Port Royale 2 that is - other than the couple of people that have posted in the past month?

I have been playing this game off-and-on since it came out. I came to these boards because of The Witcher 2. I recently started a new run in this game, while waiting for TW2 to be patched.

I was surprised to find a forum on here for this game. This a great strategy game, which most people have never heard of. It is everything Sid Meier's Pirates should have been.

Anyway, I was just wondering if many people are still playing this, or are new to this and currently playing. If there were enough people, we might be able to have some kind of contest, similar to the Game Of The Month at CivFanatics.com. Or, at the least, have a little ongoing discussion about the game.

Years ago I only played the JAVA-version on my handy but finally I got both games here on gog.

Currently finished the tutorial scenarions and the hollandish one. But afterwards I got into Free Play Mode and played nearly 80 hours so far ;) England owns all towns but 3 and I got 5 towns. I`ll fully build up my last 2 towns and hunt down the pirates. Maybe I`ll start another one afterwards, let`s see ;)

I play it on and off. The reason being that my stupid computer won't run PR2. After 5-10 minutes of gameplay I get the "ialmrnt5 display driver has stopped working properly. Save your work and reboot your system to restore full display fuctionality" error message, although I have the latest drivers installed, as well as directX11 (the game allegedly requires dX8.1 to work). No idea how to fix this, 'though I looked for hours on the internet.

That leaves me able to play PR2 only when my flatmate is away, on his computer. And that's not very often... :) Overall, I like PR1 better - as far as economics, as well as combat is concerned. I'd go with PR1 over PR2 any day, if it wasn't for that maddening 10-convoy limit in PR1!!!

Things I loved in PR2, compared to PR1:
- The much higher convoy limit, of course
- Military corvettes! 14 Kn + 85% maneuverablity + shallow draft (!!!) = <3!
- Buying up your competitors' houses and businesses - monopolies 'r 'us
- The fact the goods produced in a given town are marked with a "P" everywhere (warehouse, manual trade window, auto-route editor) - it's a small thing that makes a big difference, especially when creating auto-routes; also, town production quantity of a certain good is now visible in the town info, which for some absurd reason, it wasn't in PR1...
- New AI tactics. For example, if you damage their sails, they'll either start keeping their distance to force you into their guns' range, or they'll run away altogether to repair their sails. This makes for a more challenging game. So my tactics from PR1 had to be adapted to the new way the AI fights.
- Capturing the escort ships or driving them from the field lets you capture all the trading ships - very nice time-saver. In PR1, you could usually only hope to capture the armed vessels, because unarmed vessels (0 guns) would run away instantly and it was a real pain to catch them - especially if they were galleons, which go to 13 Kn with the wind. Nice touch-up in this respect in PR2.

Things I absolutely HATED in PR2:
- Being forced to fight with just one ship at a time. It's ok most of the time, but they should have made it optional.
- Not being able to fight when your auto-route convoys get attacked. I mean... WTF?! Again, this REALLY should have been optional, like in PR1.
- Training your captains to 4 skill points before they can go on auto-routes. Again. And again. And yet again...
- The duels becoming progressively harder until they are unwinnable. Which means you have to be VERY selective and only fight duels for annexing towns, if you want all 16 player-towns. God, this one is annoying. Especially when it makes you reload a perfectly good battle, just because the stupid captain challenges you to a duel - and of course you won't waste a precious duel just to capture a stupid flute... It also means that you can't go destroying pirate hideouts, because you'll have to win a duel to do so - and wasting a duel on destroying a hideout that will reappear anyway, no matter what you do, strikes me as equally pointless as wasting a duel on capturing a ship.

Well, that was a long rant. :)

i agree in most of your points, you`re absolutely right.

I was also concerned about the duels, but using the special ability strike (keep clicking after the first attempt) you can hit your opponent with at least 50% of your attacks, due the second is unblockable. If you`re lucky you score several hits in a row. You can repeat the attacks even if you`re blocked, so you can half the life points of your opponent before your stamina is out and you have to wait. I`ve never had any problems again with duels after discovering that ;)

Of course you are right about the "combo"-technique - you can't survive without it. But as to the second hit being unblockable, I beg to differ: I thought a duel not two hours ago in which the enemy blocked my second strike (= first special attack) not only once, but several times. How cool is that? :))

I never knew you could continue the attack series even if you're blocked. Thanks a bunch for that. I'll have to try it as soon as I get to play PR2 again.

Just bought the game on Steam after seeing a recommendation for it on another forum. Have only played through a few of the tutorials, but it definitely looks interesting.