Publisher: Crazy Goat Games
Developer: PQube
Platform: Windows: Steam/Epic
Release Date: June 19th 2024
Price: $24.99 (Steam on-sale for $22.99 at time of release)

Does anyone really understand what pirates actually do? Bear with me on this because I think there is some confusion. This game is about romanticized pirates, happy go lucky freebooters seeking freedom and other people’s stuff. Because that makes the stabbing okay... it’s all in the motive, okay I’m done with my soapbox. So, anyway, Republic of Pirates from Crazy Goat Games is a Pirate themed city builder. Yep, you heard that correctly, pirate themed city builder. While not generally associated with civil engineering, there are more than enough examples of pirate bases, robber’s roosts and crooked colonial governors to where I’ll let the theme pass mostly unmolested but I still wonder what it was like in the meeting where this was green-lit. Odd theme aside, there is some method to the madness here, Republic of Pirates takes a conventional city builder and adds some interesting twists, trying to add to the well-known city builder genre. You have external forces to worry about and this affects your security picture as well as your economic one. Geography is also a factor as you are building on an archipelago not a nice open field. All in all, it’s similar to IXION. You will want to build your depots and manufacturing into the perfect order so that it can be fully automated without further interaction. This takes away any form of creativity to or experimentation once you figure it out. Until you do, expect to spend a lot of time troubleshooting why your workers aren’t producing something.

The first focus is always on the wood, as it’s the basic material for most things pirate-like ships, docks, legs, etc. From here you branch out in the usual ways with roads and various industries. Roads are surprisingly important to these tough brigands who live on relativity compact islands. They won’t move an inch through wilderness so you must have everything linked properly. As population grows, you need to produce more things pirates need like cotton and ropes for sails, meat for dinner and rum for Erik. Accomplishing the actual pirate part of the game, one can build a whole range of ships from tiny cogs to larger frigates and brigs; it is all a matter of what materials you have on hand. Once you build a ship you have to crew it and hire a captain. This is a bit of a disappointment as besides stats and a name, the captains don’t have any real difference.

Speaking of ships, there are two types of enemy vessels: neutral and hostile. Neutral enemies will not directly engage and will let you be if you don’t initiate a fight. They are typically sailors or privateers of friendly nations. The other type is hostile units that will attack on sight. Typically these are other pirates out for your booty, but if you prey on ships of the various governments they will come looking for your sweet pirate butt. Sea combat isn’t very compelling as the enemy AI apparently got into the rum supply and always just singlemindedly attacks a single target so they are easily dealt with by rotating damaged ships out of battle. General path-finding in and out of combat is also that of a drunken sailor so you have to keep and eye on things as they tend to take the least efficient possible route, rather like public transportation.

As usual Republic of Pirates has two game modes, sandbox and campaign. The former has no real direction, letting you build and loot where you want. Outside of upgrades, there isn’t really an overall goal. It is up to you to explore and figure out what you want to accomplish on each map.

Arrr there be no free parking anywhere in sight

The campaign mode is more compelling. The pirates of the archipelago formed an alliance, the titular "The Republic of Pirates.” For a time, there was peace. However, three factions emerged: the Gallows Men, the Los Guerreros, and the creatively named, Raiders of the Caribbean. Per protocol they killed your father and stranded you with one lone cog. Now, with just your first mate, you must establish a foothold and fight back. Outside of your First Officer - who runs most of the tutorial and other guidance - other main story characters include pirate captain Mary Connor and brothel madam Isabella Rojas. Mary starts as your first real ship captain but after her ship is destroyed becomes another advisor. Here it kind of falls apart, the advice given isn't very appropriate to the situation and the enemy waits to launch their major attack until you are ready. Still, the story is not bad the pace picks up and the characters get fleshed out a bit as things proceed. The game is fully voice-acted, though the performances can vary. John seems to be the only decent voice actor. The other characters tend to either be flat or completely over the top giving the impression this was done by whomever was in the office that day. The score is pretty good but unremarkable, the expected “epic pirate music” in the mold of Pirates of the Caribbean. However, there aren’t enough tracks and you will have the whole soundtrack memorized about the time you loose your mind and keel-haul your neighbors. The police get REALLY bent out of shape when you do this with a Subaru BTW.

Bottom line, Republic of Pirates doesn’t reinvent or improve anything. It uses a lot of the same systems and rules from better games. The main draw is the pirate theme and sea combat. My advice is to give the demo on Steam a try before buying the whole game.

The good

Decent story
Good value
Solid, if unexceptional

The bad

Repetitive soundtrack
Nothing new or outstanding
AI and path-finding need work

Republic of Priates Review (PC)