#sid meier's pirates

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[geekysteven]

[everygame]

Sid Meier’s Pirates! (C64)

Developed/Published by: Microprose Released: 05/1987 Completed: 16/07/2024 Completion: Took down the treasure fleet, rescued my sister and retired early ending up a mere sergeant.

I recently polished off the second season of Our Flag Means Death, the now sadly cancelled piratical comedy that ended up as a really delightful, sweet show after a slightly wonky start, and I was struck by an urge to keep the seadog vibes afloat, which gave me an excellent excuse to boot up Sid Meier’s “seaman”al [“seminal”--Ed.] pirate sim.

Now, the interesting thing about Sid Meier’s Pirates! (which I’ll just refer to as Pirates! from now on if you don’t mind) is that in my own gaming history it doesn’t factor. The first Sid Meier game to blow me away was Civilization–the first game of any to truly get its hooks into me–and then it’s Covert Action that I’d pick up and adore (actually, I played quite a bit of Railroad Tycoon too, now I think about it.) I’m sure I played Pirates!, here and there, but if I remember it at all, I remember being a bit nonplussed by the game’s completely open-ended beginning. Civilization has a supremely clear beginning: find the best place for your first city, and start growing your empire. Covert Action has “solve this crime.” Pirates! says: “You’re a pirate now. Do that?”

What that ultimately means is a few simple things. To start with, there are four countries busy colonising the Caribbean setting: the English, French, Spanish and Dutch, you select one as your nationality, and can quite happily pirate from one or all. You can sail your ship around and get into random encounters with other ships–choosing to attack, ignore, or sometimes you'll be attacked yourself. You can go to different towns and settlements–if they’re friendly, you can meet with the governor, hire crew at the tavern and trade; if they’re unfriendly, you can attack them by sea or by land. And if you’ve managed to find any treasure maps, you can hunt for treasure.

All of this is done via a simple and clever menu-driven system, or extremely simple action games. Sailing and sea battles are simple–viewed from overhead, your main issue will be dealing with the unusually realistic wind, slowing your ship to a crawl generally at the most annoying moments. Land battles are… baffling, and I’m unclear why anyone would ever do them when you can attack settlements from your ship (I think a small number of settlements are inland?) but they’re real-time strategy adjacent; you can move your whole crew or split it up into parts as you try to attack the town’s fort–though you’ll take heavy losses. In both battles, it often concludes in a one-on-one fencing game–as you see your troop numbers deplete, you must force your opponent to yield via the ferocity or skill of your attacks. Lose any of these modes and it’s not game over, but you are imprisoned for a length of time, lose all the loot from the current expedition and lose your crew; a serious punishment considering the short life of a pirate and that the game makes you weaker as you age.

With prison an ever-present threat, the game invites you to push your luck. You can choose to end your pirate expedition whenever you like and “bank” your ill-gotten gains, but at the cost of having to rebuild your crew and fleet–but you may have to anyway, lest your crew get tired and mutiny. After every expedition you can start at a higher difficulty to push your luck ever further–or simply retire and see where you end up.

If you have any familiarity with Sid Meier’s oeuvre, you can see him absolutely in this open-ended game design, and it should work, right?

Right?

Above, you’ll notice I mentioned my love for Covert Action. Covert Action is legendary not because people especially like it. It’s legendary for Meier’s own “Covert Action rule”:

“One good game is better than two great games.”

This rule occurred because of Meier’s belief that the separate modes of play in Covert Action–infiltrating a base, or code-breaking–interfered with the metagame (solving a crime.) In many ways, he isn’t wrong, but I’ve always found Covert Action a terrible example of it, because I never struggled with understanding how the mini-games fit into the narrative whole! In fact, they only enhanced my experience of the story I was telling via my play.

Meier maintains that Pirates! doesn’t break the Covert Action rule because the mini games, ultimately, are so slight, and the narrative so simple. And I guess he’s correct, but I’d have to argue for a “Pirates! rule” in place of the Covert Action rule:

“Several crappy mini-games don’t equal one good game.”

