too many pirates

[Duke of Awesome]

it was insane. over the course of a month pirates popped up along every single one of my North American holdings. it really broke the game for me. im asking for one of 2 things 1) can someone show me how to take out the pirates? with code or something like that? be very detailed please. or 2) tell me how to patrol. i dont understand exactly how to do it. the first one would be preferable. thank you

[Galaahd]

Yep, at the current state there are far too many pirates, and the respawn rate is insane.

To patrol, anyway, I tend to create fleets of 3 capital ships each. Then I assign them to patrol the coast for about 3/4 provinces. If a ship of yours always patrol a sea region pirates won't be coming back.

[Duke of Awesome]

i tried that but 1) there were so many pirates that in an even fight (1 big ship against my patrol) the pirates just fled and it would cause problems elsewhere. 2) thats all so much to keep track of! if a war were to break out the enemy fleet (and by enemy fleet i mean the french) would destroy my patrols and pirates would infest my waters for at least a year. plus my colonies are kinda spaced out so its hard to maximize effiency.

[Christian I.]

You can take out pirates by changing their tech group to new_world.

In your EUIII files open the "history" folder > countries and open the PIR with your editor.

Change techgroup to new_world.

This will affect all new games you start.

I dont remember how to edit the savegame file for your current game.

[Galaahd]

Originally Posted by Duke of Awesome

i tried that but 1) there were so many pirates that in an even fight (1 big ship against my patrol) the pirates just fled and it would cause problems elsewhere. 2) thats all so much to keep track of! if a war were to break out the enemy fleet (and by enemy fleet i mean the french) would destroy my patrols and pirates would infest my waters for at least a year. plus my colonies are kinda spaced out so its hard to maximize effiency.

Well, for the pirates fleeing just use a big fleet and you will easily destroy them. Then you can assign your patrols. It's a micromanaging hell, though.

[BeardedHoplite]

Although then tend to go on hiatus after you destroy them after a couple of years (maybe they got their share)

[Duke of Awesome]

thank you Christian I. but does that mean that my current game will still be pirate infested or will it crash or what? i put a lot of work into that. i colonized parts of Austrailia and its not even 1500 yet!

[BeardedHoplite]

Wow, whats your naval tech?

[Kiltak]

Just go to you latest savegame file and search for

PIR={

scroll down and right under capital=0 you'll find technology_group entry replace that line with

technology_group=new_world

, right after that make sure the number in front of naval_tech={ is 1 »»

naval_tech={1 1.111}

just to make sure

[Profane]

Its easy to manage it, use your main fleet to clear out areas you intend to patrol then assign a single light ship to patrol (faster so it can patrol bigger area) the patrollers dont fight pirates they just go through 3-4 areas fast enough that every zone always has the patrolled effect.

Only time you may have problems is during wars against naval empires, then it may be necessary to order all the ships to port until war ends or enemy navies are destroyed.

If you have the forcelimits for a really big navy you might increase the number of patrollers in each patrol to 4-5 and use them to "catch" enemy shipping giving them the survivability to stay alive until your main fleets arrive.

Oh and keep a "stockpile" of light ships you can draw on in case you loose some or add new patrol routes, maybe use that stack to explore.

[Duke of Awesome]

Originally Posted by BeardedHoplite

Wow, whats your naval tech?

its 9. im just using the Whole World Mod and the naval supply ship limit and the colonial limit is WAY messed up. i can could colonize Moron almost immeadeately but had to wait 40 years to colonize Havana.

and thank you for the code help

[Morildar]

Originally Posted by Duke of Awesome

its 9. im just using the Whole World Mod and the naval supply ship limit and the colonial limit is WAY messed up. i can could colonize Moron almost immeadeately but had to wait 40 years to colonize Havana.

and thank you for the code help

Yeah the Whole World Mod is all kinds of buggered at the moment. The only mod that I have every tried and stuck with(aside from cosmetic mods) is Sacra Imperium Romanun. It's sort of like MMP, only with some of the more broken modules removed, and some new and better features added on top of these.

I highly recommend it to anyone in search of a good mod.

[Twilight]

Originally Posted by Duke of Awesome

its 9. im just using the Whole World Mod and the naval supply ship limit and the colonial limit is WAY messed up. i can could colonize Moron almost immeadeately but had to wait 40 years to colonize Havana.

and thank you for the code help

Have you tried clearing your map cache? If a mod includes map changes, and WWM of course does, it tends to bugger up colonial distances, and that will not be fixed until you delete everything in the map\cache folders of both EUIII and WWM.

The next time you start the game, the window will say 'Calculating Paths' or what have you, along with the disclaimer that it will take a few minutes, and it will. I imagine it correlates with number of provinces, so with WWM it might take 10-15 minutes on an older comp.

[Duke of Awesome]

the mod i always used was black and red (or something like that) it downplayed pirates to make them not a swarm of little mosquitoes into an actual threat if you leave them alone for 3 months

[OrangeYoshi]

Originally Posted by Duke of Awesome

the mod i always used was black and red (or something like that) it downplayed pirates to make them not a swarm of little mosquitoes into an actual threat if you leave them alone for 3 months

It is called "The Black & The Blood". Very good Pirate mod.

@ OP: Yes, clear your map cache.

[Noctus]

Originally Posted by Twilight

Have you tried clearing your map cache? If a mod includes map changes, and WWM of course does, it tends to bugger up colonial distances, and that will not be fixed until you delete everything in the map\cache folders of both EUIII and WWM.

The next time you start the game, the window will say 'Calculating Paths' or what have you, along with the disclaimer that it will take a few minutes, and it will. I imagine it correlates with number of provinces, so with WWM it might take 10-15 minutes on an older comp.

True.

Your colonial distances are messed up. Clear both the normal and the mod´s map cache to correct that. I had the same problem, and that is the solution.

[Brons]

The pirates are never a real threat but they're just very annoying. How much fun is it to constantly micro manage your fleets but never get really damaged by them?

A big problem I have with the pirates is that they sometimes run away from a different sea zone and they run into my small patrols damaging them. And as a result I need to micro my ships again while I took no real damage as the ships are repaired in 1 or 2 months.

[Duke of Awesome]

how do i clear my map cache?

[OrangeYoshi]

Originally Posted by Duke of Awesome

how do i clear my map cache?

Go into the root EU3 game files folder, then open the folder called "map", then delete the folder called "cache".

[Alerias]

I really hope they make pirates much rarer in the next patch. Moddability of their system (delays etc) would be appreciated as well.