PIRATES! GOLD SPEC SHEET

 PIRATES! GOLD SPEC SHEET 

 

Here is the spec sheet for Pirates! Gold.  The features listed 

are _tentative_ at this time. 

 

Article III: Enhancements to Pirates Gold, IBM version 

 

15 April 1992 

 

 

Environment 

* DOS resident. Must be played from hard-drive. 

* VGA graphics. High-resolution, 256 colors. CGA, EGA, Tandy, 

  unsupported. 

* Roland, Sound Blaster, AdLib sound drivers supported. IBM 

  speaker for sound-effects. Some digitized sounds. 

* Mouse, joystick, and keyboard input devices supported. 

 

Art 

* High-resolution VGA graphics. 

* All new pictures and animations. All new opening and closing  

  sequences. 

* Animation to be in high-res VGA, in as many colors as is 

  practicable: 256 if possible, 16 if necessary. 

 

Map 

* Strategic map in high-res VGA. Map makeup (rendered or 

  character set) to be determined by programmer and artists. 

* Map is interactive and changes as game progresses. City icons 

  appear and change as player learns more about city. For example, 

  if player sacks a city, city's map icon changes to a burning city 

  icon until city is rebuilt. Nationality flags appear next to 

  known cities, and change as city's nationality changes. 

* Additional cities to be added to map: from five to 20. Not all 

  of these cities will be in play at one time. If feasible, some of 

  the new cities will be new types: native villages and/or free 

  (pirate) cities. 

 

Ship Movement on Strategic Map 

* Ship movement on strategic map is identical with current 

  movement, with following exceptions: 

* Accelerated Time: Player may press "Alt-T" or some other key 

  combination to speed-up the passage of time and the ship's 

  movement. All phenomena in the game would have to speed up, as 

  well (weather, encounters, and so forth). When ship has an 

  encounter, accelerated time turns off automatically, otherwise 

  the player toggles it on and off at his convenience. 

* Landing. When ship bumps into land, there's a two-second delay 

  before crew disembarks. If player moves ship away from land 

  during that period, crew doesn't disembark. (This feature will 

  cut down on the number of accidental disembarkations.) 

* Cargo and ship scuttling: The pirate will be able to abandon 

  ships and cargo during sailing. This is useful when the pirate 

  has more ships than he can crew comfortably, and when one or more 

  of his ships is slow and/or damaged. 

* Sun Sight: this will be deleted. 

* Weather: Hurricanes will periodically wander into and through 

  Caribbean. The pirate will have to run before the hurricane or 

  find a port in which to weather the storm. If the pirate is 

  caught in the hurricane, he runs great risk of losing all his 

  ships and getting shipwrecked on a desert island for several 

  months.  

 

Ship-to-Ship Combat 

* Convoys: Pirate will occasionally encounter convoys of ships. 

  These will be a number of weak, unarmed cargo ships, guarded by 

  one powerful vessel. The convoy sequence will run as follows: 

  "Sail Ho!" If pirate investigates, next message is: "I count x 

  cargo ships, Captain, and one galleon!" If pirate investigates 

  again, he'll learn the ships' nationality. If pirate attacks, 

  he'll get the message: "The cargo ships scatter across the ocean 

  as the galleon comes out to meet you." The battle proceeds as 

  normal. 

  If the pirate is victorious, a die is rolled. Depending upon 

  the difficulty level and how long the battle took, the pirate 

  will overtake some, none, or all of the unarmed cargo vessels. 

  This should be an unusual event; possibly as few as one out of 10 

  encounters should be convoys. The escort ship should be powerful 

  and smart and the rewards should be great.  

* In battle, player will have the option of taking a ranging shot 

  -- that is, he may fire off one of his cannon to find out where 

  his shot will land. This will reduce the strength of his 

  subsequent broadside by one; the ranging shot will not be 

  reloaded until after the broadside is fired (or the player fires 

  off his entire complement of cannon in ranging shots). Note that 

  ranging shots don't do any damage to the enemy vessel. There is a 

  slight chance, however, that the enemy vessel will surrender if 

  it is heavily outgunned and the ranging shot crosses its bows. 

