CGA-2026-05 🕹️⛵🦜 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 Sid Meier's Pirates!

vili
2026-05-01T15:05:13Z

Introduction

I consider myself an author. Not that I have ever published anything that I have written.

If I'm not mixing up my timelines, Sid Meier's Pirates! was the basis of my second unfinished novel. It was the story of a 17th century French sailor, thrust into the world of piracy as he searched for his long-lost family while trying to acquire a new one by courting the beautiful daughter of the mayor of Caracas. In the end, the only family that he managed to find was the band of rowdy pirates that he captained across the Caribbean.

This might sound like a good story, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I would have been ten, maybe nine years old at the time. I knew very little about family dysfunction, romantic love, or the age of piracy. I understood next to nothing about the demands of narrative style or structure. I simply played the game on my Commodore 64 and wrote down what was happening to me.

A detour

Some of the fighting bits were pretty good, though. If I recall correctly, later that year I repurposed bits of them for a novella that I wrote for a school assignment. It was called Knights of the Square Table and featured four French musketeers. I would like to claim that this was a brilliant post-modern blending of Arthurian legend and Alexandre Dumas, but I'm pretty sure I was just quite confused about some of the classics that I had been reading.

Not that mine wasn't an impactful piece of literature. It made our teacher create a new rule: from then on, there would be a strict upper limit to the length of stories that we could give him.

I sometimes wonder if you guys feel like my teacher.

A detour within a detour

Despite his new rule, later that semester our teacher nonetheless accepted an even longer story where I riffed on the ending of So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams. He really liked it. He was a great teacher.

So, Sid Meier's Pirates! has been a fairly big part of my life. I have not only played the game (many times), but I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about it. I could even say that, through the act of creative imagination, I have lived it. It is certainly part of my identity.

And yet, I have never finished the game. Just like my early novel's fictional French captain, I have never found all of the missing family members. And while I have retired many of my characters, I have never been hugely successful in the outcome. I have never reached an ending that I would consider definitive.

Just like I have never published anything that I have written.

And this is exactly the type of game that Pirates! is. It is an open world game in the truest sense of the word: it gives you a world to live in, to sail in, to plunder and fight in, to look for treasure and lost family members in, to court beautiful daughters in and to change the course of colonial history in. But it doesn't give you any definitive goal. The journey in Pirates! matters far more than the destination. Because there really is no destination.

Just like in my writing.

Or perhaps also in life, you could say?

The Gameplay Loop

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a collection of systems that harmonise rather beautifully. It is one of my favourite game designs.

You start by selecting the era in which you want to play, a choice that determines what the world looks like and how it behaves, and some details about your character. You are then given a ship and a crew, and off you go. You can read the incredibly detailed manual, and you really should because it's wonderful, but you don't have to. It's quite an intuitive game.

Your crew expects you to provide for them. Their loyalty is for the plunder and the plunder alone, and it is up to you to make them rich. If you don't have enough gold for them, they will begin to mutiny. The bigger your crew is the easier it is for you to plunder, but the more of them there are, the smaller each individual member's cut is, and therefore the unhappier they are. And the longer you wait until you divide the gold with them, the less happy they will be with you. There is this constant push and pull, which is at the heart of many of the game's systems.

And here is the catch: every time you divide the plunder, time progresses. The game gets more difficult, not only because you can change your difficulty level at this juncture, and not just because you lose much of your crew and fleet, but because your characters ages. And the older you are, the more difficult fighting becomes. Them old bones won't be so flexible.

You cannot die, though. If you are captured at any point, you go to the gallows. It's not game over, but you lose possessions and time, as you age in prison.

And at some point, you will just be too old. Continuing the life of a pirate makes sense no more. Age has defeated you. Piracy is a young man's game and it is time for you to retire. And when that happens, the game looks at your possessions and other accomplishments, and tells you what your character's life in retirement will look like.

Within this overall frame, the game loop itself is basically a collection of mini-games: navigating the Caribbean winds, making decisions in towns, arcade-style ship combat, a light strategy game for land battles, a fighting game for sword fights. And, in a later edition, a rhythm game for dancing that many didn't warm to. You can look at maps and search for lost treasures, hunt for other pirates, do heists on silver trains (for some reason removed from later editions), build your reputation, court governors' daughters, conquer cities, trade goods, micro-manage your fleet and crew, and so on.

Underneath it all, most events are random, which makes each time you play the game unique. This includes everything from smaller details to the larger geopolitical reality that is happening around you in the Caribbean. Nations go to war, make peace with each other, cities change hands, all without caring one bit about your plans or needs.

It really is as close to a perfect game that I can think of.

History, Versions & Availability

Sid Meier's Pirates! was designed and programmed by the industry legend that is Sid Meier. Although Meier was a co-founder of MicroProse and had already created around twenty games, Pirates! was the first game to feature his name in the title; something that comedian Robin Williams had apparently suggested that they should do. Or alternatively, as Meier himself remembers, the marketing department came up with the idea to try to get people who loved Meier's flight simulators to give a chance for this otherwise impossible-to-sell pirate game that Meier had insisted on creating. Whatever the reason, it started a trend. Later on, we would get titles like Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon, Sid Meier's Gettysburg!, Sid Meier's SimGolf, Sid Meier's Starships, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's Colonization and, most famously, a game and series called Sid Meier's Civilization. Not all of them always led by Meier, but always given his stamp of approval.

