Talk:Sid Meier's Pirates!

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Game name[edit]

This used to be called "Pirates game". Putting Sid's name in front makes it identical to the forthcoming (2004) game. I suggest we either

  • accept the new name to cover both and give the article two or three main headings accordingly; or
  • rename this one "Pirates! (computer game)" in the current style.


Robin Patterson 20:32, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Down with IP![edit]

I don't like the term intellectual property (its ok when lawyers use it but it glosses over problems and encourages a particular point-of-view in the rest of us). Exactly what is held by Firaxis Games? The trademark of "Pirates!"? copyright of the original game? Surely the game doesn't have any software patents!?. I suggest we change it to "Trademarks associated with the game are held|owned|whatever by Firaxis Games..." (I don't know much about these laws so I don't know if one holds, owns or licenses a Trademark.)

cbm 20:30, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't like the term, but that's what it's called and there really is no better way to refer to it. In a nutshell, the IP means that they own the creative license associated with the earlier game. This means they can extend or alter the storyline of the earlier game, use ideas or technology from the early game, etc. It's sort of like a trademark, but encompasses much more.
This is a big deal. Earlier, Meier lost the IP for Civilization for a while and other developers got to use the name for their games, totally screwing up the lineage of the games. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:44, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Princess Bride?[edit]

I don't think that's a reference to the movie, as the other pirates say the same thing ("fear the dread pirate William Kidd!"). That one is probably a coincidence. Dehumanizer 08:39, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sun sighting?[edit]

The Pirates Gold (1993) section mentions something called "Sun sighting." What the heck was that? Is it in the 2004 version? — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:39, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

  • It's an old sea navigation process, something to do with a sextant, probably. It was in the 1987 version, apparently, but it's not in any version since. --Alexwcovington 21:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • In the 1987 version of Pirates, in order to locate your position at sea it was necessary to use "sun sighting", a subgame in which you would have to line up a sextant with an animated moving sun and take the reading at the sun's peak (noon) which would provide your latitude and longditude for you to look up on the paper map provided with the game. Anonymous 10:35, 10 Jul 2006 (GMT)
  • Even better, the "sun sighting" feature provided JUST your latitude. As an accurate simulation of the era, you had to rely on dead-reckoning for longitude. Unlike both it's descendants, the original 1987 game had NO online map showing your position. So it was great fun to set a course from Santiago to Cumana and pat yourself on the back by making landfall in just the right place, just from experience. And adjusting the sextant was not as simple as it sounds; it was sometimes hard to make out the sun's zenith as passing clouds would sometimes partially obscure your view. -Anonymous 130.156.3.34 23:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Open ended[edit]

The article currently says, "Pirates! was a groundbreaking game in its era, widely considered the first open-ended game (i.e., one in which there is no specific goal, such as rescuing a princess, or defeating a gorilla)." I'm not at all sure that is accurate. Elite was released in 1984 and is probably more widely considered as the first open-ended game. There may very well be others. I'd like to edit this section of the article, therefore. Any comments?

I concur. Sign your name. -Joseph (Talk) 16:34, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to sign my name. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll maybe make the changes after life calms down a bit. But of course, this subject is still open for debate until then. --Yamla 06:11, 2004 Dec 25 (UTC)

Okay, I've made a change. I tried to keep much of the initial paragraph intact. It isn't quite as clean as I wanted to make it so I absolutely welcome other changes. Please feel free to totally rewrite the paragraph if you think you can say it better. Pirates was certainly not the first open-ended game but definitely influenced very many games since. --Yamla 15:50, 2004 Dec 25 (UTC)

Split[edit]

I propose that this be split into an article for each game, with this article being about the series as a whole. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 23:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're suggesting that we create Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987 game), Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold Edition and Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004 game) as new articles? Should be easy enough. Likely, it is possible that people would write more about each game. --14:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I support this suggestion. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The three games are fundamentally the same game and not different members of a series. Breaking them out would be like, say, making a new page for every version of Final Fantasy IV that currently exists (the SNES version, the PSX port, and the GBA remake.)

-- Rothenberger, 17 May 2006, 17:33

Perhaps the Gold Edition and the original 1987 game could stay in the same article, but the 2004 game did bring a lot of changes, like new features and a storyline (I do not recall a storyline in the original game). So I think the new game deservs its own article. Which was what I would have expected when I originally came to see this article. Besides, we rarely consider "ports" into different versions. Pirates! in 2004 was completely rewritten, and thus NOT a port, but a new and different game. --Svippong 22:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

--(McDonis) 5/23/2006

I agree with Rothensburger If the game is split perhaps only the 2004 version should be split off
Rothensburger said that he would not split it into anything. I suggested only splitting the 2004 version due to Rothensburger's comment. I hope to see a split personally. --[Svippong - Talk] 17:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely think a split for the 2004 game is in order here. Unlike different versions of Final Fantasy IV, which was the same game ported to different consoles with minor tweaks, the 2004 Pirates game was entirely new for the most part. I think it's a little insulting to the developers who worked hundreds, even thousands of man hours on this game to be added as a foot note to the bottom of the 1987 game.

