Sid Meier's Pirates!

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a game developed by Firaxis Games and was published by Atari in 2004. This studio was founded by the Sid Meier himself, Jeff Brigs and Brian Reynolds in 1996. It focuses on strategy games and is known for the Civilization series.

In Pirates! you play as a young pirate who sails the Caribbean. The game begins with a small intro where you see a family being kidnapped because they can't repay their debt. A boy manages to escape before the family's kidnapped. You play this boy ten years later as an adult. Then you are granted the option of choosing your captain: a Dutch, French, British or Spanish captain. The four countries are also the main factions in the game. There really aren't any differences between the captains as all four treat you and your fellow sailors like crap. Finally you stand up and cause a mutiny on the ship. The mutiny is a success and you become the captain of the ship. From this moment on you can do whatever you want.

There are a lot of things you can do in Pirates!. Here is a list of things you can do:

You can engage ships on see. You can either decide to destroy the ship or decide to board the ship (you can also be boarded). Two ships can happen when boarding a ship. Ships can decide to surrender and then boarding isn't that of a problem, or you will have to engage into a sword fight with the ships captain (same case when you are being boarded)

You can sneak into enemy villages and towns

Take over towns and appoint new governors, this gives you a one-time ransom depending on how big and wealthy the town is and how many inhabitants it has

You can go on a treasure hunt. In almost every town or village you can buy a map or a part of it from a trader in the town's Tavern

You can dance with a town governor's daughter at a ball. When you are successful you'll get special items like vests so you are better at sword fighting or valuable information.

Now the gameplay. The AI isn't that bad and depending on the level of difficulty it can really be a pain. The graphics aren't bad and look almost similar to the graphics of the console version of Civilization. Every faction in the game has their own ship, only the pirates can have a mixture of ships. Land battles are turn based and the ways of winning a battle are slaughtering your enemy or getting a group of pirates at the town's gate.

Every ship can be upgraded. The only issue is every town offers a different upgrade. So the only way to get your ship fully upgraded is to travel from town to town and sail around the Caribbean.
Another issue in the game is keeping your men happy. A happy crew fights harder and the chance of mutiny is very small.

So to conclude this review of Pirates!. It's a good sandbox game and keeps you busy for many hours. So if you think that the game appeals to you, go and buy the game.