There are also four kinds of shot for your cannons and each has a different purpose. Plain cannonballs are good for distance, grape shot for raking crews and sails from the deck of the enemy ship, bombs for blowing holes in the hull and chain for disabling masts and sails. This is an abstract for the entire boarding experience in that your health represents how many sailors you have still alive. If you block well enough you can keep your men alive and win the day, even if outmanned. The problem is the town walking and running controls make for a lot of boring movement, and townspeople get in the way constantly.
Ship movement is better but the game is very combat intensive and it gets old after a while.
The sword fighting controls are easy to learn but they needed a tutorial. Expect to die and reload often before you can call yourself a sword master. Practice makes perfect and you shouldn't have to load a saved game or restart just to get that practice down. All Rights Reserved.