Navies versus Pirates

[Zan Thrax]

Playing as Castille, I was getting a ton of pirates in the straights of Gibraltar (at least 12 a year for several years). Two things I noticed. These events are a very good thing as long as you have a strong navy on hand; I gained a free large ship once a year on average for that same several years. Also, one of my fleets would automatically react to the pirate event and go after them. However, I cannot determine how the game decided which fleet. I split my transports off from warships and left them in a safe port. Then I split my galleys off and sent them into a Mediterranean port for safekeeping. The remaining warships were docked at Gibraltar. However, the two galleys would always be the ones to go after the pirates, not the large fleet of warships that were in the correct zone already.

How does the game determine which, if any fleet auto-responds to pirates? Is it always galleys? If not, how do I get the game to use the fleet that I station specifically to defend against pirates?

Do galleys need to stay in the Med to stay safe? Or can they be sent gallivanting across the Atlantic without concern?

Do my captured pirate ships fight just as well as regular ships? I noticed that they are coloured as mercenaries.

 

[Moltke]

Capturing ships? I like the sound of that. Unfortunately I haven't played with the naval aspects of the demo at all, but I'd like to know the answer to this question as well.

 

[Jernau Gurgeh]

One thing to bear in mind is that I think the captured ships act as mercenaries (at least, the colouring is the same). In that case they probably don't contribute to tradition and dont' get upgraded.

 

[unmerged(12990)]

In my demo games, there are just too many pirates... :wacko: Loads of them!

I like the automatic defence made by fleets, that they venture forth from their docks and attack enemy ships in the vicinity, but there should be some sort of option to not have them do that, if you don't want to. They sometimes attack a larger fleet and get one hell of a beating.

 

[Zan Thrax]

One thing to bear in mind is that I think the captured ships act as mercenaries (at least, the colouring is the same). In that case they probably don't contribute to tradition and dont' get upgraded.

I hadn't considered that. I wonder how that works when I mix them in with my regular fleet? The only reason I was so easily able to invade England was that my Armada was huge due to all the captured Pirate ships. They weren't as big as my original large ships, but still, that many extra large ships allowed me to clear the seas approaching England of all opposition so I could safely run my transports back and forth.

 

[Zan Thrax]

In my demo games, there are just too many pirates... :wacko: Loads of them!

The masses of pirates is why I didn't bother playing Portugal a second time. Every couple of weeks, another pirate shows up off the coast of a colony.
They do seem to only show up in colonial territory though, so I expect it's related. I believe that I'll be putting a couple warships in every colonial port that I create once I have the full game.

 

[Jernau Gurgeh]

I hadn't considered that. I wonder how that works when I mix them in with my regular fleet? The only reason I was so easily able to invade England was that my Armada was huge due to all the captured Pirate ships. They weren't as big as my original large ships, but still, that many extra large ships allowed me to clear the seas approaching England of all opposition so I could safely run my transports back and forth.

Actually, now that I think of it, I believe ships don't get upgraded to new types same way land units do (which makes entire sense). In such a case, captured pirate ships become quite atractive until you get access to new ship types, possible loss of naval tradition notwithstanding.

 

[Jernau Gurgeh]

The masses of pirates is why I didn't bother playing Portugal a second time. Every couple of weeks, another pirate shows up off the coast of a colony.
They do seem to only show up in colonial territory though, so I expect it's related. I believe that I'll be putting a couple warships in every colonial port that I create once I have the full game.

Unless the pirate spawn rate has been tweaked since the demo, it's too much of a chore to go after all the pirates if you have many colonies. It seems like there is a mechanism to auto-intercept pirates if you have ships in harbour, but it doesn't include an automatic return to port (a bug maybe?).

In any case, my opinion is that pirates would have been much better represented by some abstract mechanism, sort of a revolt risk for coastal sea provinces that eats into your revenue, and which can be minimized by having ships in ports in that region. Different ship types could also have different efficiencies at this, to represent the fact that you normally wouldn't send a ship of the line after pirates.

 

[unmerged(59737)]

Unless the pirate spawn rate has been tweaked since the demo, it's too much of a chore to go after all the pirates if you have many colonies. It seems like there is a mechanism to auto-intercept pirates if you have ships in harbour, but it doesn't include an automatic return to port (a bug maybe?).

In any case, my opinion is that pirates would have been much better represented by some abstract mechanism, sort of a revolt risk for coastal sea provinces that eats into your revenue, and which can be minimized by having ships in ports in that region. Different ship types could also have different efficiencies at this, to represent the fact that you normally wouldn't send a ship of the line after pirates.

