' PIRATES.TXT - CAPTURED BY PIRATES! HELP FILE ' PLAYING THE GAME The mouse is now your ship, select a spot on the grid, and place it in the water by pressing the mouse button. Place your ship on the dots where the grids cross. Click the mouse on the Sloop or Schooner icons to the right of your pirates head to change the ship to the type of ship you wish to place in the water. Click the mouse on your pirates head to buy cannons, guns, and more ships. Click the mouse on the Jolly Roger icon to open the Disk Options Menu. ' PLAYER SETUP Select the players as humans, computers, or off by using the mouse on the push button switches below each character. Click the mouse on the Pirates Head Icon to find more information about that real life character. Click the mouse on Game Options icon to change the initial game settings. Press the 'How to Play' button with the mouse for instructions on playing the game. Press the 'Start Game' button with the mouse to begin the game after you have selected your players. ' MOVING A SHIP You have picked up a ship. You must place it back in the water. Sloops may move one space in any direction from where it originally was, and Schooners may move two spaces. ' PIRATE TRADING Click on the icon of the item you wish to purchase. Listed below each icon, is the price of the item, and how many you currently have NOT in the water. Sloop ships, Schooner ships, Cannons, and Fire Guns are the 4 items you may purchase. Be sure to buy Fire Guns often, or stock up on them. This will insure that you will not place a ship in the water without fire power. Keep track of your treasures. You will gain treasures during the game when you sink or capture ships. Watch for the map pieces to appear on the right. This helps you remember who has the other pieces. You must buy things before you place or move a ship on your turn! You may not buy on other players turns! You may however look at what other players have. If the computer beeps while trying to buy something, you do not have enough treasure. When another player sinks one of your Sloops, and you have more than a million in treasure, the computer will automatically buy you another Sloop. Be sure you buy a Cannon for it if you can. ' GAME OPTIONS (1 of 3) TREASURE MAP HINT WINDOW - ON will display where the three hidden treasure map pieces are located before you begin each game. This adds an additional strategy to the game. Instead of fighting each others Sloops, now you fight for the treasure map and hidden treasure. Turn this OFF if you wish to look for the maps on your own. CANNONBALL SPEED - Slow fires a cannon or gun in four shots. This is good in the beginning of the game, so you can see who is firing at who. Medium fires in two shots and Fast fires in one shot. This is needed for later in a game when there are lots of ships in the water, and you don't want to wait forever in between turns. WAVES, WHALES, and VORTEX ODDS - Several random events can occur after each players turn. If a WAVE appears underneath your ship, it will move your ship one space in a random direction. If there is ' GAME OPTIONS (2 of 3) already a ship in the place you were going to be moved, the ship will not move because the waves are not strong enough. A WHALE appears out of the water with a flip of his tail. This is counted as one Fire Gun hit on the ship above the whale. A VORTEX (or whirlpool) will sink a ship if it appears underneath you. When the switch is set to SELDOM, the odds are 1 in 36, OCCASIONALLY is 1 in 18, and FREQUENTLY is 1 in 6. COMPUTER DIFFICULTY - This allows you to play a beginner or an advanced computer player. The EASY Computer randomly places his Schooner ships within three spaces of a randomly selected Sloop. Schooners can only fire two spaces, this allows the computer to fire at your Schooners protecting your Sloop, but not directly at your Sloop each time. The EASY Computer does not understand capturing ships, so if he captures your ships, it was by random chance! This happens often because so many ships are so close together near a Sloop! ' GAME OPTIONS (3 of 3) The HARD Computer randomly places his Schooner ships within two spaces of a Sloop, usually in the spots where the Sloop cannot fire back. It will capture ships every time it can. It does not however know about the treasure map pieces. Press the Save Options button to save these options to disk. ' HOW TO PLAY (1 of 5) First, you must select a real life pirate from the 18th century. Use the toggle switches to set each player to Human, Computer, or Off. Each player begins the game with a fleet of 20 Schooner ships, the smaller faster attack ships, one Sloop ship armed with a cannon, which your pirate is on, and $500,000 in stolen treasure. You must use your treasures to trade