How much trading have you been doing in v1.3?

[al Roumi]

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.

[Didz]

I restrict myself to one trade port per trade theatre anyway to give the AI a chance. Not that it usually makes much use of it.

As far as the pirates are concerned, until you can build 5th Rates its not likely that you can take on the pirates unless you are playing the Dutch because the pirates ships are so overpowered in ETW.

What I usually do is monitor the trade theatres and start sending indiamen over once I'm sure the pirates are gone. Sometimes the AI will take them out, but in my current Swedish campaign I've just built a squadron of 5th rates to go and deal with The Ivory Coast (its 1735), and East Indies. But, I've had a full trade fleet in Madagascar since about 1715, because I think the Spanish dealt with the pirates in that zone.

The real problem is that pirates don't behave like pirates in ETW. Instead, they are probably the worlds strongest naval power. All of my largest and most nail biting naval battles have been against the pirates, the AI rarely puts any fleet together even remotely as challenging. Considering what CA could have done with pirates its a bit dissappointing.

[Basileus]

I usually build like 14 indianmen bunch them up send a fleet of 6 ships kill the pirates then occupy the tradespots and guard with my fleet, i keep sending tradeships after that and it works good. I stopped playing now though diplomacy in the game is screwed up that i cant take it anymore :D

[Marcus Caelius]

Well i guess it's nice to have a challenge, for this reason i'm only mildly annoyed by the massively ubered native american bowmen that seem to have a 1 in 3 kill rate per arrow (60 bowmen on average kill 20 militia per volley). It's pleasant to find something difficult, although back in MTW days on VH i had that sort of challenge when horsearchers could charge up a mountain to engage downward charging chivalric knights and win.

Sometimes the challenge thing.....can be overrated...when it offends one's common sense.

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.

It wasn't auto-resolve that led to the destruction of the fleet, it was the retreat button.

On the main maps, i find this function works well, and my indiamen frequently run away from pirates, but on the trade regions maps, to retreat results in the immediate loss of your fleet. At least it did mine

My conclusion is: it's another bug

And the whole pirate model may be challenging, but it's ridiculously flawed.

frankly i'm not sure i can be bothered to build another fleet to replace that one and go back only to see the pirate fleet has spawned another 6 galleons. there's just no fun in it.

[Slaists]

My conclusion is: it's another bug

And the whole pirate model may be challenging, but it's ridiculously flawed.

frankly i'm not sure i can be bothered to build another fleet to replace that one and go back only to see the pirate fleet has spawned another 6 galleons. there's just no fun in it.

The key with the pirates is... to take their bases out asap so they don't run out of control. On the positive side, those pirate galleons (when captured) make excellent trade spot guards. 60 cannons to boot + they pay for their upkeep.

[Didz]

The only reason I don't do that is becuase their maintenance is about three times that of an indiamen so they are constantly eating into your profit margin on the trade route. In fact, you lose more money that way than if your trade route was being raided on a turn by turn basis.

[Marcus Caelius]

The key with the pirates is... to take their bases out asap so they don't run out of control. On the positive side, those pirate galleons (when captured) make excellent trade spot guards. 60 cannons to boot + they pay for their upkeep.

yeah, but this is still poor game design

why even have a feature of the game if the only valid strategy is to eliminate it in the first few turns?

Better to have pirates a recurring problem rather than something that kills trade. Remember pirates are parasites. They don't want to kill trade off, since that destroys their own livelihood. They wish to tax it.

If they start getting out of hand, and trading nations find they dent too much, then they cooperate to deal with it.

Otherwise then they just exist as a nuisance

So basically pirates should be relatively easy, and cheap, to manage.
But very expensive to totally remove, to be totally dominant everywhere, all the time.

The present solution is pointless and not fun to play.

[Didz]

The more interesting approach would have been to have privateers available as agents which could be given letters of marque by the major factions to make profits from commerce rading on that nations behalf. These privateers would then ocassionally go freelance, either becase they were not making enough profit, or because their employers decided their services were no longer required and in doing so they and their ships would become pirate pleets.

That would have created the proper relationship between the warfare of the period and the level of pirate activity in a region, whilst including another missing aspect of 18th Century warfare.

[Slaists]

yeah, but this is still poor game design

why even have a feature of the game if the only valid strategy is to eliminate it in the first few turns?

Better to have pirates a recurring problem rather than something that kills trade. Remember pirates are parasites. They don't want to kill trade off, since that destroys their own livelihood. They wish to tax it.

If they start getting out of hand, and trading nations find they dent too much, then they cooperate to deal with it.

Otherwise then they just exist as a nuisance

So basically pirates should be relatively easy, and cheap, to manage.
But very expensive to totally remove, to be totally dominant everywhere, all the time.

The present solution is pointless and not fun to play.

I see it that if one is serious about trade, pirates NEED to be controlled. And that's not that far from the XVIII century reality. The pirates were leftovers from the XVII century and the big powers did get their act together to remove them completely (well, almost) from the Caribbean.

What I find unrealistic is that the same pirate 'faction' roams near Africa and Indonesia. With very few exceptions, there were local pirate bases there. So, what I'd like to see in an expansion is extra pirate factions localized to those areas. If you want the trade theater clean, you need to take care of the pirates there.

The only reason I don't do that is becuase their maintenance is about three times that of an indiamen so they are constantly eating into your profit margin on the trade route. In fact, you lose more money that way than if your trade route was being raided on a turn by turn basis.

Hehe, don't underestimate the power of trade route raiding (especially when done to the player; the AI does not care about economic handicaps nowadays). Playing as UP, I suddenly realized that instead of a 20K per turn profit, I am losing -10K/turn because a huge French fleet camped out on the main artery (near Spain) leading from ALL of my colonies to Netherlands. The French raiders brought my 30K trading revenue down to exactly ZERO...

It seems, the efficiency of raiding depends on the number of ships doing the said raiding. The more ships in the raid group, the bigger chunk gets taken away.

As to Galleons: you misunderstood me. The bulk of my merchants are still Indiamen (cheap upkeep). However, I do have 2-3 galleons or fluyts in each theater where I have significant trading presence. Those galleons provide the escort to the indiamen and I've been thankful to have them on several occasions. An AI fleet of sloops, dhows and brigs can easily wipe out a theater filled just with Indiamen (I've seen that happen). Things are different when you throw a few Galleons into the equation.

I could have war ships do the guard duty, but war ships do not earn anything. A galleon camping out on an anchor earns it's living.

The more interesting approach would have been to have privateers available as agents which could be given letters of marque by the major factions to make profits from commerce rading on that nations behalf. These privateers would then ocassionally go freelance, either becase they were not making enough profit, or because their employers decided their services were no longer required and in doing so they and their ships would become pirate pleets.

That would have created the proper relationship between the warfare of the period and the level of pirate activity in a region, whilst including another missing aspect of 18th Century warfare.

I agree, privateering would have been a very nice feature.