Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!samsung!crackers!cpoint!frog!jcc From: jcc@frog.UUCP (Jim Chagnon) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: Pirates! How do you score? Message-ID: <24535@frog.UUCP> Date: 16 Mar 91 02:31:00 GMT References: <24389@frog.UUCP> <64726@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1991Mar13.174318.1799@motaus.sps.mot.com> Reply-To: jcc@frog.UUCP (Jim Chagnon) Organization: CRDS Lines: 31 In article <1991Mar13.174318.1799@motaus.sps.mot.com> skipper@motaus.sps.mot.com (Skipper Smith) writes: >How do you reliably "take" a town? I have gone into some towns with 200 men, >killed everyone in the town, and not capture it. I turn around, come back to >it and somehow they found 20 more men for me to slaughter. At other times, I >have gone in with 50 men (against forces of up to 150), killed a few, and the >govener handed the keys over in nothing flat. I have managed to score enough >points to get within two grades of King's Advisor, but I have never been able >to reliably take a town (or beat the soldiers on foot either, they always wipe >me out ;-( ). Your best bet is to have 2:1 odds ( at apprentice level ), before the fight starts. There is leeway at the begining of the game: your ship is faster, your guns are more accurate, and you can take a town with less people, but as the game goes on, this evens out. If the town has more, or almost as many soldiers as you do, chances are you won't get that town. They are more likely to give you the town if the fight is efficient and over quickly than if you have to kill them all. You also won't get a town that you attacked recently. Perhaps they see you as cruel or inept. Every time you attempt an attack, the number of soldiers goes up by 20. In a game I had already screwed up, I decided to see if I could take Santa Marta in a ship assault. The winds were wrong, and by trying to dodge cannon balls, I wound up either out to sea, or too far down the beach for the assault to take place. By the time I finally made a landing that my men approved of ($%@!!!), the town (unnoticed by me) had grown a defense of 480! And since I had to beat a hasty retreat, for the rest of the game the sleepy little hamlet of Santa Marta had a standing army of 500. jcc