the wind, both in terms of speed and maneuverability. Bear this in mind both when you're sailing one and when you're going up against one. - You can pick out your starting position relative to the enemy on the world map. When you initiate a battle, your positions will be the same as they were on the map. Use this to your advantage; for instance if you want to be upwind from your enemy, maneuver to the east of his ship before you start combat. If you're attacking an escorted ship, you might want to move in behind it so you can grab it before the escort can turn around to engage you. Works very well if it's something slow like a War Galleon. - If you need to catch an enemy that is upwind, zig zag against the wind ("tacking"). This is much quicker than sailing straight against it. If you're in a large ship like a Frigate (or even worse, a Galleon), this becomes especially important, but the main thing when you're using that kind of vessel is not to get yourself caught in such an engagement to begin with. Maneuver around the enemy on the world map before you start the fight, and make sure you don't approach the target from the west. Smaller vessels are not as strongly affected by the wind, so if you're a large ship going up against a small one, this becomes very important. It's also one reason why the Royal Sloop and the Brig of War aren't necessarily worse ships than the Ship of the Line. The Brig line of ships, specifically, handles particularly well against the wind, better than even the smaller Sloops. ------- OUTCOME ------- A naval battle can end in the following ways: 1. Retreat: the distance between the ships becomes so great that they lose sight of each other. How big this distance is depends on the time of day: it's easier to lose each other at night. If this occurs, the battle ends and the enemy ship disappears off the map; it has either gotten away or been shaken off, depending on your perspective. If you've damaged the enemy ship at all, you are said to have "engaged" it, which appears in your log and earns you a happiness point with the enemies of the ship's nation. Otherwise you gain nothing. Note that if the target in question was a named pirate or villain, they won't disappear off the world map, so you can catch up and engage them a second time. 2. Boarding: if you ram the enemy ship or they ram you, and the enemy is not so low on morale that they'll surrender, a sword fight ensues (see paragraph 6.2) that'll decide the outcome. 3. Sunk: if either ship takes on 100% hull damage - which basically only happens with round shot - that ship will sink. If it's the enemy, the battle is concluded, and you gain no plunder. You do gain some happiness points with the enemies of the ship's nation, though. Your benefactors don't care if you sink or capture your enemies; but you are likely interested in loot, so sinking enemies is rarely your objective. If you're the unlucky sod to be sunk, you are transferred to another ship. You lose whatever cargo/crew you can't carry anymore on the remainder of your ships. It appears you do *not* lose a portion of your gold like you used to in the past games, however. If you don't have other ships anymore, you are marooned and will spend some time on a deserted island waiting to be rescued. This *does* result in the loss of all your loot. 4. Surrender: an enemy ship may surrender to you if you sail close to it and they know they can neither win nor escape. Sometimes, you actually have to board them before they make this decision. Either way, the ship is yours without a fight; the swordfighting sequence is skipped. This cannot happen with named villains, they will always fight you. In a fight that involves escort ships as well, things work slightly differently: - If the escorted ship gets out of range, the battle ends in 'retreat' even if you are still engaged with the escort ship. The ships do not disappear from the world map, but they do appear some distance away from you and you'll need to catch up if you want to fight them again. - If the escorted ship is sunk or boarded, or it surrenders, the battle ends, and (after the sword fight if applicable) you are returned to the world map. The escort ship now becomes an independent warship which may decide to chase you or flee to the nearest port. You can then engage it separately if you wish. - The battle continues if the escort ship is sunk or if you board it (after the sword fight). Escort ships never surrender. Victories against escort ships are not noted on your record and do not get you any happiness points, unless you engage them separately after taking the escorted ship. For the most part, avoiding the escort ship is the best thing to do. You can always engage it afterwards if you like, and that way you *do* get credit for it. Escort ships aren't always easy to avoid, though, especially since they think nothing of sailing straight *through* the ship they're escorting to get to you. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [6.2] FENCING -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------- OVERVIEW -------- Of all the minigames in Sid Meier's Pirates, this is the one you'll see the most often. Many naval battles end in boarding action and an accompanying sword fight, and you'll need to draw steel in many other scenarios as well. Sword fights can occur in the following cases: - You board an enemy ship (or they board you) and the enemy does not decide to surrender without a fight; - You decide to teach the annoying captain of the guard some manners when he is bothering the barmaid; - You track down a fugitive criminal to the tavern of the town he is hiding in; - You are lucky enough to catch Mendoza, Raymondo or Montalban in port, and fight him in the tavern; - You decide to fight a duel against the fiance of a governor's daughter you are trying to charm; - You attack a town which has a garrison smaller than 100 men, allowing your crew to storm the fort unchallenged; - After