Hooked on Age of Pirates pre-release FAQ

Basics

Age of Pirates is a will feature 16 colonized island, a completely open ended gameplay with a goal to achieve (gather all colonies under the player's hand), improved naval ship tactics, four different multiplayer modes: (Free for All, Naval Battle, Sink the Convoy and Capture the Fort) and more.

What has this got to do with Sea Dogs and Sea Dogs 2?

Sea Dogs was the first pirate game by Akella and featured a lot of the same characteristics as the upcoming Age of Pirates will. It is important to consider that, in Russia, this game was known as Corsairs.

Corsairs 2, aka Sea Dogs 2, was supposed to be the sequel to Sea Dogs and the game was even announced in 2002, but never released. Akella was in financial difficulties at the time and Disney came to its rescue by purchasing the game from them.

As the result, the game was released outside Russia as the Pirates of the Caribbean, a tie-in game for the movie that was released around the same time. In Russia, Sea Dogs 2 was released as Corsairs 2. Pirates of the Caribbean was never quite satisfactory to Akella, and the game suffered from many bugs and limited gameplay, due to the fact that it had had to be finished before its time to reach the market in time for the movie.

Age of Pirates is thus basically the third installment in this game series and is, in fact, released in the Russia as Corsairs 3. Due to the complicated history of the title, many sources mistakenly refer to Age of Pirates by saying that this is the game that was supposed to be Sea Dogs 2. In fact, they are two different installments of the same game series.

Ok, as a sequel to PotC, will this game be essentially an updated copy of the said game?

No, PotC was a plot-driven game designed to fit the shoes of a movie tie-in. Age of Pirates will be an open-ended game with a living world to explore an conquer. On the gameplay side of things, Age of Pirates really widens the boundaries compared to any other pirate game. The playing experience varies from naval battles and sword fighting to colony management and intricate quests. It will basically be a pirate RPG, or as Akella likes to call it, a pirate sim.

Will the game have free character creation or ready characters to choose from?

The players can choose one of two main characters, a male fortune-hunter called Blaze or a redheaded female called Beatrice. Both of them are successors in some way to Nicolas Sharp, the hero of Sea Dogs and founder of pirate republic Libertalia.

How can the player manage the colonies he has captured?

"All of that lead us to idea of upgrading colony defense to make it bigger and stronger, so it will be easier to repel enemy attacks. And, of course, to maintain the good defense, a colony must have well-established infrastructure. With all that, we ended up with a concept close to building a castle in the Heroes of Might and Magic series. Different buildings give various bonuses to the colony, and not all of them are dedicated to defense." (Renat Nezametdinov to DailyGame)

What islands of the Caribbean will the game include?

The game will include 16 colonized islands. Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Tortuga, Dominica, Marie-Galante, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St.Martin, St.Eustatius, Curacao, Barbados, Montserrat, Antigua, Nevis and St.Kitts. Akella has reported that it was impossible to include the continental coastline or any of the towns due to the graphics engine they use.

How much sailing will there be in the game?

As in Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Caribbean, there will be no free sailing to get from one island to the other. All travel between islands will be conducted through a minimap. There will be sailing in the vicinity of the islands, however, and in battles.

How long will a single game take?

The game is open-ended, which basically means that you can continue playing for as long as you like. But there is the main quest of capturing the whole of Caribbean under the player's rule. From what is known at this time, it seems that even if the player chose to start pursuing this goal from the very beginning, it would take about 30-40 hours to achieve it.

How about the multiplayer support?

Age of Pirates features multiplayer that allows playing over Internet or LAN. Multiplayer supports up to 16 players in one battle and has four game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Fort and Sink the Convoy.

What are the game's requirements?

According to what is known at the moment, the game should run on a 1500 MHz CPU with GeForce3 video card (or comparable).