Patrolling should counter Pirates (Korea Example)

[Nuclear Elvis]

Just jumped back into EU4 again to see how the new Update/DLCs have changed the game, and instead of playing Sweden, I did a crazy thing and tried a Korea game start.
Except - the piracy is absolutely bonkers, and out of control, from the very start of the game. And I felt like a new player all over again (because in the past, older versions I didn't play kingdoms with pirate problems), so I had to relearn the steps in Navy missions to counter piracy.

And then I had an epiphany - "Patrol" missions don't counter pirates. And I thought about it. "Why not?"

So that's why I'm here in Suggestions. And even if it's too late of a change for EU4, I hope this would be considered as a carry over for a future EU5, because giving this area of the game a new look made me consider just how obviously wrong the game design is, that "Patrolling" missions are only for wars, and yet the navies of both the past and present are always on patrol for everything, and not just a single thing. Any threat to the coast/ports and people of that kingdom would be considered a "Hostile Fleet" and it's not about Pirates vs Military -- it's simply "Protecting the Commons" (the phrase used by all nation's militaries for keeping sea traffic/trade safe). It makes no sense that EU4 has parsed out Patrols from "Hunt Pirate" missions in the game.

The fact that a gamer has to "Select Mission" to then "Hunt Pirates" -- and then even WORSE -- you are presented with limited options for hunting pirates, and you must choose a button to click among your options (In Korea you start with 4 trade routes) and then that's all that fleet can do. So even if a single province that constantly gets raided by pirates, is just one province outside the pre-designated "Hunt Pirates" Trade Route options -- nope, your fleet won't move over and deny them from raiding. It's a very "boxed in" approach to naval missions.

Whereas, in the "Patrol" portion of naval tasks, I can manually choose a specific body of water, then click another body of water at least one space away, and the ship will go back and forth and patrol. Which means - if you have a weird peninsula like Korea (a sort-of mini Italy without a proper boot) you have to patrol around the peninsula. This historically is what leads the Koreans to become the master boatwrights for Turtle Ships (worth looking up if you're not familiar with them). But I'm not here to derail the post into Turtleships, but more importantly - to make the point that a patrol is a patrol, period. And navies existed to protect the coastline and ports, and it just seems awfully silly and downright nonsensical that the manually controlled Patrol missions do not also hunt for Pirates. As a quick reminder - piracy in EU4 occurs when a fleet on that mission is in the Sea adjacent to your coastal province, regardless where a Trade Hub exists at in the game. If you leave your coastline wide open to go "Hunt Pirates" in the Philippines, well - the Korean people probably wouldn't want you as their leader for very long.

And now here's where it gets WORSE - the reality of what these boxed-in "Hunt Pirates" options add up to - absolutely nothing, when it comes to the real piracy problem. Let me explain in the screenshots. First, a preface to the screenshots - 100% of the Korean provinces both in the South and the East of the peninsula, were totally raided of their gold/value. So that's logically where you'd want to "Hunt Pirates" for right? Except now reference the first 4 screenshots for the 4 separate "Hunt Pirate" mission options by default Korea start, at each trade hub. Two are so far away from the Korean Peninsula that it has zero help against piracy against Korea, so those 2 are throw-away options. The other two, Beijing and Hangzhou, are both isolated to the west of the Korean peninsula, but Beijing is the only one with the more consistent presence for the two seas west of the Korean Peninsula. So the 4 total Seas to the South and East of Korea -- Amakusa Sea, South Korean Sea, North Korean Sea, and Olga Bay -- are collectively unprotected, totally wide open to constant and consistent piracy. The last screenshot has both fleets doing Beijing and Hangzhou with their routes displayed and layered over, just to see the total coverage to the West of the Korean Peninsula, and it further makes the point that the other 4 Seas are uncovered.

So the last part of this Suggestion ties into the fact that - video games, in general, are best designed to give the game player options when options are capable of being offered. And this would explain the difficulties of a Korea game play through in EU4 in its current state, so my Suggestion here starts to grow legs beyond this piracy discussion, it's about a diminishment of power on the peninsula that had historic options - Turtle Ships that were feared, and no pirate would have dared cross, and yet the Korea as displayed in EU4 is not at all a naval power to be reckoned with (another argument for another day, but this is the seed that sprouts that discussion).