* Terrain: When the pirate's ship goes into combat, the program 

  will check to see how close the ship is to land, shoals, cities, 

  etc. If any of these are in likely range of the battle, they'll 

  be placed on the battle map. Ships may then attempt to make use 

  of this terrain in the battle -- i.e., light-draft vessels will 

  cut across shoals, hoping to cause heavier pursuers to run 

  aground; ships near to a friendly port will run for it, hoping to 

  draw protection from its guns, etc. This will necessitate 

  significant adjustment to the artificial intelligence of the 

  enemy ships. 

* Weather: The weather in battle will reflect that which was 

  current when the battle began: if the pirate's ship was quite 

  near to a cloud, the storm will pass over the ships during the 

  battle. This will increase the windspeed and decrease the 

  effectiveness of cannon-fire (aiming is more difficult, and it 

  takes much longer to reload, on a storm-tossed vessel). Ships 

  with leaking hulls may sink. 

* Battle Information: As much information as possible will be 

  displayed graphically, through icons, as well as through straight 

  text. Small portraits of the two combatant ships appear on the 

  bottom of the battle screen. Portraits display the following: 

  sail status, i.e., battle sails, full sails, or masts down; hull 

  damage; guns loaded or unloaded (gunports open or closed). Wind 

  direction should be shown by a weather-vane in the corner of the 

  screen. Crew number could be shown by number of icons next to the 

  ships' portraits.  

* Victory: The player will see a screen displaying his current 

  ships, their sailing condition, his cannon, crew, and cargo, and 

  the prize's condition and cargo. He'll have all of this in front 

  of him before he must decide whether to take the captured ship as 

  a prize or scuttle her, what cargo to take and what to leave 

  behind, whether to accept volunteers from the defeated crew and 

  so forth. 

 

City 

* City menu to be replaced by graphic map of town. Map to show flag 

  of city plus buildings representing locations. To go to the 

  merchant, for instance, player would click on the building 

  labeled "Ye Merchante's Shoppe" or the like. 

* The locations themselves have changed from current game: 

  Tavern, Governor's mansion, and merchant have lost some functions 

  to new locations. The following locations have been added: 

  Shipwright: pirate repairs ships and sells excess ships. Docks: 

  pirate leaves town and returns to ship. City gates: pirate leaves 

  town if he arrived by land. Bank: pirate divides treasure. Inn: 

  save game. Town crier/newspaper office: pirate learns information 

  and reviews his personal and crew's status. 

* Map is mildly interactive. For example: if pirate came into the 

  city by land, the docks location is inactive, and possibly 

  removed from the map; if pirate cannot meet with governor, gates 

  to governor's mansion are closed; etc. 

 

Land Battle 

* Scale to be reduced slightly, to allow larger tactical area. 

* General unit control: Player will have a cursor on the screen. 

  To activate a unit, he clicks on the unit. He then gives orders 

  to that unit (move here, shoot these guys, etc.), by putting the 

  cursor where he wants the unit to go or shoot, then clicking 

  again. He might be able to give orders to multiple units via 

  held-clicks. 

* Musket fire controls altered. Currently, pirates attack 

  w/muskets when they're stationary and player doesn't touch the 

  controls. Instead, player will have choice of when and where to 

  fire. Player will also have to give the pirates a "reload" 

  command once they've fired. This will cause the pirates to become 

  immobile for a certain period of time. If the player chooses to 

  move these pirates before they have a chance to complete their 

  reload, they must start all over from the beginning.  

* Melee fire controls altered. Player will click on a unit and 

  then the target; the unit will charge target and hack at it until 

  the target runs away, its morale is broken, or the player gives 

  it different orders.  

