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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, popular in the last two Pirates games, is gone. How hard the battle is going to be depends entirely on how wisely you pick your targets. Make sure you pick cities with good wealth but a small garrison and you'll have a much easier time than if you insist on cracking the toughest nuts. Note that if you attack a city with less than 100 soldiers, you don't even have to do a land battle at all; your men will storm the fort and it'll be an easy sword fight instead. On the other hand of the spectrum, if your crew is much smaller than the garrison, your men might refuse to even go up against the uneven odds, and the option to attack is greyed out. If this happens, you need to come back with more men, or soften up the garrison first. When a battle starts, your crew and the enemy soldiers are divided up into a number of units varying between 3 and 10. You get one unit of officers (elite melee), and a number of pirate (melee) and buccanneer (ranged) units. These numbers are usually equal, or have 1 more of pirates. So at the least you'll have 1 of each, and at the most 1 officers, 5 pirates and 4 buccaneers. How your units are divided up seems mostly random. Sometimes the game gives you a few big units and sometimes a few small ones. Usually you get unit sizes roughly equal to the enemy's, but that's not a given either. You can't choose how your units are divided up, but you can choose their starting position - sort of. When the battle starts, you can click 'change start location' to cycle through three different ones, and pick whichever one you think is best. The enemy units are placed after yours, and you get the first turn. Each turn you get the option to move your units and attack enemies. When all your units have moved, the opponent does the same. The battle continues until either side runs out of units, or one of your units reaches the city gates. ------- TACTICS ------- Be sure to read the manual section on land battles before you do any. This is the most complex minigame in terms of strategy and controls, so it's good to know the basics. Here are some tips on getting the most out of your land battles: - Buccaneers are weak in close combat and should never be exposed to it. Maneuver your pirate units such that no enemy can ever engage your buccaneers in melee. Fail to do this and you'll find that the AI often prioritizes exposed buccaneers as targets. - Buccaneers can shoot *from* a forested square no problem and they can also shoot *at* an enemy in a forest, though damage is halved. However, they cannot shoot *through* a forested square even if you can see the enemy. The same restriction applies to all your ranged enemies. Shooting through friendly units and rough terrain is no problem at all. In fact, just behind an impassible rough terrain square is one of the best places for a buccaneer unit to be. - Your buccaneers have more range on them than all enemy ranged units. This is an important advantage, so use it. Keep your buccaneers at the maximum range of 4 spaces whenever you can, so the enemy can't ever catch and rout them. You don't do any more damage by getting closer. - Buccaneers win your battles. Period. The main focus of any effort to take out the enemy (as opposed to sneaking a unit through to the city gates) is to maximize the potential of your buccaneers to wreak havoc unchallenged by keeping them covered with your pirates and officers. - Enemy infantry has a gun attack range of 2; guards have a range of 3. I find the two units a little tricky to tell apart, myself. But as long as you keep your units in forests, you usually don't really have to worry about this range difference. Often they will come out in the open and then stand and fire at you, and you can just return fire with your buccanners from forests (or even hovering just outside their reach) and do major damage. - Enemies can be routed before the unit is destroyed by hitting them with one attack after another. This way, your buccaneers can defeat an enemy even if it's hiding in a forest, but you'll need to concentrate your attacks on one unit. Morale will drop to angry, then wavering, and finally panic, and at that point the next attack automatically defeats the unit regardless of how many men are left in it. - The single best way to beat any enemy unit is to flank it. If you attack from either of the sides or one of the three rear squares (so anywhere except from the three in front), your attack rating is doubled. This practically guarantees a win under all but the worst circumstances. Even if you use a badly mauled and panicky unit, chances are you rout the enemy even as you lose the unit. - Infantry units have 2 moves, cavalry has 3. However, when either type of unit moves into a forest square, their turn ends. Indian units are the exception - they are therefore the only ones who can move into a forest and then immediately move again. Be aware of this advantage as they *will* use it to launch surprise attacks against your weak buccaneers, if you let them. - If a unit's first move is attacking an enemy unit, it may or may not be able to move again. This depends on how easily the battle is won. If it's a close call, it takes them the entire turn to do it. If you waltz over the enemy you get another move, assuming the enemy was not in a forest. This isn't entirely predictable, but you'll develop a feeling for when this will happen. Remember that flanking attacks tend to be easy wins. - Enemy units will usually opt to shoot rather than engage in melee, unless they spot a weakened melee unit or can reach a buccaneer unit. Because of this, there's something to be said for *always* ending your turn in a forest square. 90% of the units I've lost in all my games were repeatedly shot at while they were in the open. - When enemies are in range of both your pirates and buccaneers, have your buccaneers soften up the enemy before you let your pirates have their turn. Use "skip turn" (SHIFT-7) liberally to let your units act in the order you want them to. You can also click on a unit to select it, assuming it hasn't moved yet. - Enemy cavalry is very dangerous in the open field, especially if they're attacking. Don't let them catch any of your units, not even your powerful officers, out of a forest. If they attack you while you're in a forest their attack is greatly reduced and you can probably beat them off. If you can hit *them* while they're in a forest, you will slaughter them. If they don't let you lure them into a forest, shoot 'em from a distance with buccaneers or set up a flank attack. Preferably a combination of the two. - Enemy cavalry shows up randomly, however, it appears to happen mostly on bigger garrisons. In my experience enemies tend not to have cavalry unless the garrison size is at least 300, but several players reported seeing it even on smaller garrison. Difficulty level may be a factor in this as well. - Artillery, though mentioned in the manual and the piratopedia, does not appear to have made it into the game at all. Even if you attack a huge enemy garrison on a high level, you may see plenty of cavalry but never any artillery. I've yet to hear of one player who encountered any, and the statistical evidence against the existence of artillery is overwhelming. - If you can reach the gates of the town without finishing your enemies, do so unless you can wipe them all out the same turn. You might get a little less gold and not wipe out as many enemies this way, but nothing stops you from attacking the same town a second time right afterwards to get the rest; and if you've done well, this time you'll be facing a much smaller garrison. In fact, you might not even need to fight another land battle if you reduced the garrison to less than 100 men. - If an enemy is too powerful for you, you can bring more men; but you can also convince indians and pirates in nearby villages/havens to attack the target and soften it up for you. They will only hurt the garrison if their attack fails, though. If it succeeds, pirates will destroy the wealth rating and indians will scare off population, both of which reduce the loot you can still get. And as a final insult, the garrison remains fully undamaged by a successful attack. Therefore, reserve this approach for well fortified enemy towns (say 500 or more soldiers) so that the attack will probably fail. This kind of preparation becomes more important on higher levels, where getting a big crew together can be hard to do. ------- OUTCOME ------- A land battle can end in three ways. - If one of your units reaches the gates of the city, you win the battle and the sack commences. You'll get an amount of plunder based on how many of the enemies you managed to defeat, and how wealthy and big the port is. If your force was particularly overwhelming, you will also get the option to install a new governor, thus switching the town's nationality. - If you rout all enemy units, you win the battle. You get the maximum amount of plunder and a bigger chance that you're allowed to replace the governor, though that still depends on how overwhelming your force was. - If all your units are routed, you and the other survivors (not every unit that falls in a land battle is killed, per sé) regroup at your ships. You gain nothing and you're left with a much smaller crew than before. You can expect to get up to 10000 gold from a wealthy and well-sized port, though it's not impossible to get more than that. Usually, however, expect the loot to be in the 5000-8000 range as long as you stick to juicy targets. That means Wealthy or at least Prosperous, and a decent population size. In addition, sacking and especially capturing towns can make you popular quickly with the nation's enemies and goes a long way to earning promotions and land grants. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [6.4] DANCING -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------- OVERVIEW -------- This is considered by most players to be the most difficult minigame, and in many ways it is. It requires quicker reflexes than sword fighting, that's for sure. However, unlike sword fighting, dance sequences aren't entirely random. There are set patterns in each dance and the real trick to getting good at dancing is to learn them. The better you know the patterns, the less you have to rely on reflexes to get through, and the better you will perform as a result. In a dance, you watch the hand signals the governor's daughter gives you to know which move to make next. Do it in time and you will perform the move with some degree of grace; if you time it perfectly you will add a flourish and look particulary elegant. Don't press anything in time or press the wrong button, and you'll stumble and get everybody's attention for all the wrong reasons. During the dance, a heart symbol at the top of the screen symbolizes how charmed the daughter is; this is determined directly by your performance on the dance floor. At the end, there are three possible outcomes based on how well you did: - If you danced poorly, the daughter will be annoyed and turn her back on you. No reward; - If you danced moderately well, the daughter will let you kiss her hand and you get a reward based on her beauty; - If you danced very well, you will sweep the daughter up in an embrace, and get a better reward (but still based on her beauty). It goes without saying (or does it?) that beautiful daughters are harder to please. Their dances are more complicated, and they're also less forgiving of mistakes. Their visual clues are a little more obscure, too; for instance the plain looking daughter has her hands behind her back whenever she's not giving a cue, whereas the beautiful one is waving them around, making the gestures trickier to spot. The difficulty level also factors into the complexity of each dance, and in how difficult the timing is. Practice with plain looking daughters on Apprentice while you're getting the hang of it, then gradually set your sights higher. You have six different dance steps available to you, under the 8, 2, 4, 6, 1 and 3 keys. (7 and 9 can be used instead of 1 and 3 as preferred.) The governor's daughter will show you in advance every time which you have to press; on lower difficulty levels and with plain looking daughters on all levels, the correct icon will also flash in the bottom right of the screen. The right time to press the button is usually just after the daughter finishes her hand gesture, or exactly when the icon flashes. For some quicker dances, you have to press right away when the daughter gestures. If you'd rather work with the music, the right time to press the button is exactly on the beat after the daughter gestures. How much time there is between beat and gesture varies per dance; you'll get the hang of this with experience. If you get the timing right, you will do a flourish; if you're off, you will still do the move correctly but without a flourish. If you press the wrong button or don't press one at all, you will usually stumble, but having Calfskin Boots or Dancing Slippers introduces a random chance that you make the correct move anyway. The Wit and Charm skill does the same thing for incorrect button presses only. -------- PATTERNS -------- Each dance is built up from a number of different patterns. Which ones appear and in which order is random, but once a pattern starts it will be finished. Thus, by learning the patterns, you can often predict which moves will come next. And when only the first one or two steps of each pattern is dependent on your reflexes and you reproduce the rest from memory, you will be able to dance well even if your timing isn't all that. The patterns are as follows: BASIC SIDE-TO-SIDE 4-6-4-6, or 6-4-6-4. The two often follow each other, so you get things like 4-6-4-6-6-4-6-4. Not guaranteed, but on especially on Apprentice that is a very common one. Timing on these is standard and easy to get right. This easy pattern becomes a lot rarer on higher levels in favour of the more complicated ones. BASIC PIROUETTE 1-1-1-1 or 3-3-3-3. Always four in a row, with standard timing. Once a pattern starts with a pirouette it is guaranteed to be this pattern; there aren't any others that start this way. On higher levels, occasionally you get a single 1 or 3 as well followed by a different pattern, so be alert until you get the second one; that's where you know for sure you'll get all four. ADVANCED PIROUETTE This one mixes the two previous patterns, and is either 4-3-4-3-4-3-4-3 or the opposite, 6-1-6-1-6-1-6-1. You can recognize this pattern by the fact that it runs faster than the basic side-to-side. If you just came out of another pattern and you immediately get a cue to do a 4 or a 6 without any pause, it'll be this one, not the basic side-to-side. The pattern runs twice as fast as the previous two. BASIC MARCHE 8-1-1-8-1-1, guaranteed. There is no mirrored variant of this one. You recognize this, of course, by the fact that it starts with an 8. It starts after a brief pause just like the other patterns (barring the advanced pirouette), but it runs at double speed. There is another pause halfway, so it is more like P-8-1-1-P-8-1-1. ADVANCED MARCHE 8-2-1-1-2-8-3-3. The most complicated pattern you'll be getting on the lower levels. Like the Advanced Pirouette, it starts immediately after whatever comes before it, rather than with a pause. This is how you tell it apart from the Basic Marche. The whole pattern is at double speed, so you need to go through it quickly. This one *will* trip you up the first few times, but once you've gotten it memorized, you will be able to get a good number of flourishes out of it. This pattern is very rare on Apprentice (only seen with beautiful daughters) but becomes more common on higher levels with all daughters. EXPERT PIROUETTE This pattern never occurs on Apprentice and only rarely (with beautiful daughters only) on Journeyman. Beyond there, it becomes more common. There are two variations: the fairly easy 2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1, and the more difficult 7-2-7-8-7-2-7-8 which will trip you up completely the first time it happens to you. This is another double speed pattern which starts directly after another without any pause. I'm fairly sure there is another even more complicated pattern (which I'll probably dub Expert Marche), but it shows up on higher levels only and even then it's rare, so I haven't been able to get it down fully yet. More info when I get it. --------- MORE HELP --------- If you just can't get the patterns right, there are a few things you can do to make dancing easier: - If you press the wrong button and you know it, immediately press the right one after. Your character will correct; you lose the chance at a flourish no matter how good your timing is, but you will not stumble. In fact, it appears that if you just mash several keys and the right one is among them, often the game will accept the move as correct. This isn't a good way to learn to dance, but it's nice to know the catchnet is there. - Note that if you correct yourself incorrectly (you press the right button first and then the wrong one), it'll count as a stumble. You won't actually see your character stumble and the governor's daugher doesn't react, but the governor himself does groan and the heart meter *will* decline. - Some players report better results with flourishes by double tapping the right button rather than doing a single press. - Pick the Wit and Charm "skill" at the start of the game. This skill will help by preventing some of your stumbling by accepting a wrong button press as a right one sometimes. It won't help you make any flourishes, but since a stumble really hurts your rating, having one or two prevented by this skill can make quite the difference. - The Calfskin Boots item, or even better the Dancing Slippers, give you a set % chance to make a correct move even if you press the wrong button or take too long to press one. They'll help reduce the number of mistakes you make, just like the Wit and Charm skill (and the skill doesn't help you if you neglect to press a button at all, whereas these items do). Get them from mysterious travellers or as a bribe from criminals. Jump on the opportunity when they are offered as these items are hard to find. - Some players report getting more flourishes too with the dancing items. It may be that the window of opportunity for them is increased. I haven't really noticed this myself, but then, I haven't often used these items. - Some people have reported good results with pausing the game (shift-P) every time the governor's daughter gives her cue, watching what she's indicating, then unpausing and immediately doing the movie. They even manage to get a lot of flourishes with this approach. It's not entirely fair, but you could try this if you really can't get it right otherwise, and perhaps you'll find it useful as a learning aid when you're still getting used to the dancing. - If you mess up a dance, especially an important one (perhaps one of the few beautiful daughters you could find?), you *can* always use the autosave option to give yourself another chance. Just load the 'arrival' save; it is saved whenever you enter a port, so in this case, it'll be just before you visited the governor. Most of all, though, practice makes perfect. All of us struggled with this when we started, and many of us have gotten very good at it just by doing it over and over. Never pass up a chance to dance with a governor's daughter, and you will learn before you know it. ------- OUTCOME ------- Dancing properly with a daughter will initiate or advance your romance subplot with her, and comes with various rewards as well. Refer to paragraph 7.7 on romance for the whole story. