User Guide

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How Time Passes
The following lists the amount of time that each game activity takes.
At Sea or On Land: Time passes at a steady pace, with a day passing
every few seconds.
Sea Combat: Time passes slower during sea combat, with a day taking
several minutes to pass.
Pausing the Game; Fighting a Duel; Land Combat; Being in Town;
Roleplaying; Checking Info Screens; Buying, Selling, or Plundering
Goods: Time stands still during these activities.
Starting a New Voyage after Dividing the Plunder: It takes about six
months to refit your ships for a new voyage.
In Prison or Marooned: You can be imprisoned for anywhere from
three to twelve months, with six months being about average. (You
can cut the prison time in half if you sneak out of town successfully.)
Clearly, dividing the plunder and being marooned or imprisoned take
the most time. Your pirate will age quickly if you engage in these
activities too often.
Effects of Aging
When your pirate reaches certain ages - 30, 35, 40, 50, etc. - the pro-
gram will determine if his powers have diminished. If so, one game
action will become more difficult for him.
From then on, the affected action will be just a bit tougher - dueling
opponents will be a little faster, or flourishes in dancing will require
more exact timing, or fewer crewmen will want to join your crew, and
so forth.
Delaying the Inevitable
If you chose the “Medicine” skill for your pirate, he won’t begin to
feel the effects of aging until he is a good bit older.

Book Three Sid Meier’s Pirates!
®
Starting Another Voyage
If you choose to begin another voyage, several months pass while you
recruit crewmen and gather supplies. Eventually all is ready, and you
return to the game.
You start your new voyage with a small crew and gold equal to your
portion of the plunder.
Changing the Difficulty Level
If you have had a particularly successful cruise, you may be offered
the chance to raise the current difficulty. Obviously, this option is not
available if you are already playing at “Swashbuckler”, the highest
difficulty level of the game.) If you have had a particularly unsuc-
cessful cruise, you may be offered the chance to lower the current
difficulty. (This is not available if you are presently playing at
“Apprentice” level.)
If you choose to change the difficulty level, you then begin another
voyage as above, but at the new difficulty level.
Aging
Overview
It’s hard to be a pirate. Piracy requires strength, stamina, coordina-
tion, and charisma. Unfortunately, these attributes tend to fade as
one grows older. To reflect this, as your pirate ages, certain portions
of the game will become more difficult for him. You can continue to
play your pirate as long as you like, but the game becomes harder as
the years pass.

Sid Meier’s Pirates!
®
Book Three
The Memoirs of Captain Sydney
It ain’t no fun growin’ old, laddie. Ye lose yer looks, yer strength,
yer stamina, and sooner or later, yer mind.
No, son, takes it from old Cap’n Sydney: just don’t grow old.
There’s no future in it.
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