losing a fight previously, the governor offers to let you spar with his fencing master for practice, and you agree (Apprentice level only); - You track down Marquis de la Montalban to his hideout and fight your final battle against him. Ship battles are the most common, and the most interesting because the fight between your crew and the enemy's plays a big factor in the fight. When attacking a town with an overwhelming force, this factor is present as well, but you can barely lose those fights anyway (they wouldn't happen if you weren't badly outmatching the enemy to begin with). In all other fights, it's just you against the enemy without anybody else influencing the fight. In a sword fight, your opponent and you start in the middle of whatever area you are fighting in, and you both have the objective to drive back the other to their end. This is done by scoring hits on the enemy while not getting hit in return. The first one to get his back driven against the wall - or whatever else, depending on the area - loses the battle, with various consequences. You have the following moves available during battle: 7: high chop. A fairly slow attack that drives the enemy back 2 steps if it connects, or 1 step if it is parried. No damage if the enemy ducks under it, and in fact, you'll be overbalanced for a moment if he does. 1: low slash. Just like the high chop, it drives back the enemy 2 steps if it hits and 1 if it is parried, but it can also be jumped over. In that case you'll be overbalanced for a while. 4: thrust. A quicker attack than the high chop and the low slash, but it only drives back the enemy 1 step. If it's parried it has no effect at all. You will be overbalanced for a short while but not as bad as with the stronger, slower attacks. You may be able to hit an enemy with a thrust while they're preparing a high chop or low slash, cancelling their attack and driving them back. If you and your enemy thrust at the same time, you usually end up parrying each other with no ill effect to either side. 8: jump. Used to jump over an enemy low slash. Successfully jumping over one will usually give you the time to counterattack. 2: duck. Used to avoid a high chop. If you pull this off you'll usually have the time for a counterattack. 5: parry. Used to stop thrusts, or to reduce the damage for a high chop or low slash. It's better to avoid the latter two when you can though, as parrying them merely softens the blow and does not give you time for a counterattack either. 6: taunt. This does not drive back the enemy, but it does swing the advantage bar in your favour (see below). It's best only to do this instead of an attack while the enemy is overbalanced, or you'll likely get hit while you are busy making fun of him. If you do take a hit during taunting, the taunt's effect is nullified. Winning a battle is theoretically as simple as avoiding your enemies' attacks and countering with your own. In practice, it's made a little more complicated by the advantage bar. This red & white bar at the bottom of the screen changes as the battle develops to shift advantage to either you or your opponent, and directly affects the speed at which you both move. If you have the advantage, your opponent becomes slow and easy to predict. If your opponent has the advantage, he'll unleash a flurry of blows upon you and you'll have a hard time just fending them off, let alone countering. A swirly pattern around either combatant's head is an additional visual clue that their opponent currently holds the advantage. The advantage bar is affected by the following: - Every time you dodge a blow or parry a thrust (and only a thrust), advantage shifts to you. If your enemy likewise avoids your attacks, advantage shifts to him. - If either side taunts the other, advantage shifts to them. This bonus is nullified if they take a hit during a poorly timed taunt. - If either side loses part of their crew, advantage shifts away from them. This happens randomly every few seconds; who loses crew and how many depends in part on how your duel is going (i.e. who has gotten driven back) and the relative sizes of the two crews. - Advantage generally moves toward the neutral position if nothing happens. However, it will tend to stay on the side with the biggest crew. The last two points aren't a factor if there's no crew in the battle, but in most cases there will be. This is why having a larger crew than your enemy is very important on higher levels. It will cause advantage to stay on your side for the most part, and it will also increase the chance that your enemy loses crew rather than you, further keeping the battle on your side. On Swashbuckler level in particular, losing advantage is a very dangerous thing to happen. It's possible for your enemy to become so fast that he can no longer be hit, and/or that his attacks become impossible to properly avoid. If this happens, it takes luck and iron will to shift the battle back in your favour. Usually when things start to go wrong, you're doomed. On lower levels, advantage is a far lesser concern as you'll still be faster than your enemy even if he has the advantage. The difference between difficulty levels is more pronounced in swordfighting than in any other aspect of the game. ------- TACTICS ------- On Apprentice level, you'll find that almost anything goes in sword battles. You can just randomly attack and usually connect. Enemies are driven back quickly and defeated before you know it. You can completely ignore the advantage bar and come out of virtually any battle as a victor, even if your crew is much smaller than the enemy's. Starting on Journeyman, that approach won't work anymore. Enemies will block and dodge random attacks, and if advantage shifts away from you, you'll feel it. Better tactics are needed and the higher the level, the more you have to stick with them. First off, you need to choose a weapon for each battle if you're playing on any level