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [6.5] SNEAKING -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This is likely the minigame you'll see least often. Sneaking happens in only two instances: if you decide you have business in a town that won't let you enter peacefully (and that you can't/don't want to storm by force), or when you are trying to escape captivity. In the former case, you start at the city gates and try to reach either the Governor's mansion or the Tavern. In the latter case, you start in the middle of the city and want to reach the gates. Guards walk around the city carrying lanterns, and you want to stay out of their sight. They will spot you if you get too close, and if you are spotted the alarm will sound and all guards will pick up speed to catch you. If they manage it, you are thrown in prison, end of story; no fighting. To stay out of the reach of guards, keep the following in mind: - Guards can only see in front of them. If you walk (don't run, you can be heard that way) up to one from behind, you will automatically knock him out. They will stay down normally, however a different guard may help them back up on their feet, so don't linger. For the most part, it's safer to stay out of their sight completely than to try and knock guards out. - White arrow signs are on various streets pointing in the general direction of the governor's mansion. The tavern is usually one block behind it. There are more signs on lower levels. - If you walk up to a wall, you can climb over it. Guards can't do this, so this is an easy way to lose one. - If you walk up to a haystack, you will automatically hide behind it. Then you can wait for guards to pass and come out of hiding when all is safe. - By holding shift you can run rather than walk, but this limits your vision and also makes more noise, potentially alerting nearby guards. Use sparingly. Of course, if the alarm sounds and they're on to you, you'll want to run. - Even if the alarm sounds you can still arrive safely at your destination, though if you're closer to the ship you are probably better off escaping and trying again. - I've been told, but I'm not sure about this, that day will dawn if you take too long. Furthermore, supposedly this results in automatic capture. I'll see if I can confirm this for the next version of this FAQ. If you reach the Governor's mansion or the tavern, you will be able to conduct business there normally and you will automatically leave town afterwards. You can't access any other of the town's services through sneaking. If you absolutely must visit the merchant or shipwright in a hostile town, your only choice is sacking the town. You can access all the options afterwards. If you succeed in reaching the city gates when escaping captivity, you can resume your career. But if you're caught when trying this, expect your prison sentence to be lengthened without another chance to escape. |
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| [7] Quests | |||||||||||||
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This section details the various quests you can embark on during the game. Each paragraph describes a different type, going through all the steps and giving advice on how to perform them. Since a good number of your fame points are determined by your success at quests, be sure to take them seriously. As a bit of general advice pertaining to all quests, it's usually to your benefit to embark on one as soon as you get info on it. If you do not, you will often get redundant information on quests you already know about, effectively making it go to waste. No sense hearing where Raymondo is if you already know about the family member he can tell you about, or getting lost city map pieces for a map you've already completed. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.1] CRIMINALS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Fugitive criminal quests start when you dance moderately well with a plain governor's daughter. You may also get them if you dance better than that or with a more attractive daughter if the usual reward you would get has run out (e.g. you would get an item but you already have all the items you can get this way, or you'd get information on Raymondo but you've already rescued all of your family). In these cases, the governor's daughter will tell you the location of a criminal wanted by the nation she belongs to. Criminals come in five flavours, each with a different name and reward:
The more prolific criminals give better gold rewards, but are also better sword fighters. You also score more points with the nation hunting them if you capture them. When you get a criminal quest, he spawns in a random city which may or may not belong to the same nation that's after him. He'll stay here forever, so there's no rush in going there. To catch a criminal, you need to sail to the city in question, visit the tavern and talk to the bartender. He'll bring you in contact with the criminal. You must then face the criminal in a sword fight, and beat him. Once you do, he'll surrender. You can then choose to make him stand trial, or to accept a bribe if he offers you one. The former gets you a reward between 1000 and 5000 gold, and some happiness points with the nation that was after him. The bribe takes the form of an item, which is take it or leave it - if you take it, you let the criminal go and he disappears forever. Which items you can get is in part dependent on the criminal's rank; the more valuable ones tend to offer better items too. You may not get a bribe offered at all if you already have all items the criminal in question might offer. If you choose to accept a bribe, you get no gold and no happiness points for the criminal's capture. It is up to you what's worth more to you. On the higher difficulty levels, where items are harder and usually more expensive to get, you may find it more appealing to accept bribes than on the lower levels where you can usually buy them easily from travellers, and for less gold than you're giving up by letting the criminal go. You can have an infinite number of criminal quests open at any time, but you can only catch one during a visit to a tavern. If two criminals hide in the same town, you must catch one, leave town, reenter, and only then you can go after the second. You should also make sure you catch a criminal before you revisit the same governor's daughter. If you do not, you risk getting the same info repeated as you charm her further, which is quite a waste. Nothing quite like giving her an expensive Diamond Necklace only to be reminded that a 1000 gold reward can be gotten in Santiago. Criminal quests are a minor pastime, not particularly important to go after but worth doing if you're in the area. On the higher levels, you may find this a painless way of obtaining items you can't get from governor's daughters. The travellers usually ask loads of money for them. Late in the game, when you've gotten most or all of the other rewards you can get for dancing, you may find your quest log filling up completely with a bunch of criminal quests. At that point you may find it more profitable to just go do them all than hunt ships. The more valuable criminals bring in quite a bit of gold and at this point, you'll likely get land grants as well for the happiness points you earn, as presumably you'll already be a Duke with one or more nations. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.2] NAMED PIRATES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Captain! There's a steering wheel sticking out of your pants!" "Arr, it's drivin' me nuts!" The Caribbean is littered with pirate havens, and from nine of them (chosen randomly), named pirates sail. These guys are all modelled after real life pirates and privateers, and in this game they are your direct competitors. They all have a certain amount of plunder to their name and various other stats (ships taken, towns sacked etc.). One possible objective you can set for yourself is to outdo them, though this doesn't get you any fame points directly. A much more profitable course of action is to track them down and defeat them. Each pirate sails a well-upgraded ship, and the most notorious ones have pretty good ship types at that. All have the maximum number of guns and close to the maximum crew on board. They also each have a good haul of gold in their hold which increases over the course of the game. Finally, you get a fame point for every pirate you put out of business. If you defeat a named pirate, they're gone from the game for good. Finding named pirates is usually a matter of talking to barmaids. If one operates somewhat near the port you have stopped in, you may be told about the location of their home base, and you will usually find them sailing nearby. Named pirates usually do not attack you, though if you've found and stolen their buried treasure before (see paragraph 7.3), they will chase you down if they think they can handle you. You may also run across them randomly while they are out hunting for merchant ships to plunder. Named pirates never lose battles against other ships, so the only one who can actually defeat them is you. Once you locate a named pirate, defeating them is done in the same way as you take any other ship; a naval battle followed by a sword fight. They are a little more skilled at both than most of your opponents, but not very much so. A pirate can be defeated by sinking his ship, but this is a total waste because of the large amounts of gold they all carry. You *can* also pummel their ships into surrendering so you don't have to do a sword fight, but this is rare. They don't give up easily; usually you'll need to knock out their sails with chain shot for it to happen at all. The following is a list of the named pirates in order of most notorious to least, with the ship they sail and the value of their buried treasures. The gold they have in their vaults is usually just a little lower than their buried treasure at the start of the game, and increases as they take down more targets. One player reported getting as much as 70000 gold off Henry Morgan's ship. My personal record was just over 30000, after 15 years in the game.
Note that hunting named pirates is also an excellent way to get your hands on some hard to find ships. Roc Brasiliano's Royal Sloop and Captain Kidd's Brig of War are of particular interest, and Henry Morgan's Large Frigate is a decent substitute for the hard-to-find Ship of the Line. Named pirates typically have a bunch of upgrades on their vessels as well. It is possible to predict how much gold capturing a pirate will get you. Just have a look at the Top 10 Pirates list, and have a look at how much gold they've plundered over their career. Exactly 10% of that will be on board their ship when you capture it. Pirate wealth (as well as their other stats) updates at the beginning of every month, so decide for yourself if you want to capture them early, or leave them be for a while so you can go after them later in your career and get more gold. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.3] BURIED TREASURES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Each of your nine named rivals has part of his loot buried somewhere in the Caribbean. To increase your wealth - and to earn extra fame points while you are at it - you can find these treasures. To be able to start looking for a treasure, you need to talk to mysterious travellers in taverns until one offers to sell you a part of a treasure map. They will often (but not always) sell you a map for whichever pirate's home base is nearest to your current location. The treasure always spawns somewhat near your current location regardless of how near said pirate is, though. If you're offered a map piece in Trinidad, the treasure won't be buried near Vera Cruz. If you're playing on Apprentice, buying one part is enough; you get a (usually) clear map which shows you the direct area around the treasure, tells you in the vicinity of which port to look, and shows you several distinctive landmarks to help you find the right spot. On Journeyman, you only get a quarter of the map initially, but if you find another mysterious traveller to sell you a piece you will get the other three quarters right away. From Adventurer level on, you need to buy four separate map pieces to get the entire thing. You don't *have* to gather an entire map to be able to find a treasure; if you think you can do it with the parts you have, go ahead and give it a try. You do need to get at least one piece for a treasure to spawn in the first place, though; you can't run into them randomly as far as I'm aware (though I have unconfirmed reports that it has happened to some people). You also can't hunt for more than one treasure at a time, as map pieces for a new treasure aren't sold to you until you find the previous one. In other words, once you get the map to a treasure, you should go find it at your earliest opportunity. Every map includes instructions on which city's area to search, assuming you have the bottom right part of the map which tells you so. If you collect all four pieces it will also say in which general direction of the city the treasure is. The rule here is that the treasure isn't necessarily right outside the city or even on the same land mass, but it will always be closer to that city than any other. How useful that is to you depends on which city it is. If a treasure is near Rio de La Hacha, that's helpful because there are other cities near it, and you know it has to be relatively close by. On the other hand, if a treasure is "near" Gran Granada it could be damn near anywhere in Mexico. Thankfully pirate treasure almost never spawns that far in the middle of nowhere, but you'll be remembering this when you're after a Lost City or the hideout of Montalban. Sometimes, a treasure map is kind enough to include the city itself on the map, or something else that's easily recognizable, like a named settlement. Usually however you have to make do with a named landmark, something like Captain's Shallows or Rum Rock or a dozen other randomly generated names. These are never in the same spot twice when you start a new game. The way to find them is to first get to the city that's mentioned on your treasure map, then sail around it until you spot the landmark with the right name. Landmarks look like brown rocks just off the shore, and their name will only show up if you come near them. On Apprentice and Journeyman level, if you are near the right landmark, its name will alternate with the text "Buried treasure landmark!" so you really can't miss it. Once you know roughly where to beach your ship, do so and use the in-land landmarks (which only appear once you're marching) to get your bearings. Head for the red X as best as you can, frequently checking your map. You can use the spyglass to see landmarks before they actually appear on screen. How useful this is depends on the difficulty level. On higher levels, the view zooms in further and you see less of your surroundings when just walking around, but the spyglass functions the same on all levels. Thus, on Apprentice, it hardly shows you any more than you already see without it, but on Swashbuckler you're practically blind without it. Interestingly, you don't actually need to get either of the Spyglass special items to have it available for treasure hunts. The treasure location itself looks like a mound of sand, a pole with skulls hanging from it, and a big red glowing skull & crossbones mark on top of the mound. To dig up the treasure, simply walk into it and your men will do the rest. The value of each treasure is fixed between 2000 and 10000 gold; the treasures of the more notorious pirates are worth more. Each treasure also gets you 1 fame point, as well as the wrath of the pirate you stole it from (assuming you haven't defeated him already). Count on said pirate to chase and attack you if you ever meet him and you don't outmatch him. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.4] LOST FAMILY MEMBERS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- One of the major quests of the game is to find the four family members that Marquis de la Montalban takes into bondage during the introduction scene. These are your sister, uncle, aunt and grandfather (presumably, your parents are on the fleet that gets lost?). Conveniently, all four have been shipped to the Caribbean and are now locked in little shacks littered all over the place, waiting for you to rescue them. But to do that, first you need to find out where they are. Surprisingly, it's not Montalban who can tell you where they are, but one of his henchmen: Baron Raymondo. To get information on your family members, you need to track down Raymondo, defeat him, and get him to give up map pieces detailing their location. Strangely enough, you only get one piece at a time, and to get more information you must then track him down and defeat him again. This can mean that you need to find and defeat Raymondo no less than 16 times over the course of your career. Why your character is so kind to let Raymondo go every time he gives up a little bit of information and then goes through the trouble of finding him again, who knows. There are three ways to get a lead on Raymondo and start the hunt: - Talk to the abbot at a Jesuit mission, and get lucky. He might give you Raymondo's location just like that. - Talk to a mysterious traveller at any tavern. If he tells you he has news about your family, pay his fee (fixed at 1000 gold for all levels) and he'll give you Raymondo's location. - Dance near-perfectly with an attractive governor's daughter, or moderately with a beautiful one, and they will tell you where to find Raymondo. Once you have a lead, you can have your information updated by talking to bartenders or by capturing ships near the city where Raymondo is supposed to be. You'll often be told if he's still there or if he's moving somewhere else by now. Raymondo rarely stays in one port for long, and he's usually out on the sea in his fully upgraded and well-crewed War Galleon. Just keep chasing him down and getting your info updated until you spot him, then attack his ship. You usually can't catch Raymondo in a port. Even if he stops somewhere, his ship will just be stationary right outside it, and as soon as you come near and he spots you he'll make a run for it. However, it is possible that you get information on Raymondo's whereabouts from a governor's daughter and he happens to start in the same port you're in right now. If that happens, you *can* go to the tavern, talk to the bartender, and get to fight him just like a fugitive criminal. Saves you the hunt, though it also means you won't get his ship and the gold on board. Assuming the above doesn't happen, Raymondo always moves from port to port, and only stops in Spanish ones. He can't visit ports that no longer belong to Spain, and he *can* visit ports that were originally a different nationality if Spain has captured them. Some players deliberately capture the more out of the way Spanish ports early in the game to make sure Raymondo can't spawn or travel there anymore. You need to defeat Raymondo in a regular ship battle and sword fight. You cannot sink his ship (it won't take more than 99% hull damage no matter how much you hit it) and you cannot avoid the sword fight. Fortunately, if you wear his ship and crew down enough, it's not a particularly challenging battle. When you beat Raymondo, you get a map piece for whatever family member you are currently looking for. On Apprentice you need to gather only two map pieces per family member to get the entire map; on all other levels you need to get four. Raymondo always carries exactly 3000 gold on his ship as well, so that's a nice bonus. Finding the family member then works exactly like hunting for a pirate treasure. Use the landmarks on your map to track down the right location, then march to it. You're in the right spot when you see a low blueish building. You will automatically rescue your lost family member when you find it. You get 1 fame point for every map piece you discover regarding a lost family member. If you manage to find one without getting the entire map, you still get the total 4 fame points for that member. Furthermore, any family member you rescue gives you the location of Marquis de la Montalban (see paragraph 7.6). If you already know where he is or have even already defeated him, you get a Lost City map piece instead (see paragraph 7.5). As soon as you rescue one family member, any further leads you get on Raymondo will be regarding the next. Raymondo will stop appearing when you've rescued your entire family. