Anyone played "Pirates"?

[Akkon888]

"Pirates" was a game made by Sid Meier also. You sailed the seas, raiding cities for a nation you swore loyalty to.

The reason I bring this up, is because when besieging a city in "Pirates", it is very similar to what seems to be happening in the Civ5 screenshots.

Here is what happens in "Pirates"

-One unit per tile
-Ranged Units could attack from a distance, but could not completely kill the unit
-Units in a forest were invisible to the enemy except when they moved
-Units receive a bonus for attacking the enemy from the sides or back
-Each unit could move two spaces
-A bonus/penalty is given for attacking the enemy based on height (for example, if you were on hills, you would receive a bonus, and if they were on hills, you would receive a penalty
-Ranged units could attack units in a forest, but not effectively
-Ranged units still could engage in close combat, but not effectively
-Cavalry receive a massive penalty for attacking/defending in forests, but receive a massive bonus for attacking/defending in the open
-You could orient any of your units so that it faces a certain direction (to defend against flanks)

Civ5 already seems to have a few of these things (in bold) and we haven't even seen much at all.

Any thoughts? Could what happened in "Pirates" foreshadow what will happen in Civ5?

 

[Greizer85]

I noticed this immediately when I saw the first screenshots and heard about the one unit/hex rule. I loved the battles in Pirates! (although a lot of bad things could be said about other areas of the game), but the lack of variety in troops, the endless repetition, and worst of all, totally brainless AI killed the fun way before its due time imo. I mean, the enemies just charged at you no matter what... Hiding behind impassable terrain, you could slaughter forces up to five times your size with relative ease. In fact I often attacked larger and larger towns just too see with how little I could succeed (it was the only true challenge in the game, if you don't count the inane dancing minigame).

I mentioned I loved these battles even with the bad AI and four or five different units on each side. Yes, it really is that good. Think chess with blood and guts, rum and chests of Incan gold. With a decent AI, promotions, etc, I fear for my University studies since CiV comes out at just the crucial moment...

 

[Akkon888]

Yes! Exactly!

This is why I am sure Civ5 will be fun. It is cool to know the basic outcome of an idea earlier than others, and to experience it earlier than others. I just hope the Civ5 developers do not massacre the idea, though.

 

[LastLegionare]

I never put the two together...

Sid said outright that the battle system is inspired by "Panzer General". But maybe this also had an effect...

Oh man, now I wan't to play Pirates again!

 

[bonafide11]

I tried Pirates once and I couldn't get into it. I thought it sucked. Maybe I need to try it again though. I never really got very far into it to give it a fair chance.

 

[Thormodr]

I loved Pirates. ^^

I remember trying to amass the biggest amount of gold before my crew would mutiny.

I would round up crew in town and then intentionally get beat up in the gun battle with much bigger ships. The sword fight at the end would literally be 10 against 300. I was so good at sword fighting though that I won 99% of the time.

So only having a skeleton crew I'd straggle back to a port and repeat the process.

I think my record was over 1,350,000 gold in one go before finally splitting up the booty.

As for the land battles, that is a very good observation.

 

[Double A]

Wow that's a great connection! Maybe the sea battles will play the same way as they did in Pirates!

 

[Akkon888]

I actually do not want the sea battles to be like the ones one "Pirates". Then, every time you are attacked, you would need to spend a few minutes killing the enemy. And if this happened a few time a turn, it would drag the game out sooo much.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Is it the old or new Pirates! you mean? I never really got the landbattles to work in the original game, and I don't remember any hexes...

 

[Robo-Star]

I remember "Pirates!"! I had it on the NES, and remember having no strategy other than "find treasure-map; spend ages looking at map to find the bit of land the map corresponds to; sail against the wind towards that area; get mugged by faster ships/ports". Good times!
-

 

[cardgame]

new one, I believe. TBH I never heard of the original.

