Quote Originally Posted by Marcus Caelius View Post
I don't know how you deal with pirates

there's an invincible stack off the ivory coast, made up of 56 gun galleons. Every time i send groups of 48 gun ships i get beaten and whenever i come back with a rebuilt force they have 3 new galleons.

it is unreasonable that a bunch of pirates should have more cannons than most great-power nations.

in reality, hardly ever could any pirates stand up to even a single frigate.

I think pirates damaging traderoutes is fine, but being able to time-after-time beat most of the royal navy is weird, and if such a thing happened, should provoke a grand alliance between the great powers to reduce the pirates to a level that permits trade again.

And one other thing:

why is it when fighting pirates i discover they have spawned 3 new galleons and i click evade battle (to hopefully combine with a bigger force), do i automatically lose the complete flotilla while inflicting no damage at all?

Why? What's the point of all this?
Things have changed since v1.2...

Unless you have access to Fluyts or galleons yourself, don't expect to be able to go toe-to-toe with pirate fleets in the trade theatres (for the most part, pirates in the caribean have smaller ships & fleets).

That means that as any nation other than Spain or UP, only once you can recruit 5th rates will you stand a fighting chance of defending inter-continental trade.

Real payback comes with your ability to recruit 3rd rates as these simply outclass Galleons and fluyts, although it's still best not to underestimate them!

Also, be wary of auto-resolving naval battles as the current outcomes can be a bit harsh. The quality of your admiral plays a large part in whether you will get a good result or not though.