Rise of Piracy

Looks pretty but the combat is a huge let down Why didn't they decide to have the wind not be a factor in combat in this game because it would have created more interesting tactical gameplay. Instead you have ships spinning in circles while you try and get into positions where they can't shoot you and it's just not fun. Games like this should have a weather gauge. Well tactics are a thing in naval warfare and when you have a game that is set up like this, where you're commanding fleets in an RTS format. See it in other games where the combat is set up similarly. You see it in games like Total war. You see it in games like Ultimate Admirals. Because this allows you to outmaneuver the enemy and take less damage. You see it like in a game about pirates where you are going to be doing daring actions with limited resources. I absolutely should be able to do some Jack Aubrey ♥♥♥♥ here and I can't. Able to come up behind my opponent and rake the rear of his ship of the line with a broadside from my frigate. I can't because he'll just spin in a circle instead and always keep his broadside pointed at me. Game forces you to just duke it out and I don't like that. That's not age of sail tactics.

[B] Not Recommended - at least not at the current price [/B] Rise of Piracy is fun, and you can clearly see the inspiration from Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Mount & Blade. The issue is that the game borrows ideas from both, but does not fully know what to do with them yet. Naval combat is probably the weakest part for me. Sea battles do not really feel like age-of-sail battles. The ships move more like steamboats sliding across the water, waves do not seem to affect them much, and the ships feel strangely lifeless since you do not really see crews on deck like you would in something like Empire: Total War. Boarding also feels unfinished and sometimes broken. Land invasions are interesting and have some cool ideas, but right now they feel more like concepts than fully developed mechanics. Taking islands is fun at first, but eventually there is not much point. You can capture an island and assign ships to defend it, but that is about it. You cannot really build a full naval military, change governors, send forces on raids, or meaningfully manage conquered territory. The diplomacy system also feels odd. You can take letters of marque and seize land for a faction, but they do not seem to provide real military assistance or meaningful rewards. It makes the system feel disconnected from the rest of the game. Ship balance is also confusing. Being able to put more soldiers on a sloop than on a Man O’ War makes no logical sense and hurts the immersion. FPS can also be a major issue, if you use a Man O' War be prepared for your PC to stutter a lot. I respect that this was made by one developer, and there is definitely potential here. But potential is not enough to justify the current price. The game feels like it should have stayed in the oven longer before being released. There is a solid foundation, but right now too many systems feel unfinished, shallow, or not fully implemented. Fun idea, undercooked execution. Wait for more updates or a sale.

This is an impressive game, especially considering it's from a solo developer. The amount of game modes and systems blew me away. Tutorial starts you off in a top-down strategic view of the map, where you can navigate to different settlements, hideouts, engage with factions, intercept other ships, collect treasure maps, and interact with the games various systems. I thought that was the game, but the next tutorial drops you down to your ship for navigation and ship-to-ship combat. After that, into an RTS mode for land battles. There is a cinematic flyover mode where you can 'visit' the different locations you come across as well. You can even draw/design your own flag in an in-game paint mode. Pretty cool. It has the making to be a LOT of game, for sure. I will say it is definitely an early access game, lots of work to be done still. Definitely some polish needed and some bugs to squash, but the foundation is solid. I'm looking forward to more campaign and story-type content being released over time. If this is your type of game, I definitely recommend. It isn't for me, and I still enjoyed myself and will be coming back to try it again as more content comes out.

I probably will still roll up my sleeves and fight modern OS architectures to install Sid Meiers' Pirates once in awhile, but watching this game become something I consider a spiritual successor is fun and exciting

This is a great little game that has so much potential to be even better. Since it is a single dev working on it, it probably will take some time, but it scratches several itches for me as it is. I love pirate games and this one has it all: cannon duels, boarding actions, a diplomacy system with several colonial nations and factions, the ability to amass a fleet of your own, create a pirate kingdom of your own, a trade system, a lively game world with (IMO) the perfect amount of AI ships, much more, and the game is not even fully released! When the full game eventually releases, I think that this could be one of the greatest pirate games of its generation, and it's already pretty great now.

Its a great game, but there are far to many issues with the game. My play through is as a trader. Now at the start there were pirates everywhere and i had to spend a good amount of time dodging them, but as time wore on i noticed the frequency in which i ran into them dwindle to never ever seeing any. I didnt mind cause it allowed me to freely trade to the point that i built a massive fleet. Now that im in a position to focus more on conquest and war i figured hunting pirates would be a good start at getting used to combat cause after 40 some odd hours of just trading i have had to really scrap and if i did i just outran the enemy. Well after some time trying to complete contracts for pirate bounties i have discovered why there are no pirates. Theyre all off map, everyone of em. Over a period of 2.5k days they have all sailed outside the map border, which is massive. i suspect the overall size between border map for the player vs actual end point of the map to be 500NM, which is massive and that goes in four directions so around 2,000NM of unplayable area is where all the pirates go. which sucks for me cause ive made allies with every faction other then the pirates. Game is good, fighting is good though it does go pretty fast when in an actual battle which makes management a challenge but overall game is good. Just has some major flaws.

It's a fun pirate game and the graphics are beautiful. Some things to iron out, but overall I'd say it's good!

The game is decent, not perfect, decent. Still needs a lot of work though, I get microstutters when playing naval battles or land battles for some reason. It's like watching the game at 1fps even though I have 100+ easily. Please consider fixing these weird bugs. What I would add: -Optimization. -AI. -Animations, add crew walking around the ship and manning the cannons. Honestly it looks weird to see empty ships just firing at each other until the other sinks. Would also like to see our captain character ingame. -The way the ships move around the water (in battle) looks weird, like they are literally on ice rather than the sea. They also can turn around quite fast, does the wind even play a role? I give it a thumbs up, but beware that it still needs more prep time and may not be satisfying at the current state.

im absolutely loving this game so far! i just wish there was a bigger fleet size limit. 15 ships is perfect for just your main fleet but it would be nice to have extra space for ships that can be transport for island fleet defense. i personally use three of my ships as army ships, meant for island invasions and for transporting troops.

Really good. still is early stage but still a very solid game and worth the prices