Republic of Pirates takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy, during which the players can build their own pirate utopia, maintain good diplomatic relations, and take part in naval combat to assert dominance in the seas.

The game has a little bit of everything that makes it an enjoyable experience overall, and sometimes, I didn’t even want to stop playing because there was an odd sense of relaxation and comfort that came with playing a city builder as good as Republic of Pirates.

Republic Of Pirates Review: Dominate The Seas - - Guides | | GamesHorizon — Growing your settlement. Image by GamesHorizon

Restore Your Legacy

There are two modes in Republic of Pirates – Campaign and Free Play. The campaign mode mainly follows a story along with missions and objectives that must be completed to progress further, while the free-play mode is where the player can explore and build without any interruptions.

The story in Republic of Pirates isn’t anything complex. As a pirate, you are out to seek revenge against traitors who wronged your father. Now, I am not very sure who these “traitors” are. But the brief introduction in the game’s opening minutes sets a nice pace for your journey as a pirate.

As you set out to make a name during an era where piracy is at its peak, you realize that it is not easy and one needs to start from scratch, especially when recruiting your own crew and attending to their very specific needs and wants.

A Simplistic Yet Solid City Builder

We start our pirate journey by selecting a map before starting the game. In the beginning, you do have one basic ship that can be used to explore the seas and collect resources/treasures. As any city builder, building your pirate utopia means having a crew. The game’s tutorials were easy enough to follow, and the first step was to build houses for workers. The game starts a bit slow as it gives you the freedom to take your time with the objectives. So, sometimes, I focus on exploring the seas and getting familiar with the map.

The game’s main objectives weren’t as overwhelming as I was expecting. As you progress further, new buildings, upgrades, and crafting opportunities open up to grow your settlement. Republic of Pirates doesn’t include a happiness meter, which surprised me. However, your crew’s needs and wants should be considered; the basic needs and wants include fish, rope, rum, a marketplace, a tavern, and a brothel. The last three buildings need to be built near the houses to be easily accessible. Once these needs and wants are fulfilled, you can upgrade the houses, which increases the workers’ skills, and they can work in certain buildings like coal or iron factories.

Satisfying Real-Time Naval Combat

Each island in Republic of Pirates functions differently in terms of terrain. Some islands have vast deposits of iron and coal, while others lack certain resources like fish, a basic need for the workers. Expanding your reach in the game is necessary if you want to gain the advantage of certain resources, and to do this, you need to take over certain islands from your enemies. This is where the game neatly ties naval combat into the fray.

After a certain point in the game, you unlock the ability to build a shipyard where you can create and customize your own ships. You can choose from six ship classes, but you also need specific resources to build them. At first, you can only build the basic ship, but as you progress further and start getting more resources, other classes become available to build.

No ship is complete without a captain, and Republic of Pirates gives you the option to hire captains who can join your ship crew. Once building a captain’s inn, you get options for a variety of captains to hire for a price. A captain’s inn can hire up to five captains, and if the ship they join gets destroyed, you can hire more captains from the inn. Each captain has perks when they reach a certain level, and they level up the more naval battles they win.

As someone who isn’t very fond of naval combat, I found Republic of Pirates a breeze. Even though the naval battles trigger automatically, every ship class has a special attack that can be manually used during combat. For example, for the basic class, you get the option of cannon shots. These are really helpful in increasing damage to enemy ships. Sometimes, enemy ships approach your island and attack randomly, so building defense towers around your island is also significant. This way, it is easier to defeat them along with the strength of your ships. However, I learned that it is important not to instigate fights against bigger ships early in the game as they are more powerful to beat in a single fight.

Gain Allies Through Positive Diplomacy

During my playthrough, I randomly got requests from traders, other pirates, and sometimes my own crew. Such requests can be of any nature, and the decisions made will also change things within your settlement. Other than this, sometimes a crew of pirates on a ship will approach you for help against an enemy, and if you accept and support, this will have them join your crew permanently. I found such side quests a nice change of pace from doing the main objective, as they also provided an advantage within my settlement.

Apart from this, the game also has a feature called “Diplomacy,” which unlocks through the story. Here, you will be approached by various organizations with demands and requests. By completing these, you will increase your standing with that organization. Some of these demands were challenging, especially ones with a timer and a request to sink a ship from a specific group. So, to complete this, I had to first open the map and actually recognize the ship belonging to that specific group, as these ships were always moving, and it wasn’t easy to catch up. However, other requests included trading various resources with these organizations, and I found this to be the easiest way to increase your standing.

As you gain a full standing with an organization, they will give you access to their fleet, which can be called upon for aid during a naval battle.

I thought this was a creative system to incorporate within the game as it involved different activities and an easy way to gain some support during challenging naval combat against more powerful enemies.

Becoming A Pirate Has Never Been So Fulfilling

If you are someone like me who likes to play lighter games that ease a stressful day or week, the Republic of Pirates does soothe that itch and some more. It is a city builder that very much feels unique and fresh to its genre, which will keep its players satisfied for a long time.