Is Caribbean Tales, City of Abandoned Ships, and To Each His Own the same exact game??!?!

[Namkcor]

Same engine, graphics, towns, I mean seriously... is this all the same game?

[StormRangerX]

They're different games on the same engine.

[Namkcor]

Originally posted by StormRangerX:

They're different games on the same engine.

In what way? I recognize the same locations and both, I can understand if there are main plotlines that are different, but what other features are different between games?

[CSA FD]

sea dogs 1 came out in 2000
then there was going to be Sea Dogs 2 in 2003 that be came Pirates of the Carribean (from the POTC Johnny Depp movies)
in 2006 Carribean tails that came out but it was fair to play, couldnt do much, in 2009 City of Abandoned Ships came out which is the absolute best game in the series, in '12 they were going to release Sea Dogs to Each his Own but that was pushed and finally released in '16, its the hardest of the series. with quests that are almost impossible even staying on the main story, the side quests are hard as well as the DLC's like Jolly Roger but still SDTEHO is a great game to play just hard even in beginner mode.

[Namkcor]

I find this game extremely hard to enjoy. Nothing is explained, the difficulty is extremely high, one small mistake such as leaving a port without a quest or too few crew members costs you all your progress. At least with CT there were quest markers on heads, COAS there is zero indication of where quests are, the problems with the game design goes on and on. The engine itself and the world is fantastic, but a group of awful designers can ruin any game. I think that is what happened here and why Akella went out of business. Those who love this have put the time in to learn how to navigate around the issues or have been playing the series as it released with rose tinted glasses.

[Namkcor]

There is also the issue of re-releasing the same game four times just with improvements, that is definitely frowned upon. Not that companies like EA don't do it with sports games, but still.

The level of bad game design is so shockingly high it's laughable. You can enter a one story house and it's two story on the inside. Ships have have doors that are too small for humans. The brothel has women with slenderman proportions. There are tons of areas to explore in each town that go to waste because there is seldom ever a quest to go there. You can easily best one enemy, but more than that is instant death. Even the UI is terrible. I'm baffled, as someone who works in the industry there has to be so many levels of incompetence from lead designers all the way to QA for this to have been shipped.

[Anderson]

Age of Pirates Caribbean Tales has the same maps, almost the same locations etc. It also seems better optimized and more appropriate for the mainstream audience.

COAS and SDTEHO are like extreme mods/expansions for Mount & Blade. I don't know what were they thinking. It's a hit & miss IMHO.

[Namkcor]

I came to this forum because I thought it would be most popular, but I actually only own Sea Dogs, Caribbean Tales, and City of Abandoned Ships on GOG. I don't have To Each His Own. Based on what you have said, would you say that Caribbean Tales is the best in the series for most people? It lacks a lot of on-foot areas.

[Shenji]

IMO land/board combat is fine if you know your limits. TEHO just has TOO MANY restrictions set by the developers. Sometimes I feel they are trying very hard to force/police players to play in the 'proper' way. CoAS did better since you can totally abandon the 'main story' line and wandering around, but in TEHO there are too many things you can't put your hands on until you follow the 'plot'.
Can't remember things about Caribbean Tales, just too long ago. Is that about the Blaze Brother/Sister? I only remember when I was playing the sister's story, my then gf yelled something about 'how dare you staring a *** naked girl for hours!?' (me: wha...wait, actually she got pants on!...but..okay.....silently quit then uninstalled...)