Pirates! is a very open-ended game with a ton of possibilities. In some ways, I might even say that this game is more freeform then some MMOs. You can choose among a variety of roles ranging from the swashbuckling pirate to the peaceful trader. You can choose to do nothing but hunt down your fellow pirates and Indians, or perhaps your true goal is to woo as many maidens as you can get your hands on. Should you enjoy the tactical land battles, you could claim the entire Caribbean in the name of the French…or spend your days chasing down evil villains and rescuing your family.

Storyline
While you don't have to follow it, the storyline to Pirates! can be rather entertaining (though sometimes frustrating) to follow. In an adventure set up from the opening cinematic, your pirate is embarking on a quest to rescue his family and get revenge on the scurvy buccaneers who did his kin wrong. Talking to bar maids, governor's daughters, barkeepers, and sometimes capturing ships will get you information on several villains who either have information on your family or maps that will help you find them. The annoying part is that these pirates are extremely mobile and, by the time you get to one location that a bar maid tipped you off on, your target might be gone. On the up side, rescuing family and defeating evil pirates earns you fame, the deciding factor for your pirate's success and Hall of Fame ranking.

Pirating
While one might think that sailing the seas and attacking vessels is easy business, it actually takes a bit of thought. Taking down wealthy treasure ships will get you a big pocket of gold but it will also get you a lot of enemies. For instance, if you sit outside a Spanish port all day and take down every merchant that sails from there, the Spanish will start to take some precautions. Merchant ships will begin to have escorts, pirate hunters will start to chase you down, and that port itself will become hostile to you, - not allowing you entry and shooting cannonballs at you if you get too close. If you make the Spanish angry enough, they will close every Spanish port to you.

Because of this, a successful pirate has to be careful when choosing targets. If you anger all the nations you will have no safe ports; I'd suggest keeping one nation happy by not attacking their ships or their ally's ships. Not only will you be able to use their ports as home bases but, after killing enough of their enemies, your promotions will give you hugely useful lowered prices.

Trading
The varied prices in ports allows players to stock up on one commodity and sell it to another port for a reasonable margin. While this trading system can be a good side venture while hopping from port to port, I'd suggest not concentrating on this facet of the game. For one thing, successful trading takes lots of cargo room on big, bulky ships like trade galleons; these mammoths are not only slow but take a larger crew to man then your smaller ships. From my experience, larger crews are innately harder to keep happy then smaller ones, and any size crew quickly gets bored with a non-aggressive merchant lifestyle; you'll have to make a lot of profit if you want to keep a crew happy while doing nothing but port hopping.

Another disadvantage to trading is that you can make a lot more gold in a lot less time by sticking to offensive tactics. Taking down one treasure ship can often yield the same profit as one trade trip, and the later takes a much longer time then the former.

Battles
There are three types of battles in Pirates!: sea battles, fencing, and land battles. Sea battles are, of course, the battles you fight while in your ship, using cannonballs to injure your enemy's ship. There are three types of cannonballs: round shot, which is your standard cannonball and does all around damage; chain shot, which has a slightly shorter range and damages your enemy's sails; and grape shot, which has the shortest range and knocks off your enemy's crew. While sea battles start out easy, progressing through the game's difficulty levels will pitch you against wiser enemies with better tactics.

Fencing battles are one-on-one real-time battles between you and your foe. You have a choice between three weapons: a rapier (quick attack), a cutlass (solid defense) and a long sword (versatile). Various unique items such as pistols, balanced blades, and silk fencing shirts can help improve your fencing skill, but it's honestly a bit too easy. I was able to make it all the way up to Swashbuckler mode barely using a single defensive maneuver; the quick attack speed of the rapier combined with the speed-boosts from unique items allowed me to land my hits and beat back opponents in a timely manner.

Land battles are the only turn based battles you will find in Pirates! and force players to take a different approach depending on the circumstances. There are two ways to win a land battle: defeat all enemy troops or reach the city gates. Terrain plays a large part in these battles; your troops will get defense bonuses against ranged attacks when in cover (but your movement speed will be cut in half from two turns to one turn) and attack bonuses from high ground. I personally found it easiest to hunker down under cover and let my archers take out the majority of the opposing team, then ambush the remainders with my melee. Due to the speed of opposing cavalry, I found it near useless to try a run for the city gates.

