History VideoGame / SidMeiersPirates

** The Spanish Treasure Fleet, a convoy of Treasure Galleons laden with gold and expensive trade goods that makes an annual circuit of the Spanish colonies. It's also very hard to track down and escorted by a number of well-armed War Galleons.
** The Top Ten Pirates themselves can be this if you wait long enough, as their wealth increases the longer they are active in game hunting down ships that stray into their territory. If you can put off hunting them down for a decade or so, you'll get MUCH more money than you originally would.

* TheTeam: When you capture an enemy ship, you have a small chance of [[DefeatMeansFriendship convincing a specialist to join your crew]]. The specialists will never desert you, and will still be in your crew even after you divide the treasure. There are eight total.

** {{C|ampCook}}ook: Makes the food better and raises morale.

** {{Gun|Nut}}ner: Improves cannon reloading time.

** Sailmaker: Repairs sails.

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Any time you get a map "North of Vera Cruz" or "East of Campeche," you're in for a MAJOR headache. Those areas cover massive, unpopulated swaths of the map. If there are no landmarks readily visible, you can spend hours looking fruitlessly along vast areas of shore (burning through food, time and morale).

* TreasureMap: In addition to the fairly straight examples, there're also maps that help you locate long-lost kidnapped family members.

** If you win ship battles, you'll be able to get better ships and gold to spend to get items, which will make future battles easier and so on and so forth. However, if you lose a battle you'll lose your flagship and if it's your last ship you'll lose all your gold and crew, putting you back almost at square one. By the time you get back to the point you were at before, your pirate will have aged, which makes battles harder. If this continues, it will eventually become impossible to defeat Montalban.
** Crew morale in the older games. Whenever they become unhappy, going into towns is a ''very'' bad idea because they'll use that opportunity to desert. Which would be a pretty manageable thing by itself, except deserters take a portion of the gold with them, which will only further anger the remaining crew, leading to even more desertions and gold shortages. If you can't improve morale quickly enough, the crew will eventually mutiny, and all foiling that does is cause even ''more'' men to desert you. More often than not, it's nigh impossible to make a bitter crew happy again, and it's usually at that point where you have to bite the bullet and divide the plunder.
* UnwinnableByDesign: If you take too long to track down Marquis Montalban, you'll probably be too old to outmaneuver him in swordfights, especially on the harder difficulties.

* VestigialEmpire: Spain is slowly sliding into the morass of becoming this throughout the game's eras, and players are openly encouraged to help them along, as they have the most valuables and targets without having some of the advanced units their Northern rivals have (namely, they still use the sluggish [[MightyGlacier War Galleons]] as their large warships instead of the other powers' [[LightningBruiser Frigates]]). With a good deal of effort, you can literally do this by stripping a colonial power of all but one colony. Guess who is one of the most frequent targets of that?

** As the game is about piracy, this comes with the territory. However, a common tactic among players is to ''slaughter the majority of their own crews'' (by leading them into hopeless battles) before dividing up the plunder. This won't increase the portion the PlayerCharacter gets to keep, but it will for the rest of the crew. As a result, they'll be happier with their share, you'll be seen as a more capable leader, and more people will want to join you on your next expedition.
** If you're wildly successful in your current voyage, you can get rich enough that your crew will sail forever simply on the promise of a share in the booty (which few of them will ever get), enabling you to sail until retirement without dividing the plunder. Usually takes most players at least three divvies to get that far, however.
** Get a Ship of the Line. Disable the enemy ship's sails with chain shot, wipe out their crew with grape shot, then circle around the helpless, drifting hulk and pound it to splinters with round shot. For extra cruelty, do it to an [[CurbstompBattle Indian War Canoe]].
** Go to a pirate port or native settlement, and tell them to attack the biggest, most heavily-defended port in the area, and watch them gleefully sail off and get trounced. Then follow up behind them and wipe out the weakened garrison and sack the town. ''Suckers''.

** Escort a fleet of immigrants to a port, boosting the town's size and wealth. Then sack it. Alternately, after you agree to escort the ship, turn on it and attack it.

%%* WideOpenSandbox

* ParentalAbandonment: In each of the games, your character's {{backstory}} always involves his parents (and the rest of his family for that matter) disappearing, and it becomes up to you to find them. The 2004 version plays it even more straight, as your parents are notably absent from the intro and are not among those you rescue.

** The Top Ten Pirates themselves can be this if you wait long enough... their wealth increases the longer they are active in game... if you can put off hunting them down for a decade or so, you'll get MUCH more money.
* PirateBooty: While most of your profit is probably going to be made by {{plunder}}ing merchant ships and selling their cargoes at the nearest friendly port, the "Ten Most Noteworthy Pirates" in the game do have buried treasures that you can dig up (which will obviously tick off the victim; you are ''stealing his hard-"earned" gold'', after all). Also, there's the Spanish Treasure Fleet.

** Also averted with the other nine noteworthy pirates. They will plunder villages, sink ships, earn promotions, and do all the same pirate things you do.

* {{Privateer}}: To get the most fame and best retirement, you ''must'' at some point be on good terms with a nation. Otherwise, the older versions won't even let you land in a port. The 2004-based versions give you Pirate ports, but you're still denied access to governors or their daughters. This means, unless you cooperate with a European power, there's no way to score Rank or Romance points. With that said, you can earn credit with a power just by fighting their enemies (and taking out pirates and natives scores points with everyone), and you can sneak into towns or [[AppealToForce attack them]] to get to the governor's mansion even if you're wanted by the law.

