Naturally, some destinations cannot be reached in a straight line, requiring the player the navigate around landmasses. Shoals strewn along shorelines must be avoided, if the player does not wish to run aground. Weather plays an important part, with winds changing speed and direction and forcing the player to adjust course and heading to maintain reasonable speed, and Storms threatening to cause damage to the player's ships. Navigation on the Sailing Map is not always as simple as pointing one's Flagship in the right direction and waiting until you reach your destination. Therefore, it is usually paramount to seek the shortest routes from one location to the other, and maximize travel speeds by keeping a close eye on the direction of the wind. Naturally, spending too much time on the Sailing Map will lead to the player's character getting older and weaker. In the new version of the game, each day there is a chance for the game to spawn a new AI-controlled ship out of any available location (driving the economy and causing all sorts of subsidiary events to occur across the Caribbean). In the older versions, each new day the player's Crew consume some of the available food, and every day there is a chance to Encounter an enemy ship.

In all versions, these can include economic events, Invasions by one Nation into an enemy nation's Port, etcetera. Each day, it is possible for various game events to occur.

Every few seconds, the game registers a 'tick', meaning that a day has passed on the calendar. As established above, the player's Fleet automatically moves forward at a speed that is determined by its heading relative to the wind. Time passes constantly while on the Sailing Map (unless the game is paused). Moving the Flagship close to one of these allows triggering an attack against it, if the player wishes to do so. In the later game, this mechanic is completely replaced with actual ships appearing on the Sailing Map, behaving much like the player's own ships, sailing from Port to Port, engaging one another in combat, etcetera. In the older versions of the game, these are Random Encounters, triggered by the game automatically, with the nationality and/or type of encountered ship being based on which part of the Caribbean your Flagship is currently in. Ports (and other visitable locations if available) are also visible on the Sailing Map at their correct locations, and sailing into these will trigger the Port Interaction menu (or take you directly into the port, depending on version and circumstances).Д®ncounters with enemy ships also occur on the Sailing Map. Making contact with land will trigger Overland Travel, creating a shore party and altering the behavior of the Sailing Map screen accordingly. The visible area of the map shows the ocean and land. The visible portion of the Caribbean will move together with the Flagship, so that the area shown on the screen is always centered (or mostly centered) on the Flagship. Using very basic controls, the player can turn his Flagship left and right, and it moves forward automatically at a speed that depends on its heading relative to the wind. Visually, the Sailing Map differs from one version of the game to another, but some basic principals hold true for all versions: The screen shows a portion of the Caribbean, about a hundred miles wide, with the player's Flagship shown at its current location. Instead of simply choosing a destination for the Fleet, the player is required to actually navigate across the Caribbean from one point to another, using the simple interface called the 'Sailing Map'. Pirates! is in part a strategy game, where the player needs to make decisions regarding where to go and what to do.

Pirates of the caribbean maps