-BBUCK July 2006

I have played the Sid Meier's Pirates! 2004 edition and talking to many of the Pirates! fans who know the Gold Edition and the older ones, each one has the same theme behind it, but the mechanics and things are different in each. So in essence they are a bunch of seperate games, not just remakes. That's just my thoughts. :D - Lucky Foot - 7/28/06
I agree. Besides, look at other pages for remakes. They don't share a page, do they?

SuperCooper 7/30/06

I vote to keep it as one article. I happened upon this page looking for information on the newer version of the game and was pleasantly surprised to be able to easily read about the game's roots. --MikeBC 17:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I vote to keep it as one article, because I prefer to read one medium-sized article than 5 stubs. It's neat to see the evolution side-by-side without having to click on anything. If there were more information, I would agree with a split. MisterSheik 11:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I vote to split it based on the same reasoning as what Lucky Foot had stated above. 66.215.215.202 20:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose They are essentially the same game with updated mechanics and AI. scope_creepTalk 18:04, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Seventeenth Century"[edit]

I played the 1987 version of the game for the Apple II as a kid. At the beginning of the game, you chose which historical time period you wished to play in. Many of these were in the seventeenth century, as the article states, but several (including the default scenario) were in the eighteenth and there were a couple sixteenth century century as well. I've made a minor alteration to this effect.

Overall, it's a solid article for an old favorite of mine. 67.165.49.173 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)Tom Miller[reply]

Link to Pirates Gold![edit]

The external link at the bottom of the page to download Pirates Gold! for Windows links to Pictionary. It cannot be corrected because it says the link it blacklisted, however. Tha*Lunat!k 04:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know what you're talking about (blacklisted?). The link took me to the correct article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, you mean the external link to download Pirates! Gold. Yeah, the URL was for Pictionary. I just removed it, since it's illegal. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pirates! been inspired by Seven Cities of Gold and Heart of Africa?[edit]

My memory might be fooling me but I seem to recall that there were similarities in the gameplay of Ozark Softscape's classics Seven Cities of Gold and Heart of Africa, e.g. the land map play. Now I read in the article on Ozark that Ozark did business with Microprose. Is there any evidence that would speak in favour of my conjecture? --Marc van Woerkom 02:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, unless you can find a reference, it is just that, conjecture. And original research is banned in Wikipedia articles... — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

St. Augustine's origins[edit]

From what I've seen, all versions of the Pirates! game claim quite casually that St. Augustine was originally founded by the French. Even the most recent (2004) release describes it in the manual with: "Originally a French colony, in 1565 Spain captures St. Augustine, massacring the Frenchmen and establishing their own fortress and garrison in its place." Is this worth mentioning in the article as an enduring game error? Or, is every credible source I've looked through actually incorrect in asserting that St. Augustine was built by the Spanish in 1565, over the site of a Native American village, with no prior French presence? -BaronGrackle (69.149.179.197 14:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]

It's somewhat complicated. There was a pre-existing French settlement near to St. Augustine, at Fort Caroline, but it was about 40 miles north. When the Spanish arrived and established the St. Augustine settlement, they slaughtered the French at Ft. Caroline. Further French forces were located about 15 miles south of St. Augustine, at Matanzas Inlet, and nearly all of them were also captured and executed by the Spanish. http://www.nps.gov/foma/historyculture/the_massacre.htm The specific details of the manual description are untrue, though broadly speaking it's kind of what happened. I think if the game error is mentioned some of this would have to be accounted for. 69.237.198.66 16:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]


open source Pirates[edit]

I've been playing an open source vesion of the game but I can't find it anymore. Does anybody know the open source version, I would love to play it again —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.52.8.240 (talk) 13:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I remember hearing about one such project maybe ten years ago. Googling now I see two candidates:

So there have been at least two attempts at cloning this much-beloved game. I can't tell how far those projects came though. Both seem dormant. JöG (talk) 19:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Slavery[edit]

Speaking of IP, that reminds me. Having not actually played the game, and not inclined to thoroughly explore every detail of every version of this game, I ask players, does the game even make any mention of slavery? Seems that at a glance, this historical fact, probably the most pervasive force of the time, is completely ignored by the game. --75.111.44.124 (talk) 01:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This game has Inca temples in the Caribbean. Apparently it wasn't meant to have anything to do with history. lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.34.46.136 (talk) 08:49, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion[edit]

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Splitting proposal[edit]