The game was something of a departure for the designer, as he had mainly worked on flight simulators and other war games until then. Interestingly, Meier programmed most of the game in BASIC, which means that a lot of the code for the original Commodore 64 version is openly readable. If you'd like to learn more, this 8-Bit Show And Tell video is a really interesting dive into the code.

Platforms & Versions:

Sid Meier's Pirates! has had a long history after its initial Commodore 64 release. I personally count five major versions and say that you can decide which one you want to play based on which version of our previous pirate game, The Secret of Monkey Island, you preferred:

Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987, Commodore 64 and others, sailing screenshot, governor screenhot, duelling screenshot): This is the original game and, for me, the "authentic" Pirates! experience, if played on the C64. But of course it is, because this is the version I grew up with. The art design is minimalistic, clean and crisp. It is also the blockiest of the versions. Choose this if you, like me, insisted on the original EGA (or CGA!) version of The Secret of Monkey Island without voice acting. A DOS port of this is included in the Pirates! Gold Plus release, where you will probably want to choose EGA graphics, even if the loading screen is in CGA. Make also note of the "Pirates! Cheat Sheet" pdf file in your game's bonus content directory, as you'll need those dates to answer the copy protection question correctly.

Pirates! (1990, Amiga and others, sailing screenshot, governor screenshot, duelling screenshot): This isn't really a different version as much as a port. I don't think Meier had much personal input on this one. It's quite similar to the original but with softer graphics designed for more developed systems. Some like them, I'm sort of ok with them. Consider this if you chose the updated VGA version of The Secret of Monkey Island without voice acting. Although I don't think this one is on sale anywhere.

Pirates! Gold (1993, DOS and others, sailing screenshot, governor screenshot, duelling screenshot: This is a full remake with improved graphics and tweaked gameplay, again without Sid Meier leading the development. Play this if you went through The Secret of Monkey Island with the VGA graphics and voice acting. Many seem to consider this the definite experience, but I don't quite see the allure myself as in many ways it sits a little uncomfortably between the purity of the original and the modernisation of the 2004 remake. This is inluced in the Pirates! Gold Plus release.

Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004, Windows and consoles, sailing screenshot, governor screenshot, duelling screenshot): Subtitled Live the Life, this is a full Sid Meier helmed remake (notice that his name is again part of the title) that streamlined the game, made it more modern, switched to 3D rendered graphics, added some story bits, and notoriously introduced a dancing mini game. I think it's ok, although I feel some of the identity and charm was lost with the newer cartoony graphics and sounds. In this one, I sadly don't taste the saltiness of the sea anymore. It feels more like a game. But you may want to choose this if you were happy to play the remastered edition of The Secret of Monkey Island with its new graphical style and streamlined user interface.

Sid Meier's Pirates! Mobile (2008, mobiles): This is a mobile port that I don't think is available any more and that I have never played. I think it's largely based on the 2004 remake?

Genre(s):

Open world, action-adventure, strategy, Sid Meier

Links:

Moby Games (1987 version)

Moby Games (1993 version)

Moby Games (2004 version)

Wikipedia (1987 version)

Wikipedia (1993 version)

Wikipedia (2004 version)

Stores:

Steam - Pirates! Gold Plus (1987 & 1993) (on sale until May 3rd!)

Steam - Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)

GOG - Pirates! Gold Plus (1987 & 1993)

GOG - Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

Share which version of the game you're playing

Share what hardware you're playing it on

Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend

Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game

Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?

What about its system or era?

What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?

What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?

What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.

Ask for help if you get stuck.

Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

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Spoilers

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FAQ

What is CGA?

Colossal Game Adventure (CGA) is Tildes' retro video game club.

Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!

Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.

What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!

It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.

Do I have to sign up?

No. Participation is open to all.

There is a Notification List that will get pinged each time a new topic goes up. If you would like to join that list, please PM u/kfwyre.

Are there restrictions on what/how to play?

Each month will have a focus game or games that will guide our discussions. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. The philosophy of CGA is to play in a way that works for you!

This means:

Choose whichever version of the game you want.

You can use cheats, save states, mods, etc.

You can watch a streamer or longplay instead of playing it.

If you have already played a game and want a different experience:

Try a randomizer or challenge run.

Play a different version of it.

Play a related game (sequel, spiritual successor, something inspired by it, etc.)

There is no wrong way to participate in CGA, and every different way someone participates will make for more interesting discussions.

What is the schedule?

Each month the Insert Cartidge topic will be posted on the 1st, while the Remove Cartridge topic will be posted on the 28th (25th for February).

Nomination and voting topics will happen in March and September (every 6 months).

Schedules are also posted then.

All CGA topics are available using the colossal game adventure tag.

What do Insert and Remove Cartridge mean?

Inserting and removing cartridges are our retro metaphor for starting and stopping a given game or games.

The Insert Cartridge topic happens at the beginning of the month and is primarily about getting the game up and running.

The Remove Cartridge topic happens toward the end of the month and is primarily about people reflecting on the game now that they've played it.

There are no hard restrictions on what has to go in either topic, and each can be used to discuss the game, post updates, ask questions, etc.

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