Port Royale

Welcome to Port Royale, a Caribbean port that has become a haven for pirates of all kinds. If you've ever dreamed of commanding your own ship or their entire fleet, or being the scary pirate of the seas, then Port Royale is perfect for you! It is not an original title, because its creators drew handfuls from the cult game Sid Meier Pirates, whose legend dates back to Commodore C64 computers. Pirates is a cult game that allows you to play the role of a corsair who wanted to make a fortune in the Caribbean in a more or less lawful way. Entangled between the war of four nations, he tried to find a golden mean and earn as much gold as possible on each of them. If it was necessary, he sympathized with some, and if he did not have such a need or vision of profit - he combined with others. In general, the assumption was simple - give the player maximum freedom of action and make decisions about his own fate. Pirates was one of the first games whose non-linearity guaranteed that each game was different and unique.

Over the years, no one has been able to create a worthy competitor. Even Meier himself did not live up to the challenge with the release of Pirates Gold! Which introduced new graphics and some improvements to the game, but in fact, it was not as successful as the base version. Anyway, to this day, enthusiasts play the old Pirates, despite the fact that it does not have firework graphics and sound effects worthy of a home cinema system. Despite this, the game still has a lot of fans. As I mentioned, there was practically no competition - apart from Akella and her Sea Dogs, as well as Corsairs and Cutthroats, no game of this type was released that could even compare with Pirates. Now that has changed. The German development company Ascaron Entertainment (famous mainly for the Amiga football manager Anstoss, in Poland known for the Korea 2002 Soccer World Cup game released by CD Projekt) has released Port Royale, which is a cross between the playability concept of the iconic Pirates from Anno 1502. What came out of this marriage? Pirates worthy of today! I am not sure if this type of game will withstand the competition of the upcoming Sea Dogs 2 aka Pirates of the Caribbean or Sid Meier's Pirates 2, but so far it is by far the best position of this type available on the Polish market.

We start our adventure in the eponymous city of Port Royale and this is where our destiny is slowly being determined. For now, we are the insignificant captain of a small merchant ship. We don't have any position or knowledge in this part of the Caribbean. We have a small amount of gold and a head full of various ideas on how to multiply your capital and become the hero of the stories spread by sailors in taverns and taverns. However, we have a long way to go, and if we hurry too much, we will at most be the object of mockery and mockery. We start with a clean slate and it is only up to us in which direction our career will develop. You can try to become the most dangerous pirate of the Caribbean, and if we do not like this role, we can simply become a respected Caribbean merchant and tycoon. The year is 1570 and for the next 90 years the world will be telling legends about the fate of the Spanish, French, Dutch and English in the Caribbean. We will find ourselves in the middle of their wars, truces and economic and political scandals. If we are agile, we will get rich on them ... In the worst case we will be hanged, we will sink with our ship, or we will be abandoned on a desert island. What will happen to us? Everything in our hands!

Before we take the helm, we need to learn about all the possibilities that the town of Port Royale opens up for us. The governor will ignore us for now, but once we have built a good reputation, he will be happy to entrust us with interesting missions. But how do you form such an opinion? We need to start with recruiting a crew and buying (for now) a small number of cannons - after all, the Caribbean is full of pirates. Once we have the crew and some defense, we must tackle the most important aspect of Port Royale, at least in the early stages of the game ...

The city market is rich in raw materials and products that can be traded. Before we fill up our holds, you need to find out what exactly is available and what should be left in port warehouses. In fact, before we start our adventure, we need to do a little research and find out what the needs of the inhabitants of the surrounding towns are. When we get to know the nearest ports, we will have some idea of what you can earn and what you can certainly lose. Anyway, a special map constantly displays information about what a specific port needs the most at a given moment. If a town has just been established and is developing, it will need building materials and settlers. If it is a large city, the inhabitants will need material goods, not the basic ones, but the luxury ones. In fact, you can trade a lot of goods - there are so many of them that everyone will find something for themselves. The rule is simple: buy cheap, sell very expensive. However, it is not so easy to implement. Until we get to know the outlets and establish our first trade routes, we will have to play in the sometimes monotonous sailing from port A to port B, where we sell what we can from our hold, and then fill it with other resources that we will leak in port C or D. In other words, before we fully commit to sea conquests, we will have to spend a few hours sailing in ports and trading resources. However, it is not as boring as it might seem for lovers of adventure and action. If you remember Privateer and the first events and emotions in it, you will certainly experience a similar experience in Port Royale ...

The Caribbean is full of more or less dangerous pirates who will often try to rob us. Sometimes we can get away, sometimes we can beat this scum of the sea, and sometimes we just fall victim to it and lose a few pounds of bucks. Contrary to appearances, it is not so easy to earn some extra money in the Caribbean. The hardest thing is to get rich from long-distance trade, which would seem to be the most profitable. If we do not have a fast ship, it may turn out that before we reach the destination port, the economic situation will change and it turns out that we have invested sacks of gold in an unprofitable business. It also often happens that before we reach our destination, we will be attacked by pirates. It is different then. We can try to run away or act like men and fight. It is so risky that we put everything at stake. If we are defeated, we will lose the ship, the gold invested in the products in the hold, and we will also risk our own death.