** In the new version, however, even if you have less than the minimum crew you can still man all of your ships. If you have too few, you will simply suffer a speed penalty. Also, winning a town battle guarantees entry (and possibly a change of ownership to a country that favours you!), so no escape is needed.
* RandomEncounter: This is how you would find other ships in the older versions of the game. Averted in the 2004 version, where every ship can be seen on the map.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: If you dig up the buried treasure of a historical pirate like Blackbeard or Henry Morgan, they will actively pursue and attack you if you encounter them later on.
* RomanceSidequest: Governors' daughters. You can even romance more than one, though of course you can marry only one.
* RetiredBadass: Once you retire from piracy, you get shown a page describing how you spent the rest of your life. The better the endscore, the better the job. The retirement job can be as high as [[TheGoodChancellor Kings Advisor]] or a lowly as {{Beggar|WithASignboard}}.

** The game is open ended, so if you want to you can easily just let your family rot in slavery (Though it lowers your end game significantly).
** Likewise, when the Governor's Daughter gets kidnapped, you can just leave her to her fate.
* TheRemnant: Even if you rob a colonial power of every port, its minor settlements will still remain.

* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: The basis of Spanish Trade Laws; the wealthier Spanish ports will simply refuse to trade with you ''at all'', while the less well off ones can't afford to be picky and will trade with you. Can be averted once you start getting a few promotions with them which will open the wealthy ones to trade so long as you don't piss them off.
* SaveScumming: In the 1987 version, before you can locate Marquis Montalban, you must complete ten in-game tasks assigned to you by a tavern's mysterious stranger. These tasks are completely random, and may range from trivial, such as capturing a sloop, to extremely involved, such as marrying a governor's daughter or capturing a hard-to-find pirate. Save scumming before getting the next task can save you a LOT of pointless busy work, if you don't consider it cheating.
** If the game keeps giving you time-consuming tasks, you may not be able to win by the time you reach Montalban (see UnwinnableByDesign)

** Unhappy crew will get fed up with you and eventually some crew will simply refuse to show up the next time you leave port. Eventually your second in command will outright steal one of your ships, plus any cargo it was carrying. In the older versions, it was even worse; when crewmen began to desert you, they would take a portion of the plunder with them. This would serve only to infuriate your remaining crew even more, causing even more desertions and sparking a neverending downward spiral. Furthermore, if the crew did mutiny, you'd be thrown in a swordfight, and even if you won it you'd ''still'' lose a third or more of your crew ''and'' gold.
** If you pillage a port enough times, the governor will leave and presumably return to Europe.
* SettleForSibling: If you fail to defeat the DisposableFiance the daughter you were romancing suggests that you attempt to woo her sister instead (effectively resetting the quest).
* ShoutOut: In the 2004 version, the players' starting ship is named ''Revenge'', which may be a reference to the ship of [[Film/ThePrincessBride the Dread Pirate Roberts]].
* ShownTheirWork: It's Creator/SidMeier, did you expect less? The original ''Pirates!'' even forced the player to figure out where they were by using the cloth map supplied with the game, a sextant (to identify their latitude) and in-game land masses to get their bearing. In addition, the original game had a staggeringly thick manual only rivaled (at that time) by the manuals that came with Ultima IV in size, with reams of research on Piracy in the Caribbean and the historical period in general.
* SomethingAboutARose: The Wit and Charm skill. The image on Swashbuckler difficulty is JustForFun/MadeOfWin.
* SpicyLatina: Beautiful daughters are more common in Spanish towns (or towns that were originally Spanish, anyway) than elsewhere.
* SpeakingSimlish: In the newer versions, in four distinct accents, one for each nationality! There are several repeating phrases that have contextual usage as well:

** "Preetle-post!" is uttered by both a dutch barmaid being put upon by a pushy guardsman officer and also by any ship of a hostile faction if you query them by mousing over them.

* StealingFromThieves: Each of the Top 10 Pirates has [[PirateBooty buried treasure]] somewhere on the map, which increases in value the longer they stay alive in-game. The player character can dig up treasure belonging to a living pirate, in which case they'll drop everything to seek {{Revenge}}.

* SupervillainLair: Marquis Montalban has a large fortress hidden in the wilderness, and the only way to find it is to defeat him on the open seas over and over, acquiring map pieces that reveal the location of his hideout. (A full map requires four separate victories, but lucky and clever players might be able to find Montalban's hideout with an incomplete map.)

** Played straight in that your family members will still be the exact same age whether you rescue them when you are eighteen or when you are forty. The governors beautiful daughter was about twenty something when you were eighteen, and will not have aged a day when you marry her four decades later.
** Subverted in that, while nobody else seems to age, you certainly do. If you get too old, you will be forced to retire due to poor health. It's especially disastrous if you're caught and jailed, as you lose valuable years in the process and your health declines faster during that time.

* HardModePerks: The higher the difficulty setting, the more treasure you keep for yourself every time you divide the plunder. This can actually be a bad thing for low-profit voyages: the more you take, the less your crew shares -- and they know it.
* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: The result of the CopyProtection in the 1987 version. The initial question is followed by a short 1-on-1 battle, but the outcome of the battle will always be based on how you answered the question rather than how well you did in said battle (where the difficulty is based on how well you answered the question).

