PIRATES off the starboard bow!

[Sir Beane]

I have a confession to make. I like pirates. I like pirates a lot.

Guy likes pirates on the Internet! I hear you cry. Shocking! I bet he likes ninjas and zombies to!

Well… yes I do but bear with me. At the risk of sounding like an Indy music snob, I liked pirates before they got popular and sold out. I liked pirates well before Pirates of the Caribbean, well before they became an Internet meme. I’ve liked pirates ever since I read Treasure Island; I think I was about ten.

The reason I say all this is so you don’t dismiss my upcoming suggestions as those of a typical Internet nerd who is jumping on the buccaneer bandwagon. I may be a nerd (for a whole host of reasons) but when it comes to pirates I know what I’m talking about.

Sooo… (Finally getting to the point) Pirates! I would like to see the following in Empire:

1) A proper pirate faction, able to take cities and train troops (albeit pretty crap ones) and possibly even win the game. I am not suggesting this should be one of the 12 playable factions.

2) Famous pirates. There are a great number of very well known and very interesting pirates.

• Edward Teach (Blackbeard) well known for wearing lit fuses in his hair and beard, and carrying upwards of ten pistols at all times
• Calico’ Jack Rackham, so called because of his preference for dressing in fashionable clothes
• Admiral Sir Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer (pirate for hire) who was so successful he got a knighthood out of it. (Sadly out of the game’s time frame)
• Anne Bonny and Mary Read, famous female pirates who had a reputation as being far more fearsome than the men in their crew.
• Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart) who may have captured over 400 vessels during his career. Probably the most successful pirate ever. Also Welsh.

Pirates are a fascinating topic and the great age of piracy is an extremely colourful and interesting period to study. Most people know very little about pirates, and I think it’s up to CA to educate them!

Little known pirate facts:

• The majority of pirate ships were run by democracy. The captain was elected and could be un-elected by the crew.
• The Captain was often only in charge of the ship during battle. During peacetime the Quartermaster controlled the ship.
• Many pirates held a personal hatred for slavery and made it their mission to capture slave ships and free the slaves. Sometimes the freed slaves were made to join the crew; sometimes they were dropped off at a nearby port.
• Pirate crews were probably the most ethnically diverse and racially tolerant crews to sail during the period. There were so many different races and religions that racism was pointless.
• Pirate crews could be surprisingly well trained. Since they constantly used their weapons and their lives depended on their skill they practised a lot harder than a common soldier.
• Pirates did not bury treasure. That particular myth was almost entirely invented by Robert Louis Stevenson. Instead they immediately spent their haul on booze and whores (huzzah!)
• Jamaica lacked proper English soldiers to defend it, and instead turned to pirates as a defence force. Without pirate defenders Jamaica would have fallen to the French or Spanish.

So now I’ve made it clear I know far too much about piracy I’d like to hear your opinions on piracy and including a pirate faction in the game. I also welcome a general discussion of piracy around Empire’s time frame. Feel free to ask questions, or tell me why I’m wrong (but with reasons). Let’s try and keep this Empire related though.

DO NOT MENTION NINJAS.

[Mailman653]

As far as I know, they will raid shipping. But what isn't clear is will they be represented by actual ships, or will they only be a statistic on an info screen. If its the former then I'm sure in the config files they could be enabled since I believe they can be considered the equivalent to the Rebel faction in previous games.

[Knight of the Rose]

Well, I'm a bit so-so with pirates. These days it seems to be a "little known fact" that they mutilated, raped and murdered their victims.

But in the game, if the Caribbian is in - and later in the timeframe Indian Ocean, then they should be something that you need to do something about. Personally, I prefer the "suppression" option: Keeping troops and ships in the area prevents piracy. But there should also be some sort of rebels that you can hunt in the beginning of the game, such as the settlement in Belize. I would be dissapointed if it meant small units popping up everywhere.

