Sid Meier’s Pirates!

Contents:

The Intro

The Game

The Replay

The Verdict

The Intro

Title: Sid Meier’s Pirates!

Release year: 2004

Developed by: Firaxis Games

Genre: Strategy-adventure

Platform replayed on: PC

Ahoy, matey!

Okay, that will be the first and last time I talk like a pirate in this blog (promise).

I’ve had a certain fascination with pirates since I was a young boy, and I’m quite unsure why, now that I think about it. I’m guessing it’s because the classic swashbuckling Caribbean pirate has been romanticised in western media—the adventure, the freedom, the thrill.

As a child, I had pirate Lego and Playmobil, as well as the classic novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

As an adult, I enojoyed the Pirates of the Caribbean films and associated games, and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

I’ve even built a Lego pirate ship as an adult!

However, the historical reality of piracy was anything but romantic. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to play a game!

Sid Meier’s Pirates! doesn’t do anything to dispel the glamourisation of piracy, but it is an outstanding strategy-adventure game.

The Game

This game is actually a remake of an earlier game of the same name, released in 1987. There was also a remake of this game in 1993 called Pirates! Gold.

You might have heard of the game’s designer: Sid Meier. His name has become synonymous with the hugely successful Civilization series, starting with the first release in 1991.

My first experience was with the 1987 original. I probably played this in the late 80s/early 90s.

I remember it being quite accessible, and infinitely replayable.

So what is this game then? Let’s start with the story, and this will lead into the gameplay.

You join a family celebration. After years of being indebted to a marquis, a fleet arriving in the morning will allow your family to pay off its debt.

Unfortunately, the marquis himself crashes the party and informs your family that the fleet has been lost!

Determined not to become a slave, a young boy escapes…

You rejoin this boy ten years later, determined to find his family in the Caribbean. You sign up with a ship’s captain, and sail off.

But all is not well on the journey, and there’s a mutiny!

And this is how you end up the captain of a ship in the middle of the Caribbean.

From here, you’re on your own. You see, this is a completely open-world game. You now decide how to pave your way to fame and fortune. Oh, and track down and rescue your family if you so choose.

I think this is what attracted me to this game originally. This would have been my first experience with an open-world game.

This is a strategy game primarily. There’s navigation, diplomacy, trade, and resource management.

On the tactical level, there’s ship-to-ship combat, fencing, and even ballroom dancing (yes, you read that right).

You can also go treasure hunting, pirate hunting, and search for your long-lost family members. These are like side quests.

How you choose to undertake all of the above is up to you. The only finite resource is your health. As time goes by, and the years tick away, going back out to sea for another adventure becomes more difficult. Eventually, you will need to retire.

But in between arriving in the Caribbean as a young captain and retiring, there’s adventure to be had.

Let’s sail!

If you’d like to see some gameplay in action, check out the video below:

The Replay

As I started a new game, I first had to decide on a few options to customise my pirate and the era he was about to sail in. I was reminded of the Civilization games, where you have to decide on which leader and civilization you will lead, and which type of map you will play on.

I was also reminded of a particular piece of vocabulary I learnt through playing this game for the first time as a kid: incognito.

If you don’t name your pirate, you will take the default name “Incognito”. Now, as a young kid playing this game, I remember not knowing what this word meant. So, “Incognito” was just a funny name for a pirate. Perhaps I never even learnt its meaning until later, or perhaps I picked it up while playing this game; I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s an example of learning through gaming. Particularly these early games, where there was a  lot of on-screen text to read, as well as in supplementary manuals. I’m also reminded of fencing in the game, where you must choose your blade before each duel. I doubt I would have known words like “rapier” and “cutlass” prior to playing this.

Anyway, just before getting back on track here, my son just reminded me as I was typing this how he knows the word “incognito”: Chrome Incognito. It was a learning opportunity, as he knows Chrome Incognito is a private browser, but didn’t know the meaning of “incognito”. He’ll likely remember learning this word for years to come like I have. Neat!