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.5] LOST CITIES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Lost a city, master Kenobi has! How embarassing, how embarassing." Lost Cities are kind of a wrap-up quest that is offered as an alternative to the main one of vanquishing Montalban. There are four Lost Cities in the Caribbean belonging to various famouns Indian tribes, and finding them is a daunting but profitable task. As with pirate treasures and family members, you need to gather map pieces, but you'll find that with Lost Cities this is only the beginning. They are usually in very out of the way and hard to find places. First off, to get a Lost City map piece, you must do one of the following: - Rescue a family member, and already know the location of Montalban or have vanquished him; - Dance near-perfectly with a beautiful governor's daughter, under the same conditions; - Rescue a governor's daughter from the evil Colonel Mendoza. You basically get a Lost City map piece as an alternative to Montalban's location if you don't need it, or by rescuing a daughter (something you will typically do only once, though there's nothing stopping you from running as many romance subquests as you want). On Apprentice level, you need to get two Lost City map pieces to complete the map; the first is just a quarter, then the second piece completes the map right away. On Journeyman, the first piece is a quarter, the second piece brings you to three quarters instantly, and the third piece completes the map. On all higher levels you need to find four pieces to get the full map. You don't strictly need the entire map to be able to find a Lost City, though; in fact I have heard uncomfired rumours that you can blunder across a Lost City before you have *any* of its map pieces. If true, that means Lost Cities spawn at the start of a game, unlike pirate treasures and family members. Finding a Lost City takes a lot of luck and patience. They are often in the middle of Mexico or other big land masses, nowhere near the city they are claimed to be in the vicinity of (though closer to there than any other). There is often a lack of shoreline on the Lost City maps, making it very hard to have any idea of where to start your search. All I can advise you to do is to check the map carefully, and sail around the coast hoping to recognize any landmarks. Failing that, you'll have to march, check your treasure map frequently, and hope for something recognizable. A Lost City looks like two red poles opposite each other. Quarter map pieces for Lost Cities are worth 1 fame point each. Completing a map (or finding a Lost City without completing the map first) earns you the full 4 fame points for that city, and a chance to start gathering map pieces for the next. Each Lost City you find also has a little bit of treasure waiting for you. 50.000 gold, to be exact. A fitting reward for the headache of finding one. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.6] MARQUIS DE LA MONTALBAN -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The main quest of Sid Meier's Pirates, and certainly the most convoluted one, is tracking down and defeating the evil Marquis who made off with your entire family in the introduction movie. To do this, you'll need to find his hideout and defeat him there; but to do that, you'll need to track him down at sea a couple of times, first. To be able to find Montalban at sea at all, you'll need to get a lead on him just like with Raymondo, except the lead is a little harder to get. You must: - Rescue a missing family member (which in turn requires you going through the whole Raymondo chase several times); - Dance near-perfectly with a beautiful governor's daughter. Either will get you Montalban's location. You will then need to chase his Flag Galleon in exactly the same way you track down Raymondo; talk to bartenders and crews of captured ships to find out where he's gone off to next. Soon as you catch up with him, you need to defeat him in a ship battle, which is no easy task. Flag Galleons may be slow, but they're very powerful, and Montalban only sails fully upgraded ones with a sizable crew. He's powerful in duels, too, probably the most powerful opponent in the game. Just how hard he is depends on the level, of course. Like Raymondo, Montalban *can* be caught in port but usually only if he happens to spawn in the same one you are in when you get a lead on him. Defeat Montalban at sea and he'll manage to escape, but searching his ship will turn up a map piece for his hideout (as well as 5000 gold). On Apprentice level you only need to find two of those to get the complete map, on Journeyman you need three, and on all other levels you need four. Then, when you finally have the complete map, you run into the same problem as with Lost Cities: more often than not he's got his hideout somewhere in Mexico, far away from the coast, and very hard to find. When you do finally come across his hideout, it's not over yet. The exterior is protected by a band of Indian mercenaries that you need to defeat in a land battle. I'm not quite sure if the size of this band is dependent on the difficulty level; on Apprentice and Journeyman I found that a crew of 200 was plenty to be able to win this battle, but you may need more on higher levels. As with all land battles, though, you can sneak a unit through to the main gates instead of defeating all the enemies. And at least the indians won't have any cavalry or artillery. When you're through the land battle, you finally need to face Montalban in a one on one duel and prove one more time that you're his master with the sword. On the lower levels, this isn't much harder than any other duel in the game. On Swashbuckler, he's almost unbeatable and it will take everything you've got. The reward for going through all this is solid though. You get 2 fame points for every map piece to the hideout you uncover, and a total of 10 fame points for tracking him down and defeating him. Furthermore, you get 100.000 gold from his hideout - the highest gold reward in the game - all crew specialists that you don't have yet, and any further family members you rescue/beautiful daughters you charm will give you Lost City pieces so you can focus on that very profitable quest. One piece of advice for completing the Montalban quest on higher levels: don't delay. Get a lead on him as soon as you can - this will require tracking down a beautiful daughter and getting to dance with her (become a Baron or get the Ostrich Feather Hat), and doing it well. If you hold off too long and you only get around to tracking down Montalban when your pirate is already pushing 40 and getting slow, you may find the final duel unwinnable. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.7] ROMANCE -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -------- OVERVIEW -------- Apart from gathering riches and tracking down villains, a significant part of your fame points and happiness come from romance. Your ultimate objective here is to get close enough to one of the many governor's daughters in the Caribbean to win her hand in marriage. More points are earned for charming a more beautiful daughter (looks really do count in the 17th century, it appears). A maximum of 10 fame points can be earned for marrying a beautiful daughter. You need to go through a couple of steps to marry a daughter, and here they are: - First, you need to get introduced. This requires you to at least be a Captain for a plain looking daughter, a Colonel for an attractive one or a Baron for a beautiful one. The latter two requirements can be bypassed if you have either or both of the fashion items (French Chapeau / Ostrich Feather Hat). Once you are introduced, you must accept the daughter's invitation to dance with her at that night's ball, and you must dance at least moderately and not make a fool of yourself. More info on dancing in paragraph 6.4. If you don't mess up, the quest continues on your next visit; if you do, you can't continue with this daughter and need to find another one. - On a subsequent visit, the daughter will remark she would really like to have a Ruby Ring or a Diamond Necklace. Subtle. She will keep repeating this on next visits until you actually bring her one. Obtain them from the mysterious traveller in the tavern, or occasionally as a bribe from a fugitive criminal. Note that if you actually have either of these items but refuse to give it to her, she'll somehow magically know it and be insulted, and the romance subquest ends with this daughter. - The next time you visit town after giving the governor's daughter a gift, it turns out she has a fiance who is now less than pleased with you. In fact, he will challenge you to a duel. You fight this duel the next time you visit *after* this (you can immediately revisit the governor in this instance to get it over with). You'll need to win it for the romance subplot to continue. - On your next visit, you have to dance a second time. Strangely, the game's dialogue is exactly the same as it was with the first dance, so that it seems like you don't even know this daughter yet. Don't worry, the quest hasn't reset. But you do need to get the dance right a second time for the subquest to continue. - The next time you visit, the governor will tell you his daughter has been kidnapped by the evil Colonel Mendoza. If you refuse to go after her, the poor man will faint, and the subquest ends. If you decide to rescue her, you need to track down Mendoza's ship (a Fast Galleon) and defeat him in battle to rescue the daughter. Tracking him down works in exactly the same way as Raymondo and Montalban, and the battle is slightly easier. The next time you return to the city the daughter will be reunited with the governor. - On your next visit to the port, you have the option of asking for the daughter's hand in marriage. If you do not, you don't get another chance and will have to go for another daughter. If she is beautiful, go ahead and do it; if she is less so, it's up to you if you're okay with ending up short of the maximum fame score. - After marriage, subsequent visits to the city give you a chance to dance with your wife and gain more rewards; messing up the dance now causes no permanent harm, but yields no rewards either. You can still flirt with any other governor's daughters you desire, playing the romance subquest right up until marriage, but you can only marry once. You can, however, rescue as many more daughters from Mendoza as you wish. In fact, if you have multiple romance plots running at the same time, it's perfectly possible to have multiple clones of Mendoza sailing around the Caribbean, all having a different daughter as their hostage. Once you retire, your wife will move to whichever city you settle down in. You don't have to stop your career in her home city. ------- REWARDS ------- You get a reward in fame points based on the best romance result you've had so far. You could be running a dozen romance subplots in different cities at the same time, and whichever one is worth most based on the daughter's beauty and how far you have advanced the plot is the one that determines your fame points. The rewards are as follows:
In addition, you can get two grades of reward from a daughter whenever you advance the plot. Which reward you get depends on how well you've handled this particular part of it, and once again, on how beautiful the daughter is. For the purposes of the table below, good/perfect handling means the following: - For dancing: good handling means a moderate dance where you end up kissing her hand. Perfect handling means a near-perfect dance which ends in an embrace. - For gifts: a Ruby Ring is good handling; a Diamond Necklace equals perfect handling. - For defeating the fiance: this always counts as good handling. There's no way to get the better reward here. - When you rescue a daughter from Mendoza, she always gives you a lost city map piece regardless of her beauty. After handling a part of the subplot, your rewards can be: - Information on a fugitive criminal (see paragraph 7.1); - A free item (see paragraph 8.5); - Information on the location of Baron Raymondo (see paragraph 7.4); - Information on the location of Marquis Montalban (see paragraph 7.6); - A lost city map piece (see paragraph 7.5). The following table describes which reward you get under which circumstances:
If you already have all items you can get from governor's daughters, you will get information on a criminal instead. Similarly, if you already rescued all family members and no longer need to chase Raymondo, you'll get information on a criminal. If you already know where Montalban is or you have vanquished him, you get a lost city map piece instead. If you've cleared Montalban *and* found all Lost Cities, you get information on a criminal. Due to the way this system works, many players end up with a quest log full of criminal quests late in the game. Note that if you advance a romance subplot with a daughter before acting on the information you got from her earlier (on either criminals or Raymondo, not for the lost city maps), she'll merely restate what she already said earlier. This is a bit of a waste, so if the daughter you're wooing has given you info to act on, do so first before coming back to her. During the Mendoza part of the romance subplot, the plot can break if an invasion force captures the city before you manage to return the daughter to her father. If this happens, this plot is effectively gone and you'll need to find somebody else to marry. After you have married a daughter, even the capture of the city she lives in won't end your marriage, though it may cause other weird effects, such as her appearance changing to reflect the new nationality. It is not possible to install a new governor yourself in the city your wife lives in. If the governor of a city is changed but the nationality isn't, the romance subplot is unaffected. Apparently, every new governor promptly adopts the old governor's daughter. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [7.8] TREASURE FLEET -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Every two years, the Spanish Treasure Fleet sails around the Caribbean to pick up valuables at each important port to carry back to Spain. Obviously, this is a very profitable target for a bold pirate. The Treasure Fleet consists of 3 or 4 Treasure Galleons which, starting with Trinidad, sail west along the Spanish Main, then up north to Havana, then back east and out to Europe. This trip takes about a year and a half, and along the way the ships sell off Luxuries and Spices and pick up gold. At the start of every even numbered year, some months after the Treasure Fleet has left for Europe, a new one appears at Trinidad. You're meant to be able to get information on the Treasure Fleet's current location by talking to barmaids. Unfortunately, this part of the game is broken. You will get the right location the first time you're told about the Treasure Fleet, but after that it will usually fail to update. So a barmaid might tell you the Fleet is heading to Cumana, then continue to claim that for the rest of the game no matter where it is now. This doesn't mean that finding the Treasure Fleet is an entirely hopeless affair, if you know where to look. I'm still gathering info on where the Treasure Fleet can roughly be found at what point in the year, but bear in mind that it's around Trinidad in January, then sails west up to Puerto Bello, then straight north to Havana, and then straight east. It will reach the east edge of the map about halfway the next year. The Treasure Fleet only spawns in odd years, so in the standard time zone, the first one will appear in 1660, then the next in 1662, et cetera. While the Treasure Fleet is still intact, its ships will not actually be labelled 'treasure ships'. However, if the fleet breaks up - which can be caused by pirate attacks but also by you just coming close to it - the individual ships that leave the formation will get the 'treasure ship' label. Especially in this case, you might not even realize you just captured part of the Treasure Fleet - it will look just like any other treasure ship. The loot on each ship in the Treasure Fleet depends on when you catch it. Since it will sell off cargo and pick up gold in every port it stops at, the loot grows over time. Capture one or more of the ships at Trinidad early in the year, and you'll get just about a thousand gold and a fair bit of cargo. Capture it when it comes out of Havana - perhaps swooping down on it from Florida Keys - and you can expect each remaining ship to hold 3000 gold easily. Of course, the downside is that by then, perhaps only one ship survives. There are no fame points associated with capturing the Treasure Fleet, nor any special sequences; it's just a couple of well armed Treasure Galleons with a lot of gold on board. A little disappointing compared to the awesome target it was in the original game. |
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| [8] Reference Lists | ||
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.1] SHIPS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This is a complete list of all 27 ships in the game, sorted by 9 different classes. Info comes directly from the game and should be accurate. Note that the term 'combat galleon' does not come from the game, I made that up. Had to distinguish somehow between the merchant types and the warship types, and since 'war galleon' was already the name of a specific type of ship, that would have been a little awkward to use. Hence 'combat galleon' is how I refer to the fast/war/flag galleon line of ships. 'Crew' refers to the maximum crew a ship can carry if it does *not* have the Triple Hammocks upgrade. If it does, the ship can carry 50% more crew, rounded down. 'Min crew' refers to the minimum crew needed to operate the ship at full sailing speed; the game will automatically assign exactly this crew to any ship that's not your flagship. If a ship is damaged, the minimum crew required raises. If at any time the minimum crew requirement cannot be met, the ship slows down considerably. The min crew values marked with a question mark are unconfirmed; they're just educated guesses based on how much crew the ships I *did* confirm require. In battle, having just the minimum crew will let you sail the ship at its proper speed, but cannon reloading will be seriously slow. The more excess crew you have, the faster your cannons will be reloaded. Excess crew does not increase sailing or turning speed though; only so many men can be in the rigging.