 

[Greizer85]

The old game kicked so much ass... The music alone was amazing (some Bach pieces iirc, played in fairly unorthodox ways; sounded very 'piraty' (yes I know it's not a word) somehow). I remember one magical day in late June of who-knows-what-year, when I glanced out of the window from my bed, saw the bright sunrise and thought to myself: "This is a perfect day to spend indoors playing Pirates!". That I did; I played one whole game from 8 o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock in the evening. I ate a few sandwiches and took a few bathroom brakes but nothing else interrupted me. I don't know where my family was that day but I never missed them for a second. I got the second highest rate (Governor or Plantasion owner; highest was King's Advisor), and in my mind it was a day well spent. Ah, the wonders of early youth... Nowadays I'd keel over from sheer exhaustion. I role-played as captain Jean Lafitte, after a famous pirate I saw in a movie the preceding night. Everything fell into place in that game; I still remember glimpses of it. It was as if Mr. J. himself was watching over my shoulder and guiding me towards inevitable success...

Anyway, it's not all nostalgia. The original game was totally unique when I played it, and it was several years after it came out. There were no stupid minigames or cartoon graphics... You felt like you were a real pirate roaming the seas, not an actor in an Errol Flynn film (not that it's a bad feeling, mind you, but I'd rather feel like a real pirate). There were always things to do and somehow the game was less repetitive than the remake, even though there were no ship upgrades and the land battles were chaotic enough that you could only win by overwhelming force. The abscence of cartoon graphics made you use your imagination I guess. Not that the graphics were bad, on the contrary. I played the original version, not the Gold one, and even then they were adequate. The whole game was like drawn on sea-parched pergament with royal Indian blood... You could smell the rum and sense the chair swaying when you played it. Yarr, memories... Now where's my pirate smiley? Oh well, I guess a ninja one will have to do, although they've got nothing on pirates!

 

[Newcomer24]

-Units in a forest were invisible to the enemy except when they moved

I'm quite sure to have read in one of the previews that in Civ5 damaged units can hide in the forest to regain health! So they could have even more similiarities.

 

[Ahriman]

People don't remember the original Pirates? Man, that makes me feel old.

 

[Adam7Eight]

I had the new Pirates!. I thought it was good, but it had no replay value at all.

 

[StarEye]

Ya, the old Pirates! was better than the new. The Amiga version is the best of them all. I rememer the land-battles were "realtime", where you slowly moved your units (there was only one kind, pirates, and how many units you had depended on how many pirates you had), switching between them on will, trying to survive long enough to wipe out the enemy or storm the city. It was a very slow affair, and not my favourite aspect of the game.

For some reason, the original Pirates felt a lot deeper than the new one... but I assume that's because it had a grittier feel to it, and the graphics weren't Disney-esque at all. The caribbean also felt like a much larger place in the original, not to mention a lot more hazardous. I don't think the extra stuff introduced in the new Pirates! game added any more depth, and made all the aspect feel like mini-games than an actual integral part of the gameplay. Everything felt more natural in the original, and the new one felt a bit divided. Also, the old game felt more like a strategy/management/career game than an action/adventure game. If they make another Pirates!, I sincerely hope they ramp up the difficulty and make it a more advanced game. A Pirates! game with the complexity of a Civilization game would be like a dream come true.

 

[rrhal]

I have the new pirates, I played it again after putting it away for awhile. Land battles are fun and sneaking through towns that otherwise wouldn't let you in is amusing. I also just like to sail my little boat sometimes. Doesn't have the replay value of Civ though.

 

[thungrim]

People don't remember the original Pirates? Man, that makes me feel old.

Oh yes, I remember the original Pirates and the horrible HORRIBLE sound the storms made over my C64's internal speaker. And the Silver Train / Treasure fleet pop-quiz before playing.... that was always awesome.

 

[Zomgmeister]

the horrible HORRIBLE sound

THE PAIN! THE PAIN! Why would you do that?!!

Awesome game in general. Though I always hated these utterly boring land battles. Believe they are taken and simplified from Sid Meier's Gettysburg anyway, never played that actually.

 

[thungrim]

THE PAIN! THE PAIN! Why would you do that?!!

To remind us all the heavy cost!! We who do not learn from the past shall be doomed to repeat it. DOOOOMED!

Well... so long as we don't go back to internal speakers anyway.

Awesome game in general. Though I always hated these utterly boring land battles. Believe they are taken and simplified from Sid Meier's Gettysburg anyway, never played that actually.

That's why I never went after the inland cities. I'd load up a sloop, brave the forts, and rely on my fencing to win the day. Does anyone else remember staring at the pixelated 256 color governors daughters and saying "HOLY COW LOOK AT THE GRAPHICS!!"?