** In the land battle, it means the enemy has been sighted for the first time.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Captain Sydney, whose memoirs appear in the manuals as [[JustifiedTutorial in-universe explanations]] of game mechanics. If translated into player character stats, they describe a 1620 English Adventurer (he writes about using Providence as a base) who scored high points in Romance and Lost Relatives, and low points in Named Pirates, Treasure Maps, and Promotions. And he sure liked to whip the "papist dons". Sydney was the default name of the protagonist in the previous game on the Genesis, with the default time period being 1620.

* HunterOfHisOwnKind: Attacking pirate raiders earns you points with all four nations. Killing real-world pirates like Blackbeard and Bart Roberts also earns you huge amounts of treasure and points. You can also claim the CoolBoat that they ride around and pillage in, which is generally very well-equipped.

* IslandBase: Several ports are on small islands, often being the only structure there. {{Justified|Trope}}, given it is the Caribbean.
* ISurrenderSuckers: If you pummel the ship of an Evil Spaniard ([[BigBad the Marquis of Montalban]] or [[TheDragon Baron Raymondo]]) hard enough, the ship will raise the white flag and surrender as soon as you board it; however a swordfight with the villain in question will ensue. This can be used to the player's advantage: keep pummeling the ship with Grapeshot to cull the enemy crew, and the [[ButThouMust inevitable swordfight]] will be heavily tilted in your favor.

** Sloops straddle the line between FragileSpeedster and Jack-of-All-Stats, being smaller but more nimble than Brigs. A Sloop is also the most common starting ship, meaning most players will be generally familiar with how they perform, and in the 2004 version the Royal Sloop is strong enough that it edges toward LightningBruiser territory.

* {{Jerkass}}: No matter what your current standing is, any of the named pirates will always insult you and tell you to get lost when you get an audience with them in their home port.

** To drive the point home, you ''cannot'' sink a ship belonging to any of these three, regardless of how many times you score a massive hit with all your cannons at close range - You have to board it and fence the villain. In fact, you can use Grape-Shot to whittle their crew down to just one man (presumably, the villain himself), and it will never drop below that.
** Downplayed in the iPad version of the game - you can sink Raymondo's ship with a well-placed broadside. You get nothing from him and have to track him down from scratch.

* LastStand: Played with. If you are using an army of hundreds to attack a city that has a garrison of sixty or less, you will skip the battle and charge the rampart. You will then sword fight with the master of the guard until he is the last man standing ... [[GracefulLoser at which point he surrenders the moment you hit him]]. Still played with because, for the other soldiers, it actually was a last stand.
* LightningBruiser: The Frigate class. They have very fast sailing speed when they have the wind at their back, passable speed in crosswinds, plenty of durability, and enough cannons to make even the [[MightyGlacier largest Galleons]] take notice. Their only downside is slow speed when sailing into the wind. In the 2004 version, the Ship of the Line, the top tier of the class, is the InfinityPlusOneSword of the game, but even the basic Frigate and Large Frigate are still very strong ships to have, and much easier to find than a Ship of the Line.

* LuckBasedMission: Thanks to the map pieces being randomly-generated in nature, sometimes you can end up getting maps that barely show any noticable landmarks or being so far in-land that the maps don't show any coastline at all with the only clue being the direction from a nearby city, which can make it significantly harder to locate your targets.
* MadeOfIron: Ships manned by the BigBad or TheDragon never sink; their hull damage will never go beyond 99% (ships normally sink when hull damage reaches 100%)
* MasterOfNone: The Brig class in the 2004 version, especially the Brig of War. Despite being the game's quintessential JackOfAllStats, Brigs are not nearly as popular as they should be. This is because players tend to fall into two different camps on tactics: "ram them quickly and start a sword fight" or "pound them into splinters with your guns before boarding." The former prefer Royal Sloops (or for the truly elite or crazed, [[FragileSpeedster Indian War Canoes]]), while the latter go for the almighty [[InfinityPlusOneSword Ship of the Line]] (or the slightly less almighty but easier to obtain [[InfinityMinusOneSword Large Frigate]]), leaving the Brig of War without a particular niche.

* {{Minigame}}: The dancing, the swordfights, both naval and land combat... As a matter of fact, ''Pirates!'' might well be a MinigameGame.

* MultipleEndings: When your character retires, you will be shown a page describing how he spent the rest of his life. The ending you get is determined by multiple factors, such as how much money you have, how high your title is, whether or not you got married (and how attractive your wife is), how notorious a pirate you were, how many family members you rescued, and whether or not you defeated Marquis Montiban.
** If you rescue all your family members then joyous family gatherings will highlight your remaining years.
** If you only rescue some of your family members then your joy is tempered with sadness as you live out your remaining years.
** If you don't rescue any of your family members the omission haunts you for the rest of your life.
* TheNavigator: One of the skills you can choose for your character is "Skill at Navigation", which gives you better sailing stats.
* NeverFoundTheBody: Every time you defeat Montalban aboard his galleon, he ends up falling into the water and disappearing. By all rights, he should never be able to survive, but sure enough, he always does and will be back with another Flag Galleon the next time you rescue a relative.
* NeverSayDie: The game almost never actually shows anyone ''dying'' as such. Swordfights are always settled with the loser yielding, falling overboard, or being knocked out. Casualties from ship-to-ship combat are abstracted and never seen. No mention is made of the fate of any enemy crew that doesn't decide to join your band of rogues, though it's entirely possible they're simply marooned -- [[CruelMercy not that that is]] [[LeaveBehindAPistol really a better option]]. The only place anyone is shown as actually dropping dead is during land battles.

* NintendoHard: The highest difficulty level, Swashbuckler. Getting a perfect score of 126 on this level takes a great amount of patience and skill, and probably a bit of luck.

