I. The Story

Over eighty years ago...

... Euchmich the Loathsome looted and pillaged his way around the fifteen seas. He eventually ended up controlling the waters of the entire world, his reputation striking terror into the hearts of men, turning strong giants into whimpering bunnies just by the mention of his name.

Today...

... Euchmich has been dead for nearly thirty years. The world has vowed never to let another pirate attain such power, and huge fortresses have sprung up to do battle with pirate scum.

You inherit an old, run-down merchant brig after your father, and while moving into the captain's quarters, you discover your father's diary. Upon reading it you realize that you are Euchmich's grandchild. And this very brig was Euchmich's fabled ship, the Emilia.

You now have the possibility to live up to the family legacy.
Set course for your new destiny.

II. It Begins

Your goal is to conquer all the seas of the world. In order to do this, you must gain control of the nation capitals surrounding these seas. Unfortunately there are other pesky pirates marauding the waters and you must dispose of them to make sure you get to be the only one to pillage and conquer.

You captain a run-down brig with only one portside cannon and a handful of dubious crewmen. Already branded a pirate, you will be shot on sight by any respectable nation.

As the game begins you find yourself in a somewhat less lively part of the seas, about to plot the course for your next destination.

III. Navigation

From the start, your ship is slow, a bit sluggish maybe, and unresponsive. With more sailors in your crew, all aspects of sailing are improved; response time, top speed, turn rate, acceleration, and hull repair speed. You need a good number of crew members to handle your ship with ease. However, too many crewmembers might be more than a handful to control...

To attack you must turn your ship so that the cannons face your target before you fire. Hitting your target can be difficult to begin with, but as you upgrade your ship you can increase the number of cannons that fire simultaneously and eventually add some to the starboard side as well.

IV. Gameplay

During your journey you'd be wise to keep an eye on the status panel on the right side of the screen. It reveals vital information about your ship and the contents of its hold. Most of these statistics are best kept as high as possible. If they start to plunge, you are probably in serious trouble. More on this later.

To win, you need to control all fifteen seas in the world. To control a sea you need power over all the bordering cities. Take a city by bombarding it with cannon balls until its resistance (represented by the red bar under the city name) drops to zero. You then control it until another pirate comes and takes it away from you.

A city you control has a yellow frame around its name.

When you successfully conquer a city, sail into its harbor to unleash your horde of pirates to pillage and plunder. They will loot gold and food for you, restock your supply of cannon balls, and even recruit another crewmember or two.

The first time you enter a city your ship receives an upgrade. This can be anything from a brand new cannon to specialist crew members to give you an edge in battle.

You can return to plunder more later when the city has had time to regain what you stole (when the green wealth bar under the city name is full) but you won't get any additional ship improvements. The exception to this is if you are returning to fetch an upgrade you previously left behind due to lack of space.

If you control all the seas that border a city, your ship is completely repaired when you enter the dock.

You need gold to pay your crew. Each crewmember expects to be paid 150 gold coins on the first of each month. Make sure you have enough gold to pay them or be prepared to face a bunch of angry and armed sailors. Unless you have easy access to the coffers of the richest cities, it might be wise to stray off course to pick up floating treasure chests once in a while.

Your sailors also need food or they might turn their starving eyes towards their particularly juicy captain. Plunder food from cities or catch fish on the open seas. Just make sure you have it.

Fifteen other pirates also want to take over the seas. Sink them and retake their cities. If you kill a pirate and his family still has property in the world when his heirs come of age, they will set sail to finish his work and destroy you.

Beware of attacking enemies who are too strong. If your target's name is surrounded by an orange frame, chances are you'll end up as fish food. If the frame is white you are on a more or less even footing, and if it is green you ought to be able to win the battle blindfolded. Remember, nobody ever conquered the world by playing fair.

V. Euchmich

Before his death, Euchmich invested his remaining time in the construction of a giant stronghold, strategically placed and excellently armed and fortified. Few pirates would dare a direct assault against the Euchmain, but if you are ever to achieve your goal, this fortress must fall.

VI. Endgame

When you have terrorized all of the world's nations into submission and there are no more pirates of importance to challenge you, you have lived up to the family name and can finally consider yourself ruler of the fifteen seas.

VII. Scoring

As the game ends your are presented with your score, a percentage that shows how close you've come to a perfect game. This is defined as a game in which you've subjugated all coastal towns, taken control of all the seas, collected all ship upgrades, and launched the cannon balls that eliminated each opposing pirate's bloodline. Just winning the game does not guarantee a 100% score.

The best score for each difficulty level is remembered, as is the fastest completion time.

VIII. Options

On the title screen, press enter to call up the options menu. Here's where you make changes to gameplay and presentation:

Difficulty: there are four difficulty levels. Medium, the default setting, is what came with the competition release. On easy the enemies are weaker and slower and the cities not as well armed, while the opposite is true for hard. On very hard you start with a larger complement of crew and more cannons, but so does everyone else. An additional challenge on the higher levels is that each new generation of a bloodline is progressively tougher than those that came before.

Random start: normally each game begins with you and your enemies in set positions. This allows you to experiment with different strategies to find the best way to win. With the random start option on, starting positions and city ownerships are randomized instead, adding an element of surprise to each new game.

Show owners: with this option active all enemy cities display which pirates control them.

Minimap: enables a map in the lower right corner of the game screen on which you can see what parts of the world you control. Set to shows Emilia to flag your location on the map. Set to shows all ships to get real time updates on all your enemies as well.

Sound FX: toggles sound effects on/off

Music: toggles music on/off

Message speed: the speed with which the message log clears itself

Full screen: toggles full screen on/off