5/5
Quite a bit of fun, mateys. Reminds me of a stripped down Sid Meier's Pirates
Reviews for "Caribbean Admiral "
good economy game, good fight game, good ideas, develop technology, buy it for all ships, game has depth but also broadness. variety of tactics. those are milestones that make this game belong to best flash games i played in a long time. its relaxing ...
Excellent effort here!
The shifting economy really gives it a feel of a real trading simulator, since you can't keep running silver from San Juan to Caracas and make the same profit after 5 trips. LOVE IT! As well as that, it's very nice that there's a function in the trade window that tells you how much of a profit or loss you'd make on that cargo instead of making the player bust out the pen and paper. That little thing improves playability just to that nice balance where it helps, but it doesn't play for you.
Despite its simplistic format and functionality, the combat system was well-polished and had virtually no problems (when I played it). The options to focus on a part of the ship, board, or simply spray at it gave it all the feel it needed, bringing it together nicely. However, aiming for the sails seemed to make more of the cannonballs miss than a quick shot. Also, it didn't have any notable effect on a ship if its sails were destroyed. You may want to look at that.
The boss fight was quite gratifying in that it wasn't as toned-down as the roaming pirates were, and that I actually felt somewhat desperate to get in all the damage I could. Great job with making it possible, yet difficult in a nice balance.
I can't bring myself to give it 5 stars for two reasons - length and ending.
The game's length will obviously vary, but for as much depth as this game has, you could EASILY draw it out to 4+ hours of play time with a save function for the players who can't sit still for that long. This game is very addictive, and it felt like a punch in the teeth to reach the ending in an hour.
The ending was the blemish that kept this from doing much better; instead of giving us an outro/epilogue, the game kicks the player back to the menu with a general acknowledgement that you'd taken revenge. ...What about after that? Did he walk the plank in the middle of the sea? Did he begin a privateer organization to mitigate the pirate presence in the Caribbean? What happened?
A little bit of polish here would've made this quite the hit, and it didn't have to really close the story; the only thing you really needed was to define what this admiral was going to do next. The utter lack of this little thing really gives the end a lack-luster feel of completion.
All in all, you show much promise! Take the critiques and use them, and you could easily reach professional quality. Good luck!
How to beat the game (it's not impossible).
First off, DO NOT BUY the following ships: Caravel, Fluyt, Frigate, Corvette, or Clipper. They cost more because they have bigger cargo room; they suck at fighting. Buy the ships on the right side of the list.
1. When you get stars, ALWAYS upgrade your accuracy to the maximum first. Your starting accuracy is so bad that half your cannonballs miss in the beginning; fix it as soon as possible. Then spend your stars on improving action points, followed by damage. After that, then upgrade cargo or hull depending on your preference.
2. Don't go out hunting pirates from the beginning. Spend a few weeks traveling back and forth between ports to buy goods marked as "good price" and sell it to the highest bidding port.
3. When you can, try aiming for the hull of the ship-it costs 5 more points in battle than a quick shot, but it does WAY more damage.
4. Always get the latest offense oriented ships when you can (Carrack, Galleon, Pinnance, Barque, or Ship of the Line). Don't be stingy.
5. Upgrade your ships. When you have a Ship of the Line, its damage is practically doubled with full upgrades, giving an insane stat of 440 damage. With gunpowder for 500 coins, it can blow up any ship with one shot (or at least 70% of the time if the enemy ship has 600hp)
6. In the later half of the game, don't focus on trading; just fight ships. In the long run, you end up with so much money that it's pointless to trade.
7. Don't hesitate to use cannonballs and dynamites during battles in later games. As you get more expensive ships, it's better to spend 5000 coins on dynamite and blow your enemies apart in one turn instead of wasting turns by shooting normal cannonballs back and forth with your enemy. The repairs become greater than the coins you spend on dynamite when you have Barques or Ships of the Line.
8. Gunpowder is the most expensive, but also the MOST profitable good to trade. Buy gunpowder from Panama and sell it at Pinar.
9. Fill your entire fleet with Ships of the Line with FULL upgrades in hull and damage. Otherwise, the battle will be almost impossibly hard. DO NOT BUY THE CLIPPER. So many people buy the most expensive ship thinking it's the best one, and fail to actually look at the ship's stats.
10. ALWAYS USE THE DYNAMITE WHEN FIGHTING THE ENEMY BOSS; ANYTHING ELSE DOES TOO LITTLE DAMAGE.
As proof, here's my record: I won in 351 days with 1,213,733 coins. My fleet consisted of Ships of the Line, and after fighting the boss, I had two ships left.
it's a very fun game and I love the idea, however it seems that defeating the pirates at the cities becomes too hard. I had 3 cogs and beat montego yet with 3 carracks i could not beat the next city. It seems that there should be a more linear leveling of enemies. This makes you have to do a bunch of trading before you can continue in order to get better ships.
Otherwise I love the music and the originality of it. The fighting is simple, but fun as is trading.