** As originally intended, you would have needed to build up your relationship with the Indians and the Jesuits before they would help you, but instead, they just trust you completely all the time. There are items that are described as improving your relations with Indians or Jesuits, but what they actually do is reduce the time you have to wait after the Indians or Jesuits have given you a mission before they give you a new one. This means the in-game descriptions of said items are quite misleading, and have led many players to believe they do nothing at all.
** Artillery is nowhere to be found in the game, despite being shown in the game's built-in wiki. Mind you, if it wasn't omitted, it would have made the land battles ''much'' more difficult, as they had a staggering EIGHT square range and incredible damage power. A later patch removed the wiki entry.
** The manual mentions that the Indians will sometimes help you in land battles, but this never happens in-game.

* OneHitKill: This actually becomes a problem with the Ship of the Line when raiding merchants, since it's hard to rob a ship when your first volley sank it.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: [[spoiler:After you win the final battle with Montalban, he will acknowledge the wrongs he did to your family, and then hand over a ''ton'' of gold (we're talking ''100 grand'') plus any specialists you're missing in exchange for his life. As a final acknowledgement of your superiority, he also becomes your personal cabin boy (though, sadly, you never get to see any cutscenes of Montalban serving you in this way).]]
* DevelopersForesight: Every single ship you encounter in the Caribbean actually has a "mission" that it is set to complete, be it sailing from one port to another to deliver people, supplies, or soldiers. Allowing them to complete these missions causes the target port to grow larger and stronger and wealthier, so blowing up every ship you see might not be in your best interests. Different ships also have different effects; smugglers, for example, won't boost the target port at all but will boost the port they launched from. Military payroll ships boost military strength across the entire faction's ports by a small but noticeable amount. An invasion fleet will decrease the strength of the port it was launched from, and its attack will have a variable outcome on its target city (reduce the garrison, population, or wealth, switch its nationality, or some combination). Grain and regular trade ships will boost population when they arrive at their target port.

** There's a tiny cadre of truly elite players who swear by the Pinnance-class ships. The Mail Runner is the largest and strongest of the three with the most cannons, most crew, and largest hold, but it's still far less than any other ship. To top it off, they're very fragile. However, played right, the tiny ship will run rings around the hulking galleons and warships and pound them into submission without taking a single hit. Plus, they're excellent at sailing into the wind.
** Indefinite voyages: if you're able to stockpile enough money to ensure that every person on your crew will get about 1000 gold each when you divide the plunder, then they will never actually lose morale, meaning you can sail forever and never need to divide the plunder. Difficult because even a basic crew of 100 will need 100,000 gold to reach that point, and also it carries the risk of losing ''everything'' if you lose your last ship biting off more than you can chew, but Awesome because you'll have ''full'' control over your voyage for as long as you need to make it, never needing to worry about dividing the plunder and losing time, or targets slipping away from where they were last seen because of being stuck waiting for your next voyage to begin.
** Sacking Panama: because Panama is on the other side of the Central American isthmus, it is very well protected from attacks by pirates, natives and other nations. It also has a huge garrison at the best of times, with 300+ soldiers. If you want to attack it, you'll need to make landfall, then walk your crew of scallywags across the terrain, where you can easily lose your way, and engage in a difficult land battle to take the city. If, however, you pull it off, then you get the privilege of sacking one of the richest cities in the game, with all that that implies.

* DisneyVillainDeath: Strangely averted with the Marquis de la Montalban, considering how grievous his offenses were and the fact that your climactic battle with him takes place on the top of a tower.
* DisposableFiance: Every governor's daughter has a well-armed suitor who you'll need to defeat midway through the romance.
* DoWellButNotPerfect: To net an upgrade item from a "Rather Plain" governer's daughter at a dance ball, you have to dance excellently. To do the same with an "Attractive" daughter, you have to do middling.
* TheDragon: Baron Raymondo is one of Montalban's henchmen, and the guy you have to go after to get any news about your family members' locations.
* DualWield: Largely averted, aside from the one-shot pistols that come into play at times. [[spoiler:The trope abruptly and marvelously comes into play in a cutScene at the climax of one of the hardest mini-quests.]]

* UsefulNotes/TheEightyYearsWar: See UsefulNotes/TheThirtyYearsWar below; this provides the political backdrop if you choose to begin in the mid-late sixteenth century instead of the seventeenth century (only possible in the 1987 and ''Gold'' version). If you begin in 1560, you can't start as a Dutch character, since the Netherlands isn't a colonial power yet, as the Netherlands didn't even exist as a sovereign state yet.
* AnEntrepreneurIsYou: Possible, but not really that exciting. Made difficult to do as a long-term strategy by the fact that a week passes whenever you enter a town, and the town's limited supply of money for that week.

** Cavalry units in the land battles. They're rare, appear only in the richest and most militant cities, they've got the greatest mobility of all units in the game, and they'll slaughter anyone they come in contact with. The best way to deal with them is to lure them into a forest, where they're weakest.

* ExactlyWhatIAimedAt: Used amusingly in the duels with the "named" pirates -- combined with ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks, no less. After you do this a couple of times, the pirates start {{subvert|edTrope}}ing it with their GenreSavvy, but it's always immediately DoubleSubverted.

** Marquis Montalban, the BigBad of the 2004 game, wears an eyepatch that makes him look extra evil. He's also a freakishly talented swordsman despite his advanced age.