Some notes on the various ship types: - The third ship in each class tends to be a lot rarer than the first two. They are also almost always preferable over the two earlier types, having better crew/cargo/cannon capacity with roughly the same performance. The West Indiaman is the only exception, performing worse than the other two Fluyts. But what the heck are you doing using a Fluyt in battle to begin with? - Pinnaces, Barques, Sloops and Brigs are used by all nations. The War Canoe, specifically, is an Indian-only ship. - The Spanish use merchant Galleon class ships as their merchants. The Dutch use Fluyt classes. The English and French use Merchantman classes. - The Spanish use combat Galleon class ships as warships. The Dutch, English and French use Frigate class ships instead. - Virtually all merchant ships in the Caribbean are the smallest type in their class. The Spanish variant, the Trade Galleon, is the single most common ship in the game. Bigger merchant ships like Royal Galleons are noteworthy since they will almost always have a lot of gold and/or valuable cargo, whereas the smaller merchant vessels are a bit of a gamble. - The Ship of the Line is the rarest and most sought after ship in the game. Check the first entry of the Frequently Asked Questions section (paragraph 9) for some hints on how to get one. There is, unfortunately, no easy foolproof method. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.2] SHIP MISSIONS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- While many of the ships you encounter in the Caribbean are just randomly sailing merchant ships, a lot have special missions which will light up as you hold your cursor over a ship. A ship's mission can be important to know, as it gives you important clues about what to expect if you engage it, and what effect this ship may have on the game world if it reaches its destination safely. This section details all possible ship missions and what you need to know about them. REGULAR MERCHANT These ships have no special marking at all; they are the most common in the game. Merchants spawn in any port, and then sail to a different port belonging to either the same nation or another nation they are not currently at war with. They are usually the smallest kind of the regular merchant ship class used by this nation: Trade Galleons for Spain, Fluyts for Holland, and Merchantmen for England and France. Barques of all kinds (but mostly the medium size one) are often used as well, or the medium size merchant ships (Royal Galleon, Large Fluyt, Large Merchantman). Rarely you may see Sloops (only the small size) or the largest kind of merchant ships (Treasure Galleon, West Indiaman, East Indiaman). If you see several unmarked Treasure Galleons sailing in formation, you just stumbled upon the Treasure Fleet (see paragraph 7.8). If a regular merchant reaches its destination, this has a subtle effect on the wealth of both the source and the destination port, helping them improve their wealth ratings over time. If a merchant is intercepted, the destination port is unaffected, and the source port loses part of its wealth. Consistently taking ships as they come out of a port will reduce it to Poor fairly quickly. Merchants are typically poorly defended, with a small crew (often smaller than 50) and only a few cannons. There are exceptions, though, and the better defended ships often have a bigger loot. Some merchants bring along an escort, and that's a dead giveaway that their ship holds something valuable. Merchants typically have gold and a decent load of one specific kind of cargo; often Goods or Sugar, but occasionally Luxuries or Spice. SMUGGLER Smugglers are basically merchants who trade with the enemy. Smuggler ships spawn in any port, and sail to a port belonging to a nation its home port is currently at war with. Smugglers often using Pinnace ships (always the medium size kind), Sloops (the small ones) or Brigantines. If a smuggler reaches its destination, only the destination port benefits from it economically. Interestingly, though, the smuggler ship is considered to be a loyal ship to the nation it comes from in terms of who gets happy and who gets mad if you sink it. Smugglers tend to be a little better armed than regular merchants, but this is offset again by the fact that their ships are smaller. They usually just try to escape if you attack one. Only the Brigantine using smugglers can pose some threat. Smugglers usually have a decent amount of gold, and a bit of cargo - almost always something valuable like Luxuries or Spice. They also have a better than normal chance of carrying specialists. TREASURE SHIP These rare prizes are some of the most sought after targets in the game. Treasure Ships carry pure profit. They usually sail from one port to another, but the Spanish Treasure Fleet spawns from Europe in the southeast corner of the map (near Trinidad) at the beginning of every year, and consists of 3 or 4 Treasure Galleons sailing in formation. These ships, however, are not marked 'treasure ship' unless and until they leave the formation. Treasure Ships are always the largest in the nation's merchant class of ships (West Indiaman, East Indiaman, Treasure Galleon). They tend to have a large number of cannons and a decent sized crew, and are often, but not always, escorted by a warship as well. I'm not sure yet on what impact they have on their source and destination ports if they reach their destination, but it seems logical that they take wealth away from the source and make the destination richer. Treasure Ships carry both a large amount of gold (starting at 1000, going up to as much as 3000 sometimes) and a large cargo of either Luxuries or Spice. Sometimes both. They are the most profitable targets in the game. GOVERNOR TRANSPORT Governor turnover in the Caribbean is extremely high. Very frequently, settlements spawn small ships transporting governors to nearby ports belonging to the same nation. The usual targets are poor ports, but it can happen anywhere. If a governor reaches his destination, the wealth rating there is instantly boosted; to Prosperous if it was Poor or Modest, or to Wealthy if it was Prosperous. If the town was already Wealthy, it appears to get a population boost instead (which might actually make the new rating Prosperous as the wealth rating is relative to the population size). Governor Transports are typically Sloops (small size) or Barques (medium size). They are typically poorly defended and unescorted - perhaps hoping just not to be seen - and have a fair amount of gold but no cargo to speak of on board. You can spawn Governor Transports yourself by visiting a settlement and talking to the Mayor. If there is at least one nearby port belonging to the same nation, you will spawn a Governor Transport and be given the task of escorting the governor. The game will also spawn one Privateer (two on higher levels) of a random enemy nation directly between you and the destination port, which will attempt to sink the governor's ship. IMMIGRANT TRANSPORT Immigrant Transports are a little less frequent than governors, but still quite common. These ships spawn in settlements and head for a port belonging to the same nation. If they arrive safely, the port gets a significant population boost. This may make the wealth rating seem to drop a notch, as it is relative to the size of the town. The boost can be up to 2000 depending on the type of ship. Immigrant transports are typically small merchant ships (Trade Galleon, Fluyt, Merchantman). They are almost always poorly defended, with a small crew and few cannons. They do carry a lot of gold - the personal fortune of all those immigrants, no doubt - and have the highest chance of all ship types in the game to carry specialists. You can spawn Immigrant Transports yourself by visiting a Jesuit mission and talking to the Abbot. Often, you will be given the opportunity to escort immigrants to the nearest port of any of the four nations. Once you choose a nation, the immigrant ship will take that nation's flag, and one or two enemy Privateers (depending on level) will spawn between you and the target. SEEDLING TRANSPORT Seedling Transports are a rare kind of ship that doesn't spawn on its own, but only as a specific mission for you. When you visit a settlement that doesn't have any ports belonging to the same nation nearby, you will be given a chance to escort a ship carrying hardy sugar seedlings. As with immigrants, you choose what nation it's going to, and you bring them to the nearest port belonging to that nation. Attacking the seedling ship is mostly pointless as it won't have much gold or cargo on board. If you escort it to its destination, however (and as with the governor and immigrant transports, you'll have enemy Privateers to deal with along the way), its wealth rating will be boosted, and I believe its population as well. Seedling Transports appear to be Barques for the most part. They are poorly defended and can definitely not fight off any Privateers on their own. GRAIN TRANSPORT Grain Transports spawn from either settlements or ports - not sure which, it might even be both - and head to a random port belonging to the same nation. They are largely uninteresting targets which may have some gold, but never much, and carry only food. They become interesting only if your crew is close to starvation and you are desperately in need of new supplies. Grain Transports are almost without exception Coastal Barques. They are, completely without exception, poorly defended. RAIDER Raiders are warships sent out to blockade and harass an enemy port. They spawn at any port, head for a specific port belonging to an enemy nation, attacking any enemy ships along the way. When they reach the port, they will park in front of it and bombard it for a while, lowering its population, wealth rating and garrison size. If a Raider takes heavy damage during the blockade or before, from combat, it will retreat to its home port. Raiders are always Sloop, Brig, Frigate or (in the case of Spain) combat Galleon type ships. They are usually not the biggest kind; Royal Sloop and Brig of War sightings are rare. Frigate or combat Galleon Raiders are never the biggest kind; you won't see Ship of the Line or Flag Galleon Raiders. Raiders typically have little in terms of interesting cargo, but taking out enemy warships is an excellent way to get on a nation's good side quickly. They always have plenty of cannons and a decent sized crew, so they're not easy marks. INVASION FORCE Invasions forces spawn at any port - usually the best defended ones - and head for a random enemy settlement or port in an attempt to capture it. If they reach their destination, their attack either succeeds or fails, with the chance depending on the size of the garrison (settlements are always captured successfully). If the attack succeeds, the port or settlement now belongs to the new nation; if it fails, the garrison size is reduced. Invasion forces are always the largest kind of combat vessel - combat Galleons for Spain, Frigates for the other nations. They may be either the small or the medium variant, never a Flag Galleon or a Ship of the Line. Invasion forces always have the maximum crew on board (however, they do not take advantage of Triple Hammocks if the ship has them). They tend not to have many guns. They're worth taking out for the prestige with the enemy nation and if you want to prevent the invasion from happening, but there's very little to plunder on a purely military ship like this. TROOP TRANSPORT Troop Transports are basically the peaceful variants of Invasion Forces. They are often Brigs, occasionally Frigates/combat Galleons. Just like Invasion Forces, however, they are fully stocked with troops and have few guns. Troop Transports spawn in settlements, then head to a random port belonging to the same nation; usually, but not always, a port that could do with some reinforcements. If the troop ship reaches its destination, the garrison size is boosted. Troop ships aren't worth taking out in terms of plunder, and don't gain you all that much prestige. The main reason for going after one is to prevent the reinforcing of a port you intend to plunder now or in the near future. NEW WARSHIP New Warships randomly spawn from settlements or ports and sail to a random other port belonging to the same nation. They can be any kind of Sloop, Brig, Frigate or combat Galleon, including the biggest ones; this is the most common way to see a Ship of the Line. New Warships appear to spawn mostly randomly, but one player reported seeing more of them from nations he pissed off a lot. Perhaps they're reinforcements (or just a show of arms) from a nation that is having a lot of trouble with pirates. New warships always have the full complement of cannons, but only a small crew. As such they're relative easy targets as warships go, and a good way to earn prestige. Most of all, however, they're a great source of good ships to put to use for your own pirating needs. If you need a Ship of the Line, this is the kind of ship you want to keep an eye on. New Warships are occasionally escorted. Think long and hard before you go into a battle like that, as this means you'll be up against *two* heavily armed warships. MILITARY PAYROLL Of all the military targets, this is the one that is actually worth grabbing in terms of loot. Usually a Frigate or a Fast Galleon, these ships are well armed and defended, but carry a good sum of gold. No Spices or Luxuries on these ships, no fuss about selling them, just pure gold, often around 2000-3000. As if that isn't enough, stopping a payroll carrier earns you a lot of prestige with the nation's enemies as well. Military Payrolls spawn randomly in settlements and head to a random port belonging to the same nation. If they reach the destination, the garrison size is boosted. PRIVATEER Privateers are much like Raiders, except that they don't attack an enemy port. They spawn in any port, then sail a few rounds and attack enemy ships until they take on a fair bit of damage, at which point they'll head home again. Privateers will turn into Pirate Hunters if you sail close to them and the nation they belong to has a price on your head at the time. Privateers also spawn if you take on a quest to escort sugar seedlings, a governor or immigrants. In this case, if the nation you're escorting a ship for is not at war with anybody, you may even see 'Pirate Privateer' ships. These also spawn when you're escorting a Jesuit missionary. PIRATE HUNTER Pirate Hunters either sail from ports, or are escort ships/raiders that break from their current mission to chase you. They only show up when they're after you specifically; they're always sent by nations that have a price on your head. Often they come directly in response to an attack you've done nearby, but if the price on your head is high, you will start seeing pirate hunters sail spontaneously from hostile ports if you come near them, too. Similarly, escorts and other warships might spontaneously turn into pirate hunters if you come near and that nation is particularly anxious to capture you. Pirate hunters will chase you, yelling at you to stand and fight, and shoot at you as well until you shake them or engage them. If you flee into a friendly port, pirate hunters will give up the chase and disappear from the map. Pirate hunters usually have well upgraded ships with maximum cannon counts and big crews. They normally sail Sloops (usually Sloop of War or Royal Sloop) or Brigs (usually Brig or Brig of War). Occasionally you may Frigate/combat Galleon size ships as well. It is possible for pirate hunters to sail in Flag Galleons or Ships of the Line, but this is very rare. Those ships are much more often seen as New Warships. A pirate hunter usually has no loot or valuable cargo to speak of. You will likely have to fight them purely in self defense. PIRATE RAIDER Pirate raiders spawn from pirate havens and sail to a random nearby port belonging to any of the four nations. They will then enter it and attempt to plunder it. If successful, the town's wealth rating is brought down to Poor and the population may decrease somewhat as well. If unsuccessful, the garrison takes losses but the wealth remains unaffected. Pirate raiders normally sail in Sloops or Brigs; usually not the largest kind. Occasionally you may see them in Pinnaces as well. Pirates tend to have few cannons but a large crew. You can spawn pirate raiders yourself by visiting a pirate haven and talking to the captain. You can then advise him to attack the nearest port of any of the four nations, and they will send out a pirate to do just that. You could then backstab and attack the pirate to score points with the four nations, or let them hit the target. This can be a good tactic to soften up the defenses of a strong town, but if the garrison is about 300 men or lower, there's a good chance their attack will succeed, leaving the town robbed but the garrison untouched. Pirate raiders sometimes have a decent amount of gold on board, and sometimes not so much at all. It's luck of the draw. It's worth it to engage them anyway though, since this is a surefire way to score points with everybody. And of course, if a pirate raider is about to rob the town you were intended to plunder, it is in your best interest to prevent them from doing so. Unfortunately a pirate disappears after a successful raid, so you cannot attack their booty-laden ships on the way back. INDIAN WAR PARTY From time to time, the local Indians decide it is time for a punitive raid on a European port. At this time one, two or three War Canoes will leave a random Indian village and sail to a nearby port. Like pirates, they will attack it, and if they fail the garrison will be weakened. If they succeed, however, they scare off population rather than lower the wealth rating. Both impact the plunder you can get from the town, though. Indian War Canoes always have 4 guns and 50 men on board. They will usually attempt to flee if you attack them, and often succeed because they are very fast and hard to catch. If you manage to board an Indian War Canoe, the crew will surrender immediately; there is never a sword fight against the natives. Their ships usually hold only a few tons of food and if they have any gold at all, it will be very little. The only benefit in stopping Indians is if you want to prevent them from hitting a town, or to score points with the European nations. It's usually easier to go after pirates, though. War Canoes become very hard to catch on higher levels. You can spawn Indian War Canoes yourself by visiting a village and talking to the Chief. You can then incite him to attack a nearby European port, and they will send out three War Canoes for the job. As with inciting pirate raids, be careful only to do this on well defended ports, because if the attack succeeds you're left with a less profitable target that's still just as well defended as before. TREATY CARRIER These rare ships only appear if you've been given the mission to escort one. They carry either a peace treaty, an ultimatum, or an amnesty proposal. The first two types are missions assigned by governors, and they will be to the nearest port of a specific other nation. Escorting a peace treaty to its target will trigger peace between two nations at war, and escorting an ultimatum will cause war to break out. Amnesty proposals are spawned when you talk to the Abbot at a mission, and he offers to have one of his monks speak on your behalf to a nation that has a price on your head. If you deliver the amnesty proposal safely to its target, the price on your head is lifted and the nation in question is neutral toward you again. Treaty carriers normally sail in Mail Runners, the largest kind of Pinnace. Since this is the only time you'll ever see these ships, they're pretty rare. Occasionally, they will also use Royal Sloops, not a common ship either and a very desirable one at that. Either way, the ship tends to be poorly defended and doesn't have much loot on board. You may find it worth it to backstab one of these ships just for the ship itself, though, and you can delay (but usually not prevent) two nations from making peace or declaring war by intercepting the right kind of ship. Preventing war is usually pointless, but there are good reasons to want two warring nations to remain at odds. War is always profitable for privateers. