Yo Ho Yo Ho, a pirate's life for me!
New Horizons is an extensive overhaul for the movie-tie-in Pirates of the Caribbean, commonly known as Sea Dogs 2, made by the team of PiratesAhoy!
Especially known throughout the Western world, the New Horizons-mod is one of the largest mods in the Sea Dogs-community. Over the years, three different versions of the mod have emerged, which can be accessed here, along with descriptions of the differences:
- Beyond New Horizons: based on the lates open source Storm engine (2.8). Still in beta with a few bugs, but completely free.
- Maelstrom New Horizons: Port to the Maelstrom-engine, with better graphics, more features, much better stability, and a few tweaks to gameplay. Requires purchasing the engine for 12,- €.
- B14: based on the old Storm 2.0-engine, almost identical to Beyond New Horizons. Receives updates then and now, but is almost finished. Requires a physical copy of the original game.
Yo Ho Yo Ho, a troper's life for me!
- Adventure-Friendly World: It's the Caribbean at the height of colonialism. Every nation is fighting for power, piracy is running rampant, ancient temples and dungeons are open for fearless explorers, and plenty of opportunities to get rich and famous (or die horribly) await you. Go nuts!
- Alliance Meter: A very integral and complex part of gameplay. Nations can either be neutral, allied or at war with others, and all of that can change at a moment's notice. The same counts for you, so unless you want to avoid unintentionally pissing off everyone at some point, you better keep tabs on the relations regularly! Knowing who to attack and who to avoid also greatly helps with building up a career with a nation. Pirates are the only exception, of course, as they are hostile to everyone by default.
- All-or-Nothing Reloads: A battery must finish reloading before they can be fired, no matter how many gundecks your ship has; you can only fire complete broadsides.
- Amazon Brigade: While your generic crew are all male by standard, it's perfectly possible to play a female captain, only hiring female officers, and only taking female fighters with you.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Due to guns being able to one-shot, neither the player nor his party members can be killed with them, and will instead be reduced to five HP. The death blow can only be delivered with melee attacks.
- Because sea travel and ship combat is slow, you can accelerate time in different steps.
- Should you lose a mast during combat and get immobilized, then it will automatically get repaired once you enter the world map to prevent being stuck.
- Pressing G (default) auto-equips the best gear you have available in your inventory, so you won't have to scroll through your potentially miles-long list first.
- Anti-Hoarding: Once you have one million gold on your ship, your crew gets envious of it and demands to sign articles. As long as you don't reduce the amount, either by going to a loanshark or spending it, the crew's morale will plummet. The more money you have, the worse it gets, and extra pays and double rum rations only help temporarily. note
- Attract Mode: Waiting long enough in the main menu shows you a trailer from Black Sails.
- Awesome, but Impractical: 1st rate-ships. Having a swimming fortress that's impervious to anything but forts and other 1st rates, and can obliterate anything smaller is nothing short but awesome - until you realize that you won't catch anything with it, need close to or over 1.000 crewmen to control one without its performance suffering, stuff your entire hold with nothing but ammunition, gun powder and supplies to keep the men and cannons fed, must already be rich to pay the crew, every battle will be a huge drain on resources, and have to spend entire fortunes on repairs. They are a must-have for the biggest forts which may require a full fleet of them note , but other than that, a humble 3rd rate will do most jobs just as well with only a fraction of the costs.
- Boring, but Practical: Fluyts, common merchant ships. Sturdy and reliable, they offer huge cargo spaces for your precious booty, and are usually armed enough to fend off pesky pirates. They are also surprisingly nimble and fast for their size.
- Cavalry Betrayal: Step one: Join a fleet battle on one side. Step two: Stay at distance and watch, until the fight is over. Step three: Hiss your pirate flag and mop the floor with the survivors. Step four: Profit!
- A Commander Is You: You can assemble a fleet up to four ships (yours included) and give them different orders, like sinking or boarding a certain target, disengage from battle... or to blow themselves up near the enemy.