for guns, cannons, and more ships for your fleet. Your lead pirate lives on a Sloop ship. If your Sloop ship is sunk or captured, your game is over, unless you have another Sloop in the water or enough treasure to buy another Sloop next turn. You must place your Sloop ship in the water on your first turn. The next time it is your turn, you will be placing Schooner ships in the water. BEFORE PLACING A SCHOONER SHIP REMEMBER TO BUY A FIRE GUN FOR IT. If you do not have any fire guns, the ship will only be a decoy. You can put a gun on it later by buying a gun, and picking up that ship and placing it back in the water. This is similar to ' HOW TO PLAY (2 of 5) moving a ship, which you can do when you run out of ships and money, or if you want to move it out of a place that is heavily attacking it. Place your Schooner ships strategically to protect your Sloop ships, as well as attack your opponents Sloop ships. Sloops and Schooners fire differently, so be careful where you place your ships. Also be careful placing your ships next to each other at any angle because of others capturing your ships. If an opponent surrounds two of your ships, it is called a capture! If they do this, they get those 2 ships and $300,000 in treasure. When ships sink because of cannon or gun fire, you lose your ship and the attacker gets $100,000 in treasure. You cannot control which ship your ship will fire at. It finds all ships in its range, and randomly selects one to fire at. You can however place your ships so that it will fire at a certain ship the first time. But when lots of ships are in range, it is a random firing selection. By placing more and more ships near your Sloop ' HOW TO PLAY (3 of 5) or the ship you are protecting, the less the odds are of it getting hit. When you run out of ships, buy more or move your ships already in the water. Sloops may only move one space while Schooners may move two. When all of your Sloop ships have sunk, and you do not have enough treasure for another one, your game is over. The computer will automatically buy you another Sloop if you have enough treasure. Search for the hidden treasure map which leads to $2.5 million. Be sure to try and steal treasure map pieces by sinking or capturing others ships with the treasure map pieces on them. When the board appears, there will be several icons to the right. Your pirates head icon will allow you to trade treasures for ships and guns. The two ships to the right of your head are, a Sloop on top, and a Schooner on the bottom. You may click on these icons to switch between the two types of ships. Your mouse cursor will change into the ship you select. If the icons disappear, then you ' HOW TO PLAY (4 of 5) do not have any more of those types of ships. Use the trading window (pirate head icon) to buy more. The Jolly Roger flag takes you to the Disk Options Menu. This allows you to Save your game, Start a New Game, and change the Game Options during the current game. The mouse cursor will become a ship of the player who begins the game. He may place it in the water by clicking one of the mouse buttons, or move the mouse over to the right of the board, and it will switch into a hand. Here he can select one of the icons or return to the board. After he places his ship, the mouse cursor will change into the next players ship. The ships are different colors for each player. Check next to your pirates head, to find out which color you are. ' HOW TO PLAY (5 of 5) EACH PLAYER BEGINS WITH: 1 SLOOP SHIP - Slower ship which carries the head pirate (Blackbeard) It also carries 1 cannon that shoots at 45 and 90 degree angles. 20 SCHOONER SHIPS - Fast fighter ships used to capture other players ships by surrounding two of their ships by two of your ships. Also shoot Fire Guns in all directions two spaces away. 1 CANNON - On your Sloop Ship fires each turn. 16 hits sinks a Sloop. 8 hits sinks a Schooner. 0 FIRE GUNS - Schooners shoot these each turn if a ship is within 2 spaces of it. 2 hits from a Fire Gun count as 1 cannon hit. $500,000 STOLEN TREASURES - from your previous pirating adventures. BE SURE TO BUY FIRE GUNS BEFORE YOU PLACE YOUR SCHOONER SHIPS! Watch out for the Waves, Whales, and Vortexes that will move, hit, or sink your ships. Press F1 for Help from most menus. Press F10 to Quit at anytime. ' DISK OPTIONS Click the mouse on New Game to start a new game. Click the mouse on Load Game to load a previously stored game. Click the mouse on Save Game to save the current game. Click the mouse on Game Options to change the game options during the current game. These options will now go into effect during the middle of this game. When you return from one of these options, Press the 'Return to Game' button to go back to your unaffected current game.