Sid Meier's Pirates!

I got this game several months ago and it's daarn addicting. I tend to love strategy games with open-endedness, such as the SimCity series and Civilization.

With Pirates!, you get to become one yourself to do whatever the hell you want, be it attacking every ship in sight, wooing every Governor's daughter in sight, raiding towns, etc. If you want France and Spain to be at war? You can certainly do that. You can pretty much mold the entire game world to make it more profitable for you.

Aside from ship to ship battles, which are very fun, you can also take part in land battles where it plays out in turn-based style with grids and different terrain and different' unit types. This is easily my favourite part of the game. Dancing with the women is hard though, and sneaking into town is horribly slow to my tastes, but everything else in the game makes up for it.

Who else has this game and loves it? I don't think I've ever seen any related threads in GFF before, and I'm wondering how many fans it has.

Oh, and in case anyone's interested, I made a flag/sail combo for the game, based on Cloudy Wolf from FFVII AC. So far, 60 people DLed it from Pirates! forum. Just stick the files in the Custom directory. Here's an image preview:



Jam it back in, in the dark.

It was fun way back when I played it, but there were a number of gripes.

1) It's way too easy to max out your ship.
2) It gets very repetitive.

It didn't tie me down long, honestly ;_;

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Isn't every game repetitive? I guess repetitiveness is worse for open-ended games, but then, I like these kinds of games.

As for maxing out your ship, I assume that you'll be losing ships often that you'll have to upgrade it again and again on the higher levels.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I was too *good* to lose ships, you see! ;D

Nahh. It's very repetitive in ever sense of the word. I've played many games but taking over ships and beating guys in sword fights was dull. I mean, there are the same tools you can win 'em with. Or you can button-mash like I did at times. The dancing/courting thing gets old fast. Just a bland mini-game ;(

I like open-ended games, though. Morrowind/Oblivion, King's Bounty-type games (HoM&M series, etc)... Y'know. This game just didn't interest me long =(

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I hated the fact that you aged. I just wanted to sail around without getting backstabbed.
It was fun for a week then i got bored of it.

no homo

Oh, haha, all replies have been negative so far. There's gotta be someone who likes it!

My crew's very happy right now, and I dug up 2 treasure so far. Age 19 and in excellent health, hee hee!

Gechmir, I haven't played any of the games you played :(

How ya doing, buddy?

I loved the first Pirates, so I was really eager to try out the new one.

Like you said, it's freaking addictive, and I played it a LOT for a few weeks time. But after that, I also feel it gets to repetetive. I would've loved to see more stuff to do (it's almost the same as the original Pirates!), it just gets old after a while in my opinion.

But yeah, I also love the open end side of it. But it just could've been so much more!

I'm tempted to fire it up again now though.

FELIPE NO

I loved this game, really so fun. But yeah, it got boring after a little while, nonetheless, an excellent game. It did take too long to get from one place to another.

How ya doing, buddy?

You travel faster if you chose the Navigation skill.

Repetitiveness is fun, especially when you're a pirate :)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Heh, I did enjoy the pirate ship fighting, not really the dancing because it required the keypad, which I lack on my laptop (unless i use the alternate key feature). But yeah, dancing became easy once you saw the patterns (i set myself on easiest mode)

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Y'know, I think I have a greater degree of tolerance towards repetition than other people. For example, I can spend hours just playing Rampage, and everyone knows that's the most repetitive game around :D

The replies I'm getting in this thread wasn't exactly what I was expecting though. 'It's awesome, and then it got repetitive!' There's gotta be someone who is like me, but I'm probably one of those special minorities :D

At least we agree that ship fighting is hella fun.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I think the biggest problem with this game (besides the fact that it's awesome for the first day or two), is that the repetitiveness of the game is very bland. I know every other game is just as repetetitive, but at elast there is a new goal or continuing story (or at least in FPS's - insane multiplayer). For this game, I felt like I was doing the EXACT same things each time, without it getting much harder, and each time doing it was EXACTLY the same as before. It's not like I'm 'gaining" skills and getting better and feeling anymore elite than before.

It was definitely a fun game for the first two days though. =)

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Those sword fights sure were thrilling! What strategy should I use? Oh yeah, constant fast/weak attacks because I'll either tie the computer, or hit before him!

Best part was the ridiculous method of dancing. A bobbing limp-wristed curtsy with no dress. What an unfortunate thing for a "pirate" to participate in.

Glad it was just a rental.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Hey, guess what!

I liked it!!!

Granted, I haven't played it that much, but it seems just my taste. I'm havin' trouble dancing, but that's still my favorite part... "the governor's rather plain daughter," etc. And did you notice the only difference between the plain and beautiful daughters is the dress? Oh yeah, and THE BUST SIZE. That made me chuckle.

Moving on land is really slow, and sailing East is nearly impossible... but this game is certainly addictive.

I like giving the guy funny names, like "Momma's Boy."

Governor's daughter: "Mr. Momma's Boy, you certainly have charm and wit!"

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Wow, a positive response! That made my day.

Go use the Navigator's Skill if going east takes too long, which it actually does. It's funny how they rate daughters. Some plain daughters are nicer looking than attractive ones. Try the land battles against a town. it's fun :D

How ya doing, buddy?

I have it on my Xbox, and I was looking forward to play it. But after about ten minutes I just shut of. I guess I'm more of a story kind of guy. The whole do whatever you want didn't touch me the least. I should perhaps give it another whirl?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?