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.3] SHIP UPGRADES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Note: all ship upgrades are done in port, and every shipwright has only one specialty. These are random in every game, so you have to find out where to get which upgrade done. Best way to find out is to talk to bartenders, who will often hint at possible upgrades your flagship doesn't have yet if they can be done in nearby ports. Your first ship in every game starts with the Grape Shot and Chain Shot upgrades already in place, and ships captured from the enemy might have any number of upgrades. Warships and pirates tend to have some, and named enemies (like the most famous pirates, or the various evil Spanish noblemen) tend to have most or all. GRAPE SHOT Allows the ship to use Grape Shot as an alternative ammunition type. Switch to Grape Shot in battle by pressing 1; this can be done while the cannons are loading and even when they're already loaded. Grape Shot has the shortest range of all shot types and is hard to hit with. However, it mostly does damage to the enemy crew, doing only very light damage against sails and hull. It is perfect for weakening an enemy crew before boarding while leaving the ship as intact as possible. CHAIN SHOT Allows the ship to use Chain Shot as an alternative ammunition type. Switch to this by pressing 7 in battle. As with Grape Shot, you can do this at any time. Chain Shot has better range than Grape Shot but not as much as regular Round Shot does. When it hits, it mostly damages the enemy's sails but leaves its hull intact. This is particularly useful if an enemy is threatening to outrun you or maneuvering around you. A good broadside of this can cripple an enemy ship without any real danger of sinking it before you have a chance to plunder it. If you wipe out an enemy's sails entirely, they will always strike their colours. COTTON SAILS Cotton Sails improve the overall sailing speed of a ship, both in and out of battle. Out of battle its usefulness is limited as, unless you get this upgrade for all your ships, your flagship will still have to adapt its speed to whatever the slowest vessel in your fleet is. But in battle the advantage of Cotton Sails is too important to pass up; it can be the difference between catching an enemy or not. Or when you're the one who is in danger, it can be just what you need to escape. Especially on higher levels, actively search out a port that can give this upgrade to your flagship as soon as possible. IRON SCANTINGS Iron Scantings provide extra protection to a ship's hull, making it harder to damage. Your ship will take less hull damage from enemy broadsides, allowing you to sail that much longer. Only hull strength is affected, so damage to your cannons, crew and sails is the same as always. BRONZE CANNONS Bronze Cannons fire more accurately than regular iron ones. Your shots don't spread out as much, and a small degree of auto-aiming takes place when you fire your broadside. Overall, your broadsides will do considerably more damage with this upgrade. FINE-GRAIN POWDER Fine-grain Powder gives your cannons a better range for all three ammunition types. Especially with the shorter range on Chain Shot and Grape Shot, this difference can be very significant. TRIPLE HAMMOCKS Triple Hammocks increase the maximum crew size of your ship by 50%. This allows you to carry larger boarding parties into battle. Your crew size is hard capped by the maximum carrying capacity of your ships (contrary to what the manual states you are not allowed to overload), so this is one improvement you might want to get for *all* your ships, not just your flagship. Particularly if you're putting together a large crew for an imminent attack on a large Spanish port. However, if you are deliberately keeping your crew small, it may be in your best interest to use this upgrade sparingly or skip it entirely. COPPER PLATING Copper Plating lets you turn your ships faster in battle. The importance of this upgrade can't be overstated, as all your success in battle - be it with gunnery, catching and boarding an enemy, or running away from a very angry Flag Galleon - depends on being able to turn swiftly and outmaneuver your opponent. While this upgrade won't turn a Galleon into a Sloop, it always helps, and should be obtained as soon as possible. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.4] CREW SPECIALISTS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Enemy ships might carry specialists which you can recruit for your crew. This happens automatically if you capture such a ship, and specialists remain with your for life. They are basically "crew upgrades", each of them affecting a different part of the game to your benefit. Bartenders can often tell you if there's a ship sailing nearby that has a specialist you don't have yet, so you can follow their advice to get them. You can also just randomly attack ships and gather them soon enough; especially when you don't have any yet, you'll find some easily. Smuggler ships have an improved chance to have a specialist on board, and immigant ships in particular have a very good chance. Seek these targets out specifically if you're after more specialists. Finally, if you capture Marquis Montalban (see section 7.6), you will get a full complement of specialists right there and then if you didn't have them already. The following specialists are available: CARPENTER Carpenters are capable of making hull repairs at sea. At the start of each month (signified by the sound of a bell), Carpenters repair 25% of the hull damage on all your ships. Note, they repair a quarter of the damage, not 25% worth of damage. So if a ship has 40% hull damage, a Carpenter will bring it down to 30% at the start of the next month, then to 22% on the next month, et cetera. The effect is therefore useful for emergency damage, but you'll still do the bulk of your repairs in port. COOK Cooks prepare tasty meals at sea, which helps to keep crew morale up. With a cook, you can basically go for longer without your crew getting unhappy. Particularly on the higher levels where your crew tends to be unruly, this makes a big difference. The Cook is therefore one of the most useful specialists around. I haven't been able to put a number to it, though; too many factors affect morale to be able to test the impact a Cook makes easily. COOPER Coopers help you preserve your food in barrels. In gameplay terms, this cuts your food consumption in half, and thus lets you sail twice as long with the same amount of food. This saves you money for supplies, decreases the risk of starvation and frees up cargo space for more valuable goods. All in all, a specialist you want to have. GUNNER Gunners train your crew in fast reloading. Your accuracy is unaffected - that's what Bronze Cannons are for - but the reloading speed is increased significantly. About twice as fast, as far as I can tell. This is an important advantage in battle, depending on how often you rely on your guns. If you're the kind of pirate who prefers to ram the enemy without using your cannons at all, you'll likely be indifferent about the Gunner. But on higher levels you usually don't have the luxury of not using them, making the Gunner much more important then. NAVIGATOR Navigators increase the speed of your ships both in and out of battle. It should be obvious that this is a significant improvement: shorter voyages and better battle results. As with the other upgrades that affect speed - Cotton Sails on your ships and the Navigation skill for yourself - you'll find this especially helpful when sailing against the wind. Saves you a lot of headaches. I haven't yet been able to determine exactly how much of a difference the Navigator makes, but it is noticeable. QUARTERMASTER The quartermaster enforces discipline at sea. This manifests itself in the same way as the Cook's special ability: your crew remains happy for longer than usual. The Cook and the Quartermaster seem to be equally effective, and they're also cumulative. You'll want to get them both at your earliest opportunity, especially if you intend to maintain large crews for a long period of time. SAILMAKER Just like the Carpenter repairs damaged hulls over time, sailmakers do the same to sails. A quarter of the sail damage on all of your ships is repaired at the start of every month. As with the Carpenter, the repairs are nice for emergencies but not very effective. SURGEON Surgeons can treat injured crew members. This basically manifests itself as fewer losses in battles of all kinds, as crew members who might otherwise die or be too injured to continue sailing can now be patched up. In ship battles, the difference is obvious; half of the people lost during the sword fight return to duty afterwards. The impact during naval battles and land battles is not as easy to figure out, but I suspect it may be the same, cutting losses in half. The surgeon does not affect the decay of your character's health over time; only Medicine skill and two of the special items help with this. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.5] SPECIAL ITEMS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This section describes the special items you can get over the course of the game, and their effect. There are a whopping 17 categories of items, and two in each category; the basic item and the upgraded one that has a stronger effect along the same lines. Items can be obtained in three ways: - They can be bought from mysterious travellers in taverns. They offer a random item for sale sometimes, a one time offer for a flat fee of gold. How much gold depends on the item, the wealth rating of the town, and the difficulty level. Prices also seem to rise over the course of the game; perhaps depending on passage of time, but more likely depending on how many items you already have. I've seen Ruby Rings for as little as 600 gold on Apprentice level but as much as 3300 on Swashbuckler. Similarly, I've seen a Dutch Rutter for sale for 6000 gold on Apprentice so I dread to think how much that would cost on higher levels. - Items can be gotten as ransom from fugitive criminals. When you catch a criminal, they will often offer you an item if you allow them to escape. If you accept this offer, you forfeit your gold reward and a chance to make the nation that wants him happy; the criminal disappears forever. But if the reward is low and/or the item is good, it can be a good deal. Particularly on the higher levels, where travellers will make you pay through the nose for their items. - Finally, items can be given as gifts by governor's daughters you have impressed sufficiently with your dancing or with subsequent actions on return visits. You normally get a choice between two and four different items. However, not all items can be obtained this way. I've indicated in the item descriptions which items can and can't be given out by governor's daughters. It appears that if there is only one item choice left, you don't actually get it, but you get a criminal quest instead. Below is a list of all items in the game and their effects. I have sorted them from most to least important in the eyes of yours truly. 3-STRINGED FIDDLE / CONCERTINA Among the most important items, these help keep your crew happy. They basically work by extending the time it takes for your crew to become unhappy, just like the Quartermaster and Cook specialists do, and like getting more gold in your hold does. The Concertina has a stronger effect. You'll want to get these at your first opportunity, particularly on the later levels. Fortunately they are often offered by governor's daughters. MEDICINAL HERBS / INCAN MYSTIC SALVE Another important set of items, these are harder to find. They increase your health, basically ensuring that A) you don't get slower with age as quickly and B) you can extend your career for longer. The effect of these items is retroactive, so even if you acquire them late in your career, your health will be boosted right back up. The Incan Mystic Salve has a stronger effect. Have them both as well as skill at Medicine and you can extend your career as far as age 54 (farther if you don't divide up the plunder). Have neither these items nor the Medicine skill, and you will already be too old to start a new expedition at age 42. Get these items when you can; an extended career is never a bad thing, and even if you don't need more than 24 years for your game you will still be in better health (and thus remain faster in sword battles). I've never seen a governor's daughter offer these, but you can get them from travellers in taverns. RUBY RING / DIAMOND NECKLACE By far the most common item in the game (at least the Ruby Ring is), this is also the only class of item you can lose once you've got it. Basically, these are gifts for the governor's daughter, which can be given to her on your second visit (after you danced with her the first time). This advances the romance subplot and will also get you a reward in return. Which reward it is depends on the beauty of the daughter and the item you gave her. A Ruby Ring does the same as dancing adequately would, and a Diamond Necklace is equivalent to a perfect dance. You can't get these items from a governor's daughter (obviously). However, you will find the Ruby Ring is the single most offered item by travellers in taverns. In fact, you probably want to get one and hold on to it if you want them to offer you anything else, because they'll rarely do otherwise. You can only have one of either item at a time, but as soon as you give them away to governor's daughters you can obtain new ones. CALFSKIN BOOTS / DANCING SLIPPERS These items are particularly popular because they help with dancing, which many people consider the hardest part of the game. These items have mostly the same effect as the Wit and Charm skill (and are cumulative with it): when you press the wrong button during a dance scene, or the wrong one, there is a flat % chance that the move succeeds anyway, though without a flourish. In addition, unlike the Wit and Charm skill, these items may even prevent you from stumbling if you fail to press any key at all in time. So basically, these items help cover up mistakes, and that means your overall dancing ratings will come out better. The Dancing Slippers offer a higher percentage and let you get away with even more slip ups. I haven't yet worked out the actual percentages, but the difference is noticeable. The Dancing Slippers seemed to cover about half of my mistakes easily. Note that neither item will help you do more flourishes, but they should help you get through a dance somewhat gracefully if you don't have the hang of it. These items are never offered by a governor's daughter. You may be able to get them from travellers, but they're not commonly seen. If a fugitive criminal offers you these in exchange for his freedom, I suggest you give it some serious thought. SET OF BALANCED SWORDS / SET OF PERFECTLY BALANCED SWORDS Since you are going to do more swordfighting than anything else in the game, most likely, items that help you with this are among the