User Guide
You cannot lose money that you previously banked while dividing the
plunder. You can lose only the money currently with your fleet.
Being Captured: If captured during a boarding action, you’re thrown
into jail until you escape or are ransomed. Once out of prison you
reunite with your surviving crewmen and any ships and treasure they
managed to salvage from the catastrophe.
Victory
You win a ship battle by sinking or capturing the enemy ship. Any vic-
tory enhances your reputation as a fierce and dangerous pirate; how-
ever it is by far more profitable to capture an enemy vessel than it is
to sink her. When you sink an enemy vessel, everything she carries
goes to the bottom with her. When you capture her, you acquire the
ship’s cargo, any gold aboard, any special items or special crewmen
she carries, plus the ship itself.
Here’s how it works.
Enemy Sailors Volunteer to Join Your Crew: Depending upon your
reputation and current wealth (and upon the difficulty of the game),
several crewmen from the captured vessel may volunteer to join your
crew. If you accept them, your crew-size increases accordingly. If not,
they get put ashore with all of the other captured sailors. (This hap-
pens automatically.)
Specialists Join Your Crew: If the captured vessel happens to be car-
rying a specialist that you don’t currently possess, he is quickly “per-
suaded” to join your crew.
The Plunder Screen
On the plunder screen you can choose to keep the captured vessel or
abandon her. You can also take some or all of the prize’s cargo. You get
all of the ship’s gold automatically.
Book Three Sid Meier’s Pirates!
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Rescuing Crew
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.
Picking up Cargo
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.
How the Battle Ends
A sea battle can end in victory, defeat, or a draw.
A Draw
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.
In addition, nightfall might end the battle (if it goes on for too long
without decisive results).
If a battle ends in a draw, you return to the Navigation screen, your
opponent nowhere in sight. If you took damage during the battle, that
damage remains until you have your ship repaired by a shipwright.
And if you lose crewmen, your numbers will remain diminished until
you recruit replacements in a tavern.some replacements.
Defeat
You can lose a battle in two ways: your ship is sunk, or you are cap-
tured during a duel with the enemy captain. Both results are
unfortunate.
Going Down with the Ship: If you have only one ship and it is sunk
in battle, you will find yourself marooned without your ship, gold, or
crew. A passing ship will eventually pick you up and you will be able
to start anew with a fresh ship and crew. You’ll still have any treasure
maps you’ve acquired, but that’s all.
If your flagship is sunk but you have additional vessels in your fleet,
one of them will pick you up out of the water (becoming your new
flagship). You’ll lose a portion of your crew, cargo and treasure, but
you’ll keep all of your specialists and special items (and treasure
maps).
Sid Meier’s Pirates!
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