Episode 363: Sid Meier's Pirates!

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 363:

Sid Meier's Pirates!

Rob, Fraser, and Troy "I'm tired of swabbing the poop deck" Goodfellow get together to revisit Sid Meier's Pirates! We all know who Sid Meier is, and we all what pirates are. So let's just cut to what you're here for:

Troy "I'm wanted on three continents for my ample booty" Goodfellow, Troy "My parrot crapped on my shoulder" Goodfellow, Troy "Ramming broadsides is my specialty" Goodfellow, Troy "How do I make a sandwich with two hooks" Goodfellow, Troy "I've got barnacles but I can't say where" Goodfellow, Troy "Stop calling me 'Shark Bait'" Goodfellow

Sid Meier's Pirates!, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag

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[jeanpaulrichter]

you were wondering why there are no modern games in the tradition of pirates, that are as sprawling and allow you to do a thousand different things while playing a single character in a large world. I believe there is a clear successor and I would very much like a tma episode on it sometime: the mount and blade series.

[Fraser]

you were wondering why there are no modern games in the tradition of pirates, that are as sprawling and allow you to do a thousand different things while playing a single character in a large world. I believe there is a clear successor and I would very much like a tma episode on it sometime: the mount and blade series.

 

I feel very silly for not bringing that up when we were talking about things like Sunless Sea and AC4. M&B definitely has a lot of Pirates' DNA. Though M&B itself is getting on a bit too (it's only a few years younger than Pirates) and even Warband is over six years old. Thank goodness Bannerlord is on its way!

[ilitarist]

Space Rangers are definitely the most Pirate-like game. It's sort of like your usual space trader sim, so you can hunt pirates, be a pirate, trade and get fetch quests. But it also has mini-games. Like arcade fighting in cyperspace (usual fighting is turn-based tactics), RTS for planetary conquests, and, most importantly, choose-your-own-adventure quests. Those can involve heavy scripting so you get very complex and long stories like spending your time in jail for piracy. You can become criminal authority and even earn some cash in jail by attending all sorts of activities. Dozens of more regular quests are about exploring abandoned facilities, managing ski resort, winning a music talent shows, participating in a mini-RPG VR game, playing MTG-style card games and so on.

 

This game went under the radar because of poor translation. It was recently rereleased as Space Rangers HD and I recommend it to everybody who wants something like Pirates. Be warned, it has sense of humor that may feel irritating.

[sclpls]

I think there were two things that made the Pirates! game special. One was the simulation qualities of the game. When I encountered the game in the late 80s I hadn't seen anything like that before (I had, admittedly, not played very many computer games at that point), but it was really cool the way these different colonial powers would declare war on each other, or declare peace, and there were a lot of moving parts that had nothing to do with whatever the player was up to. The power fantasy the game presented was quite alluring. There are all these colonial powers doing the sorts of things that nation states do, but because of the remote location and the technologies of the time their power is quite constrained. Meanwhile the player is able to operate as this independent force free to engage with the world as you like. The only other game that I thought did a great job of selling that sort of fantasy was the original Mass Effect game.

 

I'd definitely love to see the XCOM team take a crack at another Pirates! game. Keep the overworld strategy layer in tact, but add a turn-based tactical combat game to the mix, maybe some XCOM-like RPG style progression systems to resolve various events instead of the num pad driven mini-games, and throw in some Paradox style events system for good measure, and I think you'd have a real gem of a game.

[sekullbe]

I played so much of this on my Atari 800 back in the day, and then on the PC with the remake. I still keep the 1987 manual and map in my 'live' manual drawer because they were better than the 2003 versions. Way back when, I had the map memorized to the point where I could usually find any treasure with one map fragment. 

 

I didn't much mind the dancing segments, though I'm desperately average at them- I can follow the directions but never on the beat..

 

As far as trading, the older game suggested that as a way to play the early Dutch- keep your relations good enough to smuggle goods into Spanish ports. Your fluyt was supposed to encourage you to trade. I never found that interesting, but it was at something they thought somebody might try to emulate.