more important ones to have. This is particularly true on the higher levels where a few of your opponents can be very tough, or if your character is aging and becomes slower in combat. Balanced swords improve the speed of your attacks. They may also improve your speed at defending, but I'm not positive on that one. The perfectly balanced swords have a stronger effect. Balanced swords are easy to get from travellers and governor's daughters alike. FENCING SHIRT (PUFFY) / SILK FENCING SHIRT Fencing shirts are the other item to improve combat speed, and as such just as important to have as balanced swords. They improve the speed of all your defensive moves - parrying, jumping and ducking - and may improve attack speed as well. Not sure about that. The Silk Fencing Shirt is more effective than the puffy one. Like balanced swords, fencing shirts are often offered by governor's daughters as gifts. Getting them early should be no problem. ONE-SHOT PISTOL / BRACE OF PISTOLS Owning a pistol, apart from adding a cool extra scene to the start of battles, gives you an edge in terms of your starting position in combat. Normally when a sword fight starts you and your opponent are in "neutral" positions in the middle of the battlefield, and it takes an equal number of blows for either to be driven back so far that they'll be defeated. A one shot pistol shifts the balance one step in your favour at the beginning; a brace of pistol gives you two free steps. It is basically the same as getting a free thrust or chop/slash on your opponent, respectively. Pistols are easily obtained both from governor's daughters and travellers. LEATHER VEST / METAL CUIRAISS Armor is the final enhancement battle for sword fights. Leather Vests give you a % chance to deflect a thrust; the Metal "Cuiraiss" (their typo, not mine) gives an even better chance at this. If a thrust is deflected by your armour, you are not driven back and any attack you were setting up is not foiled. As far as I can tell, armor has no effect on enemy chops and slashes. Like the other battle items, armor can be gotten both from travellers and governor's daughters. QUALITY SPYGLASS / FINE TELESCOPE After the battle items I'd consider this one among the more useful things to have. Spyglasses improve the range at which you spot other ships at sea. Without them, you don't necessarily see ships even if they're close enough to be displayed on the overhead view (depending, of course, on how far you are zoomed in). The Quality Spyglass improves the range at which you see them somewhat, and the Fine Telescope is good enough to let you spot pretty much all ships that sail into the range of your screen. The spyglass items can be obtained from travellers and governor's daughters alike. WEATHER GLASS / PRECISION BAROMETER Among the middle class items in terms of usefulness, the Weather Glass and the more effective Precision Barometer reduce the damage caused to your ships by sailing through storms. This damage isn't so bad to begin with (at least on the lower difficulty levels), and usually you can avoid sailing through storms (though once again, on the lower difficulty levels you can afford more in terms of straying from your course). These items are useful, but not vital. Buy them from a traveller if offered and affordable, or get them from a governor's daughter if she has nothing better to offer. DUTCH RUTTER / SPANISH RUTTER The Dutch Rutter contains the names and locations of a number of "hidden" settlements, missions, Indian villages and pirate havens. The Spanish Rutter contains even more. What these items do is add these locations to your world map, which is convenient but not vital. They do not actually cause new settlements to spawn in the game like I thought they might; they just reveal the existing ones to you. This is decently useful item but nothing vital. Mostly interesting if you rely a lot on Indians and pirates to weaken down ports for you, or you just like to lure them out and then ambush them to improve your standing with the four nations. Or to find the nearest mission easily if you're looking for free information on Raymondo. Rutters can be bought from travellers but tend to be among the most expensive items they offer. You're probably better off getting them from a governor's daughter at some point. FRENCH CHAPEAU / OSTRICH FEATHER HAT These two stylish items of clothing allow you to get invited to the ball easier. The French Chapeau lets you bypass the requirement to be a Colonel to dance with an attractive daughter, and the Ostrich Feather Hat lets you dance with beautiful daughters even if you're not a Baron. It is theorized that they will also let you see the daughters more often in general (i.e. they'll show up more often if you visit the governor) but I'm not so sure about that part. One way or another, getting promoted is usually not a big problem (at least not to Colonel) and you get to see governor's daughters quite often as it is, so these items have low priority. Note that you cannot get stylish clothing from governor's daughters. FALSE MUSTACHE / THEATRICAL DISGUISE Wealthy Spanish ports will often refuse to trade with you if your relations with Spain aren't very good. The likelihood of this depends on how much Spain hates you and how poor (i.e. desperate) the port in question is. The False Mustache helps ease the equation and make it easier for you to trade even in hostile ports, while the Theatrical Disguise ensures that you are always allowed to trade no matter what. The usefulness of these items is limited as they only apply to trading, not to being able to get into the port in the first place. Not much use being allowed to trade in Spanish ports even when they have a price on your head, when there is no way to sail your ship into port in the first place. You would only be able to sneak in (and then you can't trade), or plunder the port and trade directly after; and if you plunder a port it typically ends up so poor that you'd be able to trade with them to begin with. As such, these items have little practical use as far as I can tell. Disguise items can't be obtained from governor's daughters. LOCKPICKING KIT / SKELETON KEY If you're down on your luck and get captured, you might find yourself imprisoned for quite a few months. With luck you'll get a chance to try and escape along the way. You can help Lady Luck a little by having either or both of these items; a chance to escape will come sooner and assuming you do not mess up the sneaking out of town part, you can escape very quickly and thus shorten your time in captivity if worst comes to worst. The Skeleton Key offers you an opportunity even more quickly than the Lockpicking Kit does. These items will probably be of little value to you, though. Most players would reload the game if they lose a battle and get captured, anyway; the fact that an autosave is done right before every battle certainly encourages this. But if you decide to play a game in which you do not allow yourself to rely on saving and loading to get you out of trouble, you'll likely find these items somewhat more important. Lockpicking items can't be obtained from governor's daughters. SIGNALING MIRROR / SIGNAL FLARE The signaling items serve the same purposes as the lockpicking ones, except that these are meant for when you are marooned rather than captured. The time it takes for a ship to pick you up is shortened by the Signaling Mirror and shortened even more by the Signal Flare. Once again, how important you find this is going to depend on whether or not you just reload your game if you lose your last ship. If you do, these items are useless. If you don't, their value to you is going to depend on how often it happens to you. Signaling items can't be obtained from governor's daughters. GOLDEN CROSS / SACRED RELIC The purpose of the Golden Cross and the Sacred Relic was to be to improve your standing with the Jesuit Missionaries, making them more likely to offer you missions or offer to speak on your behalf to a nation that has a price on your head. However, Jesuit relations were never implemented in the game; you are always on good terms with them. As such, these items do nothing and you needn't waste your money on them. SHRUNKEN HEAD / CARVED SHAMAN STAFF Similar to the Golden Cross and the Sacred Relic, these items are meant to improve your standing with native Indians and make it easier to convince them to attack a port on your behalf. However, the same situation arises here; Indians are always friendly to you no matter what, making the items useless. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.6] RANKS AND BENEFITS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Rank is earned by making certain nations happy with you and then visiting their governors afterwards. You get a happiness point for every merchant ship you take that belongs to an enemy of the nation in question, as well as for serving them in another minor way (catching a criminal, intercepting an enemy governor, helping them get a special shipment of some sort through). You earn 2 or more happiness points if you sack an enemy town, capture one for them (this is cumulative!), or take an enemy warship. For the purposes of 'taking' an enemy ship, capturing and destroying both count, and even just engaging a ship and then fleeing or letting them flee counts as long as you damaged it. In your Captain's Log, you will see little flags next to every action you've taken that has made a nation happy. A small flag is 1 point, a large flag is 2 or more points. Hovering your mouse over them will pop up a text like "Dutch happy" or "French very happy" which also indicates the difference between 1 point or several. You may see "Pirates happy" for some actions too (most notably striking military targets), but this has no effect on the game, as pirate relations are not actually implemented. You lose happiness points with a nation if you destroy any of their ships or sack any of their towns. How bad these losses are, and how many happiness points are needed to get promoted to each rank depends on the difficulty level. On Apprentice, if England and France are at war and you destroy one ship of either, they're both happy and neither cares that you took one of their own ships out too. Try that on Swashbuckler and they'll both be mad. Simply put, on higher levels your transgressions are taken more seriously and your exploits don't impress as easily. Here, pick your battles carefully to avoid pissing off all four nations at once. The following is a list of all ranks and the benefits you get with a certain nation for earning one. Veterans of the old Pirates games will notice that the Ensign rank has been scrapped.
Benefits only count in a port belonging to the nation you hold the rank in question with. French ports couldn't care less if you're an English Duke. Note that even if you piss off a nation enough to make them put any kind of price on your head, you retain the rank (and the fame points) and the associated benefits. Though you might have a hard time claiming them if every port belonging to your former ally opens fire as you approach it. Rank also is a factor in which governor's daughters are willing to dance with you (and thus start the romance cycle). Plain daughters will be willing to dance with Captains and up, attractive daughters with Colonels and up, and beautiful daughters with Barons and up. These requirements can be bypassed to an extent with the French Chapeau and Ostrich Feather Hat special items. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.7] FAME POINTS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Fame points are the closest thing you have to a score in Pirates; a numerical representation of the success of your exploits. You earn points in specific categories up to a certain maximum. About half of these points come from how wealthy you've managed to become and what ranks you have reached with the various nations. The rest comes from completion of the game's various quests. A "perfect" game, in which you get the maximum ranks, enough wealth to qualify for all wealth points and full completion of all side quests, would earn you the maximum of 126 fame points. On the personal status screen, fame points are referred to as 'achievement points' instead, but it's the same thing. Fame points are divided into the following categories: WEALTH (24) Fame points for wealth are earned based on how much land you've been granted, and how many gold pieces you've managed to put away for yourself. Land grants are given in addition to promotions if you've done particularly well, and as alternatives to promotions once you have achieved the rank of Duke with any country. They come in units of 50 acres. Gold flows into your pocket whenever you divide up the plunder at the end of an expedition; you get a set percentage of the total loot based on the difficulty level you're playing, unrelated to how many men your loot is divided amongst. I have yet to determine the formula for wealth, but I've found the following to be true: - The first wealth points are easier to get than the last ones; the difference between the 23rd and 24th point is much, much greater than the requirement for the first point; - Land is much more valuable than gold, so 10000 acres of land equals more wealth than 10000 gold pieces. In a typical game, nearly all of your wealth score tends to come from land grants; - About 30000 acres of land appears to be enough for 24 wealth points regardless of how much gold you have brought in. RANK (32) More fame points to be gained here than anywhere else, and the formula is simple: every promotion gains you 1 point. There are 8 ranks and 4 nations to gain them with, so if you manage to become a Duke in all four nations, you get the maximum of 32 fame points for rank. Whereas if you only managed to become a Captain with England and a Major with France, you'd have to make do with 3 fame points. PIRATES (9) There are 9 other named pirates out in the Caribbean of various levels of strength. Each pirate you track down and defeat in a naval battle earns you a fame point. It doesn't matter if you capture his ship or sink it, though you always want to capture them as they carry large amounts of gold. TREASURES (9) Each of the named pirates has a treasure hidden somewhere in the Caribbean, which you can find if you buy at least one map piece off a mysterious traveller in a nearby tavern. The value of the treasures varies between 2000 and 10000 gold - based on which pirate it is, the higher ranked pirates have the bigger treasures - and each one earns you a fame point for finding it. As well as the wrath of the owner, if he's still alive. LOST RELATIVES (16) You have four lost relatives - your sister, your uncle, your aunt and your grandfather - held captive in the Caribbean. To find them, you must learn the location of the evil Baron Raymondo, track him down and defeat him in battle either on land (sword fight only) or on sea (naval battle followed by sword fight). Each time you find him he'll give you a piece of the map to find the next relative in line, and you'll need to track him down and fight him again for additional pieces. You get 4 fame points for every relative you find and rescue, and a fraction of that for merely getting pieces of the relevant map. Rescuing all four family members gets you the maximum 16 points. You reach 16 even if you only rescue the first three and complete the map for your grandfather's location without ever rescuing him. LOST CITIES (16) There are four lost Indian cities in the Caribbean, which you may find if you get map pieces either from governor's daughters or from rescued family members. This is worth doing as every city holds a treasure of no less than 50000 gold, and you get 4 fame points for every lost city you find. A fraction of that is earned for getting map pieces but not finding the city in question. Finding all four cities makes you a very wealthy man, and gets you the maximum 16 fame points too. As before, though, you can also get 16 points by finding three Lost Cities and completing the map for the fourth without locating it. ROMANCE (10) Your romance score is determined by how far you managed to get with any governor's daughter, and how beautiful said daughter was. Just having danced with a plain looking daughter will earn you only 1 fame point, but you get far more if you manage to marry any daughter. The maximum of 10 is only earned if you marry a daughter in the "beautiful" category, so be picky if you are after a maximum score. You can only marry once. VILLAIN (10) The last 10 fame points are earned for tracking down and capturing the evil Marquis Montalban who wronged your family. This is a long and complicated quest - easily the most time consuming in the game - but is well worth it. A full 100.000 gold await in his hideout, and capturing him gets you the maximum of 10 fame points for this quest. Merely defeating him in ship battles a few times and thus getting parts of the map to his hideout will earn you a fraction of this - 2 for every quarter of the map, so 8 for completing it. You must actually track down and defeat Montalban for the final 2 points. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [8.8] RETIREMENT JOBS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Your job when you retire is determined solely by how many fame points you have earned. It is a direct representation of how well you did as a pirate. Here is a list of jobs and the range your fame needs to be in to get this specific job. The list has been updated and appears to be fully accurate now. All previous cases of conflicting information have been checked and confirmed. If you get different results, I'd appreciate an e-mail with a screenshot of your final results screen.