If we manage to win, we gain a lot: from the next ship that we join our fleet (unless we decide to get emotional and sink it with the survivors): by the supplies that are in the ship's holds (various products and weapons), and ending with the captured pirate itself. At this point, we gain a strong bargaining chip. If a pirate fell under the skin of one of the nations, his countrymen - for freeing a prisoner - will pay with bags filled with "bucks". On the other hand, the country he has been bothering about will gladly provide him with a noose. So we have a dilemma - earn a few kilograms of gold or improve your reputation? Whatever decision we make, it will have a corresponding impact on the opinion about us, which is modified depending on the choices made!

Nothing can be done anonymously in Port Royale. Each decision affects our reputation. It is so complex that it is divided appropriately between each of the nations available in the game and the pirate environment. If we act in favor of one of the parties, the others will take appropriate consequences. If we fail to keep the balance or at least balance on its border, it may suddenly turn out that we have been marked with an arrest warrant in a given country and its ports (specifically the forts located in them) will be hostile to us and will fire a volley without hesitation. their cannons. The case is complicated, but it has a great influence on the gameplay! If we are too decent and become successful, the pirates will have a goal of looting us. They will hunt our merchant fleets, drown them, and rob them if they can. If we are too much of a coward, the admiralty of a given country will start hunting us and make it difficult for us to sail in the Caribbean in every way possible.

Along with the aforementioned improvement of our hero's reputation, opportunities related to the missions commissioned by the Governors will open up for him. Sometimes they will be simple settlement and mercantile tasks, sometimes missions of state importance, and sometimes just private favors. Before we are thrown into deep water, however, we will have to take care of our opinion in the eyes of a particular Governor. At first, he will despise us and entrust us with trivial tasks in the form of transporting raw materials to the recently established port, or resettling residents from his city to this port. Later, there will be times for important diplomatic missions between warring ports (often belonging to other nations). Along with the development of the war struggle between the countries involved in an armed conflict, we will also be asked to take a specific city or cities from the enemy's hands. Private favors that the Governor may ask for may include, for example, transporting a sick daughter to a port with a doctor able to heal her. There will also be missions in which you will find a treasure map - such tasks, however, are not ordered by the Governors, but obtained in a completely different way. However, there are problems with some missions, especially when it comes to tasks in which we have to transport a specific amount of selected resources within a certain time limit. At the beginning of the adventure, we do not have a fleet capable of holding tons in the hold, so we have to travel two or three times between the ports in order to provide the right amount of raw materials. Sometimes the computer cannot remember how many resources we have already delivered to a given port, and when we know that we have sold as many goods as we were told at the city market just before the deadline, the machine will say that we have not completed the mission. After checking, it turns out that if we sold the required quantities at one time, the task would be completed successfully.

If we act wisely, we will begin to feel the effects of this in the near future. A good reputation guarantees the favor of clients, which in turn is necessary if we want to get something more than the reputation of a sea scoundrel. If we have wealth and a stable business in mind, we must take care of the Governors. They, in gratitude, will allow us to build in their cities, build our own farms, and create the foundations of the economy. If we act properly, we can create our own state within the state - take control of cities, create dependencies and trade routes between them; make states dependent on ports under our ownership; get other merchants to trade with us. In short, if we want, we can transform from an ordinary captain into ... Governor! By properly spending earned funds (or obtained credits), we can invest in such a way that, with favorable winds, we will change the economy of the entire Caribbean. There is nothing to prevent us from creating a profitable trade route between the two ports that until now were doomed to extinction. If we build appropriate farms or factories in them, we will provide them with production. On the other hand, in other towns we can organize a sales market for the produced raw materials. In this way, if the geopolitical situation and the economy limit us, nothing prevents us from modifying it accordingly and adapting it to our needs. This is one of the revelations that expand the idea of Pirates. If we want, we can stop pirate shipping and devote ourselves to building our own economic empire.

Port Royale has lived up to the hopes placed on it. Its appearance was a surprise to everyone, the game seemed to come out of nowhere. The German Ascaron chose this title just as the Black Pearl of Pirates of the Caribbean emerged from the fog to sink another merchant ship. It can be said with a clear conscience that Port Royale influenced the world market with full sail and conquered it triumphantly. The game enjoys enormous success literally everywhere. Sid Meier will not have an easy task, his Pirates 2 will have to face the already released Port Royale and the Pirates of the Caribbean, and more or less at the time of the premiere of the sequel to Megier's pirate legend, Ascaron intends to release Port Royale 2. A nice naval battle is underway !! Will the legend's continuation or a modified clone of the legend win? For now, we can enjoy the Polish version of Port Royale that Cenega offers us. To be honest and blunt, this title is a great game that has a lot of possibilities in its linear nonlinearity (but what is it?). You can play a million times and deal with something new each time, not to mention the fact that the plot is constantly evolving and gradually revealing all its elements. Each game discovers new features, and some of them will only be released when the player reaches a certain level of their interests in Port Royale. We will definitely play this title for years to come. I certainly!

Krzysztof "Kokosz" Marcinkiewicz