Be a Pirate! FAQ: Captains, Towers, and Beginner Tips

What Is Be a Pirate!?

A river full of Crown Sloops can overwhelm a defense built only for marching troops. This Be a Pirate! FAQ explains how to cover both fronts, develop your captains, and tackle achievement challenges. Be a Pirate! is a single-player tower defense game where your building choices reshape land routes while enemy vessels attack through the waterways.

The campaign takes place in the Crimson Expanse. You defend strongholds connected to your pirate captains, rescue missing crewmates, and uncover the Crown’s alliance with supernatural forces. Voiced narration ties the battles to each captain’s story.

Here are the essentials:

• Release date: Nov 3, 2026.
• Developer: Noble Rogues.
• Publisher: Red Raine Productions.
• Platform: Windows PC.
• Mode: Single-player.
• Steam achievements: 74.

Choose Be a Pirate! on Steam when buying the game. The similarly named Be a Pirate, released in 2020, is a separate game with coin collection and timed escapes.

How Do Land Routes, Rivers, and Bridges Work?

Every wave brings enemies across land and water simultaneously. Ground enemies adjust their routes as you build, while Crown Sloops follow a fixed river route. Your defenses need to account for both approaches.

Image: Steam / Noble Rogues

Bridges create another option for land movement across water. They do not stop Crown Sloops: those vessels pass underneath unaffected.

Use these mechanics when planning your layout:

1. Check both approaches before committing your defenses. Place towers with the marching enemies and river traffic in mind.
2. Watch the land route after building. Enemies reroute around your structures, so evaluate the path your latest placement creates.
3. Keep river coverage after adding a bridge. Turning water into a land crossing leaves the naval threat intact.
4. Consider elevation alongside position. Terrain height affects tower placement and performance, with results depending on the tower and its elevation.

For a specific routing challenge, The Long Way Round requires stretching the enemies’ march to three times its starting length. Work toward that target by reshaping the ground route rather than expecting a bridge to obstruct boats.

How Do Towers and Battle Upgrades Work?

The game includes a dozen towers, with roles ranging from direct attacks to support effects. Examples include:

Image: Steam / Noble Rogues

• Cannon: A straightforward attacking tower.
• Voodoo Cauldron: Uses poison.
• Heliograph Battery: Delivers a focused beam attack.
• The Commodore’s Flag: Increases the damage of nearby towers.

During battles, you spend Doubloons across four upgrade tracks: Offense, Range, Specialty, and Signature. Specialty upgrades depend on the tower, while the Signature ability changes how that tower fights.

Choose upgrades around the problem in front of you. Increase Range when coverage is the issue; consider Offense when enemies remain within reach but survive the damage. Read each tower’s Specialty and Signature options before investing, since those tracks offer tower-specific changes.

Why Does Elemental Damage Matter?

Enemies have resistances and weaknesses across five damage types: Physical, Fire, Ice, Electric, and Poison. Bosses also respond differently to those elements.

Adjust your damage mix to the enemies you face. When an enemy resists an attack type, use its weakness rather than continuing to invest in the resisted element.

The achievement Fully Rigged requires buying all 20 battle upgrades for one tower.

What Do Captains, the Armory, and the Compass Do?

You can recruit and equip 15 Pirate Captains. Each has permanent bonuses, upgrade paths, and a personal connection to the campaign. Your active captain accompanies your ship into battle.

Image: Steam / Noble Rogues

Compare those bonuses when selecting a captain for a map. For achievement runs, captain selection also becomes an explicit requirement: Home Waters asks you to win on Captain difficulty with that map’s own captain commanding.

Progression extends beyond your active captain:

• Armory: Buy towers.
• Captain’s Compass: Unlock nodes, including Keystones and the central Helm.
• Raids: Use your Pirate Raider to attack forts and villages.
• Currency exchange: Trade Doubloons for gems.

Several achievements give you concrete progression targets:

• Welcome Aboard: Recruit your first captain.
• Red Raine’s Rogues: Recruit all 15 captains.
• Polished to Perfection: Raise a tower to Gem Level 20.
• Every Point of the Compass: Unlock all 266 Compass nodes.
• X Marks the Spot: Reach level 25 and open your first milestone chest.

Keep battle upgrades and Gem Levels separate when choosing an objective.

How Many Maps and Difficulty Levels Are There?

The campaign contains 15 maps, each with four difficulty levels, and features 15 bosses. Deckhand and Captain are two named difficulties with their own achievement requirements.

Difficulty matters for completion goals:

• Earned Your Stripes: Win any battle on Deckhand.
• Captain’s Orders: Win any battle on Captain.
• Measure Twice, Tithe Thrice: Beat all 15 maps on Deckhand.
• Captain of the Crimson Expanse: Beat all 15 maps on Captain.

Choose the difficulty named in the achievement before starting a dedicated attempt. A victory alone does not fulfill a condition that also specifies Deckhand or Captain.

What Is Endless Mode?

Endless mode challenges your defenses with continued waves. Its achievement targets include surviving 20, 30, 40, and 55 waves.

For a broader challenge, Some Ships Do Not Return requires surviving 30 waves in Endless on all 15 maps. Treat each map as a separate routing problem: a layout built around one river and ground approach needs reconsideration on another battlefield.

Which Achievement Conditions Need Extra Planning?

Several achievements require a particular layout, tower count, or ship-health result. Choose the objective before building so your opening placements support the attempt.

• Shipshape: Win without your ship taking any damage.
• By a Whisker: Win with your ship at 10% health or less.
• Old Faithful: From Map 6 onward, win using only one kind of attacking tower. Palisades, bridges, and the Commodore’s Flag do not count.
• Skeleton Crew: From Map 8 onward, win on Deckhand or Captain with no more than 10 attacking towers built.
• No Walls, No Problem: From Map 8 onward, win without building a single palisade.
• Every Gun Aboard: Win with eight different kinds of tower built.

Pursue Shipshape and By a Whisker in separate battles because their health requirements conflict. Likewise, keep a one-tower-type attempt separate from an eight-tower-type attempt.

Boss challenges add their own conditions. Dodged the Skiff requires defeating Quartermaster Voss without his skiff wrecking one of your towers. Disarmed requires defeating the Admiral’s Herald before he lands a blow on your ship.

Read the full condition before a boss attempt. Defeating the enemy satisfies only part of these objectives.

What Are the PC System Requirements?

Be a Pirate! supports Windows and requires DirectX 12. Both hardware configurations require 3 GB of available storage.

Component	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system	Windows 10 64-bit	Windows 10/11 64-bit
Processor	Quad-core 2.5 GHz; Intel Core i5-4460 / AMD FX-6300 or equivalent	Quad-core 3.5 GHz; Intel Core i5-9600K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Memory	8 GB RAM	16 GB RAM
Graphics	DirectX 12–compatible GPU with 2 GB VRAM; NVIDIA GTX 1050 / AMD RX 560	DirectX 12–compatible GPU with 4 GB VRAM; NVIDIA GTX 1660 / AMD RX 5600 XT
DirectX	Version 12	Version 12
Storage	3 GB available space	3 GB available space

Compare your operating system, graphics hardware, and memory against these requirements before purchasing. Mac and Linux versions are not supported.

FAQ

Does Be a Pirate! Have Multiplayer or Co-op?

Be a Pirate! is single-player. You command the defenses and select the captain accompanying your ship.

Does It Support Steam Cloud and Family Sharing?

Yes. The game supports both Steam Cloud and Family Sharing.

What Languages Does It Support?

The game supports English, including full English audio.

What Accessibility Options Are Included?

Features include adjustable difficulty, custom volume controls, stereo sound, and play without timed input.