I propose that portions of this article relating to the Pirates! Gold remake be split into a separate page called Pirates! Gold. This was once a separate article over a decade ago, unsourced and small and looking like this, so it was rightly merged into this article, and over time a few items about Gold were added to the Reception section here. In addition to that material, I found evidence of several other reviews in English, and even more non-English reviews so I restored the article with its previous text, added bits from this article, and added more pieces that I found from my own searches as seen in this version. Before arguing that remakes should not have their own articles, please be aware that Category:Video game remakes currently has 336 articles. Given that this remake was so widely reviewed that a sizeable article can be easily constructed using the reviews I found, I cannot imagine how anyone could argue that this fails the WP:GNG, so I feel that it is an unnecessary hoop to jump through to require a split discussion, but since this was reverted I am inviting people to comment on just what about this topic makes it unworthy of a split, especially when none of the new content or sources were merged into this article. 2601:249:8B80:4050:41C4:6D95:5D42:947E (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging still-active users who edited the original version of the Pirates! Gold article before it was redirected: @Frecklefoot, Axem Titanium, Herostratus, Peyre, Zarex, East718, MER-C, Keilana, Datumizer, Salavat, Phatom87, Thumperward, Mika1h, Kintaro, and Tom.Reding:

I would create a draft and submit it using the Articles for creation process. I have no sense for whether it should be split or not so creating a well-sourced draft that passes GNG would significantly help me and others decide either way. For what it's worth, reviews are not the only, or even primary way that a video game is determined to be notable. See WP:NME and WP:MOSVG for more info (WP:VG does not have its own notability guideline). Axem Titanium (talk) 18:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oof, sorry, I don't remember the discussion. I do see that this has 13kb of text (more if you count differently, and WP:ARTICLESIZE has <40kb as "Length alone does not justify division". But the article seem long enough to split, to me. I guess it depends on how different "Pirates! Gold" is from "Sid Meier's Pirates!". If someone interested in one is likely to interested in the other, maybe you don't want to split. It looks so, as it seems to be the same game but with a different name? We don't have separate articles for "Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum" and "RingCentral Coliseum"; they're the same thing. But maybe this case is different; I don't want to make a strong suggestion, I haven't studied the matter. Herostratus (talk) 19:57, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not having all the free time I'd like to have so I won't participate in this, but if others make this "Pirates! Gold" article comes back with all the necessary sources, then there shouldn't be any problem. Kintaro (talk) 17:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If there is a lengthy article about the remake then I guess it would be okay. But who is going to write this article? Alternatively, if the remake is more notable then why not have an article for it and merge this article's content into the new article? (Or just rename/repurpose this one.) I am not very invested in what happens, either way. ➧datumizer  ☎  02:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your input, everybody! Since there was no objection to working on this as a draft so that a proper split could potentially happen, I will be requesting a move of the edit history to a draft page. 2601:249:8B80:4050:FDCF:44F6:2142:124C (talk) 16:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
AfC reviewer here: The draft looks good, I tagged the redirect with G6. Noah 💬 18:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't a case for G6. G6 is non-contentious housekeeping when there is a minor history associated with the redirect. The history isn't minor if there was previously an article that was cut down. I also see that there were recent attempts to expand the redirect back into an article, but that they have been reverted by User:Onel5969, so pinging User:Onel5969 into this discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:36, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
At any rate, and anyway, in the future this redirect might become an article on its own. I created a draft in one of my sandboxes, over there: User:Kintaro/Kintaro sandbox. Dear Wikipedians, feel free to edit my sandbox until it is accepted this draft becomes an article that simply replaces the redirect. Please note the colon immediately before the word "Category" in the categories source code. This prevents the draft from appearing in the categories. Those colons should be removed only if the draft becomes an article on its own. Kintaro (talk) 06:59, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Kintaro. There are a number of non-English sources noted there, and someone else might have an easier time interpreting some of them then I would. 2601:249:8B80:4050:61F9:B39F:FE63:9EBF (talk) 12:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - there are two issues here. First, does this meet the requirements of WP:SPLIT, and second how are readers of WP best served? SPLIT has two components, the first being WP:SIZESPLIT, which states that articles below 40,000 characters do not qualify for splitting. The current article has 2138 characters (13 kB), while this draft has 407 characters (2600 B). Even if every word in the draft were added to the current article, the size parameters for splitting would not be met. The second component is WP:CONTENTSPLIT, which this clearly doesn't meet, since this is a remake of the earlier game. So as per wp:split, this does not qualify. So the second issue is how are WP readers best served? Is it better to have all the information about this series of games in one place? Or split out a very tiny portion into a standalone article? The information regarding Gold is all integrated into the current article, in fact it is done in quite a good manner, and I think splitting this information out would actually be a disservice to WP readers. I understand -noah-'s rationale for approving the draft, has the game does pass notability criteria. I just don't think that breaking the information out is necessary. In fact, I think it is detrimental. It would be one thing, if the draft were 35,000 words and went into great depth about the game, but it doesn't. Onel5969 TT me 12:31, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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