Early Shipbuilding Tools of the Middle East

[Elderlaw]

Here are a couple of links I ran across about Oman's modern day sailing heritage projects. Still building small ships using historical methods to keep the tradition and history alive.

Tools of the Past

Oman: Coastal city's boat-building heritage endures

 

[Thagarr]

Nice little article there mate, good find!

Teak is a very interesting wood, it has some great properties that make it perfect for boat building. One of the main ones being shipworm and other parasites don't like it near as much as Oak! One of our goals with Hearts of Oak is to eventually expand to encompass that part of the world. I am baffled at the fact that almost every pirate game ever made has focussed on the Caribbean. There is so many more places that were far more active with even more fantastic stories to tell!!

 

[Elderlaw]

I suppose it's the Hollywood influence that helps the general public think sailing ships only existed in the Caribbean.

Until I developed my own interest in history, I certainly never considered how important shipping was to the whole Mediterranean part of the world. Would be a great setting for a sailing/trading/fighting game. The hard part would be choosing one era to focus on.

 

[Armada]

I am baffled at the fact that almost every pirate game ever made has focussed on the Caribbean. There is so many more places that were far more active with even more fantastic stories to tell!!

It's probably because most (decent) pirate games to date were made several years ago, and had to deal with space and processing limitations of older hardware.
A group of small Caribbean islands can house everything a pirate game needs in a relatively small game world, at a scale that's easily traversable by sea and allows many factions to coexist.

That's not to say sections of Europe or North America couldn't work just as well, for example, but as we are quickly learning with Hearts of Oak, there are plenty of reasons why past pirate games have tried to keep things simple and more manageable.

 

[Thagarr]

I understand what you mean mate, and I am sure that factored in to the decisions to some extent, but I think Elderlaw makes a valid point as well. Hollywood loves the Caribbean! I think it has more to do with game companies thinking the Caribbean is more marketable. The problems we are running into are things you would have to account for no matter where the game was set, but I do agree that game developers want quick and simple. It is much cheaper that way. That is where we have the advantage!

Personally, I think the Mediterranean would make a far better setting for pirate action. If you include the coast of Mexico and South America to Bermuda, stretching to the Leeward's and Brazil, the game world size would be pretty similar to the Caribbean. You would have a game world closed in on all sides, a few more islands to map out perhaps, and numerous other civilizations and story lines to draw from. Depending of course on which time frame you were aiming for. Players wouldn't be tempted to sail off the game map in all directions, and you wouldn't have hurricanes to worry about. Many more ship types would also be available, and xebec's wouldn't look so out of place there either!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The same could be said about the East Indies including India, the China-Korea-Japan area, and the North Atlantic from the Viking era to the Napoleanic era.

But the Caribbean is best known to Joe Sixpack even tho he could not find it on a map.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Islands are easier to deal with than main land.
Even CoAS which does have mainland technically treats it as several Islands anyway.