As I’m nostalgic, I’m naming my pirate “Incognito”. The other options you can customise before heading out to the Caribbean are the difficulty level, your special skill, and the era.

I went with the normal difficulty, and fencing as my special skill. I know you end up in a lot of duels, and that I’m going to button-mash my way through most of them, so having a bonus in fencing is going to come in useful. The other skills you can choose from are gunnery (ship battles), navigation (sailing), medicine (longevity), and wit and charm (ballroom dancing).

I like the choice or era in this game. Five eras are available, spanning the seventeenth century. The map of the Caribbean changes over the century, with more ports and towns appearing in later eras. The presence of the English, French, and Dutch also increases throughout, as the Spanish dominance decreases. By the time of the final era, beginning in 1680, piracy itself is on the decline, and the seas are filled with pirate hunters. The default, and most balanced setting, is 1660.

I like the choice here, as it gives a lot of replayability, essentially with five different starting maps. I think this was well done, as it would have been easy in the original game to include only one. And it still would have been an amazing achievement.

As for my choice, I went with 1600, the most difficult era. There are not as many ships on the seas, fewer ports and towns, and the Spanish are dominant. Let’s see how I do!

The final choice is to choose which nation you will join to begin with. I chose to sign up with the English, and away I went. Soon enough, the above-mentioned mutiny happens, and “Mr Incognito” has a ship and a crew!

From here, you really do get dropped in the deep end (pardon the pun). You really are free to decide where you go and what you do. You always start sailing towards a friendly port (in my case, an English one), so docking there is as good a first choice as any after the long and eventful journey over from Europe.

Once in port, you are presented with a number of options: talk to the governor, visit the tavern, trade with the merchant, and consult with the shipwright. You will find yourself repeating these actions each time you enter ports.  Visiting the governor here in the first port I visited provided a little bit of guidance as to what to do.

First, I received a Letter of Marque, authorising me to attack enemy ships—at present, the English are at war with the French and the Spanish.

Second, I received a side quest to join a blockade of a nearby French port. I mention these two pointers as I’m imagining what it would be like as a new player when you are dropped into an open world where everything is optional. It’s at least nice to be pointed in a direction or two to give you a start.

What you’re really faced with at the start of the game is to decide what kind of a pirate you are going to be. There are quite a few approaches:

• Smuggler—plunder goods and sell them
• Trader—buy low, sell high
• Conqueror—take over ports
• Coloniser—fight your Crown’s wars
• Pirate hunter—hunt down the historical pirates
• Treasure hunter—buy maps leading to buried treasure
• Rescuer—search for and rescue the members of your family

Now, given the early era I was playing in, I didn’t think there would be much success in smuggling or trading, given the lower number of ports and lower amount of wealth on the seas. I wasn’t really interested in conquering or colonising, so that left hunting: pirates, treasure, and family!

It’s great to have these options though. And of course, you can combine as many of the approaches as you like—you don’t have to limit yourself. As with the choice of skill and era, the flexibility in approach adds an incredible amount of replayability.

Right, so now I had decided how I was going to play this, I needed to prepare my most important resource: my ship!

Basically, you need a crew, and you need food. So, it’s off to the tavern, and then the merchant.

The tavern provides you with opportunities to obtain information from around the Caribbean. The barkeep and barmaid will often let you know about where to obtain ship upgrades and find infamous pirates.

There’s always a mysterious stranger sitting in the corner, and he’ll often provide you information on ports, as well as sell you treasure map pieces and valuable items.

Finally, you can recruit your crew from the tavern. The number is influenced by the size of the port, as well as your current rank and local standing. The higher your rank, and the more famous (or notorious) you are, the more likely more sailors will want to sign on with you.

Visiting the local merchant is important for trading goods, but to begin with, you’ll need to ensure you have enough food for your crew on your long sea voyages.

