Historical maps?

[Juleniano]

I must say I was rather dissapointed when I realized that the cities are assigned to different nations in a very unhistorical way. Half of Cuba in the hands of the Brits? Come on.

I understad that some historical accuracy must sometimes be sacrificed to make the game more fun and that it cannot be that 9 out of 10 cities in the game balong to Spain, but this is way too much. Any chance anyone else is concerned about this too? It would be cool to include a more historical scenario.

[R2T2]

absolutely right

[stvlepore]

I get it, bad history annoys me too. However, its a game first not a documentary so I give it a pass.

[Dray Prescot]

A different, but related point, is that a lot of these towns were not even established at the relatively early dates of PR4.

Weather in North America during the 1500s and early 1600s was so bad (even the natives had a lot of trouble surviving), that ALL colony attempts of the the North American mainland north of the Gulf of Mexico failed during that time period. Maybe Corpus Christi, probably Galveston, definitely New Orleans, Biloxi, Pensacola, Port St Joe, Tampa, maybe Florida Keys, and probably the rest of Florida, i.e. Mesquito, Port Orange, and St Augustine, should not even exist on the Game Map before 1610 to 1620 or so. I am not sure about the Bahama area towns, i.e. the usual Dutch towns at such early dates.

See the historical book "A Cold Welcome, The Little Ice Age and Europe's Encounter with North America"
as well as the historical book "Nature's Mutiny" where weather world wide, including much of Europe, was extremely bad for over a century from the 1550s to perhaps the 1670s, and much of the old Medieval social and economic order failed and had to be replaced because of the Bad weather and failed crops for long periods of time. I bought both Books on my Kindle from Amazon.com in the last couple of years.

The whole period is often called the Little Ice Age. During much of that period, the Solar Sun Spot cycle (normally 11 years (Today) for half the cycle) was completely disrupted and absent or very erratic. So most likely decreased energy output from the Sun played a major role in the bad world wide climate and crop failures.

Only the colonies in the semitropical areas, i.e. Mexico, Cuba and the Carribbean Islands, and some locations in Northern South America avoided complete failure, and should exist on the Game Map before 1610 to 1620 or so.

The Europeans did not even understand the normal climate for most of North America and how to survive there, and for most of the 1500s and early 1600s the climate was far worse than the normal climate. Even the natives often had great difficulty surviving the bad climate and failed crops. Even later in the 1600s the climate was not good. Then on top of that, the diseases that Europeans brought to the New World started wreaking havoc as well on the natives who had no immunity to them.

On the other hand, the World Climate during the 1200s was much better (warmer) than normal, i.e. when the Vikings colonized Greenland and Vinland. But by a couple of centuries later those colonies were dead and vanished because the climate got worse, even though the Vikings had at least some experience with living in Northern climates. It got worse than they (the Vikings) could survive in those areas, by the 1400s to 1500s. There are other books that discuss this, particularly by Jared Diamond (Read "Guns, Germs, and Steel", it is probably the best non fiction book written in the last 40 or 50 years, plus other Books "Collapse"by him).

[Saulius]

OP - you sound funny.
You shouldn't play any games at all if you think so.
Go to library and read original historical sources in ORIGINAL language then. Don't TRUST translations. You'll notice- your historical knowledge you got in the school is complete BS. At least much more than 50%. Every country writes it's own history. History in most cases is fantasy but science.
Sorry for my terrible english.
OP - you make me laugh :D :D :D I'm sorry
Edit: in free game settings you can change town distribution between countries. Ofcourse it don't make any sense in "historical" view ;) Games are for fun but science.

[Mygard]

Well, in 1662, an English Pirate did capture some of Cuba after the English enlisted the help of pirates to try to disturb the powers of the Spanish and in 1762, the English captured havanna Cuba which was later given back for Florida when the Peace of Paris treaty was signed. So it's not inaccurate, just the time line really.

While the game features history, I do not recall it claiming to be a history game.

[redgreen999]

In custom mode you can set more or less cities owned by your starting faction. Not indiividually. For example harder start might give you 5 cities, medium might give you 7, and easy might give you 10. Depends on which faction.

So the map is only set in concrete for the campaign

[ovehaithabu]

Originally posted by redgreen999:

In custom mode you can set more or less cities owned by your starting faction. Not indiividually. For example harder start might give you 5 cities, medium might give you 7, and easy might give you 10. Depends on which faction.

So the map is only set in concrete for the campaign

It should not really be too difficult to have an option or file where anyone can simply set the nationality of any town the way you want it. To be honest it also should not be too difficult to set the local goods in the same file. It would add a lot of replay value to the game. In my eyes a missed opportunity.

[redgreen999]

Originally posted by ovehaithabu:

Originally posted by redgreen999:

In custom mode you can set more or less cities owned by your starting faction. Not indiividually. For example harder start might give you 5 cities, medium might give you 7, and easy might give you 10. Depends on which faction.

So the map is only set in concrete for the campaign

It should not really be too difficult to have an option or file where anyone can simply set the nationality of any town the way you want it. To be honest it also should not be too difficult to set the local goods in the same file. It would add a lot of replay value to the game. In my eyes a missed opportunity.

I agree. Modders would add that but Kalypso doesn't open up any of its games to modding. I think its because they use the same game engine for multiple games. ie Pirates Of Tortuga, or whatever the spin off of PR4 is named. Its a shame, because games with a modding community draws more people to the game. Myself, I like modding as much as playing most games.

Mods this game would have.
One for the ships not to bob so much
One that added more flags,
One for setting town factions and resources like u describe.
Always many that make the game easier (why I do not know, but many are lazy i guess)
Id have one to make the game harder.
Someone would find a way to change number of ships in battle, to less or more.
Combat balancing
Trade balancing
Change to ship speed, capacity, hull strength
Added ships... etc. Talk about missed opportunities.

Oh and someone would add Star War ships,

[redgreen999]

I found this game that looks to be in the same genre. From videos it appears to have real time ship combat. I will test it out soon. It creates procedural maps though, so that is way different. Does have some trading though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/326410/Windward/

Update: So I bought Windward and its really nothing like Port Royal. More like SM Pirates. You get to steer your own ship and trading is nothing more than individual missions. ie Take these goods to this port, pick of those goods from that port. No managing of trade that I can see early on. I found it fun, if very simple. Change of pace I guess. Nothing to put 200+ hours into. Combat is very fun in real time. Its also simplified.