** Pinnace class ships (including War Canoes and Mail Carriers in the 2004 version) are lightly armed and easily sunk, but extremely maneuverable and can sail into the wind. This means larger ships can have a very hard time hitting the Pinnace while it runs circles around them and whittles their guns and crew down.
** Sloops straddle the line between Fragile Speedster and JackOfAllStats. In the 2004 version, the powerful Royal Sloop edges towards LightningBruiser territory.

* {{Gainaxing}}: The beautiful governors' daughters have a bit of a bounce to them.
* GeoEffects: In land battles, terrain offers all sorts of advantages. Hiding in the forests affects the visibility and location of units, and Cavalry are incredibly weak in them. You also gain an advantage in melee combat if you attack from higher ground. Positioning your [[GlassCannon Buccaneers]] strategically behind impassable crags offers them some defense against melee attackers.

* GlassCannon: The Buccaneer unit for your land battle army. It has superior range for musket fire than the enemy ranged units, but is nigh-defenseless against melee attackers. Use for supporting fire to soften up enemy units before the melee-range Pirates move in for the kill.

* GoingNative: Averted. While you can trade with the native chiefs and give advice as to which port they should attack, you can not gain any promotion with the native villages, the chief does not have any [[TheChiefsDaughter daughters]] [[NubileSavage to marry]], and you can not alter your relationship with them in any way. This is in sharp contrast to the European ports, in which you can earn promotions and marry the governor's daughter.

* GoodShepherd: Jesuit missionaries are always helpful to you, as they can inform you on the whereabouts of Raymondo, or convince a country you're on bad terms with to grant you amnesty. They also typically shelter immigrants before shipping them off to a city to reside in (usually with your protection). While you can't attack the missions, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential there's nothing stopping you from taking advantage of their kindness for your own nefarious purposes]].
* GottaCatchThemAll: Family members, treasures/lost cities, and the map pieces to find them.
* GottaKillThemAll: In newer versions, the Named Pirates. They might not ''die'', but their portrait gets a big red X, and you never see them again.

** It you hit a ship enough times, than the enemy captain will surrender the moment you sail close to his ship. It will then cut to a scene of the enemy captain kneeling in front of you and handing you his sword.
** [[spoiler: Same with Montalban. When you defeat him, he'll admit he wronged your family, become your cabin boy, give you any specialists you still haven't found, and give you 100,000 gold.]]
* GrievousBottleyHarm: In bars you will sometimes see a captain who is bothering the barmaid. You have the option of fighting him in a duel. If you win the duel, you end up pushing him back to where the barmaid is standing, who breaks a bottle over the poor sap's head, ending the fight.
* GuideDangIt: Getting a Ship of the Line isn't easy, since they never sail around on their own. Their nation will only deploy them if you've been *very* successful against it. Another reason they're so rare is that the Spanish, who are your best target, deploy Flag Galleons instead.

* HardModePerks: The higher the difficulty setting, the more treasure you keep for yourself every time you divide the plunder. This can actually be a bad thing for low-profit voyages: the more you take, the less your crew shares. And they know it.

** In the 1987 version, the different nationalities and starting years would actually give you different background stories. Montalban wasn't selling families into slavery through the ''entire'' 1600s. ([[LegacyCharacter But a marquis is a title of nobility...]])

** The 2004 version also omits the first era -- The Silver Empire (1560-1599).
* AdaptationalWimp: The Barque in the 2004 version. In the older versions it was a formidable vessel, being nearly as maneuverable and fast as the Sloop and Pinnace, yet still big enough to pack enough men and guns to fight it out with bigger ships or the odd fort (the classic "outgun anything it can't outmaneuver, and outmaneuver anything it can't outgun"). In the remake, it is relegated to a pure trading vessel with seriously nerfed abilities, while Sloops, Brigs, and Frigates succeed it as the preferred ships of most players.
* AlternateHistory: A large crew can completely reshape the geopolitical situation of the 17th century Carribbean. Capture every town for the Dutch, if you care to.

* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The 1680 Spanish "Costa Guarda" game can feel like this. Whereas the Spanish captain is always a renegade of no reknown who's encouraged to turn against his home nation in the other time periods, this character actually starts with a Spanish rank, providing plenty of incentive to fight on behalf of Spain for once.

** Certain captains - particularly Spanish military - wear cuirasses and breastplates, but they don't seem to be any tougher than unarmored captains.
** Averted with the Leather Vest and Chain Cuirass that you can buy are extremely useful on any difficulty short of Swashbuckler ([[IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels the highest]]), especially since the latter makes your character virtually immune to sword thrusts.

* ArtificialBrilliance: If you start greatly weakening a faction's overall presence in the Caribbean, they ''will'' start launching a number of naval invasion fleets to recapture their colonies. Enemy ships also react differently based on what they are. Trade ships surrender very quickly, especially if badly outnumbered or outgunned. Smugglers will ''always'' try to run away, and since they're often sailing in Sloops or Pinnaces they've got a good chance of escaping. Pirates, warships with invasion forces aboard, and Raymondo/Mendoza will try to ram to bring you to grips, but if you've got a large enough crew they'll try a few broadsides with grapeshot to tip the odds in their favor. Pirate hunters, however, will try to wipe out your sails with chain shot and beat you with grape shot before moving in for the kill, making them one of the more frustrating opponents to fight. Big, powerful warships - especially Spanish treasure ships - will try to destroy you with massed broadside fire. Military ships, especially escorts, pirates hunters, and raiders, will be much harder to induce them into striking their colors; they could potentially have their rigging completely destroyed, and their colors still aren't struck. If you haplessly wander into their broadside arcs, they'll still try to shoot you.

