Arrr! Avast ye scurvy lubbers. This be the greatest game to come from 'ol matey Sid.

Seriously, I am quite addicted to the game now. I got the Limited Edition DVD on Monday because it was the same price as the non-DVD version, and I am enjoying it to death. The difficulty is a little easy as of now, but when I start over, I'll be sure to put it on a harder setting. Right now I'm playing on the medium setting.

Oh but what fun this game is! It really is open to be anything you want it to be. You want to have naval battles and sink ships? Go for it. Swordfights? Yep, they're there too. Land battles? Turn-based goodness. Charming a beautiful young lady? You can do that too.

The game is really fairly simple, but the replay value is great. They could have made the game much deeper (more stat-intensive), but it's really fun the way it is. Too many stats to keep track of tend to bore me (Morrowwind did this).

The only thing that upsets me is a hardware problem with my computer. My desktop won't play the behind-the-scenes video (I have DVD-playing issues with it) and my laptop won't read the disc (I still haven't figured this one out. It makes a grinding noise when I put the disc in, but every other disc I use works fine). Also, the game slows down a bit after playing it for 8-12 hours. It may just be that I'm taxing my computer after playing for so long, but it also may be memory leaks. Doesn't bother me too much, as I probably won't be playing it for 8-12 hours straight once I get back to school.

If you do not own this game, I urge you to pick it up and play it. I never played the original, so I can't comment on the similarities, but I can say that it reminds me of an old EA game called Seven Cities of Gold. That game was a bit more stat-intensive, and less fun overall. It had too much hiking about on land looking for stuff. No sea battles either. This was definately worth every penny I spent on it (which wasn't that much, seeing as I bought it with a gift card).

Actually you can't pick difficulty until you restart the game (then you can pick your starting age and difficulty).



I don't own the game but i played pirates on the NES and the ever popular Pirates Gold for the Genesis. The gameplay is identical except much more expanded.

For instance in the new game you can see other ships on the map but you couldn't do that in the first game (it was random encounters).

What really seems cool is the fact that economies, governments, and other pirates exist and have their own goals so things happened independend from you. However you can influence these things heavily if you want (develope new trades routes, conquer cities, ect...). THough this existed in the original, it felt more random.

Well hopefully my copy of Pirates should be in the mail today (ordered it on saturday for $30).

You can change difficulty when dividing plunder

Alright it just came in the mail,


Lets see i heared it takes about 6-10 hours to finish the game so lets see how good you guys are at this.

Post your scores

104

When is the game considered finsihed? When you find all your relatives? When you avenge the villian? When you find all the lost cities?

Because I've already avenged the villian, gotten married, and found 3 relatives. I have 1 relative, 3 lost cities, and 4 pirate's treasures to find. I still need to defeat 2 pirates, though I'm ranked #1 as is. And I eliminated the last Dutch stronghold that isn't a settlement, so the Dutch have no governors anymore, just mayors in small settlements that you can't attack.

I should finish with everything sometime tonight. I would say I've been playing for a good 15 or so hours already. And I want to go back and start again as soon as I finish everything. Great, great game.

It ends when you decide it ends ...
(when you play on hardest and barely make it through fencing duels anymore because of age etc.)

It forces you into retirement eventually.

Only if you divide plunder

Skill at medicine I've found the most useful.

Haha... divide plunder.

I saw them testing the dancing at work. No thanks.

When the game ends you get a screen similar to CivilizationIII where it details what your pirate has accomplished and what he retired to be. Don't forget to also post the era and the difficulty level you played at.



Also has anyone heared of the master trainer? I'm not one for cheats but some of the features here seem interesting (like fleet battles)

http://www.cutlassisle.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=890&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Also I've been looking around for custom pirate skins, I'm prefably looking for movie pirates (from Jack Sparrow to Captain Blood).


Also about the dancing... yeah i wish they would have expanded on it better but luckily you don't have to do it (though that would make you a butt pirate out at sea, you know prefering "your mates" to women).