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| [9] Frequently Asked Questions | ||
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This section contains questions I have seen asked on GameFAQs' Sid Meier's Pirates forum with some frequency, as well as other anticipated questions about aspects of the game that don't specifically fit in one of the other sections. It has been structured in classic question & answer format. Q: Where can I find a Ship of the Line? A: Ships of the Line basically come in two flavors: as "new warship" type ships (completely random), or as pirate hunters (much rarer). The latter can be influenced somewhat; if you harass a nation consistently it will send more pirate hunters after you, and one of them may eventually be a Ship of the Line. Playing in the 1680 era and/or on higher levels will increase the frequency of pirate hunters as well, so that might help. Personally, however, I've only ever seen them as New Warships and there's really nothing special you can do to get those to appear. Just keep your eyes open. One thing to keep in mind is that Spain does not use Frigates of any kind, so they're out. If you're going to bother a nation to try and get them to send a hunter after you, make it one of the other three. In my experience the French use more SotLs than the English and Dutch, but since I've only sighted a few in all my games, that could be just luck of the draw. Q: I wanted to pick a difficulty level and a skill but it just went right into the game, and now I'm an Apprentice with skill at Fencing. How do I change this? A: The game locks you into these options for your first game after installing, as a sort of tutorial mode. If you start a second game you'll be able to set the options yourself. Q: I want to pick a different starting era than 1660 but the options are greyed out. How do I unlock them? A: Play on any other level than Apprentice. You're restricted to 1660 on Apprentice level, probably because it's the easiest era. Q: Is it possible to change my pirate's appearance? A: Not in-game, however, Pirates is a fairly moddable game and different skins have been created by fans on the net. A good place to start looking is the fan site Cutlass Isle (www.cutlassisle.com) which has, among a lot of other things, a forum devoted specifically to skins and modding. Q: What does aging do, precisely? How old can my pirate be? Will I die of old age? A: Every pirate has a health rating depending on age, skill at Medicine and possession of either or both of the health items (Medicinal Herbs and Incan Mystic Salve). Your health rating can be:
A new 18 year old pirate starts at excellent, then as he gets older, his health will gradually drop. Normally, health drops once every 3 years. Having skill at Medicine adds 6 months to every health drop interval, and both of the healing items do the same. Thus, if you have the Medicinal Herbs, the Incan Mystic Salve *and* skill at Medicine, your health drops only once every 4 and a half years, and the forced retirement age is bumped up to 54. As you fall to lower health ratings, your speed is sword duels is adversely affected; you become slower as your health rating drops. Your pirate will also visibly age, getting more lines in his face as he gets older. Note that there are two categories of poor and failing each. You won't see the difference in the overview, but it's there. A drop from poor (1) to poor (2), for instance, counts as a health drop as significant as going from fair to poor, and you pirate *will* slow down. Additionally, when you've spent some years in "failing" health, you are no longer allowed to start a new expedition. If you divide up the plunder, you'll be told it's time to retire, and that's that. The age at which this happens appears to be 42 without the Medicine skill and the health items, and 54 with the skill and both items. However, you can play on indefinitely as long as you don't divide the plunder, and your health won't fall any more. A 70 year old pirate isn't any slower than a 54 year old one. You can't die of old age. Apart from age, and the slowdown effect from the skill and the items, nothing in the game appears to affect your health. Losing battles, getting imprisoned or marooned, taking hits, starving, having a Surgeon specialist, it all does nothing to your character's health. Q: The manual says I can go on pirating indefinitely, yet I divided up the plunder and was told it was "time to retire". What gives? A: The manual is misleading here. When you divide up the plunder, if you're too old and in failing health, you will be forced into retirement. However, as long as you do not divide up the plunder, you *can* sail on indefinitely on your last expedition, or at least until you can't keep your crew happy anymore. Q: How much gold does it take to keep my crew happy? A: That's hard to say. It depends on how long your expedition has run, and on higher difficulty levels your crew gets unhappy sooner. There does, however, appear to be a cutoff point where your crew remains happy forever, no matter how long your expedition lasts. This seems to happen roughly when you each crew member's share is at least 3000 gold. Realistically, this will never happen unless you have a very small crew and you're on an expedition where you have vanquished Montalban and found a few Lost Cities as well. But it's nice to keep in mind. Q: I want to divide up the plunder, but the option is greyed out. Why can't I do it? A: I haven't yet determined when exactly this happens, but it always seems to be early in your expedition, and it appears that on lower levels it takes longer. At any rate, whatever the level, what you need to do is to sail for longer and plunder more before you divide up the plunder. It's no big deal as the option is usually only greyed out when your expedition has barely begun and you shouldn't even be thinking of dividing up the plunder yet. Most players prefer to hold off on it as long as possible, anyway. Q: I want to attack a city, but whenever I sail to it I just enter it! How do I attack? A: This happens if you try to attack a friendly city from the sea. It won't work. There are two ways to attack a city: - Beach your ship some distance away from it, choose to march, then march over to the city. When your men reach it you get the option to attack it even if it is friendly. - Get the city hostile. This approach may be necessary if the city is on a small island where you cannot actually beach your ship next to it (St. Catalina comes to mind, as do many of the cities on the Windsward Islands). If you try to sail into a hostile port, it will fire on you and you get the option to attack it. If the nation already has a price on your head, that should be enough to convince most or all of their cities to open fire on you. If not, a good way to get an individual city mad enough at you to open fire is to capture some of the ships going in and out. They have very little patience with this if you snatch them right outside port. Alternatively, or in addition to this, pressing the space bar just outside a port lets you bombard their fort. This doesn't seem to do much (if any) damage but it will piss them off. Soon you should be able to do an attack from the sea. Q: I want to attack a city, but the option is greyed out! Why? A: You have brought so few men that you don't stand even a remote chance. Come back with a bigger crew, and/or convince nearby Pirate Havens/Indian Villages to attack the target. They can soften it up for you. Q: I successfully sacked a city, but I didn't get the option to replace the governor. What did I do wrong? A: You only get this option if you completely overwhelmed the city. Try using a bigger crew, and make sure you win the battle by wiping out the garrison, not just running past it to the city gates. It also appears that cities are easier to capture if their economy is poor. In some cases, you may be able to capture a city by sacking it twice in a row; the second time the city has already been made poorer by your earlier attack and the garrison will still be thinned out. Q: The manual mentions I can get Indian units to fight on my side? A: So it does, but it's wrong. The best you can do is to go to a nearby Indian village and convince them to attack the city before you do. They will send out war canoes to do it; just stick close, intercept any ships trying to sink them, then let them enter the port before you do. They'll thin out the garrison and if they are successful, the population as well, without touching the city's wealth. That's where you follow up with an attack against the weakened city. You cannot actually get to command Indian units in battle, though. That's for the AI only. Q: The manual mentions that defenders might use artillery in land battles, but I never encountered it. Am I just lucky? A: No; it appears artillery never actually made it into the game. Q: I am using a laptop and I don't have a keypad. How will I be able to play the game properly if nearly everything is controlled with the keypad? A: There are two things you can do. First, your laptop will have an "Fn" key, likely near the bottom left of the keyboard. While that is pressed, certain keys will function as a surrogate keypad. Look for secondary functions on the front of your keys (as opposed to on the top), and you'll be able to see which keys these are for you. For instance, on this laptop Fn + the U key emulates the left cursor/4 key on a keypad. If you find this hard to do, you can also remap the keys. Go to your Sid Meier's Pirates folder through the Windows Explorer, and open the keymap.ini file you find there. You can change the keys for most functions in the game here, so just replace all references to the keypad with whatever keys you want to use instead. Make sure you make a backup of the .ini file before you change anything in it; that way if you mess up, you still have a version that works and won't have to reinstall the game to fix it. Q: How come the Treasure Fleet is always said to go to the same port? OR: Why is the Treasure Fleet not where the barmaid says it will be? A: This looks like a bug. It appears that the first time you are given the location of the Treasure Fleet, it is accurate, but it doesn't update anymore after that. Hence, even years after it will still be said to be going to the same port - even if it's no longer Spanish at this point. Unless and until this is patched, the unfortunate result is that finding the Treasure Fleet is a matter of either luck, or knowing its route. Check paragraph 7.8 for more info on the latter. Q: Is the compass working incorrectly? It seems to be pointing east when I go west and vice versa! A: No, it's working correctly; this is what compasses do. The gold indicator does not point in the direction you are going in; it's indicating where north is. Therefore, if you are going west (which means the north is to your right), it will be pointed to the right; that doesn't mean it's pointing east. Note that the gold indicator only changes direction at all if you're using a view that rotates based on the direction you are sailing in. In the overhead views, the top of the screen is always north. Q: The manual states that I need to be on good terms with pirates or indians to get them to attack a port. Yet I never seem to have any trouble convincing them. Why is this? A: Looks like a missing feature. Jesuit missions, pirate havens, indian villages and even the four nations' settlements always seem to be on good terms with you regardless of what you've done. You can even offer to escort governors for nations that have a huge price on your head, ambush them immediately outside of the settlement, then visit the next settlement and do the same again, over and over. This seems to happen on every difficulty level. Q: So if Indians and missionaries always cooperate, what's the point in the items meant to boost your relations with them? A: None, as it stands. Unless this is fixed/changed in a future patch, don't bother buying those items. Q: Is the fact that I'm always chasing the same Baron Raymondo to learn about my family members a bug? A: No, this is intentional. One reader confirmed this by taking a peek in the game's source files, and finding out that the name of the villain who knows where your family members are is not a variable. Both Raymondo and Mendoza are set names just like Montalban is. Chasing a pletora of different Spanish nobles died with Pirates Gold. Q: The money I get when dividing up the plunder doesn't appear to match up. I've calculated how much I *should* get according to my share percentage, yet it doesn't add up with the gold for my next expedition. What happened? A: When your share is determined, 90% of it goes into your retirement fund. In other words, it disappears from the game, appearing only in your status screen, and helps to determine how many fame points you get for Wealth (along with the land grants you've gotten). The other 10% are the starting fund for your next expedition. For instance, on Journeyman you get 10% of the share. If your expedition yielded 50000 gold, that means 5000 gold is for you; 90% of this (4500) goes into your retirement fund and the other 10% (500) will be the money you start your next expedition with. Q: You refer to ships called 'combat galleon' and 'merchant galleon' but I've never seen ships with those names. Don't you mean war galleon and trade galleon? A: No. These names I came up with myself to describe the whole group of ships; there are six galleon types in Sid Meier's Pirates, but they're actually two different classes of three ships each. With combat galleon, I refer to the line of ships Fast Galleon, War Galleon and Flag Galleon. With merchant galleon, I refer to the Trade Galleon, Royal Galleon and Treasure Galleon. |
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| [10] Miscellaneous |
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This section is a comprehensive lists of all bugs and glitches that people have run into in this game, as well as other weirdness which may be bugs or oversights, and random trivia which may be of some interest. Since PC games can cause a variety of weird problems on different systems, I've only included bugs if I've seen more than one person report more or less the same problem. That said, if you have something to add do mail me, and if you're not the only one I'll be happy to add it. In the future, if and when patches for this game are released, I'll specify which problems got fixed when and which are still outstanding. At the time of this update, there are no patches to speak of yet; the only one that came out addressed a DVD recognition problem only. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [10.1] BUGS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- These are the outright game problems; sometimes showstoppers, sometimes merely annoying. All are obvious problems that will hopefully get fixed in a patch at some point, with some more important than others. ----------------------- X DOESN'T MARK THE SPOT ----------------------- BUG: Several people have reported getting a treasure map of any kind (pirate treasure, family member, Montalban) without a red X. Even when the map is complete, no X appears, and if they go to the general area the target is nowhere to be found. In one instance somebody reported having the X initially, except it disappeared later. And sure enough, when he went to the exact spot where the X used to be, nothing was there. SOLUTION: none known. It appears that if this happens, you have no choice except to go back to a previous saved game or start over; either that or accept that you won't be finding the target in question. This can be rather annoying if it's your first family member, for instance, as that means the quests for the remaining three can't be triggered. -------- SLOWDOWN -------- BUG: Many players have reported that the game slows down over time, and I've noticed the same. When you first start up the game, it runs at a brisk pace (assuming your specs are up to the task), with sea battles running quickly, fading out going smoothly and your units rapidly hopping from one square to another during land battles. As the game goes on, however, everything slows down a fair bit. Several players have suggested the game suffers from memory leak problems, causing this slowdown. Others have suggested the problem occurs specifically if you skip scenes a lot; perhaps the memory isn't properly freed if a sequence is skipped. SOLUTION: saving, quitting the game and starting it up again usually solves the problem; rebooting always seems to do so. Perhaps not skipping sequences helps, but I have not been able to confirm this. If this *is* a memory leak, with any luck it can be addressed in a patch. -------------------------- THE ELUSIVE TREASURE FLEET -------------------------- BUG: For nearly all players, barmaid hints on the Treasure Fleet's location do not reset properly. Initially the location she names for it is accurate, but for the rest of the game, they keep repeating the same port name without it ever updating. Even if that port is no longer Spanish at the time. I've heard sporadic reports of people who did not have this problem, but it seems mostly consistent. SOLUTION: none. However, the Treasure Fleet always takes the same route (see paragraph 7.8), so with