Just necromancing the thread to give my impressions for Pirates of the Caribbean (PotV) and Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships (CoaS).
Basically there are 4 alternatives for one to play the games:
PotC vanilla: D'ont, it's to lightweight and obsolete compared to the other options available
PotC with the Build Mod New Horizons
http://forum.piratesahoy.net/topic/15382-build-14-beta-1/ :
Basically it brings PotC at the level of CoaS with more available ships, various char storylines and a direct sail feature to sail in 3D mode instead of using the map in Pirates!-style. Plus you can toggle all features to your liking in a ingamemenu.
The different char-stories seem really well done and entertaining. If you don't encounter gamebreaking bugs... I tried the original but modified Nathaniel gamestory (called New Horizons here) and was stuck at the beginning on the shipsdeck, not able to enter the city or sail away. I tried it several times with a new start, it never worked.
I was stuck in the Jack Sparrow quest too because story-npcs didn't spawn. I don't know how often this can happen but it seems more like an engine fault and not something modders can fix.
Some features are confirmed buggy like take over cities.
CoaS vanilla:
An overall improvement of PotC with a larger and more realistic map to explore and more quests to do. No real mainquest, instead you get several questlines for the various factions. Portugese are missing as a faction unlike PotC. The cities aren't looking as good as in PotC. The overall graphics are improved but no big changes. The charsystem is more complex now and swordfighting is improved. You can capture cities and keep them now for yourself.
CoaS with Combined Mod Pack (aka Gentlemen of Fortune soon)
http://forum.piratesahoy.net/topic/16817-combined-mod-v32-faqbugsinstalling/ :
Brings in more chars as player-options and further useful additions like more ships and additional better music. Bugfixes are included,too.
Has the potential to become as good as PotC New Horizons but isn't on the same level yet. Some npcs could annoy you like Davy Jones who is sitting in a tavern but you can easily delete him in the gamefiles yourself. You can even easily develop your own chars. Source code is available to the community by request and providing some input in modding beforehand, look at the piratesahoy forums (links see above).
In conclusion both games are fun but it takes some time till you get used to the interface and what stats do and what influences what. On a sidenote the map in Pirates! is better and more realistic than in those games.
If you are looking for some freeroaming M&B-style game, both games are definitely what you are looking for. The rpg-part is better than M&B, the swordfighting of course worse but ok, ship battles are fun and there is lots and lots to do.
For starters I would recommend CoaS vanilla and later install the Combined Mod Pack. But if you are looking for a PotC-movie themed adventure get PotC with the New Horizons.
Here are some tips to get you get you started with CoaS:
- Sea battles: tactical battles are very very slow, I recommend using Dynamic battles. Trust me on this. I usually prefer realistic simulations but it’s just to slow, cumbersome and timeconsuming. It gets later better with more skills and crew but especially for beginners choose dynamic battles.
- For the number of enemy encounters I recommend low, even then your map will be filled with AI ships sometimes.
- Authority affects how many officers you can hire (I think till 18 is possible?) If you want to leave a lot of ships in the ports, have it high. That way you don't run out of officers.
- The difficulty level of Captain should be somewhere in the middle, but if it's your first game, try easier - in the start it's still challenging, especially boarding sequences.
- Don't start with Captain Blood, choose one of the other two chars to able to sail and explore the gamemechanics early
- 1 unit of gunpowder is equal to 1 shot with 1 cannon
- medicine reduces your losses in combat, planks and sailcloth are used to repair your ship on sea
- you can accelerate time by pressing R or the +/- keys on your numberblock.
- You can see the names of the towns as well as islands on the world map - just press tab and you can scroll around the map by moving the mouse
But if you decide to start with Captain Blood here are some tips, too:
from FAQ:
Q: Where can I find a key for a chest which is on a balcony?
A: It’s on a coffee table (ground floor).
Q: I killed all Spanish in a city. Nobody is in the city now. What’s next?
A: You should go to the shipyard and talk with the officers there. They ran away as you did, and now they’d like to join you.
Q: I can’t come in the shipyard! It’s locked!
A: Look for another way. Through the sea.
Q: I have run away from the island taking the Spanish ship. What to do now?
A: Now you are absolutely free in your actions/wishes. There are many interesting quests.
from the piratesahoy forum:
- The cannons really load very slowly after firing them once. The calibre of cannon is high and your crew is just the minimal size and very poorly skilled and your own skills are very low as well.
- You will notice your officers and crew demand ridiculous salaries. This is because the ship is too large for your navigator to handle (class 2 requires at least 80 navigation skill, Pitt has 50), which imposes penalties on your stats, which impact your skills, which in turn determine the prices you pay for stuff, as well as the effectiveness of pretty much everything else you do.
- For the same reason, you won't be able to sell the frigate for a decent price or indeed do much of anything else while you're in command of it. You can work around this by buying a tartane as a second ship (~1k), then switching to it. Commanding a large ship gives you stat penalties, having it follow you around does not (it gives them to its skipper, but who cares). That you should do no matter what you decide to do next.
- The frigate is unique in the game, having better stats and a distinct appearance. If you sell it or lose it, it's gone forever. I would therefore recommend putting it in storage, which you can do at the port controller for about 20-40k. Note that you will need to leave an officer in charge of it; I would recommend hiring some bum for the task and keeping Pitt and Ogle around.
- Once you get rid of the stat penalties, you can sell the frigate, should you choose to do so, for about 70k. Don't forget to remove the guns and sell them separately first, since they are not counted in the ship's price - a ship with guns sells for exactly as much as a ship without, so selling them separately earns you more money. That you should also do regardless of whether you decide to keep the ship or not. The money you get for the guns will come in handy early on, while by the time you come back for the ship you will have more than enough to buy new ones.
- If you have a bounty on your head or a hostile relation to a nation, you can go to any pirate settlement and find a diplomat in the pub there. He will clear up those little misunderstandings for you, for a price, as well as provide you with trading licences and privateer patents.