* These changes should make little difference in the outcome of 

  the battles -- they are mostly cosmetic, giving the player the 

  appearance of more control. However, they may necessitate an 

  adjustment of the power and/or artificial intelligence of the 

  opponents to maintain play balance. 

 

Treasure 

* When he divides the plunder, the pirate will put his share into 

  his "secret treasure cave." This will be a static picture of an 

  empty cave; as the pirate puts booty there, it will gradually be 

  filled-up with gold, gems, encrusted items, swords, etc. 

 

Swordfighting 

* The sword-fighting sequence will be enhanced so that the player 

  has more control over his character. The command buffer will be 

  altered or removed, so the pirate's figure will respond more 

  quickly to commands. 

* There will be additional figures in each animation sequence, so 

  each character's movement will be smoother. 

* The player will have the option to attack high, medium or low, 

  or feint and attack high, medium or low. The feint attack will 

  have a better chance of getting through, but will do less damage. 

* There will be some kind of new ending sequence for swordfights: 

  possibly, the victor will disarm the vanquished, sending his 

  sword out of the screen. The vanquished will be left standing, 

  hands in the air, instead of kneeling. 

* There will be (if art-time permits) animations of three 

  different opponents for the pirate to face: Spanish guard, 

  Captain, and Pirate. In addition, if time permits, the pirate 

  will be shown with three different swords: cutlass, rapier, 

  longsword. Pirate's shirt may change color over the course of the 

  game, as well, as he gains in fame and wealth. 

* Like the ship battle sequence, the game information in the 

  swordfighting sequence will be displayed in both text and art. 

  There will be portraits of the two combatants below the fighting 

  figures themselves; these portraits will show the expression of 

  the fighters: enraged, panicked, etc. The portraits' shirts may 

  become slashed as the battle progresses and the fighters take 

  wounds (if this isn't too tacky). Alongside the portraits will 

  appear icons representing the number of troops each fighter has. 

 

Roleplaying 

* Additional roleplaying missions will be added. If the pirate 

  gets married, his wife may be kidnapped. If there is a famine in 

  a port of the pirate's nationality, he may be asked to take food 

  to that port. 

 

Information Retrieval 

* Improve information sequence, making it easier for player to 

  find what's going on. Screen should be split into multiple text 

  boxes, one showing current political info (France is at war with 

  Spain, Dutch at war with English), one showing current personal 

  info (Don Luego spotted in Cartagena), and one showing current 

  missions (Carrying secret letter for Governor of Belize's brother 

  in Havana).   

* Record feature. Under pirate's diary in information screen, 

  pirate can find a listing of all actions he's taken during the 

  game: every battle, casualties on both sides, etc. This currently 

  exists in the game, but it only keeps track of the last 10 or so 

  things the pirate does. Pirate should be able to scroll through 

  page after page of diary. 

 

Economy 

* Apparently, there's a flaw in the city economy algorithm. If 

  the pirate doesn't pillage a city for a very long time, it will 

  become obscenely wealthy. This must be corrected.  

 

Reward Sequence 

* Player will be able to view all of his honors and awards 

  simultaneously (probably from his cabin in his ship). He'll see a 

  scroll saying "Ensign in the Spanish Navy"; if he is promoted to 

  captain, the scroll will be overlaid with one bearing his new 

  rank. If he has awards from different nationalities, all will be 

  viewable here. The pirate should also be able to look at "Wanted" 

  posters of himself from the various nationalities. 

* Retirement Screen: a static shot showing the pirate sailing off 

  into the sunset. His retirement status determines the vessel-type 

  he's sailing in, from a leaky rowboat to a fleet of galleons. 

* Treasure Cavern: Pirate's personal wealth is determined by the 

  amount he's deposited in his treasure cavern (see above). Cash 

  he's taken in battle earns him nothing until he divides the 

  treasure.  

 

Forwarded by -Quentin, MPS Labs, MicroProse 

Copyrighted 1992 By MicroProse Software, Inc.