/KotR

[Sir Beane]

Well, I'm a bit so-so with pirates. These days it seems to be a "little known fact" that they mutilated, raped and murdered their victims.

But in the game, if the Caribbian is in - and later in the timeframe Indian Ocean, then they should be something that you need to do something about. Personally, I prefer the "suppression" option: Keeping troops and ships in the area prevents piracy. But there should also be some sort of rebels that you can hunt in the beginning of the game, such as the settlement in Belize. I would be dissapointed if it meant small units popping up everywhere.

/KotR

You are 100% right that most fans of pirates nowadays tend to forget they were bloodthirsty criminals. Personally I blame the fact that all of the modern popular media that features them portrays them as heroes, or at worst just slightly morally ambiguous good guys.

What is fascinating about real pirates is the suprising success they had. In the 'golden age' of piracy pirates took thousands of ships, millions of pounds, and occasionally managed to win fights against real militaries, even taking a few towns. I always find it fascinating just how rampant piracy was around certain areas such as the caribbean.

As for pirates in game. I would dislike endless waves of small units. What I wouldn't mind is an small group of ships which use intelligent hit and run guerilla tactics to harass key shipping lanes. I think it would be an interesting tactical challenge to fight against a force like that, and something which we have never seen in a Total War game so far.

[Forward Observer]

I too have always been a fan of all things piratical. I think it pretty much started when I first read Treasure Island when I was about 11 or 12 years old. That would have been 1956 or 57.

Personally, I wasn't that crazy about the Disney "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies simply because they had little to with anything about pirates, but were in fact simply zombie filled, special effects ridden vehicles for Johnny Depp get even richer by wearing eyeshadow while playing a ludicrously campy drunken Rastafarian doofus. Believe it or not, he has signed on to do a 4th Disney pirate movie for the highest paid salary to any star in movie history (53 million according to recent article I read)

While these movies have probably stirred up the public's interest, they have done little or nothing to inform the public about real pirates. I truly want a serious pirate movie, something on the level of the Master and Commander flick made a few years ago. They need to remake Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood. and in fact I can't think of a better actor than Russell Crowe to play the lead. ---sorry, I getting off on a tangent here

I still have, or have at least played, almost every pirate PC game made. With the exception of a few like Akella's SeaDogs and Sid Meier's Pirates, most have been disappointing.

Empires is going to cover such an expansive and epic portion of history that I simply don't believe they can put enough special interest areas of history in the game to please everybody without diluting the main thrust of the game play, and I really don't want them to.

However, I can see two possible scenarios where such interests as ours in pirates, privateering, and/ or general naval strategy could just come about

1. If the naval component of Empires lives up to all the hype and is well received by players, a privateering and/or pirate themed expansion pack might be possible.

2. If that requires too much reworking of the game engine, my next thought is that CA might just have something like this in mind for a later totalwar game---something like "Ages of sail-Total War" or Privateer-total war. Hey, I can dream can't I.

Cheers

[adembroski]

lol, plundering booty

[Cangrande]

Well, I'm a bit so-so with pirates. These days it seems to be a "little known fact" that they mutilated, raped and murdered their victims.


/KotR

So not like any army throughout history then?

[Companie Franche de la Marine]

Pirates would be intresting.

[Monk]

I don't know if it's even been mentioned by CA, but how cool would it be to be able to finance privateers or hire pirates as mercenaries to do your dirty work? Like i said i dunno if CA has even considered that, but I think it could provide a huge layer of depth for fleets.

Land armies have always been able to hire mercenaries but not navies, ect.

[Mailman653]

Privateers would be useful when you have a small navy and you can't afford to build a ship but can maybe spare money for one or two privateers.

[Polemists]

Agreed Privateers would be awesome. I mean you look at certain nations which will be financially stable but may not have the numbers needed to strike out or the time to build up a fleet, privateers are a prefectly good option.