Think about it PDX Dev's, because you know I'm right on this, but it's just a matter of implementation and how to code it in (enabling Patrol missions to also hunt pirates).

 

[annulen]

All of Korea provinces belong to Nippon trade node, so I think you should've hunt pirates there to get rid of your raids problem.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

All of Korea provinces belong to Nippon trade node, so I think you should've hunt pirates there to get rid of your raids problem.

That's not an option (literally). As Korea at game start, Nippon is not one of the 4 Trade Hubs that display as selectable options when you go through the "Select Mission" > "Hunt Pirates" flow that the Dev's built. So the process becomes one of isolation to a Trade Hub rather than kingdom's coastline, which is also problematic. In reality, Navies don't set Patrols for both Pirates and enemy vessels at Trade Hubs as much as they do in perspective of the kingdom/nation's ports and coastline. So on one hand the gamer starting up a Korea game simply cannot do anything about the piracy (which Korea did not have a problem with, historically, due to their dominant naval forces in the region).

I think the first flaw in Game Design for this mission is that Patrols were not set to go after any hostile fleet. I really like the way a gamer can manually select the Seas to Patrol to/from (and cycle back and forth), as it has an ease of use -- simply put, it's more "User Friendly" to wield the manual Patrol missions. Hunt Pirate missions that force a Trade Hub selection have zero flexibility. Again - look at the patterns of vessel movement (such as in my screenshots) -- that's all you get, no more, no less. The player cannot deviate and "add a Sea" to the standardized cookie-cutter "Hunt Pirates" mission set. So now extrapolate this out to entire game map. This means that if the Trade Hub pattern for Fleet coverage misses 1-2 Seas that have multiple Provinces that you are interested in protecting, they are going to miss those, and pirates get through.

EDIT: I added a screenshot to show the limited options for selecting a Trade Hub after the "Select Mission" > "Hunt Pirates" buttons.

 

[annulen]

I think game design is okay here (not saying it could not be better, but it makes sense).

Patrol action is supposed to be used against hostile fleets if they try moving into patrolled sea tiles.

In-game piracy works differently, there are no hostile ships to be engaged in some tile, and instead there is an effect applied to the whole trade node. So it's quite logical that hunting pirates also is set up in the node, not in particular sea tiles.

Then developers decided that "Hunt Pirates" mission should also prevent raids. This might be seen as illogical for two reasons:

1. Strictly speaking preventing raids of coasts different activity from hunting pirates in the sea, and if ships can hunt pirates and prevent raids at the same time, why can't they just do everything when protecting trade? Though this makes sense from gameplay perspective, as otherwise you would only need a single type of mission for everything.
2. Raid is performed in particular sea tile, so mechanic of preventing raid could also work per tile, i.e. raid is not possible if defender's battleships are present in the same tile. However, if it was implemented that way, patrolling would not be a good solution, as raiders could sneak in when your fleet is far away and do their dirty deed. Instead, the optimal solution would be to station battleships in every sea tile around your coasts (like if you were making permanent self-blockade), which would be quite boring and micromanagement-intensive.

So, patrol action would not be a good solution gameplay-wise neither for pirate hunting nor for raid prevention.

However, inability to use "Hunt Pirates" mission in home trade node, or in any other trade node where you own at least one coastal province, looks like not a game design fault, but a plain bug, and very nasty one. I suggest you to report it in "Bug Reports" forum.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

I think game design is okay here (not saying it could not be better, but it makes sense).

Patrol action is supposed to be used against hostile fleets if they try moving into patrolled sea tiles.

In-game piracy works differently, there are no hostile ships to be engaged in some tile, and instead there is an effect applied to the whole trade node. So it's quite logical that hunting pirates also is set up in the node, not in particular sea tiles.

