Ahahaha. Indeed, your crew will almost always try and butcher civilians if you arm them with muskets.

However, I no longer give my pirates firearms, and a mob of 75 rampaging pirates is enough to persuade the civilians and soldiers alike to surrender.

I'm very tempted to start 'filming' my town captures using FRAPS and creating a website for the game. It could be nice to watch the techniques/methods for capturing towns without any ill reputation effects.

One thing that disappoints me is the fact that the town guard is still summoned if one just sends ashore one or two crewmembers. It would be nice if they could go ashore as civilians, loot a house or two, possibly kill a person from an assassination quest and then return to the ship.

I tend to use power word: reload to avoid the assassination/look for the bloke wearing a golden hulahoop quests unless the payout is very good.

There are flaws in the game, but its still very enjoyable.

But I really like the idea. It is just too bad that one has to take an entire city down with him at the same time. Especially if it is an allied city. :D

lol, the flaw with this is you can take down the city and replace the current governor with your own.

By default, the governor you install is still the nationality of your Letter of Marque. Therefore, you can plunder allied towns, and as long as you replace the governor with your own man, suffer no ill consequences.

Nice to storm a town, grab the gold and cargo, then speak to your mate who is the new governor and get an extra reward.

That is certainly a flaw. :D

lol, Pirates! on the Commodore 64 was a classic. The best game I ever had with this was when the Spanish somehow declared war on the Spanish.

I made a killing let me tell you!

:D That was certainly also a flaw.

I only had Pirates for my Amiga. One of my favourites then.

The new pc version is also great, but somehow I just feel it lacks a certain feeling that the old Amiga version had. Perhaps it has become a little too cartoon-like. I really cannot tell what it is. I had expected more from it - but it is still a great game.

I've ascended to a whole new level: my crew loyalty has risen to 100%!!!

I currently have circa 220 crew members. 75 marines, 60 gunners, 13 officers and 65 sailors. The reason they are so happy is that I have 1.3 million pesos (from which derives the term pieces of eight) to share with them.

I am currently raking the Spanish along the main and replacing the Spanish governors with... my own officers! I'm getting everything in the port, then simply sailing back in and selling all of the goods to the prize court.

I'm about to take on a couple of Dutch ports in the middle of the Spanish main and these ports are MINTED. I went through a test run last week and I picked up almost 200 jewels from them - alone these are worth a bloody fortune.

The best trick of them all - which I am sure you already know - is to gather all the goods that have not been sold together with a minimum of crew on the flagship and sink the rest together with the bulk of the crew. In that way there are only very few to share the profit. I have killed many of my own men that way - and made a fortune. :D

And after that treatment there are still plenty of men willing to join one's crew for the next mission. Amazing how stupid they are - or how little rumour travels. :D