Web Rarely

Update: This mod has been incorporated into The Challenge Pack.

I played Sid Meier's Pirates! (the 2004 remake) for the first time this week, and it was a really fun game, but unfortunately it was too easy. The game helpfully autosaves every time you enter a town or start a battle – basically any time something bad can happen – so by reloading your game you can avoid all the consequences of mistakes and retry difficult parts until you succeed rather than having to be careful to avoid unnecessary risk. This also renders various special items useless. For instance, if you never go to jail you have no need to invest in lock picks or holy relics, and if you never mess up too badly on the dance floor you have no need for fancy dance shoes. If you never lose battles, you have no need to acquire and upgrade multiple ships (unless you're a trader) or to get tools to help you get rescued if you're marooned. I don't have the willpower to resist loading my game if I screw up, so I really wanted an Iron Man mode. Since the game doesn't provide one, I decided to mod the game.

Here are the changes I made:

• You can't load your game except from the main menu.
• You can't save your game except by quitting, in which case the game will be saved in the "quit" slot. However, quitting in the middle of a battle does not save your game, so don't do that. (There are no autosaves. So if you're worried about the game crashing, quit and restart once in a while. But it's never crashed for me, except once when I alt-tabbed out of it.)
• The option to abandon your game (i.e. quit without saving) has been disabled, so you can only quit and save.
• The usual Windows close mechanisms (Alt-F4, etc.) have been disabled. (new in version 2)

Download: piratesmod.zip (version 2), or get The Challenge Pack.

To use the mod, simply replace Pirates!.exe in your game folder with the version from the archive. (Make a backup first, of course.) As usual, if you have any trouble, feel free to contact me. Enjoy!

If you want a copy of the IDA Pro 6.1 database for the executable, it's here. Also, this mod is for the latest English version of the game. If you want to combine this with other EXE mods or change a non-English version of the game, here are the bytes I changed and nearby offsets. The bytes to change are bracketed by underscores and there's enough context to make them unique. If the offsets don't match exactly you can search for the bytes in the first line and change them to those from the second line, but I can't guarantee that these changes will work with any other version or language of the game. Also, you will not find these in the Steam version of the game because the Steam version of the executable is packed and encrypted.

# disable 'battle' autosave
5E699: 00 6A 00 68 48 BB 86 00 _ E8 3A 38 FA FF _ 8B 1D 64 C1 85 00 A1 FC
5E699: 00 6A 00 68 48 BB 86 00 _ EB 03 90 90 90 _ 8B 1D 64 C1 85 00 A1 FC

# disable 'arrival' autosave
66EB0: 00 6A 00 68 48 BB 86 00 _ E8 23 B0 F9 FF _ A1 54 C1 85 00 83 C4 0C
66EB0: 00 6A 00 68 48 BB 86 00 _ EB 03 90 90 90 _ A1 54 C1 85 00 83 C4 0C

# disable quick-save
72F3B: 04 57 55 68 48 BB 86 00 _ E8 98 EF F8 FF _ 83 C4 0C E9 41 07 00 00
72F3B: 04 57 55 68 48 BB 86 00 _ EB 03 90 90 90 _ 83 C4 0C E9 41 07 00 00

# disable quick-load
72F67: E8 F4 46 08 00 83 C4 04 _ 55 57 55 68 48 _ BB 86 00 33 FF E8 62 F3 
72F67: E8 F4 46 08 00 83 C4 04 _ E9 1D 07 00 00 _ BB 86 00 33 FF E8 62 F3 

# disable load/save menu in-game
B24A7: 35 FA FF FF 38 5C 24 7C _ 75 26 _ 8B 75 40 3B F3 74 1F 8B
B24A7: 35 FA FF FF 38 5C 24 7C _ 90 90 _ 8B 75 40 3B F3 74 1F 8B

# disable abandoning the game (i.e. quitting without saving)
B5DD9: F1 FF FF E9 1F 02 00 00 _ B8 0C 00 00 00 _ E8 15 89 F7 FF 8B 0D E8
B5DD9: F1 FF FF E9 1F 02 00 00 _ E9 A5 F1 FF FF _ E8 15 89 F7 FF 8B 0D E8

# prevent the game from copying the 'arrival' or 'battle' saved
# game over your 'quit' slot if you quit in town or a battle
B5FD6: 86 16 04 00 83 C4 04 50 _ E8 2D BD F4 FF _ 83 C4 0C 8D 4C 24 1C E8
B5FD6: 86 16 04 00 83 C4 04 50 _ EB 03 90 90 90 _ 83 C4 0C 8D 4C 24 1C E8

# disable the usual Windows close mechanisms (Alt-F4, etc.)
D4B94: F5 FF 83 C4 04 84 C0 74 _ 11 _ 8B 4C 24 0C 5F C7 01 00
D4B94: F5 FF 83 C4 04 84 C0 74 _ 1D _ 8B 4C 24 0C 5F C7 01 00
F617E: 5B C2 10 00 83 FE 10 74 _ 50 _ 81 FE B1 02 00 00 75 54
F617E: 5B C2 10 00 83 FE 10 74 _ 28 _ 81 FE B1 02 00 00 75 54