Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding.
The era of piracy in the Caribbean began in the 1500s and phased out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Western Europe and North America with colonies in the Caribbean began hunting and prosecuting pirates. The period during which pirates were most successful was from the 1660s to the 1730s. Piracy flourished in the Caribbean because of the existence of pirate seaports such as Port Royal in Jamaica, Tortuga in Haiti, and Nassau in the Bahamas. Piracy in the Caribbean was part of a larger historical phenomenon of piracy, as it existed close to major trade and exploration routes in almost all the five oceans.
Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset trade imbalances between different regions.
Pirate havens are ports or harbors that are a safe place for pirates to repair their vessels, resupply, recruit, spend their plunder, avoid capture, and/or lie in wait for merchant ships to pass by. The areas have governments that are unable or unwilling to enforce maritime laws. This creates favorable conditions for piracy. Pirate havens were places where pirates could find shelter, protection, support, and trade.
Sid Meier's Pirates! is a video game created by Sid Meier for the Commodore 64 and published by MicroProse in May 1987. It was the first game to include the name "Sid Meier" in its title as an effort by MicroProse to attract fans of Meier's earlier games, most of which were combat vehicle simulation video games. The game is a simulation of the life of a pirate, a privateer, or a pirate hunter in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It was widely ported to other systems.
Uncharted Waters is a Japanese video game series produced by Koei under its "Rekoeition" brand.
Ascaron Entertainment was a video game developer based in Germany. Founded as Ascon by Holger Flöttmann in 1991 and later renamed in October 1996 due to the possible confusion with the Swiss company Ascom AG, the company produced titles primarily for the PC until it became insolvent in 2009.
X3: Reunion is a single-player space trading and combat video game developed by Egosoft and published by Deep Silver. It is the third installment in the X series and the sequel to X2: The Threat (2003), which in turn followed X: Beyond the Frontier (1999). X3: Reunion was released originally for Windows in 2005. The game was later ported to Mac OS X and Linux.
The Patrician is a 1992 historical trading simulation video game for Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS developed by Ascaron Entertainment and published by Triptychon Software. In the game, the player assumes the role of a merchant in any of several cities of the Hanseatic League, accumulating money, capital and consumer goods, and real estate, expanding his company, and furthering his career at home and abroad.
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) previously developed by Flying Lab Software and Portalus Games, and currently supported by Vision Online Games. The game is set in the Caribbean in an anachronistic 1720 and combines tactical ship battles and swashbuckling combat with a player-driven economy and open-ended gameplay. In the game, players can choose from four nations; Great Britain, Spain, France and the generically named 'Pirates'.
Uncharted Waters Online is an MMORPG set in the Age of Exploration, with the English version published by Papaya Play. It features over a hundred different sailing ships and an open world based on real Earth geography, with players engage in many activities such as combat, exploration, and trade on both sea and land while interacting with each other. It has a sandbox style game play and skill based character development. The game requires monthly subscription fee in Japan but the international server is free to play. It is developed by KOEI based on the Uncharted Waters series of games, and originally released in Japan.
Port Royale 2 is the sequel to the business simulation game Port Royale: Gold, Power and Pirates. It is set in the Caribbean during the 17th century. Created by Ascaron Entertainment in 2004, it combines a business simulator with real-time battles and towns that can be owned, built, developed or razed. A sequel, Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants, was released in 2012.
Sid Meier's Pirates! is a 2004 strategy, action and adventure video game developed by Firaxis Games. A remake of Sid Meier's earlier 1987 game of the same name, it was originally published by Atari Interactive but in May 2005 2K acquired the rights to the title from Atari's parent company Infogrames and later went on to publish console and handheld ports of the game.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is an action-adventure video game based on the Pirates of the Caribbean films Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, published by Buena Vista Games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, PSP, Nintendo DS, and the Wii.
Age of Booty is a real-time strategy video game developed by Certain Affinity and A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Games, and published by Capcom for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. Set in the swashbuckling era, the game puts the players in the control of a pirate ship with the goal of looting and capturing towns for a pirate faction, while defeating the enemy ships on the way.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 video game prequel to the film of the same name, developed by British company Pocket Studios.
Port Royale: Gold, Power and Pirates is a business simulation game set in the Caribbean and partly the Atlantic during the 16th and 17th centuries. It combines business–economic simulation with real-time battles and towns that can be visited for trade and other purposes. A sequel, Port Royale 2, was released in 2004.
High Seas Trader is a 1995 naval business simulation video game. The player runs trade routes, fends off pirates, collects artifacts and offers transport to fellow countrymen in need, all for the sake of climbing up the game's ranking ladder, which in turn allows the player to buy bigger ships, more firepower and larger cargo holds to progress more quickly in the ranks.
Patrician IV is a business simulation game developed by Gaming Minds Studios and part of the Patrician series. It is a game simulating trading, piracy, politics and economics. An expansion pack, Rise of a Dynasty, was released in April 2011.
The Flying Gang was an 18th-century group of pirates who established themselves in Nassau, New Providence in the Bahamas after the destruction of Port Royal in Jamaica. The gang consisted of the most notorious and cunning pirates of the time, and they terrorized and pillaged the Caribbean until the Royal Navy and infighting brought them to justice. They achieved great fame and wealth by raiding salvagers attempting to recover gold from the sunken Spanish treasure fleet. They established their own codes and governed themselves independent from any of the colonial powers of the time. Nassau was deemed the Republic of Pirates as it attracted many former privateers looking for work to its shores. The Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1,000 pirates in Nassau at that time and that they outnumbered the mere hundred inhabitants in the town.
