Pirates! Gold
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
NOTE
These hints were based on my game play in the time period known as the Buccanear Heroes. Most tips should apply to other periods, but I haven't tried them yet. These are just my own personal observations, so there may be better ways of doing things. The best that I was able to do in one game was to get nine promotions by my host country (to Duke), 370000 personal gold pieces, 1400 acres of land, rescuing four relatives, finding four ancient treasures and two small ones, and retiring as an Advisor to the King. Here's some tips that I'll pass on to you:
A. STARTING AN EXPEDITION
1. Save your game.2. Go to the Tavern- get info from the Bartender and the Traveller (if present). Buy map from Map Seller if present (if the map is useless, ie.-no coastline, you can restart from the saved postion and try again. Ifyou already have a good map piece don't buy another... it's not a newmap, just another piece of the one you already have. Hire all the Sailors(if the number offered will fit on your ship). You want to start with aslarge a crew as you can. It helps to end an expedition in a major port,as big cities have more men in the tavern for the following expedition.3. Go to the Governor- find out who your current allies and enemies are. You may receive payment for a hostage (I usually take any offer over 900 goldpieces). You may also hear news of where to find "The Evil One". (Writedown that info.) If you are offered an expedition, decline. (Wait untillater in the expedition when you have accomplished some goals and havesome free time.)4. Look at your logbook's party status and at your globe, and plan on which direction to take after leaving the harbor. When ready, leave town.
B. DURING AN EXPEDITION
1. In the beginning, use your large number of men to go sack the biggest prospering/wealthy enemy town that your men can handle. Unless you arevery good, avoid towns with 3 or 4 forts. Try to accumulate more men andsome cargo ships while going to the town, so that you will have room forall of the plundered goods. If given the choice, install a governor ofyour nationality.2. When you've sacked 1-3 towns and your number of men is significantly reduced, do your personal journeys, such as accepting a mission orhunting for the Evil One or relatives. Accumulate as many ships as youcan and still maintain decent combat ability (as judged by the number ofcannon you can fire). If you get more than eight ships, keep the mostexpensive. If you have only one ship, it should be a frigate. If onlytwo ships, a frigate and a merchantman/galleon. Only three ships: thesame as two, plus a small quick ship (sloop or barque).3. Save finding the major ancient treasures for later in the voyage, when your crew is growing unhappy. When meeting ships at sea, investigate allsightings, and attack all pirates and non-allied ships. Avoid frigatesif you are severely unmanned. Take on a few new crew members occasionallyto offset combat losses, except near the end of a voyage when it willmake your crew unhappy. Enter ports to save your game occasionally (sneakin if you have to).
C. ENDING AN EXPEDITION
1. When ready to divy, try to do so in a major port of your own nationality. You can also get into sea battles prior to entering the divy port, andpurposely take a few hits so that you can whittle your crew down to theminimum number, so that the shares will be larger.2. Save the game when you enter the divy city. Go see the govenor. Sell EVERYTHING at the merchant. At the shipwright sell all ships but yourflagship, and most of your cannon. Get news and info at the tavern. Divyat the bank as the last thing you do.
D. SHIP COMBAT
1. I never had any problem with this. I just kept my ship either directly ahead of or directly behind my opponent, putting shots into him as Itacked back and forth. In this way I could hit him without being shot at.You may take a shot or two when you are initially getting into position,but after that, no problem. It doesn't matter how much more powerful youropponent is, as long as there is no hand-to-hand combat. I preferred afrigate for all battles at the easier skill levels, and a 18-gun barquefor fighting small ships at the harder skill levels. I wish the game wasmore realistic in this section, as it was absurd how quickly the shipspivoted in place at slow speeds, and when they accelerated or decelerateddrastically depending on a change in the wind. Oh well.
E. SWORD COMBAT
1. I never got good at this. I just selected Skill at Fencing when creating the character, and always pressed the attack, not wasting time on defense.In this way I always won my swordfights, except when I was old and in poorhealth and tried to take on an army much bigger than my own.
