The Collection Chamber: CUTTHROATS: TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS

Flint, Shot and Two Smoking Cannons.

Wealth is the name of the game and if you haven't got it... steal it.

Raid, pillage and plunder your way to infamy on the bounty-laden seas of the 17th century Caribbean. Strike terror into the hearts of your victims, capture ships and ravage towns.

Work your way up from a small trading vessel to a galleon bristling with cannons, but remember to keep your crew plied with rum and treasure or face mutiny!

Will you survive to retire a Pirate King, or end your days by dancing death's jig on Gallows Rock?
Sophisticated real-time strategy requiring all the cunning and aggression you can muster
Experience the freedom of over 6 million square miles of the Caribbean
Explore and loot over 70 different ports
A thousand different ships sailing around a million miles of coast
Over 300 settlement Governors with different personalities and political motives
Realistic sea and land battles featuring complex amphibious assaults and fortress bombardment

~ from the back of the box

Everybody wants to be a pirate. Not the historically accurate version with all the scurvy and dysentery and such, but the storybook version; a weathered captain leaning against the wheel shouting "ahoy me hearties" as cannon smoke fills the horizon. Released in 1999 by the Bristol-based Hothouse Creations, Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas attempted to offer up that exact fantasy in a trade-heavy strategy game. Before the game begins, it announces its intentions by dedicating itself to Bristol-born Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Is the game itself worthy of the same notoriety?

It turns out that Cutthroats is a full-on strategy game that mixes resource management and trade with aggressive pillaging and seafaring. You begin as a no-name ne'er-do-well with a single ship, a skeletal crew and limited food, rum and ammunition. You slowly claw your way toward fame and infamy through trade, piracy, and opportunistic violence. Every decision matters - cargo has weight, crews consume supplies and the Governors remember your behaviour - and as your reputation grows, the Caribbean responds accordingly in line with which year you chose to begin in (between 1625 and 1700). It's remarkably open-ended, offering you the freedom do go anywhere, attack anyone and dock at each port. An admirable design choice, but also one that drops you in the deep end the moment the game begins.

The map screen will tell you if ships are near. It's up to you whether you engage or not (left).

The pirate town of Tortuga is the nearest settlement, and should be your first port of call (right).

My own first voyage went disastrously - about as well as actual piracy did - with the game itself offering up zero guidance (you need to study the rather bulky manual for that). With my tiny ship and about a month's worth of provisions I began by heading straight to Tortuga. There, I sold some food so I could hire a few buccaneers and sailed off expecting adventure to happen naturally. So, I sailed around until another ship appeared and did what any aspiring pirate would do; attacked immediately. Moments later a second ship joined in. Then another. There followed several minutes of clicking on these ships to shoot a barrage of cannons fire at them, only to witness my own vessel to pathetically sink in front of me. Before I knew it, I was hauled into custody. Without a singly doubloon to bribe the officials for my freedom, I was promptly hanged.

Only after being introduced to the gallows did I discover that the manual is effectively the tutorial Hothouse should have put in the game. This small book has some hefty weight to it, detailing actual history alongside the game instructions. It's wonderfully obsessive, but there's no escaping the fact that a lot of this should probably have been communicated in-game rather than hidden in 180 pages of text. But read it you must, and when you do you discover how you're actually expected to play the game. You must study trade routes, monitor supplies, recruit specialists, pay attention to seasonal winds and fly false colours to avoid suspicion. How was I to know that simply flying the Spanish flag instead of the Jolly Roger would've made me less conspicuous on the high seas? The map screen lets you highlight the various ports from which you can trade by allegiance, wealth, exports and hostility, while voyages need proper route planning and supply calculations. Pirates can even acquire Letters of Marque and become legal privateers. Who knew there was a lot of admin in piracy?

Naval battle. The Happy Nymph is close to death, but its cannons are still fully stocked (left).

Anchoring at beaches lets you explore the land if you're able (right).

The gameplay revolves around three core perspectives, each having their own use. Map View is the broad strategic layer where routes are plotted across the Caribbean and information gathered about towns, weather and shipping lanes. Crow's Nest View drops you closer to sea level and turns the game into something halfway between naval strategy and stalking simulator. Ships appear first as anonymous silhouettes before revealing nationality and type as they draw nearer. Then there's Battle View where you be close enough to smell the gunpowder. This is where you'll be furiously clicking when you make your attacks. It's an unusual structure that could be confusing at first, and one that was most likely chosen out of technical necessity than playability. Had the engine been fully 3D instead of isometric, these screens could've easily been merged into one, but as it is it's functional if not all that intuitive.

Sea combat initially looks simple. Sail up, fire cannons and collect booty. Except it isn't. Wind direction matters constantly, directly affecting your speed. Your crew determines how efficiently your ship operates and ammunition has to be replenished so you can actually cause damage. Overload your cargo hold and your sleek pirate vessel turns into a chugging tanker - looks like you'll need some money to get a bigger boat. Hiring officers will improve a variety of stats depending on their speciality, whether it be seamanship, controlling the cannons or land combat. Recruiting other crewmembers is also a must. Sailors improve ship handling, Gunners fire your cannons and Marines are optional but are worth having to assist with boarding and landing actions.

The menu screen gives you a brief overview of your progress, including your fleet, crew and missions given to you

by town governors (left). If you get captured, make sure you have enough wealth to bribe the officials (right).

With all this organised, attacking a ship is little more than clicking on the vessel you want to attack. When the mouse hovers over it, a series of icons indicate how rich and defended it is, and if you get close you can even board that ship to fight mano a mano. Victories lead into the wonderfully grim Pillage screen where cargo, crew, ammunition and cannons are transferred via a series of sliders. You can recruit captured sailors by force, strip enemy ships bare or add vessels directly into your fleet. Fame rises as your legend grows, while infamy rises if you choose to solve problems with blood. Regardless, naval warfare feels very hands-off, with outcomes seemingly decided by chance and attrition over actual strategy, but it suits its purpose.

But not everything takes place on the high seas, you can also explore the land too. Ports aren't just opportunities to dock peacefully for trade, recruitment or repair, but you can also land on beaches and conduct raids. Landing parties must be assembled manually with marines, officers and weapons, consuming ammunition as muskets are issued. Once ashore the real-time strategy returns and troops can be selected and directed toward buildings and ordered to loot or destroy. Taverns, churches and wealthy homes become targets, with treasure physically carried back to waiting ships. There's genuine depth here, but like much the rest of the game, every interesting mechanic is actioned via a series of menus. This dense interface keeps the action disconnected and determined to keep casual players at arm's length. Even at the time, reviewers often praised the ambition while admitting it could be exhausting to actually play.

Cutthroats is one of those games I admire more than I enjoy. I can see the brilliance in the simulation, the care in the historical framing and the sheer number of interconnected systems beneath the surface. Contemporary reviews were mixed. Some celebrated its depth and replayability while others complained it felt more like accountancy than adventure and struggled under an unfriendly interface and technical issues. And honestly, I understand both sides. Hidden somewhere beneath the sea of icons, sliders and logistics is an absorbing pirate strategy game unlike almost anything else from its era. I just never quite found my sea legs.

To download the PC game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses DDrawCompat to run on modern systems. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 11.

File Size: 513 Mb. Install Size: 733 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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