Pirates: Tides of Fortune

Game overview

Pirates – Tides of Fortune is a complex and charming browser game released by Plarium Games. In this game you are a commander of your own haven (base of operations), where your goal is to expand, conquer and form brotherhoods with other players.
Tides of Fortune allows you to take several approaches on your gameplay; economical, defensive and offensive. The game leaves you enough room to learn how to fend for yourself during the first few levels, so you don’t have to worry about getting raided and pillaged by other players right off the bat.

➔ Main points:

• Classical strategy browser game.
• Fetch resources (or steal them), recruit an army of pirates and build your fleet.
• Complete daily missions to earn even more resources and units.
• Funny, entertaining, multilanguage voice-over (in pirate tongue too!).
• Much appreciated humoristic approach.

Trailer

Full review

Right as I entered the game, I was greeted by a gorgeous lady with what I thought was an accent of Scottish descent. The fool that I was, I learned not long thereafter that she was speaking in Pirate tongue! The “tutorial lady” is fully voiced and will accompany you throughout the game, making sure you know the ropes before setting sail on your own. The written language of Pirates: Tides of Fortune is also in pirate tongue, which can be changed at any time if you have difficulties understanding it.

Gameplay

The game sets you off on a small island, where you will be given a small piece of land which is later upgradeable. The tutorial and daily quests will guide you on how to build your basic structures and upgrade them. The beginning of the game is not resource intensive, but as you keep expanding the time sink involved increases. This time sink can be shortened by using the game’s paid currency – Rubies. As you start developing your haven the costs of upgrading structure rises and that is where your resources will be spent, but at the start the quest rewards will keep your resources healthy, coming to a point where you can’t spend them as fast as you’d like.

Combat

The combat system is not graphically engaging, and it revolves more around clicking and waiting. If you decide to raid another haven, you wait for your fleet to arrive and reap the rewards as it returns (resources, raid ranking, prestige points and more).

When attacking, you are advised only to select offensive units, while the defensive units of your fleet are best used when being under attack.

You can attack any player, but careful not to engage players with a higher level than yours to avoid getting crushed. Successful raids will grant significant resource gains, but do remember that you are prone to attacks as well. In order to defend yourself, you can build walls and upgrade your defenses over time.

This is why the game has a certain degree of complexion, it is impossible to perfect all aspects of your haven at the same time, which is why it requires critical thinking and good planning.

Graphics

Tides of Fortune is a 2D strategy browser game, and as such there isn’t much room for the graphics to shine. When you zoom in your view, you can see that there is a certain level of detail in the polish of structures and units, but it is not at a groundbreaking level. If you’ve played different strategy browser games before, you’ll notice that this game is completely acceptable in comparison – not better or worse in most cases.

Player Interactions

The game encourages you to interact with other players and join brotherhoods. You are able to trade resources with other players, send sketches and send reinforcements to aid your pirate buddies when they’re under attack.

The brotherhood is the “guild” system of the game, and there are benefits to joining one. You can form friendships, but also wage wars with other brotherhoods and share the spoils.

If you like the game, you can also invite your friends to join and be rewarded with Rubies if they reach a certain level.

The Cash Shop

As with any game of this type, the real money currency is present in nearly all stages of the game. You can purchase various crew members, any type of resource as well as accelerate your resource generation, and last but not least – you can purchase sketches which accelerate your technological advancements. From an aesthetical viewpoint, you can purchase skins to alter the look of your haven.

To sum it up, the cash shop has a heavy impact on the game, but it does not grant access to materials out of reach to other players, it simply buys time. If you don’t have a problem with playing the game casually and expanding across a longer time period, you can do fine without Rubies.

Conclusion

Pirates – Tides of Fortune is a deeply engaging strategy game which rewards progress, adds excitement and encourages interaction with other players. The immersion granted by the pirate voiceovers and various characters across the game is assuredly worth it if the pirate theme is your cup of tea.

You may need to spend a few hours to learn the basics of the game, but the longer you play – the more this game sucks you in. It has potential to be played for hours on end by combining various aspects that make strategy games great.

Ready to enter the world of Pirates: Tides of Fortune? Click here to play now!

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Review summary

1. Gameplay
2. Combat
3. Graphics
4. Player Interactions
5. The Cash Shop
6. Conclusion