Sid Meier's Pirates! Cheats

Sid Meier's Pirates! FAQs

Sid Meier's Pirates! Hints

  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Grape Shot - Developer Tip

    Grape shot is generally the most effective in ship battles, eliminating opposing crew members and dealing damage at the same time.


  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Promotions - Developer Tip

    Early on focus on sailing around to ports and increasing your crew size. Use your crew to crush cities and change the governor to the nationality of your choice. Use this to gain quick promotions.


  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Cheap Cash - Developer Tip

    Before dividing the plunder be sure to engage in a land battle and allow most of your units to be killed. This will ensure you get the largest share of the treasure possible!


  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Cover - Developer Tip

    During land battles, make the most use of cover possible, especially with your ranged units. Keeping your buccaneers alive is crucial to success.


  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Ramming - Developer Tip

    Early in the game, you might find it easier to just ram a more powerfully equipped ship and take down the captain in a duel rather than fighting ship to ship.


  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Upgrades - Developer Tip

    For the most part it isn't necessary to focus much time trying to upgrade your ship, once you start capturing notorious pirates they'll have all the upgrades you need.


  • PSP | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Plunder - Developer Tip

    Avoid dividing the plunder until absolutely necessary (mutinous crew), as dividing the plunder will shorten your lifespan and make it difficult to recruit new crew members as you grow older.


  • PC, Xbox | Submitted by nathan

    Easy Money

    Achieve the rank of Count with any or all nations. Then, begin a ship battle with any desired ship. Damage it a lot, but not to the point where it explodes. Keep the ship and go to a port where you are at the rank of Count or higher. Talk to the shipwright; you will get free repairs. You can repair a damaged ship for free and sell it for a lot of money.


  • PC, Xbox | Submitted by nathan

    Easy Sea Battles

    While battling other ships, get in front of them. Get them to chase you, and when your guns are fully loaded, turn, fire, and straighten again. Repeat this until you want to board or their sail falls and they surrender. This is best done when you use grape shot or chain shot.


  • PC, Xbox | Submitted by nathan

    Alternative dancing mini-game ending

    When the Governor's daughter gives you the hand signal, select the button for the hand movement right after she gives you the signal. You will do a special dancing move which will get her heart up very fast, if you do it many times in a row. If her heart is large enough when the mini-game is over, instead of kissing her hand, you will spin her around and then she will kiss you. Afterwards she will usually give you a present or extremely valuable information.


  • PC, Xbox | Submitted by nathan

    City characteristics

    The following is a list of different types of cities and their characteristics. Note: Poor defenses and weak defenses are different. Poor defenses are worse than weak defenses.

    Capital Cities: Large and wealthy with strong defenses.
    Port Cities: Large and wealthy city with weak defenses.
    Towns: Large and poor with strong defenses.
    Colonies: Large and poor with weak defenses.
    Trading Posts: Small and wealthy with strong defenses.
    Strongholds: Small and poor with strong defenses.
    Villages: Small and wealthy with poor defenses.
    Outposts: Small and poor with poor defenses.


  • PC, Xbox | Submitted by Shoes

    Happy Crew

    A good way to keep a happy crew is to keep a good amount of food/luxuries/goods/spices/sugar but this is hard to keep on hand. Get your good ship upgraded then get a treasure ship ( you will hear about them from bar maids or just find 'em) they carry a lot of cargo so just keep two ships permananelty. Sell the others because they are usless. Keep a battle/fun ship and your big ship that carries supplies for long voyages.


  • PC, Xbox | Submitted by nathan

    Easy Land Battles

    Land battles are difficult to win, even if you have more soldiers than the enemy. A good strategy to remember is to hide in the trees. The soldiers attacking your troops in the trees will have less than a 20% chance of inflicting critical damage, and all damage is divided in half. Also, watch your troop's morale; if their morale gets low enough, they may run away from battle. Always enter battle with more than one quarter additional troops than the city guards. You can also weaken enemy ports and cities by alerting Pirate Havens and Indian Villages. The indians or pirates will assault the town, making the town lose guards, whether or not they win the battle. This also makes the city lose wealth, however. If the city was once "Prosperous" it may go down to "Poor" or "Modest". If this happens too much, alert the missionaries in the Missionary Camps. Tell them to travel to the city you want to become wealthier, then attack the city. You must attack cities at the correct moment. Waiting too long after sending in missionaries may result in more guards accumulating than before. You should wait only two to five days.


  • Xbox | Submitted by Shayn

    Fast promotions and Money

    The best way to get promoted and make money is to attack cites and take them over as well as comendeer ships and sell them.


  • Xbox | Submitted by AFbolarious01

    Sinking Ships Easy

    Use the chain shot and raise your sails to half mast.


  • Xbox | Submitted by Genghis_g

    Food Ship

    When you travel pretty much anywhere you will begin to lose food. It is a good idea to keep at least one ship in your fleet (not counting your flagship) for the purpose of hauling cargo, in this case food. Try to bag a treasure galleon or an east indiaman (they have 140 max cargo). The French tend to sail alot of merchantman's around (they have 100 max cargo). You should always have a few extra ships because they only need a max of 16 crew members on their own and they come in handy for carrying a years worth of food.


  • Xbox | Submitted by nathan

    Easy Specialists

    Attack and board a smuggler's vessel to usually get a specialist (for example, Carpenter, Sailmaker, etc.).


Sid Meier's Pirates! Cheats

  • PC | Submitted by Ed.

    Cheat Codes

    Start a game, and use one of these names for your name. Names are case sensitive! (ed. note: These cheats were submitted for the Xbox version, it is not yet clear whether or not they work on the PC.)

    Bonus Frag - Snappy Dresser
    Bloody Bones Baz - Invincible in ship battles
    Sweet Tooth - Infinite food
    Sprinkler - Your fleet sails twice as fast as everybody else's.
    Scooter - No matter how badly you do at dancing, the Governor's daughters love you.
    Max Remington - Sid Meier as Mysterious Stranger.


  • Xbox | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Invincible in ship battles

    Bloody Bones Baz


  • Xbox | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Infinite food

    Sweet Tooth


  • Xbox | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Cheat Codes

    Start a game, and use one of these names for your name. Names are case sensitive! You will not earn bonus credits with cheats on, nor will you be able to upload scores to Xbox Live.


  • Xbox | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Snappy Dresser

    Bonus Frag


  • Xbox | Submitted by jacob

    More Cheats

    Sprinkler: Your fleet sails twice as fast as everybody else's.
    Scooter: No matter how badly you do at dancing, the Governor's daughters love you.
    Max Remington: Sid Meier as Mysterious Stranger.


  • Xbox | Submitted by GamesRadar

    Jeff Briggs is the Abbot in every mission

    Firaxis