Then developers decided that "Hunt Pirates" mission should also prevent raids. This might be seen as illogical for two reasons:

1. Strictly speaking preventing raids of coasts different activity from hunting pirates in the sea, and if ships can hunt pirates and prevent raids at the same time, why can't they just do everything when protecting trade? Though this makes sense from gameplay perspective, as otherwise you would only need a single type of mission for everything.
2. Raid is performed in particular sea tile, so mechanic of preventing raid could also work per tile, i.e. raid is not possible if defender's battleships are present in the same tile. However, if it was implemented that way, patrolling would not be a good solution, as raiders could sneak in when your fleet is far away and do their dirty deed. Instead, the optimal solution would be to station battleships in every sea tile around your coasts (like if you were making permanent self-blockade), which would be quite boring and micromanagement-intensive.

So, patrol action would not be a good solution gameplay-wise neither for pirate hunting nor for raid prevention.

However, inability to use "Hunt Pirates" mission in home trade node, or in any other trade node where you own at least one coastal province, looks like not a game design fault, but a plain bug, and very nasty one. I suggest you to report it in "Bug Reports" forum.

Disagree on Patrol perspective you stated. "It depends." A player doesn't have to park a Fleet on every Sea - c'mon, be sensible on this. You can custom build Patrols but they're 2x Sea at minimum (must select a separate Sea as reminder). So the "It depends" is based on how dense or thin you want that naval coverage to be (just as it is in the Real World!!!). So I can either commit more naval forces in separate fleets focused on just small 2-3 Sea patrols, or I could risk a single fleet covering 10+ Seas -- it's a matter of what the player can afford to protect the kingdom. Korea is a great example because there are so many coastal provinces on their small peninsula, but clearly there's a gap to cover the coastal provinces south and east of the peninsula, but in basic military mission planning - you would protect the Ports and Coastline FIRST, not last, so you wouldn't send fleet(s) out to Nippon trade hub to protect your coast!! You'd first prioritize Ports, Second the critical coastal areas where pirates are active, and then third with a "Blue Water" Navy that is much more expensive, you could get out to Trade Hubs in far off places and do patrols "out and back" that follow typical trade routes (and sometimes would accompany trade ships as escorts) in the process. So we're talking about both scaling and layering of coverage that the current EU4 game simply fails to deliver (in terms of game design to provide that necessary coverage).

 

[InvisibleBison]

That's not an option (literally). As Korea at game start, Nippon is not one of the 4 Trade Hubs that display as selectable options when you go through the "Select Mission" > "Hunt Pirates" flow that the Dev's built.

It is when I do it.

 

[annulen]

It is when I do it.

Indeed. Nippon is not considered to be inland sea node, so light or heavy ships are required in fleet to use "Hunt Pirates" mission. However, fleet of @Nuclear Elvis contains only galleys and transports, so it's not allowed to hunt pirates in Nippon.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

It is when I do it.

That's only true for "Blue-Water Navy" which ties into my prior Blue-Water Navy discussion, and would be the "3rd Layer" of Protection for a Kingdom/Nation, only after:
A) Ports secured/patrolled.
B) National coastline patrolled (not secured but patrols reduce risk, and these would only occur in coastline-adjacent Seas if you see my point on why Patrolling should account for BOTH military and pirate vessels - aka "hostile fleets" in general).

And then Blue-Water Navy applies to...
C) Externally supported Trade Routes, which only a Blue-Water Navy can accomodate to/from those distant ports, and a further step would be to have "Convoy Escort" type missions as HOI4 has done, because these were in place during this era as well, but merely with Tall Ships instead of powered ships.

Korea doesn't start with a true blue-water Navy. You get 3x Trade-protect vessels, and you're going to lose money quickly in one of two ways: either you don't recoup "Protect Trade" driven costs, and/or you don't prevent Coastal Piracy. The larger point is - protecting trade locally should be possible (to a point, but not for distant Blue-Water Navy tasks) so a scaled/metric based reduction in piracy costs should be applied if you can at least put out the galleys to protect the coastline and ports.

Again - that's why this is in the Suggestions area. There's a lot to unpack here, a lot that PDX Dev's could work toward for significant improvements in the way "Protect the Commons" type missions, piracy prevention, and such are done in the EU series. I don't hold out hope for an EU4 change, but this could gain some traction for the way EU5 gets designed, and bringing in the "best of" HOI4's trade/convoy related missions may be "a way" to also approach this.