Pirates: Naval Battles: five cargo bundles, two patrols and the run home

Most sea games want you to sink everything that moves. This one is stricter: a raid ends when three conditions are true at once, and the sea keeps a scoreboard on all three. The Bahamas, 1715, you sail as a corsair of the pirate republic — and the first real decision is which of the nine drifting cargo bundles you are not going to chase.

Five out of nine, and the way home

Nine bundles are scattered over the archipelago; the voyage needs five. That is not lazy content, it is arithmetic: every extra bundle you chase is time a royal navy patrol spends somewhere near your hull. Second condition: two of the three patrols at sea — a brig, a frigate and a galleon — have to go down. Third: you have to bring your ship back to the anchorage off Nassau. All three together, and the voyage purse collects 1,000 doubloons. If your hull hits zero on the way, the run is not counted, however full the hold was.

The purse pays for everything

Doubloons are both the score and the money, so every one of them is a tactical choice. A salvaged bundle pays 150 and patches the hull for 6 — the cheapest repair at sea, no harbour required. A sunk patrol pays 300, a silenced coastal battery pays 400. Harbours charge 100 for a full repair, Smuggler's Cove charges 75 and sells the thing nobody else will: fine powder and shot, one level, plus 15% to every gun. The other four upgrades run three levels each — seasoned oak adds 12% hull per level, fine canvas 5% of speed, master rigging 6% of rudder response, veteran crews cut reload by 6%.

Four hulls, each with its own name

The sloop is The Sea Wren: one mast, six guns and the fastest canvas in the game — the one that reaches cargo before anyone else. The brig The Black Finch packs twelve guns and is the honest balance of chase and duel. The frigate The Providence carries twenty-four guns down a long hull: her broadside ends a fight with the navy brig outright. The galleon The Black Pearl is fifty guns, 180 of hull and the slowest rig in the fleet, and she fires a rolling broadside — two decks loosing in a ripple instead of one crack, so half the volley lands while the enemy is still counting the first. And here is the design detail worth knowing: the B key swaps your class anywhere on the map, and cargo, doubloons and hull condition move to the new ship with you. Upgrades stay with the captain for the whole voyage. A galleon that took too much punishment can finish the run as a sloop; nothing resets.

False colours and the memory of witnesses

The C key flies the red ensign under the navy flag, and an unaware patrol lets you come almost alongside before it questions your paperwork. Hoisting the Jolly Roger before the attack buys about three and a half seconds of surprise — crews stall, batteries go quiet, and the first broadside is nearly free. Then trust works the other way: firing reveals you instantly, and anyone who has seen your pirate colours remembers the ship even after you swap flags back. A fooled patrol is not fooled twice; false colours are a one-time trick per witness.

Ballistics, a rolling deck and guns that die

Round shot flies as a shell, not a laser: gravity pulls the arc down and the spread grows with your speed and your heel at the moment of firing. The sea lifts and tilts every hull the whole time, so a broadside loose on a roll misses with irritating consistency — the accurate way to fight is to come in slowly with some canvas taken in and the target on your beam. Reload costs 6.2 seconds: fire, fire, and for half a minute you are a drifting target if you let the next patrol get close. Guns die one by one — a knocked-out cannon never fires again, and the gun counter in the panel stays down until you pay for harbour repairs. A beaten crew takes to its rowboats, so a sinking is a little scene with people in the water, not a disappearing sprite.

Islands that burn and empty out

Six islands, six jobs. Nassau is the pirate port — home, repairs, the place the voyage has to end. Fort Crown and Eastwatch are royal navy batteries: buildings go up there, the gates swing open for ships, and the guns add you to their register until someone silences them for the 400-doubloon bounty. Crooked Harbour and Salt Key are settlements, Smuggler's Cove is the black market. You can work the shoreline like any other target: walls crack hit after hit, roofs collapse, light buildings catch and burn down, and the townspeople run for cover while you bombard — the street keeps nothing but smoke. The weather is live, waves and wind and rain, and F2 opens a sandbox with storm presets and sliders: drill in flat calm or run the whole raid through a tempest.

Controls

• W/S trim the sails through four positions, furled to full; A/D work the rudder
• Space fires the nearest broadside, Q and E pick the side; the mouse wheel zooms
• C flies false colours, B changes ships, F opens harbour services, O the workshop, R repairs in port
• M raises the chart (tap water on it to set a course), P pauses, U hides the interface, F2 is the weather sandbox
• on a phone the rudder lives in on-screen buttons and a tap on open water sets the course — no keyboard needed

Your score is the doubloon purse: it goes to the site leaderboard, and the local best stays in your browser. Every ship, island and person on screen is drawn by code, and the game runs in the browser with nothing to download. Play