Governors & Power

Visiting Governors in towns is the best way to build up relations and prestige/power with royalty.

Upon first having dinner with a Governor of your starting nationality, he'll tell you which nations his government is against.

This is also the time when he'll issue a Letter of Marque to you to have full permission to attack and loot hostile ships and towns. In fact, you'll get rewarded if you do!

Urgent missions from governors are just some of the objectives in Pirates!. This is a perfect chance to prove loyalty to your nation and government.

Most beginning missions involve delivering a letter to a family member of the Governor.

Simply look up the location of the town on map and visit its tavern where all family members always seem to be drinking.

Head back to the Governor for your reward. (Scroll down a bit to see the prizes.)

After doing more jobs for the Governor and further pledging allegiance by attacking enemy towns/ships, new missions will open up with more serious objectives like aiding spies.

However, the same basic message remains. Visit the mentioned town's bar and head back to Governor for a reward.

Other missions include sailing around a certain area of water to trigger sea battles with a crew of pesky pirates. These missions result in higher privileges and prizes

Governors also randomly provide information on how to rescue long-lost family members. *More of that in the Lost Family and Incan Treasure entry.

When starting out and completing your first missions, Governors will only offer small acres of land and prestige for local tasks.

For further away places and after more pledges, the rewards will advance to more and more acres and power.

Upon completing a string of missions or proving your worth to the Governor's cause, the government will bestow certain titles of rank according to your overall prestige and power.

These titles affect (1) the number of crewmembers that offer services when visiting a tavern, as well as the crew's overall happiness and your own. (2) The women available to you for marriage (*more on that in the Marrying a Sea Wench entry). (3) And your overall final score at the end of the game.

To sum it all up, one of the game's major purposes is to get as high a title as you possibly can. So do it!

(Continued..)
Colonel
Admiral
Baron
Count
Marquis
Duke

But don't think you can pledge your pirateering allegiance to only one country and the nationality that you began as. For a certain price, you can be a cutthroat, turncoat...