other than Apprentice. Your choice is between: RAPIER: faster attacks but slower defense. LONGSWORD: balanced for attack and defense. CUTLASS: slower attacks but faster defense. In the previous Pirates games, there was a difference in damage and range between the weapons; one effect of this was that the Rapier was nearly always the best choice. This is no longer the case. Weapons are now largely a matter of personal preference, and on higher levels it is especially important to pick what suits your style best. Most players seem to agree that the Rapier is suitable for low levels and you should stick with the Cutlass on the higher ones, but it's up to you. When you're in battle, it's best to wait for the enemy to attack; he won't make you wait for long. Identify the style of attack, then press the right button in response. Jump over low attacks, duck under high ones, and parry thrusts. It will take you a few battles to get the hang of this, but you'll learn soon enough. How much time you have to dodge depends on the level. Don't worry about dodging too early; your character will hold position until the enemy attack goes past. Even if that means hovering in the air for a few seconds after jumping. If you press the wrong button in response to an enemy's attack, don't panic. Quickly press the right button and your character will correct himself accordingly. As long as you do it before the enemy's attack connects, you can still dodge or parry even if you started off incorrectly. On higher levels, be wary of enemy feints; they start one kind of attack but then suddenly switch to another. You'll need to adapt your defense, too. Keep your eyes on the enemy at all times. When the enemy's attack is past, you can strike back. You don't have to wait for your character to return to neutral position; the attack is initated as soon as you hit the button. So if you're still hanging in the air and press attack, your character will instantly be back on the ground to strike his blow. On the higher levels you *must* take advantage of this if you want to place any hits. But be careful not to press the button too quickly; if your enemy is still attacking you might get hit after all because you're cancelling your defensive stance. For the most part, you want to counter with chops and slashes for better damage. However, a thrust is quick and can sometimes hit where the other two can't. Consider using it if your opponent is particularly fast (due to his skill and possibly advantage on his side), especially if you're fighting with a Cutlass. Much better to hit with a thrust than to miss with a slower attack. On Swashbuckler, or on Adventurer/Rogue when you have lost the advantage, you may want to stick with thrusts entirely and forget about the other attacks. Or you could switch to the Longsword or even the Rapier if you think you can still defend quickly enough. You'll need to keep an eye on the advantage meter while fighting, especially on the higher levels. If you let it shift to the enemy he will soon become so fast that you can't fight him properly anymore. If this happens, dodge or parry his next attack, and then taunt instead of attacking. This will shift advantage back to you. Now dodge his next attack and start countering again. If you're still having trouble after all this, keep the following in mind: - If you are having trouble getting your attacks in quickly enough, switch to a faster offensive weapon. Rapier is best for this, though I find it dangerous to use on higher levels. Your mileage may vary. The Rapier does offer one extra advantage: if advantage is on your side, you may often get away with hitting the enemy when he prepares an attack, thus countering without even bothering to defend. - If you are having trouble defending quickly enough, make sure you are using the cutlass. It helps immensely. The only possible disadvantage is having to do more thrusts instead of chops and slashes, but thrusts win battles too as long as you don't get hit. However, on higher levels, you may find you have trouble hitting quick enemies who use cutlasses as well. If so, you'll have to work harder to get the advantage bar in your favour. - When deciding to either thrust or chop/slash as a counterattack, keep your opponent's weapon in mind as well. If he's using a cutlass, you'll find his attacks easy to dodge, but he'll block your counters just as easily. But if he uses a rapier, mercilessly counter with chops and slashes as he can't defend nearly as quickly. - If your opponent is slow you can sometimes hit him with a quick thrust while he is setting up a slash or a chop. Keep this in mind especially if you are using the Rapier, which is slow on the defense but can thrust very well. How often you can get away with this strongly depends on the level. It works brilliantly on Journeyman with most weapons, but on higher levels you'll want to reserve this for Rapier only. On Swashbuckler it is almost always ill-advised to even try it. - You *will* get in trouble if you ignore advantage on Adventurer level or higher. Keep it on your side. You may not be able to do this if you consistently attack opponents with more men on board than you have, so pick your battles wisely. Many sword fights on Rogue and Swashbuckler are lost not because your reflexes aren't up to the task, but because you insisted on fighting that pirate hunter with only 40 men on your Sloop. Keep your crew up and avoid spreading them across too many captured ships (particularly damaged ones). Compare crew sizes before you engage in a battle, and if it doesn't look good, don't fight. Run. - Balanced swords and fencing shirts help improve your character's battle speed. Get these items off governor's daughters or mysterious travellers. They are especially important on higher difficulty levels. Also, getting armor helps; the Leather Vest will sometimes deflect blows for you if you failed to dodge or block them, and the Metal Cuiraiss will do