Sorry. Sorry. I know this is sacrilege. Pirates is a key text. But I realised in playing it now, as an adult, that the reason it never stuck as a kid is because it’s boring.

Sailing is tedious. Sea battles are slow and often anticlimactic. Fencing is sloppy and generally played by just attacking as much as possible. They simply aren’t fun! And any moments of narrative don’t feel anywhere near rewarding enough. They all just lead to… maps. Capture a pirate, get a map. Rescue a family member? Cool, another map.

Unlike a game of Civilization, or Railroad Tycoon even, there’s not enough going on in the world to react to, to give you a story worth telling. It’s neat that the colonisers scuffle and declare war on each other, but that’s about the limit of it. While researching this I was surprised to discover that Zzap! 64 gave it a middling review (a mere 68%!) and you can see that they just couldn’t, really, see the point in playing it once you’ve got the basics down. And I agree!

It’s a shame, really, because the entire thing is dripping with theme. The manual is beautiful, and much the way that Civilization locked terms like “phalanx” into my mind, the recreation of the Caribbean here should do wonders to my score on Pointless when it comes to geography rounds.

I just don’t want to play it!

Will I ever play it again? “Sea” [“see”–Ed.] above.

Final Thought: So, something you may quibble with here is that I chose to play the C64 original rather than any of the later versions, which I chose because it’s Meier’s own preferred version (and one that he largely coded himself–using Basic of all things for the menu system, which is incredible, even if you feel it in how slow the game can be.)

I don’t think this was a bad decision; I wanted to really see what Pirates! was at its core, and it remains quite charming visually (if, as I’ve said… slow.) If there’s one thing I’ll say, it’s that I possibly haven’t given it a fair shake in the context of mid-1987. I can’t, at this moment in time, compare it to, say, EA’s Starflight, or Cinemaware’s Defender of the Crown (which both came out in 1986!) so I’ll have to just take Zzap 64’s word for it.

Still. As much as I wouldn’t play this version again, I’ll admit that I’ll probably fire up Pirates! Gold, or the 2004 remake, the next time I’m feeling the nautical itch [“crabs”–Ed.].

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[dymond-dynamo]

it's truly wild to me that there's still no proper successor to Sid Meier's Pirates! Live the Life. it's one of my favorite games of all time, and would *absolutely* work in the modern games landscape, and yet nobody has really done it. there have been other good pirate games (I think the one that's come closest is still AC Black Flag, which I love, but which is very much an assassin's creed game first and a pirate game second), but nothing doing the same thing SMP! is doing, and I think that's a fucking shame. and if Firaxis just wants to make a new one, that'd be great! it doesn't have to be them, but if anyone's gonna do it, no reason it shouldn't be the people with the license lol

[dr-earman]

mods are asleep, post chuban

[diamondshapedcat]

Ok, after looking through the tags and not wanting to repeat what others have suggested I'm going to say...

A hat in time. Great game. Really fun.

I'm going to put other good suggestions in the tags

My dearest followers and mutuals and friends and lovers. I am going to extend one deadly serious question to you on this beautiful afternoon.

What is your #1 video game recommendation

[absoluteboatfreak]

one of my friends has become very passionate about making me play Sid Meier's pirates, which is a game that's kind of like if someone made just the open sea sailing part of ac:black flags a lot more annoying. also it ranks Stede Bonnet as the fifth best pirate in the world which is just objectively wrong

[jonathantaylor]

and here's what I made for International Talk Like A Pirate Day

[thorusofer]

This is a game I haven't played in fifteen years, maybe even longer at this point. Sid Meier's pirates, anyone? https://www.twitch.tv/thorusofer

[mizumonhoe]

I literally need everyone to go play Sid Meyer’s pirates fucking right now please go play it. I need all the pirates of the Caribbean people and all of the our flag means death people and also everyone to go play it it’s a work of art (it’s got very outdated themes but oh my god it’s so good) stede and Blackbeard are in it (for 5 seconds) and it’s like seriously historically accurate (not fully but mostly) and it’s incredible you sail around and sink ships and dance with governors daughters. It’s literally a fiver on steam I need this game to have a revival please everyone

[geekysteven]

[boredtechnologist]

MicroProse's "Sid Meier’s Pirates!" for the NES console

Reviewing MicroProse's "Sid Meier’s Pirates!" involves exploring the game's thematic elements, mechanics, and narrative, and interpreting these in the context of broader philosophical questions and concepts.

