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Head over to the Releases page, and, if you're on Windows, download the zip file from the latest release, and unzip somewhere on your harddrive. Run the pirates.exe file, and you're off!
For those of us not on Windows, The following requirements must be met:
- Python 2.7 32-bit (https://www.python.org/downloads/)
- pygame (once the above is installed, run "pip install pygame" from the command line)
- requests package (pip install requests)
Once those are in place, grab the source code from the latest release (or clone the repository), and run python pirates.py from the source code directory/folder.
There are two main views in the game:
You start out in a City. Cities come in four different sizes, and have a General Store ("N"), a Dock ("K"), and one to four of: Brothel ("B"), Shipyard ("Y"), Tavern ("T"), Gossip ("G") depending on their size.
Buy ships with the menu in the Shipyard (up/down/enter), where you can also repair your hull ("H") or sails ("S"), or purchase Cannonballs ("A") or Chainshot ("I") for your cannons.
The General Store has provisions, like food and rum, that your sailors will consume while at sea. Morale will sharply decrease if you run out, and don't get back to shore quickly. Sailors eventually will starve to death, causing an even sharper decline in morale. If morale is very low, when entering a City, sailors may leave your crew.
The Tavern has crew members that you can enlist ("H"), or you may buy a round of drinks for the crew to increase their morale.
Learn news about nearby surpluses/shortages of goods (which cause prices to spike, or plummet, as you'd expect), or Pirates who've been spotted nearby.
If morale is very low, you may want to consider bringing the crew to a brothel. They are expensive, especially in larger cities, but will result in a very large morale boost.
Press "K" within the city view to set sail from the city's docks.
When you're at sea, you can set the heading of your ship with any of the A/D, Left/Right, or NumPad4/NumPad6 keys. Your heading is indicated in the upper-left corner of the info panel on the right of the main game view.
Using your anchor (Space Bar) is essential, and will stop your ship in place. Very useful for navigating tricky waterways, or waiting out a bout of particularly high winds.
The constantly-changing wind direction and speed are shown to the right of the ship heading dial. High winds will affect sailing pretty drastically, and it may be necessary to wait out a bout of particularly high winds. In the 1.0 release, the maximum wind speed is 20 knots, and anything above 10 can be quite tricky to sail against. For 1.666 (the final, polished, balanced and not-done-in-seven-days version) I will be adding in storms, and capping the non-storm winds around 12-15.
The neighbouring cities of your home port will be visible on the main game view, as revealed squares in the fog of war. Get to within your line of sight (determined by your nav skill) of the city, and it will appear.
Set your anchor down in a tile adjacent to a city to visit it.
You'll run into other captains at sea, who are usually just sailing from one city to another, carrying news and goods. Set your anchor beside a ship to gather any gossip they may have heard in their last port. Attacking a vessel which is not hostile towards you will result in that captain's opinion of you dropping. Take it far and they'll turn on you and attack. Sinking a non-hostile vessel affects your reputation with all other sea captains.
Beware black ships. These are pirates, and will be hostile towards you no matter what you do.
Fire your cannons with the mouse. Right click to fire Chainshot, which damages sails and kills crew, or left click Cannonballs, which damage hulls and crew. Each shot will consume half your number of guns in ammo, and will do the equivalent amount of damage.
You may only fire at points within an 80-degree cone off your port and starboard sides. The range of your shots are determined by your gun skill.
Press TAB to bring up the Map/News view. on the map, you can see all of the area you've uncovered through exploration. Use the NumPad arrows to move the map view around.
Press the "N" key to switch to the News tab, where you'll see a number of messages about your exploits, and the world around you. Learn of new pirate threats, and recount any news you may have learned from cities you've visited, or passing captains.
Press "M" to return to the map view.
Skills are randomized at the beginning of the game, and have a maximum value of 20. They include:
Your nav skill determines the size of your field of view. Increase your nav skill by spending time at sea.
Your gun skill determines the distance you can fire your cannons. It is increase by firing your guns.