You’ll also become familiar with the local shipwright. Here you can upgrade your ship with whatever specialty is available (hull, sail, or cannon). Most importantly I find however, this is where you repair your ships after sea battles (or bad weather).

Now that I had some direction and a crew keen for some adventure, I headed north to join the blockade of a nearby French port as the governor had suggested. I would also keep an eye out for the notorious pirate, Bartholomew Roberts.

Playing this game as a kid, the only “Bart” I knew was Bart Simpson. I didn’t realise it was the name of a real pirate!

Now, I did get a little curious, as I knew that regardless of era, you would encounter the same pirates. So I looked up some information on Bartholomew Roberts: born 1682, died 1722. Remember, I started this game in the year 1600. So, not quite historically accurate, given that Roberts wouldn’t be born for another 80-plus years. Let’s call it alternative history.

Historical names didn’t just apply to the pirates—there are also ships. It wasn’t long until I captured Queen Anne’s Revenge, a ship captured and then captained by one Edward Teach. You might have heard of him by his other name: Blackbeard. And you’ve already seen this ship in this blog—it’s the Lego ship I own, shown above.

Again, not quite historically accurate with regard to the era, as Queen Anne’s Revenge sailed in the 1700s.

Anyway, despite the historical inaccuracies, I like the inclusion of these names in the game. Given the pop-culture notoriety of Blackbeard, it was pretty satisfying taking him down and capturing his ship!

At this point, I’d like to point out the in-game interface. I found a couple of features quite useful: the log (featured on the map), and the side quest indicator.

As you can see, if you zoom in close enough on the map, a record of events is detailed. This is a nice touch, as it’s a journal of sorts.

The side quest indicator in the top-left of the screen I used a lot. It quickly brings up the map or location of your current quests. These are usually to do with locating your lost family members, and pirate treasures.

The heads-up display in general is good, located in the bottom-right of the screen whenever you are at sea. From there, you can pause your game, bring up the map, change your sails, or engage ships.

So, what did the first few years of Mr Incognito’s pirating career have in store? Quite a lot, it turns out. I’ll highlight a few of his escapades.

Having been pirate hunting, an English governor promoted Mr Incognito to “Captain”. Throughout your adventure, actions that align with the current goals of the four European empires will earn you promotions. You can also acquire land.

There are bonuses for promotions. Crew recruitment, ship repairs and upgrades, and trading will all become easier and cheaper.

You can also be reprimanded when your actions don’t align with a particular empire.

Hilariously enough, there were times I received a promotion and got reprimanded during the same visit! 

Soon enough, I found out the penalty for plundering Spanish ships. Not surprisingly, the Spanish became hostile to my fleet, and sent out pirate hunters to take me down.

You see, Captain Incognito was fast becoming a great pirate hunter. But he was also becoming a pirate himself!

If you are being fired upon when you approach a hostile port, you have the option of sneaking into the city. I tried this, but got caught. This meant some jail time. Thankfully, I was able to introduce a greedy guard to “Mr Bribe”, and Captain Incognito was back on board his ship.

You can also attack towns. In one situation, I ended up in a land battle. My crew were vastly outnumbered, and in hindsight, it was not the smartest move.

In another situation, I outnumbered the guards, and my crew stormed the ramparts. This resulted in a duel with the Captain of the Guard for control of the town.

Taking control of a town gives you the option of installing a new governor of your choice. The town I had just taken was the island of Margarita, off the coast of modern day Venezuela. As all of the ports along the northern parts of South America were all Spanish, I installed an English Governor to give me a friendly port when down in this area.

As you continue to impress local governors, you soon attract the attention of their daughters. Impress them enough on the dancefloor, and you can acquire some useful special items as gifts. The ballroom dancing is a quicktime event minigame, where you must follow the governor’s daughter’s lead by pushing the correct button.

These special items give you nice bonuses to a variety of skills, such as navigation, fencing, and crew recruitment.

Captain Incognito soon became a colonel, and then an admiral. At least, under the British and French crowns he did.