1. The Notion of Freedom and Moral Ambiguity: "Sid Meier’s Pirates!" places players in the role of a pirate, a figure traditionally associated with both freedom and moral ambiguity. Philosophically, this setting allows for an exploration of the concept of freedom – what it means to be free, the price of freedom, and its moral implications. As pirates, players operate outside the strictures of society, suggesting a form of absolute freedom, yet this freedom comes with the cost of potentially immoral acts like theft and violence. This dichotomy encourages players to reflect on the nature of freedom and the ethical boundaries they are willing to cross in its pursuit.

2. Power Dynamics and Authority: The game's setting in the Caribbean during the age of sail is rife with power struggles between different nations and within the hierarchical structures of naval and pirate crews. These dynamics raise philosophical questions about authority, power, and resistance. The player's ability to challenge and overthrow existing powers, either through allegiance with a state or as a free agent, touches upon theories of political philosophy and rebellion against authority.

3. The Role of Fate and Free Will: In "Sid Meier’s Pirates!", players make choices that affect their journey, from aligning with certain factions to engaging in battles. This interplay of choice and the game's random events (such as storms or encounters) brings into focus the philosophical debate of free will versus determinism. The game becomes a canvas to reflect on how much of our lives are governed by our choices versus external circumstances.

4. The Search for Identity and Self-Made Destiny: The game allows players to forge their path, rising from a lowly sailor to a feared pirate or a respected privateer. This aspect resonates with existentialist themes, particularly the creation of one's essence through actions. The player's journey can be seen as a quest for identity, where one's choices and actions define who they become, highlighting the existentialist belief in the individual's responsibility in shaping their destiny.

5. Ethical Considerations of Wealth and Power: As players accumulate wealth and power, the game prompts reflection on the ethics of wealth accumulation and the use of power. The decision-making in managing resources, engaging in trade, or plundering can lead to a philosophical examination of economic ethics, the consequences of wealth, and the moral responsibility that comes with power.

6. Nostalgia and Historical Representation: The game's romantic portrayal of the pirate life can be seen as a form of nostalgia, idealizing a bygone era. This raises questions about how history is represented in media and the effects of romanticizing the past. Philosophically, it opens a discussion about our perception of history, the selective glorification of certain aspects, and the ethics of historical representation in entertainment.

In summary, "Sid Meier’s Pirates!" offers more than just a strategic and adventurous gameplay experience; it serves as a medium for philosophical inquiry. The game engages with themes of freedom and morality, power dynamics, fate versus free will, identity, the ethics of wealth and power, and the representation of history, providing a rich tapestry for players to explore and reflect upon complex philosophical ideas.

[k0rrin]

via Are.na / Evan Collins / 1980s-90s Globalization - Colonialism New World Explorer

[scribblingface]

normal brain: I should raid a couple of ports in the exclusively spanish areas and install french governors instead so that I can fix my ships and sell my loot while I'm capturing spanish ships

galaxy brain: I should raid some ports in french dominated areas and replace them with spanish governors so that spanish ships just come to me instead

[blessed-artist]

Fun fact! As an adult you can use the money you get working at a job to buy a silly pirate game you loved as a child and experience the wonders of childhood again!

Anyway, anyone else play Sid Meier’s pirates as a kid?

[g4zdtechtv]

THE PILE PRESENTS: X-Play - Scurvy and Slapshots Are Fun! | 10/26/04

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