this even more often. - Skill at Fencing is a good choice on higher difficulty levels. It will speed up your character considerably and make a loss of advantage a lot less dangerous. - If you react particularly quickly to an enemy attack, your character will do a flourish and counterattack automatically. This is mostly luck, but the chance increases quite a bit if you've picked skill at Fencing. From Journeyman on, however, your opponents will do the same to you if you attack randomly. This is why you should rely on counterattacks once you move beyond Apprentice. - Be aware of the effect of your health on fencing. Your character will become slower with age whenever his health category drops a notch. Try to offset this with items to either make you quicker or to hold off the effects of aging, but most importantly, know when it's time to retire. You will eventually get too old to fight properly. - Marquis de la Montalban, specifically, is a demon with the blade on higher levels. You'll have to taunt frequently to keep the advantage bar favorable, because if it shifts to him, he may become so fast that you can't hit him and you can't keep him from hitting you. At that point you're doomed, unable to even taunt anymore without getting hit. You may also find it necessary to use the Longsword in order to ensure that neither your attack nor your defense is simply too slow for the job. Finally, you may find it necessary to pursue him as early as possible in your career, so you don't have to worry about old age slowing you down. All this rides on the level, though; on Apprentice he's a pushover like everybody else. ------- OUTCOME ------- Unlike in the previous Pirates games, you cannot flee from a sword fight. The possible outcomes are therefore win or lose. A battle can be won in two ways: - One fencer drives the opponent to the edge of the area; - In ship/fort battles only: one side runs out of crew and then takes another hit, forcing surrender. If you go into battle with small crews, be very aware of that second possible outcome. If you run out of crew you *can* still win, but you can't afford to take a single hit. What happens if you win or lose a battle depends on the setting. - If you win a ship battle, you'll automatically plunder their gold, and get to keep their cargo and their ship if you desire. If there is a specialist on board you don't yet have, he'll be added to your crew automatically. You may get the option to recruit additional crew from the enemy ship, and you may get information on the location of a villain if he was spotted in a city near where the battle took place. - If you lose a ship battle, your flagship is lost, along with any excess cargo/crew your remaining ships can't carry. You will escape to one of your other ships. However, if it was your last ship, *or* if you are forced to surrender by running out of crew, you will not be able to escape. You are imprisoned in the nearest town if the enemy ship belonged to one of the four European nations, or marooned if you were defeated by a pirate or named villain (they simply chuck you overboard). Either predicament will put you out of action for some months and result in the loss of all your loot. - If you win a fort battle, you get to plunder the town. If you somehow manage to lose one (shame on you, they're easy!), you escape unharmed but the sack fails. - If you lose against a fiance, you won't be getting that governor's daughter. The romance subplot ends. - If you lose against an annoying captain of the guard or a fugitive criminal, you are thrown in jail, similar to being defeated in a ship battle when you have no other ships to run to. The same thing happens if you catch one of the named villains in port but you fail to defeat them. - Winning or losing against the governor's fencing master does nothing. It's purely a practice bout. - If Montalban defeats you in his hideout, you escape safely, but you'll have to fight the indian mercenaries again if you try another assault. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [6.3] LAND BATTLES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------- OVERVIEW -------- Land battles usually occur when you decide to attack a town. In a turn based strategy minigame, you move your pirate units across the map, trying to outmaneuver and defeat the defenders. You win either by routing all defending units or by reaching the gates of the city with one of your units. You lose if all your units are routed. In order to attack a town, you must do either of two things: - Beach your ship some distance away from the town and march inside, then pick the option to attack the town when it is presented; - Sail into a hostile town which opens fire on you as you try to enter, then pick the option to attack. The latter only works if the town opens fire on you; otherwise, you will just sail inside peacefully and never get the option to attack. For this reason, it is usually easier to use the former method. If you can't (perhaps the island the town is on is too small, St. Eustatius is a good example), or if you just don't want to, you'll need to piss off the town enough to open fire on you. The best way to do that is either to get a price placed on your head by its nation (just keep attacking them), or to get an individual grudge from the town. To do the latter, attack ships coming in and going out of the town, and press the space bar a couple of times to bombard its fort with your cannons while on the world map. Especially on the higher levels, their patience runs thin, and you'll soon be able to attack them from sea. Be aware that both approaches will impact the town's wealth, however, so don't overdo it (particularly not on the bombardments, which gain you nothing). In terms of how the minigame works, it doesn't matter which approach you take. They both result in a land-based battle. The approach in which you have to maneuver your ship toward the fort while dodging its fire |