Amen!

 

[Kruz]

Unless the pirate spawn rate has been tweaked since the demo, it's too much of a chore to go after all the pirates if you have many colonies. It seems like there is a mechanism to auto-intercept pirates if you have ships in harbour, but it doesn't include an automatic return to port (a bug maybe?).

In any case, my opinion is that pirates would have been much better represented by some abstract mechanism, sort of a revolt risk for coastal sea provinces that eats into your revenue, and which can be minimized by having ships in ports in that region. Different ship types could also have different efficiencies at this, to represent the fact that you normally wouldn't send a ship of the line after pirates.

Actually I'd rather have the pirates there than a lot of numbers representing things which new players and myself included wouldn't know what it would represent.
I'd prefer it if Pdox included the missions which we saw in HOI2&DD as I couldn't find it in the demo and I really missed that feature.

 

[HawaiiFive-O]

Yes, the pirate spawns are pretty bad, but what I did to combat them was to keep a 2 ship piracy patrol in every colonial sea zone. 1 out to sea (the pirates won't come out to play if a warship is present), and 1 in port. Every January and July, I paused and went around to each colonial area and swapped the ships. Tedious, but the only way I could come up with to keep the buggers at bay. I actually enjoyed playing as Portugal after that.

It does make you 'bunch up' your colonies, favoring colonial pockets that all empty out into the same sea zone, to cut down on the number of places you have to swap the patrols every 6 months.

One other observation, as noted by a previous poster when I was ranting about the pirates the other night, many of the pirates that infest the waters are not normal spawns, they are commissioned by enemy countries using spies. I'm pretty sure this is why my patrols were really necessary as Portugal for Tangiers down thru Fernando Po. Morocco, for one, is hostile to Portugal and is undoubtedly paying privateers to harrass Portuguese shipping.

When I got bored with my patrols I tried not doing them in the New World or the Indian Ocean, and the pirates spawned much less frequently. Please note that if you don't sink/capture the pirate, he just runs away and will be back. But if you do sink or capture him, you'll enjoy months of pirate-free bliss. Makes it a better model to have a roving hunter killer group for these areas- an approach I'll take next time.

I got Morocco to stop commissioning privateers by crushing them in several wars and introducing them to life as subjects of the glorious Portuguese Empire.

That'll teach them to harrass my shipping. After I fixed their little red wagon, suddenly I didn't need my patrols for Madeira and Tangiers.

 

[minority]

Aren't pirates there for us to rack up our naval tradition.

cheers

 

[Moltke]

It sounds like pirates are piranhas in this game. I don't see how they can afford all those ships...

 

[unmerged(6777)]

It sounds like pirates are piranhas in this game. I don't see how they can afford all those ships...

We rob from the rich and give to the poor...no...wait...wrong motto....we rob from the rich and then rob from them some more.

 

[unmerged(61606)]

It sounds like pirates are piranhas in this game. I don't see how they can afford all those ships...

they steal them from Tibet.

 

[unmerged(4542)]

What bothers me about the pirates is that they give you big ships, rather than light ships. With a few exceptions, I think pirates through all ages have prefered fast and light ships.

 

[unmerged(64425)]

What bothers me about the pirates is that they give you big ships, rather than light ships. With a few exceptions, I think pirates through all ages have prefered fast and light ships.

That is correct. Well, at least in the popular 16-17th century Caribbean sense. I don't know enough to say otherwise for other times and places. Most pirate captains preferred the versatile sloops. Frigate sized warships are exceedingly rare seeing as for a pirate captain to get a hold of one he would almost have to capture it from some nations military. And contrary to popular culture, pirates would nearly always avoid a fight with a warship.

 

[unmerged(59737)]

What bothers me about the pirates is that they give you big ships, rather than light ships. With a few exceptions, I think pirates through all ages have prefered fast and light ships.

Seconded: I assume this will be fixed in the real game.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Seconded: I assume this will be fixed in the real game.

Does seem like an easy and welcome fix.

 

[jburns]

What bothers me about the pirates is that they give you big ships, rather than light ships. With a few exceptions, I think pirates through all ages have prefered fast and light ships.

I agree, one of the largest ships used by Pirates was Blackbeard's ship the Queen Anne's Revenge. It was a large merchant with about 40 guns (was 20 but Blackbeard up-gunned it after capture I think) if I remember correctly, but it was uncommonly large when compared to most other pirate ships.

Don't hold me to my facts though as I'm going on pure memory here and I could be wrong in the details about the number of guns.

Jim