Dancing

Dancing is a minigame which was introduced in Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) and can occure if you are invitated to a ball by a governor's daughter after speaking to a governor. You can obtain quests, items, and maps from it. Also it is part of a romance plotline.

Dancing Basics
There are mutiple songs and dance step patterns from which the game chooses. You then have to press the right button at the correct time to perform a good dance move. The more fluent you dance, the more delighted the governor's daughter becomes. This is signalled by a short giggle of her and the heart symbol on the top middle of the screen.

Keys and directions
The governor's daughter is leading the dance. She will point with her arm(s) at one of those directions (PC version): There is no upper left or upper right in any dance pattern.
 * 🡹 Up (8 on Numpad)
 * 🡸 Left (4 on Numpad)
 * 🡿 Down Left (1 on Numpad)
 * 🡻 Down (2 on Numpad)
 * 🡾 Down Right (3 on Numpad)
 * 🡺 Right (6 on Numpad)

Timing and difficulty
On the lower experience ranks the next key is highlighted 1 second before the governor's daughter is raising her hand. But the correct timing is to wait for her pointing in the appropriate direction, with the downbeat of your key pressed in sync with the nod of her head. On higher experience ranks you don't get warned and you have to react quickly to her arm(s) direction on visual alone or by memorizing the dance pattern (see below). The more fluent, the better for the heart value at the end of the dance it is.

Supporting items and rewards
The mysterious traveller in the tavern sometimes offer the Dancing Shoes which can both make the timing more easy and sometimes also negate a false command totally. He also offers expensive Jewelry which can be given away as a gift to skip the dancing minigame. You will directly get the reward and you advance in the Romance. You can rebuy Jewelry.

It depends on the attractiveness level of the governor's daughter, your rank for the concerned faction or a special item if she invites you to a ball or not:
 * a Plain daughter can be danced with at Captain rank or with a stylish cap. Rewards for success can be a location of a criminal or a special item.

The game judges your dance into three outcomes: failed, ok, perfect. Be aware that failing in Dancing or denying any Jewelry will end a Romance. For getting the reward is is necessary to be at least ok. You will notice her winking at you and you will kiss her hand. If you performed a perfect dance, you will whirl her around for a last dance move. In this case progress in the romance or getting a higher tier reward is more likely.
 * an Attractive daughter can be danced with at Colonel rank or with a special hat. Rewards for success can be a special item, information on Baron Raymondo or enemies of the Crown, if all your family members have been already rescued.
 * a Beautiful daughter can be danced with at Baron rank or with an Ostrich Feather Hat. Rewards for success can be information on Baron Raymondo, the Montalban hideout, any undiscovered lost city treasure maps such as the Incas and Aztecs, or enemies of the Crown.

Dance Patterns
The game is using a fixed set of different dance patterns. A randomized amount of patterns have to be mastered during the dance. The last pattern can be interrupted by the end of the song. Which pattern and how many are chosen is not connected to the song, the place, the governor's daughter, the romance sublevel or loading a save state.

Even looking deeper into the patterns there seem to be no strict rules which pattern will follow another. Yet some combinations seem to be more likely than others. I will provide my collected data in the Talk section of this page if you want to look at it personally.

Because the patterns are limited and the game tend to symmetric or repeated moves, you will begin to easily memorize certain steps. If you still have problems, you are able to pause anytime to look the pattern up here by mutlitasking out of the game. On fullscreen, the game probably is going to crash, but you can bypass this by starting the game in windowed mode. Just add the line fullscreen=0 to C:\Users\%username%\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Pirates!\config.ini

Known rules

 * 1) There are 10 known patterns.
 * 2) Patterns consist of 4, 6 or 8 steps.
 * 3) A dance consist of 6 to 11 patterns to master.
 * 4) No pattern will begin with Numpad 2 (Down).
 * 5) No pattern is repeated twice in a row, but may occur multiple times in a dance.
 * 6) After the second step in a pattern you know the rest of the pattern for sure.
 * 7) Everything else seems random.

Pattern list by symmetry
The minigame does love symmetric reversals. And some patterns are more likely than others.
 * 1) 🡿 🡿 🡿 🡿 (1 1 1 1)
 * 2) 🡾 🡾 🡾 🡾 (3 3 3 3)
 * 3) 🡸 🡾 🡸 🡾 🡸 🡾 🡸 🡾 (4 3 4 3 4 3 4 3)
 * 4) 🡺 🡿 🡺 🡿 🡺 🡿 🡺 🡿 (6 1 6 1 6 1 6 1)
 * 5) 🡸 🡺 🡸 🡺 (4 6 4 6)
 * 6) 🡺 🡸 🡺 🡸 (6 4 6 4)
 * 7) 🡿 🡻 🡿 🡻 🡿 🡻 🡿 🡻 (1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2)
 * 8) 🡾 🡻 🡾 🡹 🡾 🡻 🡾 🡹 (3 2 3 8 3 2 3 8) - difficult pattern, asymmetric reversal
 * 9) 🡹 🡿 🡿 🡹 🡿 🡿 (8 1 1 8 1 1) - only 6 step pattern is used quite often
 * 10) 🡹 🡻 🡿 🡿 🡻 🡹 🡾 🡾 (8 2 1 1 2 8 3 3) - difficult pattern, only a variation of pattern 9