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Repetitious Pirating I'll state it right up front; Sid Meier is a game making genius. Civ II is perhaps the greatest game of all time. So what happened? Civ III was fatally flawed and now Pirates looks like a huge misfire. I love the whole pirate concept, I love sailing around the Caribbean and visiting cities like Nassau, San Juan and Havana. The problem is that the game seems pointless and repetitive. I danced with every Governors daughter, found all my family members, collected all unique items but so what? So how is it repetitive? Regardless of the city they all look the same; Tavern, Shipbuilder, Market. Same same same. The fights are the same. The opposing captain may have a slightly different uniform, the swordfight might be on a different part of the ship but they're all essentially the same. It goes even beyond that. The villain who captures your family needs to be caught in order to extract information on each ones whereabouts. Except that when you catch him he only offers one small piece of information. So you capture him again and again and again. The game sets you on apprentice level to start with and I quickly, VERY QUICKLY, managed to upgrade my ship to the limit, purchase every single unique item and kill eight of the nine top pirates. At that point money was completely useless. I had nothing to spend it on except the occasional diamond necklace or ruby ring. I suppose I could work for a large estate but it seemed like an awful small reward. Some of the fights were an exercise in frustration. If the ship doesn't have the wind behind its sails it moves like a badly wounded hippo. If the opposing ship is positioned into the wind you may find yourself flailing about unable to move as the other ship pounds on you. The positioning of the ships seem to be set at random so it's not even like you can use this information to your advantage. There are lots of things to do in the game but it's hard to figure out why I might want to do them. I can assault a city, I can lead a new governor to a city, I can urge pirates to attack a city, I just can't figure out WHY I want to do these things. Even simulators like SIM City have a point. Build a cool city. In Pirates you can build up a fleet, collect a treasure pile and gather a pirate gang but before you know it you have to divide the loot and you lose everything you've collected except for a tiny percentage of the loot. I think the fatal flaw in this game is when you ask yourself `Why am I still playing this'. I know that a game isn't working when I keep wondering when it's going to get better. Sid Meier will always be a legend in my book but a game really should have a desirable goal.