Admiral Incognito was becoming quite wealthy and (in)famous. But there was something missing…

…that’s it! His missing family. In order to track down your family, you need to hunt down Baron Raymondo, who is in the employ of Marquis Montalban—the one who enslaved your family at the beginning of the game.

Once you hunt him down, through picking up pieces of information along your travels as to his whereabouts, he provides you with a piece of the map where your sister is.

From there, it was off to find Incognito’s sister.

Where to from here? Well, over the coming months, here are some snapshots from Incognito’s adventures…

But it was at this point that I encountered a problem—the crew were getting restless.

You see, you have to keep your crew happy. Now, I thought I had had a relatively successful pirating career to this point. And I had. But being on a boat for 41 months takes its toll, and the crew had finally had enough—they wanted Incognito to divide the plunder!

It’s at this point that you have the option of retiring, or returning to the sea after several months’ downtime (probably living it up, as one imagines a pirate would do in port with a small fortune to spend).

Incognito, still being a young man, decided to head back out to sea. But it’s here I paused. Dividing the plunder means losing your fleet and a chunk of your accumulated wealth. You have to start again, with one ship and a small crew. What more was there really to do for Incognito, except plundering ships, pirate hunting (and being hunted), treasure hunting, and rescuing lost family members? More wealth, more promotions, more land.

For such a free and open world, it started to feel a little repetitive.

So the plan was for one last hurrah for Incognito, and then divide up the plunder and settle down for good.

And with that, this chapter of Incognito’s story closes. At least he went out on top, when he was still healthy.

The longer you go on, and the older you get, the harder it gets to go back out to sea. Eventually, poor health and old age will force retirement upon you.

I wasn’t going to let that happen to Incognito! In all seriousness though, I just didn’t have the drive in me to continue his career anymore. It had started to feel like a grind, and the payoff wasn’t there.

Overall, what did I think of my time on the high seas? Let’s find out…

The Verdict

First and foremost, the original and this 2004 re-release are impressive games. As mentioned above, this would have been my first experience with an open-world game. 

The little details are amazing. For example, specialists joining your crew, like a cook or a doctor. Or environmental effects at sea, like changing winds and storms, impacting your life at sea (sail damage!). Or the fact that this is a living world, where people and ships don’t stay in one place forever, and where war and peace between nations changes over time.

To have a game like this in the 80s, and when I likely first played it in the early-90s, where it wasn’t linear point A to point B, was mind-blowing. The feeling of just being able to go anywhere in the Caribbean, whenever and however I wanted, wow.

The exploration of a game like that was enough. There was so much to see and do. And it handles the risk/reward well (effectively, the levelling up system), with continuous promotions and upgrades available. It’s almost like an MMORPG in that regard, before there even were MMORPGs. It kept you coming back for more.

But this time it didn’t.

The repetitiveness set in after I divided the plunder for the first time. I knew I’d basically be repeating the same mini-games: boarding ships, fencing, ballroom dancing. I’d be hunting down treasures, and lost family members, and famous pirates.

But where was the payoff? It might work if you’re a completionist, or seeking to better your previous ranking.

For me, what I was missing was a central story and an end point. In the Grand Theft Auto series, or Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I kept going. I didn’t mind the repetitive side-quests, because I knew that whenever I tired of them for a while, I could go back to the main storyline and progress it, and eventually finish it.

When I was younger, I could play this game endlessly. But that ties into what I said above with regard to that “wow factor” it had in a time when open-world games weren’t prevalent. I didn’t have a lot of games to play at that time, and neither did I have the context of other games that I do now.

This 2004 version still plays very well. If you’re into strategy games, enjoy the theme, and an absence of story doesn’t concern you, I have no problem recommending this one. Just be prepared for the grind.

And here we leave Incognito, to his life as a shipwright in Grand Bahama. He ended a Spanish Colonel, English Admiral, French Baron, and a Dutch Major.

Oh, and the second most notorious pirate on the entire Spanish Main!

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