Pirates dos manual

Sounds have also taken a large leap over the original. Music is more entertaining and reminiscent of the time period. Digitized speech has been added this time. Your lookout will announce when a ship has been spotted and while fencing the loser will yell "I surrender. Replay Value: Different time periods, four nationalities, famous expeditions, and depending on your skill each game can last a fair amount of time.

As with the original, this is a blend of strategy, action and adventure. Gold lets you play the role of a beginning buccaneer in the 17th century Spanish Main, in search of fame and fortune. Each town in this untamed raw region has different surprises and dangers. How you acquire stature is up to you; you can make your living through honest trade and the search for hidden treasure, or you can be a little more daring and attack and plunder ships.

As you can choose a specific skill to stand out in, the game can vary each time. Sword fighting is played out in side-view action sequences. How to run this game on modern Windows PC? Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book.

Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker.

Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Sid Meier's Pirates! Item Preview. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Publication date Reviewer: relishgargler - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 26, Subject: Great immersive game from the 80s I used to go over to my friend's house almost every week and we would play this game together on a Tandy.

I have no idea how many hours we spent rescuing kidnapped family members, sword fighting ship captains, capturing Galleons, and searching for buried treasure. I have the dos-ibm version as well as the NES version. BitchinCornSoup 2 points. I eventually memorised where all the treasures were only needed the first piece of the map. Casimiro -4 points DOS version. Played it on commodore 64, Amiga , Pc and still going strong : One of the best games ever, but its Meiers, so i expect nothing less.

Tron 0 point. Chris -1 point DOS version. Easily one of the best games in video history. This, along with Star Control II will give you weeks of entertainment for free. Never too many screenshots! I loved this game The manual with texts from historian PhD E. Bever was great too. I wish more games nowadays had PhDs as advisors. I still can hear the funny sound the wind and waters made on my computer when sailing against the currents, which were also simulated with scientific accuracy, including the west-to-east stationary stream.

Every bit of this game I loved. If anything, I would have liked my ship to sail a little faster, for I spent hours of my life staring at an almost entirely blue screen, daydreaming with Pirates in the last half millenium.

The game also sported various different campaigns set in different times, with abundant literature and a number of possible outcomus depending upon how you lived your life as a Pirate. There is a modern remake which I am playing now Their morale may rise once the treasure begins flowing in again. Cooks can sometimes be captured from defeated ships. The Caribbean is an unpredictable sea.

The sky may be clear and the winds moderate at one moment, while in the next a sudden tropical storm might appear, ripping your sails apart. This is especially true during hurricane season, which runs from around June to November. White Clouds: White clouds represent small squalls or storms that are not especially perilous and that are accompanied by strong gusts of wind.

Black Clouds: These represent full-blown tempests. Any ship caught within a black cloud risks serious damage to both her sails and hull. These major storms are accompanied by heavy winds. A careful captain can gain a temporary increase in speed by moving alongside the clouds but being careful not to blunder inside. These special items will help you avoid storm damage while sailing near or through storms. A mysterious traveler might have one of these items for sale, from time to time.

There are many ships sailing on the Caribbean - merchantmen bringing goods to wealthy cities, treasure ships carrying wealth untold back to Europe, fishing vessels loaded with cargo, mighty warships looking for the enemy, and of course pirates and privateers.

As you travel about you will inevitably encounter other vessels - how you interact with them will in large part determine your ultimate success or failure.

You can tell quite a lot about a ship by its appearance. Some vessels may have messages for you as you approach. Enemy vessels might order you to stand clear, or they might demand that you stand and fight. Neutral or friendly vessels might pass along the latest news or gossip. If a ship has anything to say, the message will appear once the vessel has gotten fairly close to your fleet. The message is also displayed when you roll your cursor over the other ship.

Once you are close enough to initiate an attack against another ship, you can press the Attack key number pad 5 or run into the ship to begin the battle. The Attack Confirmation pop-up allows you to specify which ship you are attacking, if multiple targets are within attack range. It also allows you to change your flagship if you are sailing with two or more vessels. It is quite likely that you will make more than a few enemies during your career.

