The Pirates of Western Gaul (Atlantic Coast)

**Ibn-Khaldun** · 08-31-2010, 11:27

AFAIK, the game places pirates randomly. If pirates appear in the Mediterranean then they are crushed by fleets of other factions and because of that you don't see large pirate fleets there. However, in the Atlantic and Baltic regions Barbarian factions don't have money to support fleets and thus pirates just merge their fleets and the results are multiple 20 unit pirate fleets.

**Titus Marcellus Scato** · 08-31-2010, 13:54

I regard the barbarian pirate fleets as a side-effect of the EB Sweboz Confederation dominating a vast area of Germany and Scandinavia. The German tribes, instead of constantly fighting each other as they did historically, are all allies and living peacefully with each other. The Sweboz king won't let his subjects kill each other anymore, which really upsets many of them - but the Sweboz royal armies are too strong to be defeated by an internal rebellion.

So the many, many German warriors who don't want to be peaceful farmers and don't get recruited into the Sweboz royal army need another outlet for their aggression. Many of them rebel, but instead of trying to defeat the Sweboz as a land army, they run to remote coastal villages and become sailors and pirates - preying on the Sweboz themselves as often as not. There will be a great many pirates originating from Norway, Denmark, and northern Germany.

Basically, think of it as the Viking seafaring culture being created 1,000 years early!

**Lazy O** · 08-31-2010, 16:50

Basically its not funny when your trade gets non existent

**Ludens** · 08-31-2010, 19:53

I always wondered if the pirate activity in the Baltic had something to do with the fact that the Gotland province is vanilla Rome. Wasn't it placed there because the province designated Rome was like a magnet for A.I. factions?

**Luis Sera** · 09-01-2010, 04:23

Cheers for that coding, finally got some greek armies off rhodos to support halikarnassos. They went on to pinch Ipsos too!

**Megas Methuselah** · 09-01-2010, 07:10

Originally Posted by Ludens

I always wondered if the pirate activity in the Baltic had something to do with the fact that the Gotland province is vanilla Rome. Wasn't it placed there because the province designated Rome was like a magnet for A.I. factions?

Yeah, it gets you wondering, doesn't it? I might just be getting paranoid, but I think I noticed pirate fleets slowly migrating from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

**athanaric** · 09-01-2010, 09:46

Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah

Yeah, it gets you wondering, doesn't it? I might just be getting paranoid, but I think I noticed pirate fleets slowly migrating from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

Hum, I only saw it the other way round. Then again, they are usually annihilated by my own fleets before they reach either.