Thanks. Appreciate it. Look forward to your next update. So no Henry Morgan or Queen Ann's Revenge?
(Sid Meier is the best)
Do you peddle goods around to gain wealth and fame or you capture ships to become powerful?
Speaking from memory, rather than how the game is now, because I only got a couple of hours into last night's game after the updates-
Yes, Sid is the best. This is only the second game for this studio.
Anyway, not only can you peddle goods, and capture them, you can produce them. You can buy a lumber mill, and sell lumber in other ports, or, if you want to make more money, you can also build a furniture shop there( which requires lumber to produce furniture). There are a number of things like this- salt + beef produce salt beef, etc. You can sell commodities or finished products. There are lots of items to trade- fruit, beer, rum, tobacco, sugar, cotton, cloth, clothing, linen, iron, tools, fish, salt fish, gems, silver, jewelry, grain, flour, bread, etc. Lots of opportunities for vertical integration.
There is some sort of fame point system, and as a pirate you can work toward having your own port and even your own faction. To do this you have to be successful enough to recruit enough men.
I think that as a merchant entrepreneur, you are working towards election as governor.
In earlier versions, when allied with a faction, there would be quests to bring my fleet and men to join a task force at a particular time and place for a purpose, such as liberating San Juan. So Henry Morgan was more of a leader/ boss for the English than a rogue.
Generally, Caribbean is more historically accurate than Pirates! The captains and governors are real people, although sometimes anachronistic.
It used to be that I had to trade goods to support my piracy habit, to cover the costs of repairs, crew replacements and training. I think they have corrected the balance, and I didn't encounter a single glich last night.
The ships are named and can be re-named. There are various types. Not so different from Sid's Pirates!, usually 3 variants within each type. Except that there is a class of ship called corvette, frigates and Ships of the line are separate types, and the biggest ships of all are the Manilla Galleons.
The game is still a lot about single combat, whether on land or sea. You don't automatically lose a battle if you fall, but morale suffers greatly, and it gets more costly in terms of casualties.
Fencing is less complicated. On the other hand, a sword is not your only choice of weapon. You might actually kill somebody when you shoot them with a pistol. Personally, I like to climb to the crow's nest and snipe at the enemy with a musket, but reloading is slow, and somebody might shoot you or climb up the rigging and attack you with a cutlass while you're busy doing that. Then it's really handy to have a sword or pistol.
I used to enjoy lobbing grenades on the gangways in earlier versions, but it was unbalanced and they disabled them. Well, they became smoke bombs. The trick was to only kill and wound the enemy. When you hurt your own guys, it was bad for morale.
Maybe they have been re-introduced. I bought some, but I haven't had a chance to use them yet.
The thing is, you are limited in how many weapon slots you have. You can't be like Blackbeard and carry 8 pistols and two swords. You have 4 slots, so you could have a sword( large selection) , bullets (light, med, or heavy) , and 2 pistols. The same bullets work in both pistol and musket.
that's enough for now.