Changes
Gameplay consists of setting out to sea, plundering towns and looting ships, also trading, finding the occasional hidden treasure, etc. Every few years, you divide up the plunder (kill off some of your own men before that in battle, this will increase their happiness and share of the loot), then start another expedition. The length of each expedition depends on the morale of the crew (so frequently check morale by pressing fire or space, then select "party status"). At some point they will mutiny if you go on too long without dividing up the plunder.
Unlike other famous Sid Meier games like ''Railroad Tycoon'' and ''Civilization'' which were strongly influenced by—or one might even say ripped off—existing board games designed by Francis Tresham ("1829" and "Civilization", respectively, both published by Avalon Hill in the US), ''Pirates!'' was a relatively novel concept for its time. (While there is another board game by Thresham Tresham called ''Spanish Main'', it has little resemblance to ''Pirates!''.) Notable earlier computer games that feature some elements seen in ''Pirates!'' and could have served as partial inspirations include ''[[Westward Ho!|Oregon Trail]]'' (1971), ''Taipan!'' (1982; ported to the CPC by Ocean as ''[[Tai-Pan]]'' in 1986), ''Broadsides'' (1983), ''The Seven Cities of Gold'' (1984), and ''[[The Wild Bunch]]'' (1985, CPC-only). ''The Seven Cities of Gold'' in particular is an influence on ''Pirates!'' Meier himself has acknowledged in interviews.
Perhaps the main problem of ''Pirates!'' was that its arcade sequences were a mixed bag: Battles at sea (both ship-to-ship and the captains dueling) were fun, but land battles were rather boring. Also, with land battles, the outcome seemed to be largely predetermined by the numbers on each side, so the exhilarating against-the-odds quality of sea battles—defeating a large, heavily armed galleon with a fast sloop and a much smaller crew—was largely absent with land battles. I.e., if you are outgunned and outnumbered in a land battle you will probably lose. The 2004 (and later) versions did not really solve this problem with land battles at all and in fact even added more boring arcade sequences like dancing and sneaking into/out of town.