As a ship seeking to fight you approaches, it will sometimes announce its intentions. This gives you the opportunity to try to gain an advantageous position for the upcoming combat, or to turn around and run to safety! The warning message will appear once the ship is close enough or when you roll your mouse cursor over the enemy. When an enemy ship gets within range, it may begin firing its cannon at you. This cannon-fire can damage your flagship and the other ships in your fleet.

If you wish to fight your pursuer, press the Attack key number pad 5 or run into the ship. Once you are well far away he may lose your trail or simply give up the chase. But then again, he may not be. So it might be a good idea to repair your ship and recruit extra crew before you leave. The game mechanics of ship battles are quite simple: you steer your ship, you raise or lower your sails, and you fire off broadsides.

The challenge lies in learning how to use these simple tools to their best advantage in the ever-changing sea. See the Game Control sheet for the specific keys and mouse commands you use to control your ship in battle.

You steer your vessel with the Helm Control buttons number pad 4 and 6 , same as you do when you are at sea. Press the Full Sails number pad 8 or reefed Sails number pad 2 to switch between those sail configurations. Full Sails: A ship with full sails has spread as much canvass as possible to move as quickly as possible. Ships with full sails tend to suffer more sail damage during combat, particularly when the opponent is using chain shot. Reefed Sails: A ship with reefed sails has lowered some of her sails to protect them from enemy cannon-fire, particularly from broadsides of chain shot.

In addition, ships with reefed sails have a tighter turning radius than ships with full sails. However, ships carrying reefed sails move significantly slower than ships under full sails. Ships of this era are armed with rows of cannon along either side of the hull. The placement of the cannon means that ships cannot fire at targets directly forward or aft, but only at targets to either side.

When you order your ship to fire, your men check to see if there is a target available in either of your broadsides and then fire off the appropriate port or starboard cannon.

If there are several targets in your broadsides, your men fire at the closest opponent. That means that she can fire no more than half of them in any one broadside. Press the Fire Broadside button number pad 5 or Space bar to fire your loaded cannon. The crew reloads with the same type of ammunition as the cannon had before, unless you instruct them to do otherwise see below.

The time it takes to reload is determined by the number of crew. More crew means faster reloads - less crew means it's time for evasive manoeuvres. There are three primary types of ammunition available for your cannon: round shot, chain shot, and grape shot. Round Shot: This is a standard cannon-ball. When you begin a battle, your cannon are loaded with round shot. Round shot has the longest range of any of the ammunition-types. Chain Shot: Chain shot consists of two smaller balls linked together by a chain.

Chain shot has a medium range: it fires a shorter distance than round shot, but longer than grape shot. Grape Shot: Grape shot is the classic anti-personnel load. Basically the crew loads the cannon with a bunch of musket-balls and iron filings, turning the weapon into a massive shotgun. Grape shot has a very short range. If you have the other ammo-types available, you can switch between them at will. Press the Round Shot key number pad 3 , the Grape Shot key number pad 1 , or the Chain Shot key number pad 7 to load your cannon with the appropriate kind of ammunition.

All ships are equipped with round shot, but some lack either or both of the other two types of ammo. If you find yourself in a vessel lacking a particular type of ammunition, you might be able to find a shipwright who can upgrade your ship with the missing ordnance. A ship struck by enemy cannon fire takes damage to one of the following: its hull, sails, crew, or cannon. The part of the ship damaged is determined by a damage algorithm: certain ammo-types have a greater chance to damage specific parts, though collateral damage to other parts of the vessel are possible no matter what shot is used.

If the hull is totally destroyed, the ship sinks. Sail Damage: As a ship takes sail damage its speed and manoeuvrability decline. If the sails are totally destroyed, the vessel is no longer under any control, and it may surrender at your next approach.

But you probably guessed that. While they battle it out, you take on the enemy captain in a daring swordfight. The battle ends when you or the enemy captain surrender. When a ship loses crew, some of them may be blown overboard where they cling to wreckage and plead to be rescued. You can retrieve floundering crewmen by running your vessel over their location. A ship that takes an especially hard shot may have some of its cargo blown right overboard into the sea.

You can retrieve lost cargo by running over the barrels. Each retrieved barrel adds 50 gold to your treasury. The contest will end indecisively when the opponents are too far away to see each other. Generally, this means that the weaker ship has successfully outrun its pursuer.