- Compressed Adaptation: Disney turned the original into a licensed game late in development, and it shows: The movie's plot is reduced to "Black ghost ship with an undead crew", no movie-characters exist note , its corresponding quest is extremely short, the Black Pearl is only encountered twice note , and she is a frigate. note
- Critical Existence Failure: Every ship will be perfectly able to stay afloat and keep fighting as long as it has one HP left. One more hit, and they sink like a stone.
- Cursed with Awesome: Sure, turning your crew into skeletal abominations for looting Cortez' treasure upsets them a bit. That morale hit however is offset by the rather substantial HP-bonus, making them an almost unstoppable force in boardings and town raids.
- Dem Bones: Naturally, the crew of the Black Pearl.
- Also the true form of the Maltese monks.
- If you loot Cortez' treasure at Isla de Muerta and put the coins in your ship's locker, you too can have an undead crew!
- After sundown, you may encounter skeletal monkeys in the jungles outside of towns.
- Early Game Hell: On default settings, you start as a nobody who can't do anything right, a leaky tub, some pocket money, a few crewmen that can't hit the broadside of a barn and need literal minutes to reload, no guidance except "Buy low, sell high", and the entire Caribbean with all its dangers at your bow. Unless you already know what to do, either from simple trial & error or asking other players for help (and even then), prepare to die. A lot.
- Easily Forgiven: If you manage to sneak into a port of a nation hostile to you, you can ask the governor for pardon. Instead of arresting or executing you on the spot, he will grant it begrudgingly - for a hefty fee, depending on how bad the relations are.
- Easy Logistics: Played with; You will almost spend as much time buying or raiding supplies and ammunition as searching for treasure. Without food your crew dies of starvation and becomes unhappy, without rum your crew becomes unhappy, and without ammo, your crew can't shoot back... and becomes unhappy, as they get turned into swiss cheese. In fact, most of your cargo hold will probably be taken by supplies.
- Easter Egg: The game has plenty, mostly regarding Pirates of the Caribbean, and set on Isla de Muerta. Though there are also other ones present:
- You can find Joshamee Gibbs in the tavern on Tortuga/La Tortue, with voice lines from the movies. He asks you to join as a boatswain, and then gives you Jack Sparrow's compass to allow access to Isla de Muerta.
- Blackbeard waits at Witch's Rock, armed with the Sword of Triton. Unless you know his weakness, however, he's invincible Hint with solution. Defeating him grants you the most powerful - and useful - melee weapon in the game.
- Hendrik Van der Decken, the original captain of the dreaded Flying Dutchman according to the legend, appears himself in the bones, and resides inside a shipwreck at the coast. He mostly serves to sell movie-ships, but is also the only way to obtain quest-exclusive ships that would be Lost Forever should they get sunk or sold, with some very rare ones for good measure. He also offers every type of cannon in the game, including some unique ones, and one Infinity +1 Sword - with their prices to match.
- Clint Eastwood in his role as Dirty Harry is hidden somewhere in the jungles of Nevis with a small shack. You exchange some words, and he then comes gunning for you with four horse pistols - or a freakin' shotgun when playing in Arcade Sailing Mode.
- You can choose Edward Kenway's flag as your pirate flag in the Beyond New Horizons-version. The long awaited Black Flag 2 is finally here, ladies and gentlemen!
- Generally there are a lot of playable characters from different books, movies, and games. Including Geralt of Rivia, of all people.
- False Flag Operation: A very crucial part of gameplay, mainly used to prevent getting annihilated by the next patrol, and to infiltrate enemy ports - or sneaking up to unsuspecting targets, before hissing the pirate flag and unleashing multiple dozens of barrels of hell. Just like real pirates did.
- Final Boss: The Black Pearl in the original game, and of the "Tales of a Sea Hawk"-storyline from the mod.
- Fragile Speedster: All ships of tier 8 and 7. Only lightly armed, will sink just by being looked at funny, and have small cargo holds. They are also the fastest ships in the game, and thus make perfect smugglers. Pirates in particular almost exclusively use them in groups, and can win battles just by overwhelming lone ships with their numbers.
