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[Authorman]

Thanks! The stab 'em in the knees plan is working beautifully!

[Ramidel]

Originally posted by Mongi @ Jan 11 2006, 11:30 AM

Uh.... Rapier actually has the longest strike-distance.... I actually prefer it!

The rapier has the longest distance, yes, but as mentioned above it's the weakest. And you want to knock your opponent down and out -quickly- in a fight, particularly if you play like I do and pit pinnaces against pirate-hunter galleons (don't laugh, pinnaces are my fave ship for most everything except hauling cargo). If you fight with a rapier, you get knocked down to the last man too quickly, and then one hit finishes you. The rapier is a joke in my mind for this reason.

Okay, I take that back. There's one use for a rapier, and that's if you have the enemy significantly outnumbered and are reducing an oversized crew before dividing plunder. Then, get the momentum, play defensive with the rapier, and degenerate your foe to one man. (Beware! The rapier cannot quickly recapture lost morale, so any damage you take when using a rapier is harder to reclaim.)

I normally use the cutlass because of the speed of battle, which translates to fewer losses. Slash, slash, slash, and any opponent that isn't the creme de la creme is on the run.

Now, if I guess that the opponent is a very strong one but I'm not grossly outnumbered, I'll use the longsword. Reason being, my opponent might use the cutlass. The paper-rock-scissors, in theory, is Rapier>Longsword>Cutlass>Rapier. -But-, the AI is worse than the player, so the most dangerous threat to the player is a cutlass-to-cutlass high-speed duel which the player could lose to a single early miscalculation and a failure to disengage. Longsword, however, can control the cutlass and bring down the opponent given enough time, and if you're not grossly outnumbered you have that time. If you face a rapier or longsword, pretend you're using a weaker cutlass.

Meanwhile, if you're badly outnumbered and facing a strong opponent...no, you're not stupid, but you're taking a gamble. Congratulations, you've gotten into the spirit of Pirates! In this case, back to the cutlass. If he takes a cutlass, you fight a speed-cutlass duel, you take your chances, and you seize that galleon with few losses...or you get your behind handed to you in a light wine sauce. If he's using a rapier, you've won already, if he's using a longsword, you've probably won.

(This strategy is alluded to in the Memoirs of Cap'n Sydney, but the reasoning behind it isn't explicitly mentioned like it is here.)

As to the comment on health dropping: No, you do not get wounds just by taking hits, you take wounds by losing battles or getting sunk.

[laiocfar]

I got a version of this wonderfull game from some place on the net that i didn´t remeber and it got two bugs. Firstly, there is a gold limit, 6890000 gc, maybe with a zero more or less, but if u pass this limit u turn to zero and your money dissapears.
Secondly, there is bug that makes imposible to save and load. Cuz when u reload a previous saved game, u lose most of your saved gold and land acres. U can never be very rich, no way to do it.
Are they fixed in this version?

About weapons, a good player will no care of weaponary, even u can assault Panama or La Habana (400-500 men) with only 200 and win by being too fast and too furious with the sword. There are legends of Pirates!´s players that says that its a Rapier>Longsword>Cutlass>Rapier(already explained), others mystics found that the rapier gives the longest range but the weaker strike, the cutlass the harder strike but shorter range and the longsword its just mediem range with medium strike. In facts, the last explanation its true in Pirates Gold(also in Abandonia) and Pirates 2(fans made version of Pirates! difficult to find but i got it). The chosen one, me, just don´t know what do each weapon but i am good enough to have no problems using all of them.

the c64 version was wonderful..i bought the tape version :blink: when it came out (i didnt have a disk drive at the time)..but i have so many memories of traveling around the carribean..

i bought Pirates Gold on budget but didnt play it much, so, as this is as close to the c64 version, i look forward to trying it out!

Originally posted by WolverineDK @ Jan 11 2006, 04:38 AM

Yeah, but the game is different too on some points, when it comes to divide the plunder.

I just can´t remember what it was precisely, but the Amiga version has some differences when you compare the C64 and pc original. With the Amiga version. And I love the Amiag version too.

The Amiga version let you divide your party, if I recall correctly. You could split your army/armada/whatever, take off in a sloop, divide the plunder, and when you came back all your men would be happy again. It made taking over towns a cinch.

