Recently, in my French campaign, I took the province of Anigua in the carribean from pirates/rebels, and an odd thing happened -- I got a message saying Nation Destroyed... Pirates.
I had actually invaded Antigua because this giant pirate fleet with Galleons kept blockading my port at Martinque. I figured the only way to defeat them would be capture their nearby port, and then wear them down through a series of battles where I'd hit them with faster ships and retreat to repair -- without the port they'd have to withdraw somewhere else.
But when I captured Antigua, I think the pirate feel just up and vanished. At the time I thought it had just sailed elswhere. But then I also noticed that there were pirate fleets sitting on trade resources in west africa that also vanished suddenly too. And I also haven't seen a pirate fleet anywhere for at least 30 or 40 turns. Is that the end of piracy altogether?
I think Antigua may have been the remnants of the UP empire that ended once I captured the Netherlands. But with that "Nation Destroyed" message, does that mean that pirates/rebels will no longer randomly spawn? Can they re-emerge? Without a pirate controlled region anywhere on the globe, will there be no piracy? Most importantly: is there any point to this outdated fleet I have sitting in the Carribean to protect trade or, can I disband that crap and hold off rebuilding until find myself at war with British/Spanish/Mexican navies?
This irked me at first, but increasingly, I'm thinking that this is historically proper. Piracy did end for good in the 18th century (well.. at least until it re-emerged in 2008!)
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