- Guest Ship: Thanks to a cooperation with their modelers, the mod features high-quality ships from Pirates of the Burning Sea.
- Guide Dang It!:
- Don't know who the bearded dude is who talks about a fountain of youth, and then proceeds to slaughter you while himself taking no damage in return? Have fun figuring his weakness out if you haven't watched the movie he appears in! Hint with solution
- Guns Are Worthless: Averted to Davy Jones' locker and back. Pistols and rifles are extremely powerful weapons, and can one-shot anyone and everyone. Some fights are solely decided by whoever draws - and hits - first. Better bring some decent armour and damage-reducing skills with you.
- Hated by All: Pirates, of course. Flying the Jolly Roger will lead to every nation in the Caribbean gunning for you, and your reputation with everyone goes up if you sink them. Choosing them as your starting faction even makes every nation hostile to you from the beginning, but that's just a pirate's life.
- Hufflepuff House: Sweden, and Portugal to a lesser extent. Both are capable to field fleets that can fight the bigger powers, but only Portugal controls one single port in certain time periods. Sweden never starts with one, and thus can't even give letter of marques to aspiring privateers, unless the player captures a town for them first.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: From easiest to hardest: Landlubber, Mariner, Sea Dog, Swashbuckler. They mostly affect health and damage of enemies.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Watch your gunners missing even at point-blank range when you start out, to sniping enemy ships hundreds of yards away with perfect accuracy once fully leveled.
- In-Game Banking Services: Fittingly called "loan sharks", those sketchy individuals offer to deposit your money for generous interests note per month, which can be withdrawn any time you visit. A savvy captain will have multiple accounts in different towns for hard times! Of course, you can take loans as well when needed. Just remember to return them in time, if you don't want to face collections...
- I Surrender, Suckers: If you board a ship that has surrendered, but your level is too low compared to the enemy captain, then he will challenge you to a duel. And yes, you have to accept, and no, you can't call for backup.
- Lampshade Hanging: New Horizons introduces the Building Set mod, which allows you to construct structures pretty much anywhere and everywhere. note When you talk to such a character, they'll point out and make fun of the weird effects of the feature, such as the ability to walk through them and their accompanying characters not moving at all. It even includes a Fourth Wall Break when they start explaining to you, the player, how to start modifying the feature yourself.
- Mêlée à Trois: Any encounter that involves two factions hostile to you fighting each other, with you joining in.
- Mighty Glacier: Ships of the line, starting from tier 3, and culminating in 1st rates, essentially swimming fortresses. They are slow as molasses, even slower to turn, and require armies of crewmen to command effectively. But they pack enough guns and hull points to take on entire fleets alone, and are an absolute necessity for attacking the biggest forts.
- Morale Mechanic: As a captain, it's very important to keep the needs of your crew satisfied. A happy crew will be more effective in combat, and not immediately turn against you if you stiff them out on their payment. Keep them fed, provide them with rum, win battles, pay them extra, and watch how their morale goes up to "Superior" or "Heroic". Don't do that, get your ass kicked, or have over one million gold on your ship without dividing the plunder, and you may soon be facing a "Treacherous" crew, that starts a mutiny that forces you to fight for your ship. An enemy with low morale is also much more likely to surrender.
- Multi-Mook Melee: Town raids and boardings have you fight entire groups of enemies with your crewmen and officers, through different parts of the towns and ships you want to capture, with the number of fights and "rooms" depending on the target's size.
- No-Sell: Every piece of armour has a small chance to outright negate damage by melee or ranged weapons, with better armour increasing it.
- Obvious Rule Patch: The "Sail To"-system from the original game enables the players to fast travel to different locations near them, including other ships. In practice, this essentially allows teleporting to a fleeing enemy, making catching them a non-issue. The mod rectifies this in Realistic Sailing Mode by only allowing you to teleport to enemies that are slower than you, e. g. those you could also catch without "Sail To".
- Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: The Maelstrom-version includes quite big bloodsplatters with every hit, regardless if it inflicted damage or not. When dueling a captain, just stand there and keep blocking; very soon the entire cabin will be painted with your blood.
- Palette Swap: Many ships have different paintjobs depending on the nations using them, and you can change them at will in shipyards for free. This is mostly done to enable their usage by different nations, as the mod doesn't contain enough unique models to suit every single ship-type and -class.
- Palmtree Panic: Do you expect something else from the Caribbean?
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The Caravela Latina. Tier 6. 78 crewmen. 32 guns. note
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Averted. Players can board and plunder ships to their heart's content, ransom or slaughter prisoners, and even attack towns, all things that real pirates definitely did. In fact, to become a pirate (unless you start as one) you must commit acts of piracy. Freeplay players can also potentially play this straight if they choose to do so, sailing around and doing quests that don't involve piracy acts.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: No matter if you play a scrawny noblewoman, or a bear of a man, everything is decided by your stats.
- Random Number God: You never know what you'll find in chests, and which ships you'll encounter during your travels. Will that group of merchants have one small ship as an escort that is easily dispatched? Or will they be accompanied by a frigate, or worse, ship of the line, that will sink you with a few hits? Who knows! Good luck!
- Regenerating Health: Present, but so slow even with perks, that you'll only notice it if you accelerate time. Relying on it during combat instead of popping potions or using bandages is one of the quickest ways to get killed.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Enemy ships will turn around and flee once the tides turn against them. Chasing and continually pounding them with bow chasers can lead them to surrender.
- Shown Their Work: The modders have went to great lengths to depict the game as historically accurate as possible:
- Depending on the time period, nations use different flags and uniforms for their soldiers. For instance, England's Union Jack only appears in the Napoleonic Era.
- Every nation uses ships unique to them, like France with the Soleil Royal, and England with the Victory. Some ship types are also vastly preferred by specific nations, like Spain and their never-ending fleets of galleons.
- Seen all the movies and artworks depicting pirates sailing huge ships? Not here: pirates only use small, light and fast vessels to strike and retreat quickly into shallow waters where bigger, slower ships can't follow them.
- Towns have different names and are controlled by different nations in different time periods.
- You have a wide selection of flags, all which have been used by different nations and pirates through history - the occasional Easter Egg nonwithstanding.
- Sniper Rifle: You can acquire a Long Rifle with a scope as a reward for the "Church Protection"-quest. Not only can you aim manually using 1st person-mode, it also has an enormous range with high damage to boot. It only has one shot though, so make it count.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Go on, attack that ship of the line with your brigantine! What could possibly go wrong?
- Team Switzerland: The United States of America, only appearing in the Revolutions-period from 1770 onwards. They always start out as neutral or allied to other nations, but can very rarely declare war.
- The Mutiny: Whenever your crew's morale gets too low and gets fed up with their captain. Once their morale sinks beneath "Low", pay them as soon as possible, or be prepared to fight them. If a crew successfully rebels on a ship in your fleet, you'll be forced into a combat encounter with it.
- The Ten Stats: The game has many stats, most of which are rather unconventional. Depending on your settings, you either increase them by doing them (think Skyrim), or by distributing skill points after level ups. There are also skillbooks available that increase certain stats when bought.
- Leadership: Determines which ships you can sail without receiving stat-penalties, and unlocks fleets at Leadership 5. Increases by paying your crew their monthly salary.
- Melee: Determines your damage during hand-to-hand combat. Increases by doing damage.
- Sailing: How fast your ship moves and turns, as well as how quickly sails are opened or closed. Increased by sailing your ship.
- Accuracy: How accurate your gunners are. Increased by hitting enemy ships and forts.
- Cannons: Influences cannon-reload speed. Increased by finishing reloads.
- Grappling: Determines the speed and angle at which you can initiate boardings. Increased by successful boarding-actions.
- Repair: How well your crew can repair the ship when out at sea, provided you have planks and sailcloth in your cargo hold.
- Defence: Reduces damage taken during ship combat. Increased by getting hit by enemy cannons.