Pirates! is THE abandonware game for me. Whenever people say that its just misty-eyed reminiscing that causes us to think that old games are so good, I point to Pirates! It's the real deal. As playable today as it was back in the late 80's when I played it to death on C64.

Firaxis' new version Sid Meier's Pirates! is great also. If you're a fan of the series and want to play the same game with fancy graphics, check it out.

F*ckin best game ever!
Period.

[Ramidel]

Originally posted by laiocfar @ Jan 12 2006, 04:18 AM
I got a version of this wonderfull game from some place on the net that i didn´t remeber and it got two bugs. Firstly, there is a gold limit, 6890000 gc, maybe with a zero more or less, but if u pass this limit u turn to zero and your money dissapears.
Secondly, there is bug that makes imposible to save and load. Cuz when u reload a previous saved game, u lose most of your saved gold and land acres. U can never be very rich, no way to do it.
Are they fixed in this version?

About weapons, a good player will no care of weaponary, even u can assault Panama or La Habana (400-500 men) with only 200 and win by being too fast and too furious with the sword. There are legends of Pirates!´s players that says that its a Rapier>Longsword>Cutlass>Rapier(already explained), others mystics found that the rapier gives the longest range but the weaker strike, the cutlass the harder strike but shorter range and the longsword its just mediem range with medium strike. In facts, the last explanation its true in Pirates Gold(also in Abandonia) and Pirates 2(fans made version of Pirates! difficult to find but i got it). The chosen one, me, just don´t know what do each weapon but i am good enough to have no problems using all of them.

What you're mostly doing is quoting my opinions

"Fast and furious sword-hacking" is a cutlass specialty and a pinnace can take Cartagena if you're fast enough and good enough with it.

And the traits of the weapons mentioned are -why- the rock-paper-scissors dichotomy exists. Try it yourself and see what I mean.

Great Game

Played it till piggs flew on C64 AND made it to Royal Advisor

The trick is to find your family members as quick as possible and divide the plunder then.

Years back, we drew a map of the game. Challenged everything and discoverd that if you find all of your family within a year (no matter the marriage, land or title), you get into the high rankings.

Then again, that's not the fun part.

Just let me be a Morgan PiratE!

[laiocfar]

Beliveme Ramidel, i am not coping u and i tried the the rock-paper-scissors dichotomy but not result, it looks like there isn´t going to come to clear the weapons working in the game.
By the way, Kosta or some other divine power can upload a caribean map, it will be usefull to no Pirates gold players. It reminds me playing the game with a book of pirates near to check maps of each age.
About Sir Henry Morgan (a funny tale from the map´s book):
-When Morgan took over Portobello (7/16/1668, he asked to Panama´s governor a sum of 100.000 gc for don´t raze the city. The gobernor told him that he will not spend the king´s money in a single pirate and asked how a band of criminals could take over the fort of Portobello. Morgan send him a pistol and two bullets, also a letter that reads as follows "...with this i took over Portobello, in a year i will go for take my weapons to Panama...". The peace teatry of 7/8/1670 between Spain and England don´t stoped Morgan from raid Santa Catalina the 22 of deceber of these year. THe strange was that no side taked any loss in that battle, you can imagine what happened? Well read this "...I will surrender this town beacause i don´t got enopugh troops to defend it from yours. I ask to Almirant Morgan that we carry on a little trick to mantain the honor of my officers and my person. There is also a "battle" plan in the letter from the governor.
8 of Jan of 1671, Morgan and his army(1400 mens) reach Panama. In front of the city, there are 2000 men of the city´s garrison and the silver train guard. The spanish cavalry attack ended when the pirates fired at them killing the 500 mounted soldiers. The battle is about end and the spanish dont made a single shot, when the governor played his secret weapon: an horde of buffalos. But the animals were scared by the pirate´s fire and turned against the defenders ending the battle even quicker. Nobody knows what happened with the two bullets and the Morgan´s gun.-
Anyway Morgan was the worst pirate beacause he was the first that doublecrossed his own people, when he took near 5 millons of spanish coronas(a type gc) of the panama´s bouty (6.000.000 gc).

Oh yes, I remember that the NES version of the game had the ingame map, selectable to view somewhere in the options.