** The land battles feature enemies that always move towards your nearest units to attack, losing all benefits of their fortifications. It's trivially easy to win land battles against forces that outnumber you many times over by finding a spot to turtle up and wiping them out a unit at a time.
** AI controlled Cavalry is ''especially'' boneheaded. They will make a beeline to the closest foe and attack, even if it means going into a forest square where their attack power is utterly crippled, leading to a defeat from even a far weaker foe.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Larger ships in general, but especially War Galleons and Flag Galleons. Yes, you get more guns, more crew, and more cargo space, but that comes at the cost of speed, the OneStatToRuleThemAll of the game. A well-manned and properly piloted Sloop or Sloop of War can take out anything up to a Ship of the Line through attrition, and that doesn't even consider the many potential benefits you can get for sword fighting, which can let you win a fight despite your crew being badly outnumbered. It gets worse on Swashbuckler difficulty, where your enemies get such high bonuses to speed and turning speed that your War Galleon becomes a sitting duck against anything save other galleons and merchant ships.

* BadassDecay: InUniverse. Even with the power-up items and guarding your health, your character will eventually become more and more feeble, reacting later in minigames. Averted with all other characters, who stay just as powerful as ever, regardless of how much time passes. In fact, if you put off confronting Montalbain too long, you will be unable to defeat him because he moves too fast and you move too slow. This is particularly true at Adventurer level and up.

* BattleThralls: More than one type in this game. Sometimes after your boarding party takes over a ship, some of the surviving enemy crew are [[JustForPun impressed]] and ask to join you. Also, when engaged in ship-to-ship combat your cannon fire will often send members of the enemy crew overboard. (If you use grape shot, this happens an awful lot.) They'll float there, clinging to a piece of wreckage, and if you sail over them you automatically fish them out. They then become part of ''your'' crew.
* BarBrawl: You can sometimes fight other captains in bars, during which you will throw him off a balcony and fight him until it ends with the barmaid [[GrievousBottleyHarm breaking a bottle over the guy's head]].
* BigBad: Marquis de la Montalban in the 2004 version is the man behind your family's enslavement and your main nemesis.

** The Baron de Pointis expedition in ''Pirates! Gold''. Playing it gives you the strongest fleet imaginable, with one sloop, five frigates, and ''1200'' men! With this much overwhelming power on your side, you can attack any target on the map and come out victorious. Unfortunately, you'll find that you'll never be able to actually plunder enough gold to keep a crew that big happy, which means desertions on a massive scale are inevitable and your voyage is doomed to be a short one.
* BoardingParty: You can board enemy ships and defeat their captains in order to capture them and their valuable cargoes.
* BonusBoss: The cities of Panama and Gran Granada qualify as this. They are on the Pacific Ocean and inland respectively, meaning you have to disembark and march on land through the jungle to reach them, and that you can't send pirates or natives to soften their reasonably strong defenses before attacking. However they're both initially flushed with gold to plunder, and if you install a governor from your preferred country they'll never be ousted.
* ButThouMust: Averted with the governor's escort missions. You can simply ignore the ultimatum/treaty pinnacle once you leave port (or attack it yourself). It may actually reach its destination alone (although odds are against, as at least one enemy ship will be generated to intercept it) which will credit your reputation as if you escorted it.

* CameraScrew: Your opponent's moves in swordfighting are occasionally obscured by action happening in the foreground, particularly other dueling crewmembers, or a crewmember falling from above. Since swordfighting in the game depends entirely upon watching your opponent's move and reacting accordingly, this can be enough to turn a fight sour.

* CardCarryingVillain: You always know when a ship belongs to one of your main enemies, because it is labeled '''EVIL!'''
* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: You would never have become a pirate (or even come to the New World), if your family had not been enslaved by the evil Marquis Montiban.
* CallToAgriculture: Some of the possible retirement jobs include farm hand, farmer, sugar planter, and plantation owner.

* CherryTapping: You can, if you're skilled enough, literally beat any ship with any other. Beating a pirate hunter's Spanish War Galleon with a Mail Runner is particularly satisfying.

** You can do this to other pirates and natives. Tell them to attack a city, and the moment they set sail, assault and destroy their ships. Then cruise around to every faction's ports in the area and get points for destroying the pirate/native threat.

** Played straight in the 1987 version, in which you could be the ''sole survivor'' of your ship against '''''300 crewmen''''', but if you defeat the enemy captain, you '''''win''''', ''and'' get ''new crew''. However, you have to fight perfectly because being the last man standing means [[OneHitPointWonder that you automatically surrender to the opposing captain the next time you're hit, regardless of how well you were doing in the fight beforehand.]]
** Subverted with duels between captains in later editions. While it is possible to win a battle by defeating the enemy duelist, there is also an ongoing battle between the crews, and if you are utterly unnumbered it becomes impossible to defeat the duelist.
** In the 2004 version, like the 1987 version, being the last man standing means [[OneHitPointWonder that the next time you get hit makes you automatically surrender.]] Theoretically, though, it ''is'' possible to win a battle with only yourself as the remaining boarder/defender; you just have to avoid being hit at all. This is not as easy as it sounds, as once your crew is completely wiped out, the enemy captain will become extremely aggressive and be able to dodge attacks you were connecting with just moments before. In addition [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard they will start pulling off the most ridiculously difficult counter-attacks ridiculously often, giving the impression you are fighting a ninja.]]

