Pirates of Everseas is a city building game where you take to the high seas to build an empire of island nations. Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, the game offers a nice blend of construction, exploration and combat elements.
The game has support for creating alliances with other players and plenty of customizations for your fleet of ships. Graphics are colorful and full of detail, with gameplay testing your management and strategy skills.
This free game is a nice addition to the city building genre of games in the Windows Store and is a decent way to commandeer a bit of free time.
Pirates of Everseas opens up to a brief tutorial that covers the basics nicely, allowing you to get into gameplay a little quicker than other games of this type.
The general goal is to build up an empire across a large chain of islands. You do so by creating a resource-generating industry to fuel your ships, crew and to provide materials for trade; building up a fleet of ships to sail the island chain for exploration and combat; and keeping your subjects happy.
The game operates from two core map views. One view is of your home port and the other is a world map that illustrates all the island nations from other players and other areas that can be attacked and looted.
The home port map display has a number of buttons lining the edges of the display that provides access to various features. From here you can access the construction store where you can build everything from huts to blacksmith forges to lumber yards, access to the game's settings, view and collect your in-game rewards and social features for building alliances with other players.
Construction of buildings is not very different from other city builders in that they take money, resources and time to create. Coins are earned during gameplay or can be picked up by converting gems into coins. Gems can be used for different tasks such as speeding up the construction time, buying special items and are also earned through gameplay. You can also buy gems through in-app purchase ($2.99 to $79.99).
The world map centers on your home port and displays neighboring island communities controlled by other players and non-player locations that are free for the taking. Tapping on a destination generates an information window detailing what is at that location with options to attack, visit or send the owner a message. Some of these destinations are shipwrecks that can be safely explored for loot.
As you build your empire, you'll have to start building industrial structures, farms, housing and defensive units. Many of these structures are dependent on one another, making for a nice test of your management skills.
Gameplay often requires an orderly sequence of events to accomplish tasks. For example, once you get around to building a dock, you can then start building up your fleet of ships. You then have to use the blacksmith forge to create weapons that are used to recruit troops for your ships. Once that is complete, you can then sail the seas to invade neighboring communities. It's not an overly complicated process and the game does a good job of keeping you on the right track with the opening tutorial and pop-up guidance windows.
Combat is automatic and conducted behind the scenes. You can check your travel log (crossed swords button on the home port map) to view your battle or exploration history. Push notifications are available to alert you when the fleet returns to port and repair bubbles appear over any damaged ships. Along with affecting repairs to ships, you can upgrade and add canons, as well arm the crew with muskets instead of swords or axes.
In sailing the seas with Pirates of Everseas, the Windows 10 game comes across as a competent city builder. The game's graphics can be a wee bit on the tiny side, but you can pinch to zoom into things to reveal a fair amount of detail. Gameplay has a large variety of features, but nothing overwhelming. I liked the brevity of the tutorial that allows you to jump into gameplay quicker and as new features become available, additional tutorial windows appear.
Pirates of Everseas offers a nice challenge of your time and resource management abilities, as well as your skills at strategy. I wouldn't mind seeing more on the combat side of things, but you'll still have plenty other features to concentrate on.
If you are not a fan of city builder games, I doubt Pirates of Everseas is strong enough to sway your opinion. For those who enjoy this genre of Windows 10 games, it is a nice addition to the Windows Store lineup. The free game does have a few in-app purchase opportunities and overall is an entertaining time waster.
Download Pirates of Everseas from the Windows Store
