User Guide

On Land
Overview
Pirates don’t have much truck with the land. It’s a nasty place, full of
snakes, alligators, farmers, and other nuisances. In general, pirates
stick to the ocean, or to the cities. If they decide to venture out into
the wilderness, it’s usually because they’re after one thing - buried
treasure, by the powers!
Disembarking
When you want to go ashore, steer your ship into the land. When you
reach your target a pop-up will appear, asking if you really want to dis-
embark. If you answer in the affirmative, a landing party forms ashore
from your anchored vessel. You, of course, are in the lead.
Embarking
When it is time to return to your vessel, hit the “Return to Your Ship”
(r) key. Your crew will immediately board your ship and head out to
sea. Note that you can use this to “teleport” your crew from far
inland.
Alternatively, you can manually direct your landing party aboard your
ship. In a moment the scene will change and you’ll be back at sea.
The On Land Screen
Here are the elements that appear when your crew is on land.
Your Men: Your landing party, with you at the lead.
Landmark: A clue leading to the buried treasure.
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Book Three Sid Meier’s Pirates!
®
Other map clues are smaller and visible only once you form a landing
party and go ashore. You must disembark your vessel in order to see
arched rocks, Indian totems, dead trees, etc.
In order to find a treasure you need to spot a visible landmark appear-
ing on the treasure map and then disembark nearby. You can then fol-
low the other clues until you reach the treasure. See “On Land” below
for details on how to move about once ashore, and how to retrieve the
treasure.
By the way, landmarks and settlements change location from game to
game. Just because you found Dagger Point on the southern coast of
Cuba in one game doesn’t mean that’s where it will be the next time
you play...
Other Sorts of Maps
During your journey you may encounter other maps, leading to lost
relatives, hidden cities of gold, and so on. You usually acquire these
maps from governors’ daughters, though they may be available from
other sources.
These maps function just like treasure maps. They too are stored on
the Treasure Map screen, and you use the process outlined above to
reach the hidden location.
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Sid Meier’s Pirates!
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Book Three
Robert Lewis Stevenson Has a Lot to Answer For
As far as we can tell, only one pirate ever actually buried his treasure, and
that was under unusual circumstances. The privateer Captain William Kidd was
heading back to New York, where he knew he might face charges of piracy. He
hid a portion of his treasure on Long Island to give himself a bargaining chip in
the upcoming negotiations. It didn’t work Kidd was promptly imprisoned,
forced to reveal the location of his treasure, and then sent off to England to be
tried and hanged as a pirate.
In fact, the buried treasure myth appears to have originated in Robert
Lewis Stevenson’s thriller, “Treasure Island.” Written in 1881, the extremely
popular book featured a hunt for buried pirate treasure. Though the story was
totally fictitious, people ever since have remained convinced that pirates rou-
tinely buried portions of their plunder.
Mostly, pirates drank their treasure. Or lost it gambling. Or squandered
it on “fancy ladies” in town. A few men sensibly banked their gold or expend-
ed it purchasing pardons and titles of nobility, but most spent it as soon as they
got it.
Your men
Landmark
Compass
Food
Crew
Treasure Maps
Quests
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