It's a new Thursday, and a new set of games, among them, Sid Meier's Pirates!

Sid Meier's Pirates! has a special place in my heart. Last year when I moved into the dorms, the internet was out for two weeks, and I hated it. I couldn't talk to most of my friends and I couldn't check any websites I used to read regularly. Sid Meier's Pirates was engrossing enough that I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said it helped me get through the day.

That said, it's a very engrossing game, and there's a lot you can do in it. Be a pirate, be a strictly legitimate agent for one of the countries, siege and capture towns, find a wife, defeat pirate legends, search for treasure, eat cake.... lots of stuff.

I urge everyone to give this game a try.

It's a great game, I already have it though but that doesn't mean I can't be happy that GT got it.

Easter Egg: set the date in windows to September 19 and play it (make the game think it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day ;) )

maybe someone can help me out here
when i start the game up on GT it tells me to insert disc 2
i do the whole CRTL + F2 thing and nothing....
im sad now...
i love being a pirate...
help me...

> {quote:title=kormecca wrote:}{quote}
> maybe someone can help me out here
> when i start the game up on GT it tells me to insert disc 2
> i do the whole CRTL + F2 thing and nothing....
> im sad now...
> i love being a pirate...
> help me...
There's a big thread on this in Tech Support.

appreciate i just found it and i gave them the info they asked for

> {quote:title=Catsimboy wrote:}{quote}
> [b]AWWW COME ON![/b] Did they really need to take it down? That just screws over the people who +could+ get it to work. I got it to work for me by putting in the second disk of the game because I own it but I lost the CD key. Now I can't play it +again+. It's just like Infernal, I fixed it and got it working and a day later they take it down.
Unfortunately, I don't think owning the game really counts as a fix for the people who don't own it and are trying to play it through Gametap.

> {quote:title=Catsimboy wrote:}{quote}
> Yeah but while they fix it what's wrong with keeping it up? I mean Pirates! Is a bad example because it seems only people who own it already can play it but quite a few people got Infernal to work and they took it down and still haven't put it back up.
I never got why Infernal was taken down (my best guess would be a problem that could not be fixed on the user's end), but it is coming back soon.

Really, since as far as I've seen, Pirates is unplayable in Gametap form, there's no reason to keep it up.

> {quote:title=Catsimboy wrote:}{quote}
> Yeah but while they fix it what's wrong with keeping it up? I mean Pirates! Is a bad example because it seems only people who own it already can play it but quite a few people got Infernal to work and they took it down and still haven't put it back up.

I'd imagine because its better to take it down before the 99% of gamers who aren't able to play it try downloading the whoooooole thing just to discover that it doesn't work, rather than satisfy the 1% of gamers who are (and those 1% already have the original game..)

Sure, they could do that, but couldn't you also just go find an +alternative+ means of playing the game yourself? All you're lacking is a CD key, and that would be much easier, and less bandwidth heavy, for you to just go get a new CD key.

It seems fun enough, I guess... but it's laughably easy. turning just as the enemy fires is enough to make him miss 90% of the time (even in slow boats) and the sword combat is just a matter of mashing the quick attack over and over.

Apparently there are difficulty levels but it won't let you pick anything other then 'way too easy' until you finish the game at least once. boo.

Hmmm nevermind it finally let me advance to journeyman. I guess you just have to get so far in the game to unlock harder difficulties.

Oh come on, its a Sid Meier game, it'll get hard if you let it. ;)

You get an option to up the difficulty every time you "divide the plunder." Trust me, the upper difficulty levels get to be crazy hard.

Yeah, I noticed - the first time I did it though there was no option other then apprentice (which it was already on). I eventually started over and it let me pick all the difficulties this time, as well as letting me pick the era and my specialty - I don't know why I was not allowed to pick this stuff the first time but oh well.

I think I'm on the middle one and while it's a bit harder it's still kinda silly (took over a ship with ~250 people and I had.. like 30) it's a little harder. I'll probably bump it up one more when I divide again.

Now if only the spanish guy you have to keep chasing didn't keep appearing on the total left hand side of the map :( It's not so bad sailing over there, but sailing back takes like a whole damn year and this is the 3rd time he has appeared over there

> {quote:title=BurnedToast wrote:}{quote}
> Yeah, I noticed - the first time I did it though there was no option other then apprentice (which it was already on). I eventually started over and it let me pick all the difficulties this time, as well as letting me pick the era and my specialty - I don't know why I was not allowed to pick this stuff the first time but oh well.

The first time you play is treated like a tutorial or sandbox mode, you don't get any options at least right away you don't.

oh wow im having a problem with missing second disk....i asked my buddy if he played it just fine...i too own the copy of pirates on pc...but its somewher with the rest of the games i get and just toss in a box....i would love to play this game...its so fun...i remeber playing pirates gold for sega haha

oh wow i got it to work...i just left my dvd rom open on my tower and it started right up haha

I have a question about the higher difficulty levels. On apprentice, whenever I'd do the dance or swordfight minigame, I'd get "prompted" on the keypad display for what was about to happen. Once I advanced to journeyman, however, those prompts disappeared altogether. It's not too bad for swordfighting, because the opponents tend to telegraph most of their moves, but you have such a short amount of time in the dance minigame to respond once the woman signals the next move that I end up doing horribly on most of the dances.

Also, when I screw up during the dance several times, all of the dancers sort of "pause" momentarily while the governor sits there and expresses his displeasure, and then the dancers all fast-forward as if the dance were continuing until they get caught up.

Is this intended behavior, or am I experiencing a bug of some sort? I couldn't find anything about this sort of problem online, and I was wondering if maybe I've got a progressive download problem that I could solve by redownloading the game and sitting at the main menu for a little while.

> {quote:title=Dachannien wrote:}{quote}
> I have a question about the higher difficulty levels. On apprentice, whenever I'd do the dance or swordfight minigame, I'd get "prompted" on the keypad display for what was about to happen. Once I advanced to journeyman, however, those prompts disappeared altogether. It's not too bad for swordfighting, because the opponents tend to telegraph most of their moves, but you have such a short amount of time in the dance minigame to respond once the woman signals the next move that I end up doing horribly on most of the dances.

What was your question here? You never asked one.
Only tip I can give for the dances is it's a rhythm game. I have my head bobbing and I count out loud "One, Two, Three" (nearly all of the dances are in 3/4 IIRC). Once you get the hang of following the beat the dance moves won't take you by surprise. Also, there is only one dance per song per difficulty so you should be able to pick up on patterns.

> Also, when I screw up during the dance several times, all of the dancers sort of "pause" momentarily while the governor sits there and expresses his displeasure, and then the dancers all fast-forward as if the dance were continuing until they get caught up.
>
> Is this intended behavior, or am I experiencing a bug of some sort? I couldn't find anything about this sort of problem online, and I was wondering if maybe I've got a progressive download problem that I could solve by redownloading the game and sitting at the main menu for a little while.

I don't know anything about this since I've managed to not screw up the dances that bad.