Yeah, take it back for a replacement, and have the store open your replacement to see if the DVD is in that one. That’s what I did when I bought the Hellfire expansion pack for the original Diablo and found that the CD inside was blank. Best Buy didn’t have a problem with either request, except that they had me go to the repair department ( 
) to get someone to open the replacement.
It used to piss me off no end when Ivylad would go sack Panama.
It’s not a sea battle, so you have to gather a huge amount of men, march overland, then storm the fortress walls, then it’s a huge hard battle.
There was an inland city on the far west…G something, that was easier to take and just as rich.
Although we did once make Havana English. 
We found we couldn’t really be Spanish, since two of your quests are the Silver Fleet and the Treasure Train (?) and since they’re Spanish, you tend to tick off Spanish governors if you capture them.
Can you name your ships? Is there a cheat to turn off aging yet?
When you can capture a Spanish Treasure Galleon with a Pinnance, then ye be Pirates! My favorite ship was the Merchant because it had the best combo of cargo, guns, speed and men. The later years were much harder because of all the Frigates out pirate hunting. The Spanish main was a dream once you captured a town and changed the governor. The War Galleon was a monster sporting a huge number of guns. The new Pirates is going to have ship upgrades. Oh the joy!
Capturing the Silver Train in Panama was always a favorite because of its difficulty. Another fun addition will be the use of excess cannons in land battles. Can’t wait.
Now that I’m sober this morning, I realize what a huge collection of ramblings this became. So sorry.
Anyone wanna debate the merits of the various ships? I always favored the Sloop. As far as I could see, it handled as well or better than the Pinnance, and carried more men, guns and cargo. In fact, other than scraping over reefs, I"m not sure why anyone would choose the Pinnace. I never tried the Frigate as my flagship; The Merchant was ok, but if I was in Port Royale I usually sold my merchentmen rather than crawl back upwind to the Lesser Antilles. And I usually favored speed and mobility when attacking harbors- the few times I tried bombarding a town, it always said that most of the town’s valuables had been run off with. If you had a heavy enough ship (Frigate or War Galleon), was it workable to bombard a really tough town like Caracas into submission?
Count me as a Sloop fan too. My best fleet was an All-Sloop Brigade o’ Mayhem, especially effective in the northern Central American cities.
Count me in also as a frustrated New Yorker who was looking for a CD version of the game and couldn’t find one in several stores. CompUSA at 57th never got it, Best Buys were sold out, and the Electronic Boutiques apologized that they’d been sent several DVD ones for every CD ones and the CDs had sold like wildfire to people faster than me. 
Hey…they replaced the DVD with many apologies and no problems! Thanks to everyone for their advice. So I guess I was just a worrywart…nothing like my Pirates.
I gotta say, I’m a fan already…this lives up to the high expectations. I’ve just played (rather poorly) through one career. I don’t see a way to rename ships yet or a cheat to turn off aging.
Take a lesson from my mistakes: get a Sloop or Sloop of War and just ratchet up all the upgrades you can get. Use that ship and that ship only as your flagship. I remember mobility being important, but not nearly as important as it is now. Speed and turning radius win the day, it would appear.
Lots of little settlements now in addition to the biggies.
The land combat system is pretty nice. It’s turn based (imagine something vaguely Civ-ish) and takes elevation, morale, and terrain into effect.
Dancing is DIFFICULT. Aggggh.
Swordfighting skills seem to drop dramatically after a few trips to the hoosegow (aging and health effects, I imagine, but of course I haven’t read the manual yet).
During the beginning that’s definitely so, but I eventually switched to a Large Frigate. It’s classified as a ‘fast’ ship, has a good turning radius, packs 40 cannon and can hold 375 crewmen (with the upgrade). The only ship I’ve occasionally had a problem taking on is the war canoe, which usually seems to slip away from me. That’s probably my fault, though, since I haven’t quite gotten the hang of the wind system.
Satasha, you can name your ships. I don’t know of any cheats.
My flagship is a tricked out Royal Sloop. More cannons and men than a Sloop of War. Faster than the Barques and Brigantines, or even the Brigs of War.
I’m having problems working on the storyline while keeping my crew happy. I need to spend a game doing nothing but rescuing family.