F. ATTACKING A TOWN BY SEA
1. Don't waste time trading shots with the fort, just rush in as quick as you can, landing right at the fort (not nearby). Tack back and forth ifthe wind is not favorable. If you take too long to land, most of the goldwill be hidden when you arrive. Some forts are almost impossible to takedue to harbor layout and wind conditions. It might be worth your while tomake a list of such harbors so that you don't waste your time attackingthem in the future. It seemed to me that you are only attacking with oneship, and so no matter how many men you have, you are only attacking withthe men on the ship you use (I once had over 500 men and attacked a portwith 400 men, but when I landed I only had the 220 men that could fit onthe frigate I attacked with.) Also, keep an eye on your crew strength, asit drastically goes down when you take hits from the forts.
G. ACCEPTING SPECIAL MISSIONS
1. These special missions include: capturing a certain pirate who is hunting in a designated area, capturing a town to free a governor's relative, anddelivering a letter/parcel somewhere. Pirate hunting is easy (I alwaysconsidered it a sure bet), but may take you out of your way. Freeing arelative depends on the amount of soldiers and forts in that town, andis generally not recommended unless the town is defenseless or one thatyou wanted to plunder anyway. Besides, it only seems to give you favorwith that governor, unlike pirate-hunting that pleases the king as well.Delivering a letter should be easy, but due to a bug in my version I wasnever able to find the person that I supposed to meet, and so I alwaysavoid this mission. You can avoid the loss of prestige from failedmissions by saving your game just prior to visiting the governor, andrestoring the game if you are given a mission you don't like. Note: inthe original version of "Pirates! Gold" that I had, there were some bugsin these special missions. Once I had installed the upgrade patch,however, all but the letter delivery bug went away.
H. PROMOTIONS
1. Various accomplishments that make a sponsor country happy can result in promotions, new titles, prestige, and/or land. Accomplishments that winyou favor include: completing certain governor's missions successfully,and plundering lots of enemy ships and towns (especially if you canconvert the town's nationality to your sponsor's home). In order, theranks and titles that I have seen are: Ensign, Captain, Major, Colonel,Admiral, Baron, Count, Marquis, and Duke. There may be more, but youwould have to do incredibly well to go past Duke.
I. KEEPING CREW HAPPY
1. Generally, the more men you have, the unhappier they will be. (This is because there individual shares of the booty is smaller with many men.)If your men are unhappy for too long, they will mutiny. The longer youhave been at sea, the more gold you must have to keep the same number ofmen happy. So, as the expedition drags on, you must continue to gain goldor lose men, or both. The key ratio is "voyage time vs. # of men vs. goldamount". Your crew is always happy at the beginning of an expedition, sohire as many men as you can carry at the expedition's start, and use your"army" to sack a number of cities in the expedition's early phases. If youwant to lose some men (to keep the others happy), you can take some hitsduring sacks and sea battles.
J. MAPS, TREASURES, RELATIVES
1. Ordinary pirate treasure maps come in four pieces, and refer to a buried treasure of 5-13 thousand gold pieces. Usually one piece is all you need(if it has a coastline), so don't buy any extra maps until you find thetreasure (as they will only be pieces of the same map, until that treasureis found). All maps are the exact same scale as the sailing screen, so ifyou are off the coastline in the general area, you can flip back and forthbetween the two screens while you compare coastal features. (I always makea hand-drawn copy of the map to the exact scale as the screen so that Ican refer to it while I stay on the sailing screen, using the PAUSE keyas required.) If you look close at the map you will notice squares of darkand light color for the ground. These squares match similar dark and lightland features on the sailing/marching screen. This can come in handy whentrying to locate the exact spot for digging.2. There are four lost relatives in the game (sister, father, niece, uncle). Each one has a treasure map piece, and if you find that ancient treasure(Incan, Aztec, Olmec, Mayan) before you find the next relative, the nextrelative will lead you to a different treasure (otherwise you will justwind up with another section of the same map that you already have). Ifyou get a map piece with no coastline, you might consider restoring yourgame to the last saved position (another reason to save frequently), andtrying again, as the choice of which piece you receive seems random.Each of the ancient treasures is worth about 100,000 gold pieces.
K. WOMEN
1. If you win the favors of a woman, she will tell you info whenever you visit her subsequently. Early in your career, just "Make Conversation"with the women you meet, until you at least make Captain or Major andhave some wealth, which will make you a decent suitor. Propose only to agovenor's relative, preferably in a large centrally located port of yourown nationality (for example, Port Royale if you are British during the1660-1680 time period).
L. MISCELLANEOUS
1. Lower your sails when sailing through waters with a lot of shoals.