Sid Meier's Pirates! Cheats

City characteristics
The different types of cities and their characteristics are listed below. 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.

Easy money
Attain the rank of Count with any or all nations. Then, start ship battles 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 more.

Easy Specialists
Attacking and boarding a smuggler's vessel usually yields a specialist (for example, Carpenter, Sailmaker, etc.)

Easy sea battles
When battling other ships, get in front of them. Have them chase you, and when your guns are fully loaded, turn, fire, and straighten again. Repeat this until you wish to board or their sail falls and they surrender. It is best done when you use grape shot or chain shot.

Easy land battles
Land battles are difficult to win, even if you have more soldiers than the enemy. The key 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 morale. If your troop's morale gets low enough, they may run away from battle. Always enter battle with about one quarter moor 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.