a little experience and guesswork you can still have a good shot at grabbing it even without the help of barmaids. -------------- NO LAND GRANT? -------------- BUG: Occasionally, when you have done a whole lot for a nation, you will still get only a promotion and the expected large land grant doesn't show up at all. However, if you visit the governor again immediately, you get a second promotion and then the remaining happiness points are converted into a land grant after all. This is not supposed to happen; you are meant to get one promotion and then a land grant, however big, for the remaining points. SOLUTION: if you get only a promotion and nothing else when you are pretty sure you did enough to earn more, immediately visit the governor again. ----------------------- UM, SIR...YOUR DAUGHTER ----------------------- BUG: If you rescue a governor's daughter from Count Mendoza, but an invasion force from another nation captures her home port in the meantime, you will be forever unable to return this daughter to her father. The romance subplot just ends, and presumably the woman sails with you for all eternity. SOLUTION: none. -------------- INCORRECT MAPS -------------- BUG: Apart from the missing red X problem mentioned above, sometimes a map is plain wrong. Landmarks and red X's always appear to be in the right spot, but other points of recognition like Incan Temples and such are often either not on the map when they should be, or on the map when they don't actually exist (or at least not in that location). Sea based landmarks, while usually accurate, sometimes have duplicate names and cause confusion that way. None of this appears to be intentional. SOLUTION: none, except to make sure that you rely on sea based named landmarks and things like ports/settlements on a map before you rely on the inland points of recognition. ------------------- RANDOMIZATION BLUES ------------------- BUG: Since many of the game's events are random, a few problems can result. It is possible for two landmarks in the game to have the same name, and especially if they're close to each other, this can lead to some real confusion when trying to follow a treasure map. Another player reported having absolutely no ports in the Caribbean that offered the Cotton Sails upgrade. Presumably it would also be possible (though unlikely) that no beautiful daughters exist anywhere in the game, as there is no set number. These latter two problems would become more common in the 1600 era which has less ports overall. SOLUTION: none. ------------- GHOST PIRATES ------------- BUG: Several players reported seeing a named pirate sail again after they had already defeated him. Sometimes they had a big loot again, sometimes their ship was practically empty. Haven't had it happen to me yet. SOLUTION: none known, but I'm sure you won't mind a second opportunity to grab Henry Morgan's stash if it occurs. ----------- STUCK SHIPS ----------- BUG: Rarely a ship becomes stuck in place, no longer moving, not selectable, and thus not attackable. It often stays where it is forever. This seems to happen particularly with ships that spawn spontaneously rather than in port, such as the ones that appear to intercept you when you're escorting a governor or such, or one of your own ships if it's taken over by mutineers. SOLUTION: none. ---------------- LEAVING SO SOON? ---------------- BUG: Occasionally if you have just sacked a town, clicking any of the options is taken as "leave town" and you end up back outside. SOLUTION: none short of just sacking the town again immediately (which you can probably pull off if you've thinned out the garrison in your last attack). Fortunately the problem doesn't seem to occur very often. ------------- LOOT PROBLEMS ------------- BUG: Several players reported seeing ridiculous amounts of loot on certain ships; five or six digit rewards at times on completely random trade or immigrant vessels. This seems to surface specifically if a nation runs out of ports due to you capturing them all. One player reported actually getting a *negative* loot from one ship, subtracting from his current treasury and crashing the game to boot. These are very likely calculation problems; perhaps the number of ports a nation has is a factor in determining how much loot their ships has, and a 0 for that variable is causing this problem. SOLUTION: none known. However, if this problem *is* limited to nations running out of ports, you could just refrain from capturing their last port and it shouldn't happen. More info when I have it. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [10.2] WEIRD THINGS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- These aren't necessarily bugs, just things that seem to be poorly implemented, forgotten, or perhaps just ignored. Mostly things that, if the game had just a little more polish, probably wouldn't be there. For the most part tiere is no serious impact on gameplay. - If an escort ship is fought and defeated (either captured or sunk) in the same battle where you are hunting an escorted ship, you get no credit for it. It does not appear as captured or sunk in your captain's log, the nation it belongs to will not be mad, and you will not score any points with their enemies. To get credit for an escort ship, you must evade it and deal with the escorted ship first, then when you are returned to the world map, reengage the escort now that it is on its own. - Escort ships can sail right through the ships they're escorting. In addition, any ships - both yours and the enemy's - can sail through shoals and ports as if they're not there while you're in battle. Only the shoreline actually stops a ship from passing. - After a battle, you are still in the same spot and direction where you started it, even if during a long drawn out battle you ended up somewhere completely different. - If you've made a port mad enough with your previous actions (bombarding it, or engaging ships near it), it may continue to be hostile and fire on you even if you've captured it for another (friendly) nation. In some cases, the new nation's governor might even scold you for sacking the town instead of congratulating you for capturing it for him! - Indian/pirate/missionary relations do not appear to be implemented at all. While Indians and pirates occasionally use the "steer clear you scurvy pirate" line on you if you've pissed them off a lot, you can still visit their villages and havens and get all the support you need. Similarly, settlements are always friendly to you even if the nation they belong to has a large price on your head. And they'll still happily let you escort (and backstab) their governors. - Artillery is mentioned as an enemy unit type for land battles both in the manual and in the piratopedia - and made out to be very dangerous, to boot. However, it doesn't appear to have actually made it into the game. - If you're out of the loop for a couple of months - be it because you divided up the plunder, or because you get captured/marooned - the only thing that changes about the state of the world is which nations are at war with each other (and the prices on your head will drop a bit). Otherwise, everything is still exactly where it was. You might see a nice treasure ship sailing outside a port, go in, divide the plunder, take 8 months to start a new expedition, then when you leave port again it's still there. - Named villains (Mendoza, Raymondo and Montalban) never surrender. However, if you pummel their ship so much that a normal ship would surrender, it does raise the white flag and you get the "as you approach the ship strikes its colors" message when you come near. Directly after, you suddenly get a sword fight anyway. - The game gives you credit for any special ship safely reaching port (immigrants, governors etc.) if you've ever spotted it. It doesn't matter if you've taken any effort to escort it, if you're friendly with said nation, or if you're completely on the other side of the Caribbean when it reaches its destination. - New governors arriving in a town apparently adopt the old governor's daughter. Romance subplots go on exactly as they did. I've had unconfirmed reports that the romance subplot does reset if a town switches nationality though. - If you are married, you cannot change the nationality of the port your wife lives in anymore. However, randomly spawned invasion forces still can, and if one does, your wife will mysteriously change to the new nationality, appearance and all. - You can have as many romance subplots running as you like, up to the marriage proposal (you can only marry one woman). Most notably, it's perfectly possible to be saving multiple daughters from Colonel Mendoza, and if this happens there will actually be multiple clones of Mendoza sailing around the Caribbean. One player reported seeing three of them sail in formation. - While town merchants are limited in how much gold they have to buy your cargo, their gold resets instantly when you leave port. You can sail out, sail right back in, and start selling again. - One player reported seeing a named pirate (Blackbeard, in his case) engaging and successfully sinking Baron Raymondo, which wiped the Raymondo quest off his log. While it must have been a sight to see, the lesson is clear; if you see them fighting, hurry up and intervene before you lose your precious target. Oh, and it also establishes the Frigate's superiority over the War Galleon. :) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [10.3] TRIVIA -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Random facts about the game. May or may not be of interest. Read at your own risk. - All named pirates have their bio listed in the in-game piratopedia. Captain Kidd is a little tricky to find as he is listed as "William Kidd". - The flag that's on the wall behind the mysterious traveller in the tavern is the actual historical flag of Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard. Probably one of the more famous pirate flags; definitely one of the most famous pirates. - The names of the criminals are set, depending on what exactly they've done. Each name is a reference, too, as follows: "Chatterley", the libertine, is likely named after Lady Chatterley's Lover, an early 20th century novel notorious for its (by those days' standards) explicit sexual content. "Farthingsworth", the embezzler, doesn't seem to refer to a specific person. However, the farthing is an old British monetary unit. "Connery", the spy, is a clear reference to Sean Connery, the original James Bond Actor. "Shawshank", the blackmailer, refers to the movie The Shawshank Redemption in which blackmail is a major theme. "Faulkes", the traitor, most likely refers to Guy Faulkes, a famous British terrorist (or folk hero, depending on who you ask) who planned to blow up the House of Parliament. - If a bartender has no useful information to give to you at all, he will ask you where your parrot is. Despite the confusion this caused with some players, you can't actually get a parrot. - I've been told that many of the characters in the game are partially modelled after the developers of the game. The bartender is supposedly Sid Meier. - The named pirates are all actual historical figures, though most don't exactly fit in the default 1660 era. The majority are 18th century pirates, and Jean LaFitte is in fact 19th century. Raymondo, Montalban and Mendoza are fictional. Montalban and Mendoza are references to the original Pirates and Pirates Gold games, however, where all pirates, pirate hunters and evil noblemen had randomly chosen names from four lists, one for each nationality. Mendoza and Montalban were two of the possible Spanish names. Raymondo is new; presumably named after somebody on the development team? - In addition to having been used before in the original Pirates games, "Montalban" may well be a reference to one of the actors in Fantasy Island, Ricardo Montalban. - Historically, piracy tended to be a lot less rewarding than Sid Meier's Pirates makes it out to be. Just checking the bios of the named pirates will confirm this. Out of these nine pirates, three were hung, three were killed in battle (and all of them quite brutally), and one went missing, presumably lost at sea. Only two of them, namely Henry Morgan and Jean LaFitte, retired in wealth. And Henry Morgan soon ate and drank himself to death on Jamaica. - The original Pirates had four difficulty levels rather than five, however, there was a hidden fifth level, sort of. If you failed the copy protection question at the start of the game, your career would start off disastrously with a small ship, a skeleton crew, a serious starting injury that instantly cut your health down a few levels, and all four nations hostile to you. In addition, the game would run at the hidden fifth difficulty level where battles were incredibly hard to win. Your career would almost inevitably end in quick disgrace. The Swashbuckler level in Sid Meier's Pirates seems to be something of a throwback to the difficulty of that hidden level, minus the injury and the "everybody hostile" touch. Although in the original game the fourth level was called Swashbuckler; Rogue is the one that was missing. |
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| [11] Revision History |
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v1.0: (22 Dec '04) First version of the FAQ. v1.1: (20 Jan '05) Thanks for your feedback, everybody! Significant updates and corrections throughout the guide based on my own experiences and a vast amount of reader input. v1.2: (22 Feb '05) More updates and corrections, and this time the credits list is complete. Sorry for the ones I forgot the first time around; that's what happens if you keep lists in two separate places :( This is a work under construction, so expect to see updates in the future. Possibly corrections, new sections, updated info, whatever I can get my hands on. If there's something specific you'd like to see, don't hesitate to mail me your suggestion. |
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| [12] Final Words |
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ABOUT THIS FAQ It's been a good four years since I started writing for GameFAQs, and longer still since my first offline experiments at FAQ writing, but my first full FAQ for a recent game sees the light. Until now, my full FAQs have been limited to retro games - decidedly easier to write an exhaustive FAQ for - and for more recent gaming I've stuck to specialist, in-depth guides which don't require broad coverage. This project has been a fair time investment, though I also hope it is going to be the first of many. Sid Meier's Pirates was, above all, fun to write for and I hope that the end result will be of use to you. For questions, comments, suggestions, praise and criticism, please contact the author, Sashanan, at sashanan@gfmods.com. Whatever you wish to share about this document or Sid Meier's Pirates, chances are I'll want to hear it. Any serious mail will be answered. Specifically, if you have additional strategies or different views on the ones I've posted, I'd love to hear about it. Reader input helps to make any FAQ better and more comprehensive. If you wish to do anything with this FAQ except for just reading it, check the Disclaimer section at the top of the FAQ to find out what you can and can't do. When in doubt, you can always mail me. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in 1980, a good 300 years too late to be a pirate, Sashanan has settled for being a software engineer. Unlike his countrymates Bart Roberts and the Roc of Brasiliano, he will likely never be rich, nor feared all over the Caribbean, though he'll likely live longer. When not creating small business applications following a RAD prototyping method, he is usually found playing games or writing about them. He does not like macaroni. THANKS The author would like to thank the following people for their help in bringing about this document: - bansama, for being his primary proofreader; - ASchultz and falsehead for their continued providing of motivation and inspiration; - All readers who have sent in feedback for updates/corrections to my guide. In alphabetic order, these are Addiction, Agent Edmonds, aGorilla, aramil34, Aron Postma, Bennet Gubat, biologic, Bobguy, Brian Barzeele, Brian Gilbert, Brett Turner, C. Griffin Mitchell, Chris Miller, Christopher Agne, Cody Williams, Colin Sellar, Corey Close, CyRxRich, David FitzSimons, Death on a stick, dj arcanus, Evreitor, Gin Ryu, Guillermo Baena Fernandez, J. Weiss, Jacob Finn, Joel Hansell, Jon Pearson, Jonatan Vincent, Kevin Dorough, Lemonade SODA, Leonidas, Luke Sweatlock, Martin R. Huttenloher, Noah Langowitz, Riidi WW, Robin Toll, Rokenbok, Sam Greene, SlowRazorz, Strategerm, Surumon White, Vasco Cabral Martins, Will Saab, wonka wonka and YuPing. - The regulars of the GameFAQs/GameSpot Sid Meier's Pirates forum, as well as the regulars of Cutlass Isle, for their many insights and the discussions that helped shape this document; - CJayC and Sailor Bacon for their tireless efforts to keep up GameFAQs as the best place for any gamer to hang out and find all the information he could possibly want. This document is a copyright of Sashanan, 2004-2005. All rights reserved. Disclaimer at top of document. Avast! |
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