MicaByte at 22:17, 20 November 2012

2012-11-20T22:17:18Z

MicaByte at 21:45, 5 May 2012

2012-05-05T21:45:06Z

MicaByte: Created page with "

Starting a Game

Welcome to "Pirates and Traders". You will find help buttons, denoted by question marks, throughout the game. If you wonder about anything on a pa..."

2012-05-05T21:29:09Z

Created page with "<h3>Starting a Game</h3> <p>Welcome to "Pirates and Traders". You will find help buttons, denoted by question marks, throughout the game. If you wonder about anything on a pa..."

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<h3>Starting a Game</h3>

<p>Welcome to "Pirates and Traders". You will find help buttons, denoted
by question marks, throughout the game. If you wonder about anything on a
page, click on the help button.</p>

<p>"Pirates and Traders" is a role-playing adventure in which you sail the
Carribean sea during the golden age of piracy. Your object is to amass a
personal fortune and retire from life at sea, but how you do so is entirely
up to you. You can sail from port to port, trading goods and build your fortune
peacefully. Or you can turn pirate and rob, pillage, and burn. The choice is
up to you.</p>

<p>Before you start, however, you need to create your pirate. If you would
like to jump directly to the action, press the "Quick Start" button. This
will build you a good default pirate straight away. Then press the top right
button to start the game.</p>

<p>In all views during character creation, the top right button advances to
the next stage.</p>

<h4>Pirate Name</h4>

<p>This is the name of your pirate.</p>

<h4>Starting Age</h4>

<p>This is the starting age of your pirate. It will always be 20 years old.
As your character grows older, he will age and may lose skills. In the standard
game, he will retire when he reaches the age of 60.</p>

<h4>Gender</h4>

<p>This represents the gender of your pirate. The choice of gender is important
for some story lines, but it is otherwise irrelevant. It is assumed that the
player - if female - is disguised to appear as a male, as was the case for the
vast majority of female pirates in history.</p>

<h4>Nationality</h4>

<p>This is your starting "nationality". You will always start the game
outside one of their ports, and with a letter of marque (license to
privateer) for that nation. The different nationalities are:
<ul>
<li>British</li>
<li>Dutch</li>
<li>French</li>
<li>Spanish</li>
</ul>
The Spanish start the game at war with all other nationalities. The British
and the Dutch start the game as allies.
</p>

<h4>Aptitudes</h4>

<p>The aptitudes of your character are the base determiner of what your character is
good at. These represent the basic chance of success at associated actions. Each point
you put into an aptitude gives you a 10% chance to succeed at related actions. Thus
a physical aptitude at the default level of 3 will give you a 30% chance to succeed
at physical actions (before modifiers).</p>

<p>You have a total of 9 points to distribute among your aptitudes. The human norm for
each aptitude is 3, but you as the player can modify your aptitudes as you like. Note
that low aptitudes strictly limit the skills you can pick for an aptitude. It is
recommended to play with the default aptitude setting for at least the first few
games.</p>

<h4>Background</h4>

<p>Here you can select your pirate background. The background sets some basic starting
skills of your pirate and sets up a little background storytelling which helps define
your character.</p>

<p>In the free version of the game, you may select between an Adventurer (good
opportunities to build charm, cunning, and fighting skills but little sailing experience)
or a Sailor (good Sailing skills). The default quick start pirate is a sailor.</p>

<h4>Ship Name</h4>

<p>This is the name of your pirate ship.</p>

<h4>Ship Type</h4>

<p>This allows you to select which ship you will start the game in. It also
determines your starting gold.
<ul>
<li><b>Sloop:</b> The Sloop is a fast, versatile ship with 16 guns and a relatively
large crew. This is the best choice if you want to pursue a career as a pirate.</li>
<li><b>Barque:</b> The Barque is a slow 8-gun ship with a moderately large cargo
capacity. This ship is well suited to a career of trading.</li>
</ul>
You will always start the game with a half complement of crew, full cannons, and food
for 5 months of sailing. The worth of your starting ship will also determine how
much gold you start with. The cheaper your ship, the more gold you will begin the
game with.</p>

<h4>Pirate Flag</h4>

<p>Here you can select your pirate flag. The flag is used in your status screen and
the high score table, but otherwise has little practical effect on the game.</p>

<h4>Difficulty</h4>

<p>Select the difficulty level of the game. The difficulty level affects how skilled
the enemy captains are, as well as what proportion of the gold you earn during the
game is added to your treasure hoard.
<ul>
<li><b>Apprentice:</b> This is the easiest level. In this level, non-player
characters never improve their skills, which means that you will only rarely
encounter skilled opponents. You are also less likely to encounter warships
and pirates when performing a search action and you will generally find it
easier and cheaper to escape from a trial with your life. Your share of the
treasure collected during the game is 20% of the total booty, but your score
modifier is also set at 50%.</li>
<li><b>Buccaneer:</b> This is the standard game level. In this level, non-player
characters improve their skills, but only at half of the level of the player
character. Your share of the treasure during the game is 10% of the total booty.</li>
<li><b>Swashbuckler:</b> This is the hardest game level. In this level, non-player
characters are as advanced in their skills as the player character. This means that
you will often meet characters who are your equal, if not better, in their skills than
your own character. You will also find that it is significantly more expensive to
bribe and escape a trial. Your share of the treasure during the game is only 5% of
the total booty, but your score modifier is set at 200%.</li>
</ul>
</p>

<h4>Game Settings</h4>

<h5>Auto save settings</h5>

<p>This setting allow you to specify when the game should save your progress. There
are currently four options: every year (whenever the game year ticks over), every month,
every day (effectively any time that you perform any action), or never. These options
are provided for convenience; you can still manually save the game whenever you want
using the save option under the MENU button.</p>

<h5>Fountain of Youth</h5>

<p>The Fountain of Youth option allows you to void the effects of aging in the game. Your
captain will never lose skill points from old age, and can thus continue playing for as
long as you feel like it (if you die in a trial or get sunk, you can always go back to an
earlier save game).</p>

<p>However, games played using the Fountain of Youth option do NOT appear in the high score
list.</p>

<h5>True Pirate</h5>

<p>True Pirate is the "ironman" mode of the game. In this game mode, your progress is
continually saved during play. Death or retirement - for whatever cause - is final.
True Pirate mode has its own high score table.</p>

__NOTOC__

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 == Attributes ==
-The attributes of your character are the base determiner of what your character is good at. They affect skill checks, and also determine what skills your character can learn. You have a total of 10 points to distribute among your attributes. The human norm for each attribute is 3, but you as the player can modify your attributes as you like. Note that low attributes strictly limit the skills you can pick. It is recommended to play with a minimum attribute of 3 for at least the first few games.
+The attributes of your character are the base determiner of what your character is good at. They affect skill checks, and also determine what skills your character can learn. You have a total of 10 points to distribute among your attributes (9 if you are playing on Swashbuckler). The human norm for each attribute is 3, but you as the player can modify your attributes as you like. Note that low attributes strictly limit the skills you can pick. It is recommended to play with a minimum attribute of 3 for at least the first few games.
 == Background ==

New Game Interface - Revision history

MicaByte at 22:17, 20 November 2012

MicaByte at 21:45, 5 May 2012

MicaByte: Created page with "

Starting a Game