Yay for letters of marq (probably spelled that wrong)

[Sir Beane]

Historically even big naval powers used privateers extensively, especially the English. A letter of Marque (you were close Polemists) entitled an independant captain to undertake pirate activity against any nation at war with the nation which issued the letter.

Privateers, if captured, were entitled to be treated as prisoners of war. This meant they were much less likely to be excuted by hanging, but instead might be ransomed back to their sponsoring nation. This meant being a privateer was much preferable to piracy, if you had the choice.

Typically (especially in the caribbean) privatters were used as a vary cheap way to field a large fleet to harass and profit from enemy shipping and trade. Privateers rarely went after the actual navy (althought it occasionally happened). Privateers were suprisingly cheap for a nation to use. In most circumstances I believe a potential privateer had to pay to obtain a Letter and the benefits associated with it. The nation issuing the Letter could be entitled to a share of whatever a privateer captured, in return for providing them a safe haven to put into port and get repairs and supplies and granting them legal protection and legitimacy.

Apparently merchant captains and independant captains who were loosely affiliated with a paticular nation (such as the British merchant fleet or whaling fleet, or a West or East India Company Ship) would often seek to obtain a Letter of Marque simply to cover them in the event they ever had the opportunity to take a foreign ship.

In game privateers should be extremely tactically important to harassing your enemies trade lanes, forcing them to commit their fleet to protecting merchants without having to risk your own ships. The number of privateers that can operate under your flag could be dependant on your prestige, relative power in the location you are fielding them, and other factors such as the strength of your enemies and loyalty of your colonies.

The overall strength of the ships should be below that of real naval ships. Privateer crews would usually be smaller, less well trained and proffesional, have fewer or lower calibre cannons and would probably not have been operating in anything larger than a Corvette. They should definitely lose a one on one fight with the equivalent proffesional ship.

During Empire's time period privateers were more or less neccesary for a nation to use if it wanted to be a naval power, due to the fact everyone else used them. They were also used by smaller nations who could not afford to field a permanent proffesional navy.

So there's my take on privateers . Sorry for the wall of text I am far too enthusiastic when it comes to naval operation in this time period. Hope I was informative and not too confusing.

[Eusebius86]

I don't know if it's even been mentioned by CA, but how cool would it be to be able to finance privateers or hire pirates as mercenaries to do your dirty work? Like i said i dunno if CA has even considered that, but I think it could provide a huge layer of depth for fleets.

Land armies have always been able to hire mercenaries but not navies, ect.

That would be AMAZING!!! I would love to hire privateers as the colonies to screw up British trade in the west-indies

[Freedom Onanist]

I will look forward to hunting the historically misrepresented and romanticised criminals down and hanging them prominently from my jib.

Straight pirates should just be eliminated like the scum they were and are (Somalia anyone?)

Letters of Marque on the other hand would be a cheap and interesting way of raising revenues and affecting an opponents trade.

[Oleander Ardens]

I don't know if it's even been mentioned by CA, but how cool would it be to be able to finance privateers or hire pirates as mercenaries to do your dirty work? Like i said i dunno if CA has even considered that, but I think it could provide a huge layer of depth for fleets.

Land armies have always been able to hire mercenaries but not navies, ect.

Excellent thought - please take note CA

[Martok]

Stick to the subject, please.

Letters of Marque on the other hand would be a cheap and interesting way of raising revenues and affecting an opponents trade.

Agreed. I would love to see an option like this in ETW, but I've thus far not heard anything about any such feature. I'd very much like to see privateers in the game.

[ljperreira]

I have a confession to make. I like pirates. I like pirates a lot.

Do you like rapists, gang members, scam artists, thieves, and murderers? Are you fond of hard core maximum security prison inmates? No? Well, the only difference is that "Pirates" sail on ships. On my first deployment to Asia as a U.S. Marine I was a part of TRAP team (tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel) and we trained to retake ships hijacked by pirates over near Indonesia (along with Marine Force Recon and Navy Seals), so the problem has never really gone away. Ask a modern merchant mariner who's been hijacked by modern pirates how cool and fun loving those guys really are. I don't think he'll be telling you an amusing story of a guy named Jack Sparrow or Long John Silver.......sorry if I'm being too much of a realist.