Thanks D_Odds! I haven’t got the game yet but I would be interested in hearing people’s opinions, tactics and stories. Does it become reptitive and boring? Here is a trainer I found for crew, gold and locking age. Obviously I have not tested it yet: http://www.addictedtopirates.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=826
Satasha, the game doesn’t get boring at all, at least for me. It’s got the hallmarks of all the good Sid Meier games: just one more turn (quest, trip to sea, etc.). Some of the swordfighting scenes got old, but I quite enjoy them…especially that the time of day changes.
Just finished my second career and did significantly better. Retired as a surgeon in Port-aux-Paix, married to the Gov’s daughter.
I’m basing my preference of Merchant ship on the Spanish Main time, in the late 1500s. That was the timeframe I chose most often. Sadly it’s no longer in the game. Sloops were not an option as the Dutch had not arrived yet. I believe it was Pinnance, Merchant, Royal Galleon, Spanish(Treasure) Galleon and War Galleon. Can’t remember any others.
For the other posts, there is no way to turn off aging.
OK, scratch that. The game FAQ website I saw said there was no way to turn off aging. I guess it was wrong.
Anyone else having trouble running it?
I picked it up this morning and went through the install…
When I attempt to run it I get a ‘Windows encountered a problem and has to shut this program down’ message consistently.
I’ve played through 2 careers, one a 16 year semi-successful career, and another a 25 year very successful career, becoming a Marquis in each nation. In the later, the only things I did wrong were marrying plain and missing the last Inca treasure.
Dancing has gotten much easier. There are certain move combos, usually in 4s. Once you get them, it comes down to timing. Time it very well, and you can sweep the ladies off their feet, literally.
Some hints, maybe be spoilerish, but I’m trying not to:
The evil Marquis (main villian) is in a fort. Do not attack him after dividing your plunder on a minimal crew. :smack:
Fight pirates early in your career. After 15 years or so, keep sword fighting to a minimum. You’ll still need to do it to find family and to rescue governors’ daughters. I choose to batter treasure ships with grape shot until they have more cannon than crew.
Dancing with beautiful daughters will give you map pieces.
If the bar maid is being harassed, fight the man before asking for crew.
Just before retiring, get an Incan map, raise the difficulty, take your default crew to find the treasure, and immediately split it.
I did that a few times, until I realized I was still getting hit, and that the governors tended to flee more often if I fought until the defenders had just one man remaining.
- Take the lightest sword (rapier)
- Hit the opponent enough so that the tide of battle has tipped in your favor, and then parry his every attack while your men kill his.
- Once there is only one defender remaining, tap him one final time with the rapier. He dies, the governor flees nine times out of ten, and you haven’t taken a single hit and your health remains nice and high.
Of course, when I played as a rabid sea dog, I preferred the brute force of the cutlass and the heartless massacres of my men before the gates of Panama.
Those were the days…
I’ve only played this a short while, as I’m saving it for my trip out of town next week. But is it a bit easier than I remember the first ones being? I mean in like an hour of gameplay, I found two buried treasure’s fairly easily, have enough of the map to find my sister. Have boarded and captured 3 or 4 ships without much trouble, and risen in rank to Major. And that’s while just messing around with it to make sure it works on my system. I mean…I don’t like the impossibly hard games like Myst and such, but this just seems way too easy.
Atrael, two things will slow you down. First, when you divide the plunder, raise the difficulty (apprentice -> journeyman -> adventurer -> etc). Second, as you age, those sword fights get longer and harder.
At apprentice, you generally get the whole map the first time it is offered. Makes it easy to find treasure. Most ships are cakewalks, until you start seeing escorted ships, pirates, royal or war galleons, pirate hunters, treasure ships, military payrolls, and so on.
Major is pretty easy to come by. Try getting Marquis in all 4 nations. That’s a delicate balancing act. Those Jesuits come in handy!
You can check your status to see how far you’ve gotten overall. There are lots of categories, including capturing famous pirates, finding their treasures, freeing your family, avenging your family, finding lost Incan treasures, romance, etc.
Enjoy!
Like D-Odds said, it’s easy cause you’ve set it to easy!