 

I didn't hear mention of the iOS version; I tried it and found the controls unplayable. Instead of taps they wanted swipes for fencing moves, and that was just death to hitting the precise timing. My guy would just flail around until he got skewered. Nice try, but too much effort trying the hip new UI toys and not enough verifying that it actually worked.

[sclpls]

The less said about that iOS port the better.

[Gaizokubanou]

Just wanted to say, what a fun podcast.  I don't know what it was but the podcast was also extra fun to listen to.  Maybe it's all that getting old talk from Rob, idk but it was really special.

[Skyrider68]

Rob, Troy, and Fraser, thanks (not!) for reminding some of us in the listening audience that we have become "old" in the world of computer gaming.  If the shoe fits....I guess. 

Played the original Pirates! on the venerable Commodore 64 with its awe-inspiring 16-color palette.  (It looked so good in 1987!)  Despite the limitations of home computers of that time, the game was very immersive:  Aside from the countless hours I remember enjoying the game, I recall several friends--many of who were absolutely *not* computer gaming people--getting totally sucked into the time sink for hours at a time with this game; truly a lot of replayability with this game.   Pirates was not a turn-based game per se, but it definitely had that similar 'just-5-more-minutes' feel like the best of the turn-based games.  On more than one occasion I had to kick people off the computer and send them home so I could get a decent night's sleep for work the next morning.  Seems like it was always Pirates or Ultima 4 running on that old C64 whenever somebody was home.  Those were the days.... 

 

Truly an all-time great and very worthy of legendary status.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

[Jatta Pake]

Another great episode! I love 3MA. Is Rob really living here in Los Angeles now? He came to support the Rams. Understandable. They are about to unleash a two decade dynasty of NFL championships upon the world.

[fledermaus]

I remember having to look up letters on the paper manual in the original micropose Pirates!  (And you kids think DRM is bad ) Still one of my favorite games.  I had played civ when I first found pirates and I was taking AP European History in high school.  I loved taking sides and despite general opinion, I really liked the land combat. I enjoyed the beginning of each stage, would you go recruiting for a big army and take down Havana or go slim and track down treasure.  It was Grand Theft Auto before there was a GTA.  

[Valorian Endymion]

Very fun podcast!

 

Another game with a lot of inspirations from Pirates, is Mount & Blade, which does have the very similar vibe, of you either joining a faction or going rogue on your own.

 

I wonder if maybe another reason why we don´t see game trying to have mini-games like Pirates, it is because mini-games (and QTE to extend) became, not without a reason, subject to such criticism, that even someone manages to get them right, maybe is just too risk sometimes to even try it.

 

Anyway, about the whole merchant part of the game, I remember using it mostly on early game, but later I stopped using it, Now I think the reason, the system is in the game the way it is, is because, back there, there was a lot of "why not?" mind set which many over ambitious game had, helped by the fact they maybe back there, we didn´t think adding system to a game to the way we think today (where we plan the whole early-mid-endgame, ect...), so it was easy to just add stuff to a game.

[Gormongous]

I remember having to look up letters on the paper manual in the original micropose Pirates!  (And you kids think DRM is bad ) Still one of my favorite games.  I had played civ when I first found pirates and I was taking AP European History in high school.  I loved taking sides and despite general opinion, I really liked the land combat. I enjoyed the beginning of each stage, would you go recruiting for a big army and take down Havana or go slim and track down treasure.  It was Grand Theft Auto before there was a GTA.  

 

I like the land combat, too. Honestly, after my first full playthrough, where I was dueling a young captain of the guard for the honor of yet another governor's daughter at fifty-eight and realized that I was too old to win this fight or any other, it's all that Pirates! has that's kept me coming back. Once I get into the late game, with two brigs and a frigate all with triple bunks, you were able to take on any city, even provincial capitals like Havana, and that's where the land battles started to click for me. My only frustration is that the mix of cover and units was very arbitrary, so sometimes you could be screwed with too many ranged and not enough melee troops, the idea mix being two of the former to one of the latter.