[Pinxit]

Do you like rapists, gang members, scam artists, thieves, and murderers? Are you fond of hard core maximum security prison inmates? No? Well, the only difference is that "Pirates" sail on ships. On my first deployment to Asia as a U.S. Marine I was a part of TRAP team (tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel) and we trained to retake ships hijacked by pirates over near Indonesia (along with Marine Force Recon and Navy Seals), so the problem has never really gone away. Ask a modern merchant mariner who's been hijacked by modern pirates how cool and fun loving those guys really are. I don't think he'll be telling you an amusing story of a guy named Jack Sparrow or Long John Silver.......sorry if I'm being too much of a realist.

Yes. Todays pirates are completely nuts. I mean, they dont even use large cool wooden ships with cannons and flags and drink whiskey and have wooden legs and funny hooks on their hands and trousers made out of jam (thank you Izzard). Futhermore, they dont live in huge boats all the time spending their loot on whores and booze and navigating the seven seas. Todays pirates lives in caves on dry land most of the time and every once in a while takes a ride in a speedboat.

Todays pirates are not pirates, they are criminals with speedboats and lots of guns. They need to at least steal a frigate or an air craft carrier to use as a vessel and raise the jolly jumper before they can call themselves pirates. Those speedboats are an insult to real pirates.

[Knight of the Rose]

Hmm, in respect to the OP, think about this: In an age where violence and insecurity is a given at all times, where economic growth is erratic and all men are goverend by institutions who are neither democratic nor transparant. It is an age where social mobility through hard work and talent is very restricted. Human rights were as far away as the moon.
In this frame, taking to the high seas, either as a privateer or as an adventurer could prove one of very few ways to make a fortune, and to progress socially. On the fringes of the budding nation states there were a use for men who would rise up and take tremendous risks. In the absence of state control, there were also those who abandoned all respect for their fellow humans and became murderous pirates.
But many, maybe even most, of those who went on a ship, engaged in combat and went home with the booty taken from someone the authorities told you were the enemy, would do so only once or twice, before settling in as a farmer or a journeyman.

So, I think that you can be facinated by the concept, without supporting rape and murder. "Plunder" is always in the eyes of the beholder.

/KotR

[ljperreira]

So, I think that you can be facinated by the concept, without supporting rape and murder. "Plunder" is always in the eyes of the beholder.

/KotR

Really, so if you show up at home and everything of value is missing you would say "Oh thats all right, the poor guy is just trying to make a living".
Or, you are at the shopping mall and someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your car or your life, you would'nt mind because "hey, the guy just can't be bothered to get a real job, no big deal". By the way, you cant be fascinated by piracy and leave out rape and murder. Its all part of the package (if youre being realistic, forget about the stories you see on TV).


[No swearing please. -- Martok]

[Pinxit]

Really, so if you show up at home and everything of value is missing you would say "Oh thats all right, the poor guy is just trying to make a living".
Or, you are at the shopping mall and someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your car or your life, you would'nt mind because "hey, the guy just can't be bothered to get a real job, no big deal". By the way, you cant be fascinated by piracy and leave out rape and murder. Its all part of the package (if youre being realistic, forget about the bullshite stories you see on TV).

You seem to be missing the part "its in the eyes of the beholder". Anyway:

Who says someone cant be fascinated by what appears to be evil? We, every single one of us at Total War Org, are most likely very fascinated about war. I know that I am. Most likely so are you. And war also comes in a package: I cant be fascinated by war without leaving out mutilated bodies, murders, rapes, burning villages, murdered children, etc. According to you that is. Or maybe, just maybe, a person can be fascinated about something without actually believing that what fascinates him/her is morally right