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: AI ships seem to take no damage from sailing into rocks. Also, while your character's swordsmanship decreases with age, it seems that ol' Marquis Montalban drank from the Fountain of Youth. Furthermore, on higher difficulties enemy ships get speed bonuses, allowing them to outrun you even if you have the same type of ship! It's almost impossible to catch Pinnace-class ships on Swashbuckler difficulty.
* CoolBoat: In the 2004 version, the Mail Runner, Royal Sloop, Brig of War, and Ship of the Line are the best of their respective classes. The latter is the rarest and most powerful ship in the game.
* CopyProtection: The original 1987 version requires you to provide information about the treasure fleet or silver train. Failing the copy protection allows you to play the game, but the difficulty is significantly increased by altering starting parameters (e.g. you start with 8 men and 0 cannons instead of 40 men and 8 cannons.)
* CripplingOverspecialization: In land battles, your Pirates and [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous Pirate Officers]] will shred almost anything at melee range, all other things equal, but have no ranged capability to speak of, leaving them helpless in the open. Buccaneers have far better musket range than enemy soldiers, but are defenseless against melee attackers.
* DamselInDistress: If you romance a Governor's Daughter enough in the 2004 version, then when you next visit the port the Governor will tearfully tell you that she has been kidnapped by the Evil Colonel Mendoza and beg you to hunt him down and rescue her. (Successfully doing so leads to the opportunity to propose marriage shortly after.)
* DanceOfRomance: A minigame.

* HundredPercentCompletion: A perfect score is 126 points. Strangely, you don't get points for rescuing your grandfather (if you already have all four map pieces to find him) or finding the final lost city (under the same condition), meaning you can get a perfect score without completely fulfilling your quests.

** Rogue[[labelnote:*]]Not available in older versions.[[/labelnote]]

* HunterOfHisOwnKind: Attacking pirate raiders earns you points with all four nations. Killing real-world pirates like Blackbeard and Bart Roberts also earns you huge amounts of treasure and points. You can also claim their {{CoolBoat}}s, which are often very well-equipped.

'''''Sid Meier's Pirates!''''' can refer to any of three related games. The original game was released in 1987; an UpdatedRerelease called ''Pirates! Gold'' came out in 1993; and the latest game in the series (reverting to the original title) was released in 2004. The basic premise of the games is the same: You start out as a new {{Privateer}} captain in the [[WelcomeToTheCaribbeanMon Caribbean Sea]] with a Letter of Marque issued to you by one of four nations (England, France, Spain, or the Netherlands). The game is a WideOpenSandbox, allowing you to take a wide variety of actions: Go the traditional pirate route and attack other vessels for [[PirateBooty loot and plunder]], [[TheCasanova romance]] [[LoveInterests governors' beautiful daughters]], search for other pirates' buried treasure using {{Treasure Map}}s, clear the high seas of all rivals who would stand in your way, or even [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything go the boring]] [[AnEntrepreneurIsYou "peaceful trader" route]]. One notable feature of the game is that the protagonist can never actually ''die''; defeat in combat (or failure in other regards) generally leads to being either thrown into a CardboardPrison or marooned / cast away on a desert island, both of which you can eventually escape from. Also, [[NoStatAtrophy unlike many other games]], age ''does'' affect your character; his fencing and dancing skills decline noticeably with age.

* TropeOverdosed: The game (especially the 2004 version) quite consciously references and crams in as many piracy-related tropes as it can. Playing the 2004 game almost make you feel like you're watching a swashbuckling {{Creator/Errol Flynn}} film at times -- which was very much the intention.

* TakeYourTime: Both played straight and subverted.

** Subverted in that, while nobody else seems to age, you certainly do. If you get too old, you will be forced to retire due to poor health. It's especially disastrous if you're caught and jailed, as you lose valuable years in the process.
** Especially egregious when you rescue your grandfather (and he is always rescued last). He still be alive, even though he was an old man when you were eight years old.

* RandomEncounter: This is how you would find other ships in the older versions of the game. Averted in the 2005 version, where every ship can be seen on the map.

* PirateBooty: Both averted and played straight. While most of your profit is probably going to be made by {{plunder}}ing merchant ships and selling their cargoes at the nearest friendly port, the "Ten Most Noteworthy Pirates" in the game do have buried treasures that you can dig up (which will obviously tick off the victim; you are ''stealing his hard-"earned" gold'', after all). Also, there's the Spanish Treasure Fleet.

* FriendlyPirate: The game pretty much locks you into playing one by default, given the game's light-hearted tone. While you're free to attack and rob ships and do all kinds of piracy, your character is never presented as anything but a Lovable Rogue and any nations you choose not to attack will happily give you letters of marque and give you access to their ports, mercants and governors' daughters.

* BuxomIsBetter: The Governor's Daughters have three levels of beauty: "[[{{Gonk}} rather plain]]", "[[SoOkayItsAverage attractive]]" and "[[MsFanservice beautiful]]". The "beautiful" daughters have the largest breasts. (Or at least [[OfCorsetsSexy the tightest corsets.)]] This is true even in the older games; the best girls to marry are the ones with the biggest boobs (and the most exposed cleavage).

* DummiedOut: Several features in the 2004 version, such as Jesuit and Native relation values (see ObviousBeta for more info). However, one thing was DummiedOut ''accidentally'': the Treasure Fleet. While the barmen will give you tips on its location, and insinuate that it will set you up for life, it never actually appears due to a glitch. Curiously, these problems were never fixed, even though the game has been ported on several platforms over ''ten years.''