Romance
A very unique part of the game is the romancing aspect. While most games simply use romance as a storyline or not at all, wooing the heart of a governor's daughter is a useful and profitable activity in Pirates! There are four ways to win the heart of a governor's daughter, and completing each task (sometimes multiple times) yields rewards of information and gifts. When you first meet each lady and live up to her standards, either through your rank with her nation or with the aid of a few unique items, she will invite you to a grand ball where you perform a dancing mini-game. In this game your dancing partner will give you cues as to which steps to perform. If you correctly complete the move your partner will be pleased; stumble and embarrass her and she will be considerably disenchanted. Once you get the hang of following the lady's lead, try and match your steps to the beat of the music for extra "flourishes" that gain favor.

If you succeed in impressing your escort on the dance floor, her next request will be more along the material lines. A ruby ring or more expensive diamond necklace will help to further win the heart of your target. On your next visit, the daughter will inform you that her jealous fiancйe had challenged you to a duel, and future visits will bring more surprises.

Wooing a lady is no quick task. While you can take the shortcut of leaving port, spinning your ship around, and returning to speed up the process, this means that a lot of your rewards are repeats of previous information; quite a handicap if you are looking for items or information on your family. As dancing is the most common mini-game it can get rather boring and the giving of jewelry can get rather expensive. Also note that you can only marry one governor's daughter (any future tries will result in a valuable reward and a secret sweetheart in the given port) so pick well.

Crew
What is a captain without his crew? In Pirates!, not much! Your crew is going to play a large role in every battle and sailing situation. It takes a minimum crew to achieve full speed while at sea, and the more crew working on cannons, the faster they load. When in a land battle your crew is set against the enemy guard, with you acting as their guiding hand. Outnumbering or at least equaling the defensive forces is always a good idea; some of the town units are faster or stronger then the units available to players, so you have to think smart. And if you think that sword battles are only between you and your opponent, think again. While the two of you are thrusting and dodging, the two crews are having a background clash of their own. Every so often either your crew or your enemy's crew is lessened, and being left with no crew forces you (or your opponent) to surrender.

Crews aren't the easiest of things to maintain, though. You need to keep their morale high with lots of plunder and lots of winning battles; if you sail by enemy ships or lose too often your ruffian crew will get bored and morale will drop. I've noticed that smaller crews tend to seem happier longer, but as mentioned above, a large crew is sometimes required to win a difficult battle.

Difficulty
Pirates! has five different difficulty levels: apprentice, journeyman, adventurer, rogue and swashbuckler. An apprentice voyage is a lot easier than a swashbuckler, but with a little bit of practice almost all of the settings seem pretty easy - perhaps a little too easy. Fighting didn't become half of a challenge for me until rogue level and even then a little effort kept me in the win most of the time. I would suggest moving up the ladder as quickly as you are comfortable as difficulty dictates the share you get of your ship's loot when you decide to divide the plunder; as an apprentice captain you only get 5% and the rest is shared out amongst the crew, but as a swashbuckler you get a whopping 40%!

Graphics and Sound
The graphics in Pirates! are colorful and pleasing on the eye, but certainly not breathtaking. In truth, I found them to be more of a background then a foreground; the game is so powerfully entertaining that the graphics don't make much of an impact. The music, on the other hand, is a bit monotonous. After a while, I found myself frantically searching for the music on/off toggle; a bit of variation in music would have helped a lot.

Interface and Controls
The interface and controls are very easy to understand; everything can be accessed easily by mouse or by keyboard. The only downside that I found was that laptop users will find themselves mostly confined to using their mouse, as almost all controls require a number pad. I found this most frustrating when fencing or dancing, activities that count on fast fingers.

Replayability
One of the reasons that I've never been very interested in single player games is that once it's over it's over; playing it again is usually just boring repetition. Yet with Pirates!, I looked at the end of a pirate's career as a sad thing but not the end of the game. Starting up a new campaign is quick and easy and, since you don't pick up where you left off, you don't have to start from the bare basics each time you play.

Conclusion
One of the greatest things about Pirates! is that there is a draw for almost everyone. Whether you're in for the battles, the diversity, the replayability, the pirates, or the open-ended fun of Sid Meier's Pirates!, you will find yourself quite pleased with the game and with each new adventure you uncover. The only real downsides to Pirates! are its lack of multiplayer mode and the lack of character customization (I very much wanted to be a female pirate, though I guess that might be less attractive to the governor's daughters). All in all, though, I'd call this game a must-buy for any gamers who enjoy simulations, action games or strategy games.