How to remove sea pirates?

[Marcus Ulpius]

They are getting a major nuisance. I can't move any fleet without being attacked by pirates, sometimes the same fleet gets attacked twice of more. There's way too many of them. It is like having to fight a medium sized rebel army every time you need to move your army anywhere on the map.

I'm in the middle of the war with the Romans and they are throwing everything they have at me, but moving reinforcements from Quarthadasht is nigh impossible because my fleet is decimated by pirates. I don't have a very big fleet and I understand that from time to time I will lose ships, but being attacked every turn when my fleet is not in harbor and sometimes more than once during the same turn is way too much.

[Onehandstan]

try only moving your fleets from port to port or by having one really big fleet to clear out the pirates.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Or simply use "auto_win attacker" or "auto_win defender" when confronted with pirates. It is cheating but when pirates are left unchecked for a couple decades they become ahistoric and quite annoying.

[SwissBarbar]

Ahistoric? Weren't for example the Cilician pirates in the Mediterranean, just in that period EB is set in, extraordinarily strong.

If I may cite Wikipedia:

"The Cilician pirates dominated the Mediterranean Sea from the 2nd century BC up until their speedy suppression by Pompey (67-66 BC)"

The Seleucids were too weak to suppress them, and Diodotus Tryphon, king of the Seleucid Empire from 142-138 BC, actually supported them, in order to strengthen his position.

The Cilician pirates roamed across the entire Mediterranean, and began to attack the towns of Italy itself. In fact, even Ostia was plundered.


Strabo writes that Pompey destroyed 1300 pirate vessels of all sizes.


well, i know that wiki is not always the most authentic source, but anyway, quite impressive



it is a challenge you have to master in your campaign. manage the pirates with a great fleat and try to maintain a position against the romans until the sea is safe again to maintain supplies.

[desert]

Go to the descr_strat txt in EB Data and somewhere in there you can set rebel values higher and lower. If you set the number for pirates and other Eleutheroi, remember that the higher the number is, the less show up.

[Wausser]

The Cilician pirates roamed across the entire Mediterranean, and began to attack the towns of Italy itself. In fact, even Ostia was plundered.


Well, i know that wiki is not always the most authentic source, but anyway, quite impressive

I think it's right, I've read it in Robert Harris' novel Imperium which is pretty historical accurate(according to my Latin teacher)

[Starforge]

I've never changed the rebel settings and never have trouble with the pirates using a couple of general rules.

1. Keep a fleet (or more if you can afford it or have stretched out borders) of 4 of the smaller warships to clear out those annoying 1-4 ship fleets that pop up. They usually do the trick and usually don't lose more than 1 with even the worst result.

2. Always leave your ships in port unless you have no other option. The AI seems to disregard ships in port and rarely if ever blockades. They seem to wander to certain catch points (or just don't get cleared from those areas - I never run with FOW off.) Usually after I get below around 200BC I rarely if ever even see one spawn.

Personally, I'm convinced the AI will only allow so many rebel armies and navies on the map at any given time so once the Indian ocean is filled up with pirates, you don't tend to get spawns. I could be wrong but it's certainly my gut feeling from many games.