** Apparently averted in the iPad version of the game - you can sink Raymondo's ship with a well-placed broadside. You get nothing from him and have to track him down from scratch.

* ObviousBeta: The 2004 version shipped with several intended features DummiedOut.

** As originally intended, you would have needed to build up your relationship with the Indians and the Jesuits before they would help you, but instead, they just trust you completely all the time. There are items that are described as improving your relations with Indians or Jesuits, but what they actually do is reduce the time you have to wait after the Indians or Jesuits have given you a mission before they give you a new one. This means the in-game descriptions of said items are quite misleading, and have lead many players to believe they do nothing at all.
** Artillery is nowhere to be found in the game, despite being shown in the game's built-in wiki. Mind you, if it wasn't omitted, it would have made the land battles ''much'' more difficult, as they had a staggering EIGHT square range and incredible damage power.

** The main appeal to playing on the higher difficulty levels is that you're entitled to a bigger cut of the gold you plunder. That sounds good on paper, especially since the amount of gold you end the game with contributes to your final score. However, gold isn't the only thing that gets tallied up; completed pirate quests, rescued family members, ranks within each nation, land grants, pirates defeated, who you get married to, and so on all contribute to your score as well. Getting them takes a lot of time and thanks to the degrading effects of age, you have ''less'' time to actually do them on the easier difficulty levels, meaning your increased wealth isn't going to contribute significantly to your score. Furthermore, the heightened pay you get means there's less for the crew, who will in turn grow bitter more quickly. Overall, higher difficulty levels don't offer much in the way of greater rewards for greater risks.

** The main appeal to playing on the higher difficulty levels is that you're entitled to a bigger cut of the gold you plunder. That sounds good on paper, especially since the amount of gold you end the game with contributes to your final score. However, gold isn't the only thing that gets tallied up; completed pirate quests, rescued family members, ranks within each nation, land grants, pirates defeated, who you get married to, and so on all contribute to your score as well. Getting them takes a lot of time and thanks to the degrading effects of age, you have ''less'' time to actually do them on the harder difficulty levels, meaning you're not likely to get a high score on them despite your increased wealth. Furthermore, the heightened pay you get means there's less for the crew, who will in turn grow bitter more quickly. Overall, higher difficulty levels don't offer much in the way of greater rewards for greater risks.
** The Baron de Pointis expedition in ''Pirates! Gold''. Playing it gives you the most powerful fleet imaginable, with one sloop, five frigates, and ''1200'' men! With this much overwhelming power on your side, you can attack any target on the map and come out victorious. Unfortunately, you'll find that you'll never be able to actually plunder enough gold to keep a crew that big happy, which means desertions on a massive scale are inevitable and your voyage is doomed to be a short one.

* BuxomIsBetter: The Governor's Daughters have three levels of beauty: "[[{{Gonk}} rather plain]]", "[[SoOkayItsAverage attractive]]" and "[[MsFanservice beautiful]]". The "beautiful" daughters have the largest breasts. (Or at least [[OfCorsetsSexy the tightest corsets.)]]

* LighterAndSofter: While the older games aren't actually ''dark'', the 2004 version is openly humorous and kid-friendly.

** In the new version, however, even if you have less than the minimum crew you can still man all of your ships. If you have too few, you will simply suffer a speed penalty. Also, winning a town battle guarantees entry (and possbily a change of ownership to a country that favours you!), so no escape is needed.

** AI controlled Calvary is ''especially'' boneheaded. They will make a beeline to the closest foe and attack, even if it means going into a forest square where their attack power is utterly crippled, leading to a defeat from even a far weaker foe.

* {{Flynning}}: Appropriately enough, found in the duelling mini-game, and especially in the 2004 version. Duck under an opponent's high thrust; jump dramatically over their low thrust; if both you and your opponent middle-thrust at the same time, you'll just hit each other's swords a few times in a half-hearted manner. Tink-tink-clang! Gets especially dramatic during boarding battles, where you get to run up and down the ship while battling your opponent, and swing from the rigging while avoiding their attacks. See also ExactlyWhatIAimedAt above.

* UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar: The political backdrop if you start in 1620 or 1640.

* UnwinnableByDesign:
** If you take too long to track down Marquis Montalban, you'll probably be too old to outmaneuver him in swordfights, especially on the harder difficulties.

* WelcomeToTheCaribbeanMon
* WideOpenSandbox

** Crew morale in the older games. Whenever they became unhappy, going into towns is a ''very'' bad idea because they'll use that opportunity to desert. Which would be a pretty manageable thing by itself, except deserters take a portion of the gold with them, which will only further anger the remaining crew, leading to even more desertions and gold shortages. If you can't improve morale quickly enough, the crew will eventually mutiny, and all foiling that does is cause even ''more'' men to desert you. More often than not, it's nigh impossible to make a bitter crew happy again, and it's usually at that point where you have to bite the bullet and divide the plunder.

* UnstableEquilibrium: If you win ship battles, you'll be able to get better ships and gold to spend to get items, which will make future battles easier and so on and so forth. However, if you lose a battle you'll lose your flagship and if it's your last ship you'll lose all your gold and crew, putting you back almost at square one. By the time you get back to the point you were at before, your pirate will have aged, which makes battles harder. If this continues, it will eventually become impossible to defeat Montalban.

* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The 1680 Spanish "Costa Guarda" game can feel like this.

** Certain captains - particularly Spanish military - wear curiasses and breastplates, but they don't seem to be any tougher than unarmored captains.