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In a recent interveiw with IGN Ashraf Ismail, a director working on Assassins Creed IV Black
Flag said that they want to depict a realistic, non-disnyfied version of pirates in the game.
But what does this exactly mean? Well, we know that the game is supposed to
take place during the "Golden age of piracy." And more importantly, we know the game takes
off sometime around 1713, which tells us, that it is set during the third outburst of
piracy of this period. This outburst has been caused by several factors, but mainly by the
end of the War of Spanish Succession. This was a war between two European alliances,
fighting over who would succeed Charles II as the king of Spain. On one side you had
followers of Philip the V, which included France and the electorate of Bavaria, while
on the other side you had supporters of Charles III, who was an Austrian monarch and Charels
II relative. The war ended with a peace treaty, know as the Treaty of Utrecht, under which
Philip the V was recognized as the king of Spain. The Spanish war of Succession was fought
primarily in Europe, but it included a smaller conflict called the Queen Anns war, which
was a conflict between England and France over territories in North America. The peace
treaty of Utrecht left many Anglo-American sailors unemployd, which resulted in them
taking up the life of ship raiding and drinking. Some of the most famous ones include Benjamin
Hornigold, Charles Vain and Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard. In around 1713 these
would settle Bahamas, where they declared the city of Nassau a pirate republic, which
only lasted until 1718, when they were defeated by the British.
Pirates are often very romanticised in the movies and other media, but Ubisoft aims to
portray them realistically. For example, pirate captains are often viewed as running a small
dictatorship on their vessels. Interestingly enough though, pirates mostly used a fairly
democratic system of self governance whith a system of checks and balances. The captain
and the quartermaster would very often be elected by the crew and would in turn appoint
officers. In battle it was usually the captain who was relied upon to use his skills, but
outside of battle it was usually the quartermaster who had real authority. In fact, quite often
the quartermaster had the power to veto the captains orders. Another interesting thing
is, that pirance often shared their loot, which mostly came in the form of supplies
or medicine and only rarely in gems and jewelery. This had its advantages- for example: Pirates
injured in battle thus might be afforded special compensation similar to medical or disability
insurance. For this reason portion of the stolen money would often be placed into a
central fund dedicated for paying these compensations out. On top of that, pirates often had abide
by a code of conduct, which ensured discipline. Some of the rules aboard pirate ships could
include: No gambling, lights out at 8 o clock, no women allowed on deck, no smoking or no
drinking during battle. So I guess my point here is, that when going
into AC IV, dont expect to see a huge number of pirates with peg limbs, talking parrots
or the ablitty to say arrrr in every sentance.