- Commerce: Influences purchasing- and selling prices at vendors. Increased by trading goods.
- Luck: Determines the quality and amount of loot found. Increased by gambling.
- Timed Mission: Lots of them, and some don't even tell you they're timed. Most are generous enough to give you one ingame-month to complete them though, so no need to hurry. If you have multiple active, however...
- Unblockable Attack: The heavy strike in the Maelstrom-version of the mod requires lots of stamina and hits slowly, but can power through blocks and inflict high damage. Bullets are even worse - unless you take cover behind something (or someone), or are lucky with your armour, you will get hit. No blocking bullets with your blade here!
- Underground Monkey: Some ship-types like pinnaces have differently looking variants for certain purposes in mind. For instance, there's a merchant pinnace with a huge cargo hold, but only a few guns for self-protection, next to the standard one and a pinnace of war with heavy armament for... war.
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: If you come from games like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag or Sea of Thieves, then this one here might throw quite a few curveballs at you.
- Attacking anything bigger in a sloop or brigantine without backup is a very bad idea.
- The game goes to great lenghts to show the tedious parts of a captain's life: buying and selling at shops, managing and hiring crew at the tavern, equipping boarding parties, repairing your ship at the shipyard, fixing your equipment at black- and gunsmiths...
- Depending on your ship's roll angle, your cannons can have a longer or shorter range.
- In realistic sailing-mode, sailing against the wind slows you down to a halt and will eventually push you backwards. How do you reach a target in that circumstances? By tacking.
- Ships can only be equipped with certain calibres. A sloop for instance can only carry 4lbs-guns, while a third rate ship of the line can carry up to 42lbs.
- Cannons and firearms require gunpowder to shoot. The heavier the cannon, the more gunpowder you need per shot. 32 lbs-guns, for instance, need 8 units of powder note - depending on how long a battle takes, and which calibre you have installed, you can easily chew through your entire gunpowder-storage.
- Ships can take quite a beating before sinking, even more so as they get bigger, and only get hit with small calibre-guns. Nothing stops you from equipping your 112-gun Man'O'War with 4 lbs-guns - but don't be surprised if you need hundreds upon thousands of cannonballs to sink a ship slightly smaller than you. A ship that will likely sink you first if it has bigger guns.
- It takes minutes for destroyed ships to fully sink. Until then, they act as obstacles on the battlefield.
- Crew can fall ill during travels, or get injured during battles. Without medicine and a surgeon on board, they will die from gangrene.
- Unstable Equilibrium:
- As you start out, you might find yourself losing against ships your size, due to your gunners not hitting them, or getting killed in one or two hits during boarding actions, making acquiring money and ships very hard for beginners. However, once you start leveling up, gain better gear and perks to increase combat performances and make your life easier, you'll soon be able to fight entire fleets head-on, and steamrolling every crew that stands in your way. Money and EXP will just rain at this point.
- Does your nooby captain manage to capture a merchant ship through sheer skill (and luck), and happens to find a hold full of silver or gold? Congratulations, you are now set for the whole game!
- Wide-Open Sandbox: There are storylines you can play through, but nothing stops you from just setting out into the Caribbean and making your fortune. What will you be? A humble merchant? A respected naval officer? A privateer in service to a nation? Or a dreaded pirate captain? You decide!
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The Game.
- You Are Already Dead:
- Ever find yourself fighting a whole group of people alone, without being able to run away or force them into chokepoints? Might as well save yourself some time and reload.
- Once your ship has less than five percent of its HP left, it will begin to sink, automatically losing HP until they hit zero. Better finish the fight quickly or run away, or else...
- If you attack a town or board a ship, see that your crewmen are getting slaughtered like pigs, and an angry mob of defenders is now running towards you, just reload your last save. You'll be one- or two-shotted, period.
- Zerg Rush: A tactic preferred by pirates. As they only use small ships, they aren't a threat on their own - which is why they only appear in groups, where they can whittle down and overwhelm ships bigger than them.
