Something needs to be done about this!!!

**Zaknafien** · 07-07-2007, 02:31

Heh. Pirates were a ***** in antiquity :)

**Xehh II** · 07-07-2007, 02:34

I doubt pirate were that bad, in my KH campaign I had 4 pirate fleets with 20 ships each.

**Zaknafien** · 07-07-2007, 02:38

really? sure took the romans plenty of time and money to defeat them. and it was only temporary, of course. Not to mention the younger Pompey's pirate navy that harassed Augustus for years and years.

**Ravenic** · 07-07-2007, 03:10

Heh. Pirates were a ***** in antiquity

True, but they never formed gigantic armada's comparable to the D-Day landing force of literally hundreds of ships. Let alone multiple armada's.

From what I understand, most pirates enjoyed attacking merchantmen, or things like that, never an actual nation's military fleet.

**blitzkrieg80** · 07-07-2007, 03:16

pirates are different from large scale insurgents using naval warfare... no trade or civilization would have functioned if it was commonplace to gather en masse and assault communities... imagine Sea People invasions without end... I think that's a little different from Roman dealings with pirates

suffice to say, pirates should be reduced from the last build, it is really a bad coincidence that they are massing like they are, because by themselves they're weak

**Centurio Nixalsverdrus** · 07-07-2007, 03:37

Funny, I never had big problems with pirates (0.81). Perhaps they changed it in gran guitarra's build?

I have 3 fleets at the moment, of which is one consisting of 2 units Trieres, and the other two each made up of 2 units Trihemiolai. If they encounter one of the regularly spawning pirate groups of 1 to 3 units of pirate ships, that with 52 ships and that with 150 ships as well, they fight them, each unit taking 2 to 5 losses, and completely destroy the pirate fleet. Perhaps the Hellenic ships are better?

**Zaknafien** · 07-07-2007, 03:47

at the height of his anti-pirate campaign, Pompey captured 846 pirate ships, and enslaved their crews.

**Ravenic** · 07-07-2007, 03:50

Yes, but that counted for a large portion of the Mediterranean pirate fleets. I'm sure in that figure he's also included small boats, like schooner's just to sound more impressive.

Even so, after he did that the sea's were relatively clear for a long while, until his son went and reorganized the pirates using rebels, desserters, former-pompeian's, etc.

**gran_guitarra** · 07-07-2007, 04:15

Originally Posted by Centurio Nixalsverdrus

Funny, I never had big problems with pirates (0.81). Perhaps they changed it in gran guitarra's build?

I have 3 fleets at the moment, of which is one consisting of 2 units Trieres, and the other two each made up of 2 units Trihemiolai. If they encounter one of the regularly spawning pirate groups of 1 to 3 units of pirate ships, that with 52 ships and that with 150 ships as well, they fight them, each unit taking 2 to 5 losses, and completely destroy the pirate fleet. Perhaps the Hellenic ships are better?

Well I had to delete my game thanks to a CTD, but while it was still going I had only one fleet of five ships (during the time of peace mentioned)(maintaining three legions is expensive), and did as you do, I destroyed every single small group of pirates, but nobody does that in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, the Aegean Sea, or the areas around Brittain/Ireland. This wouldn't be such a big problem if it weren't for the fact that those damn fleets, for some really wierd reason, come several thousand miles to my territories. That means that the small groups of two or three pirate ships that were formed in the aforementioned places merged into groups of six or eight, then twelve or so, and finally they reached a nearly full stack of pirate ships.
When five groups like that show up at your doorstep you are going to have a problem, especially if they have a couple of stars from sinking some random weakling navy from an underdeveloped AI.

**christof139** · 07-07-2007, 04:47

In the Mithradatic Wars the Pirates did some fighting against the Rhodians and Romans, and were a big factor in Mithradates controlling the seas for some time. The Pirates helped 'M' a lot, but the romans and Rhodians and friends eventually attacked Cilicia itself and they were basically brought under rein.

Most of the Pirate ships appear to have been Uniremes, various Hemiolas and Biremes, although it seems they might have had a few larger ships, maybe some Triremes, Quads and Quins, but those would be very rare.

I have only played RTW a few time a few years ago, and like METW-VI and STW better, but I thnk you all for warning me about the Pirate unbalance in RTW, as I am getting a Total Eras package soon.

This Pirate problem could probably be easily corrected with a tweak or two.

Chris

Chris

**gran_guitarra** · 07-07-2007, 03:31

Originally Posted by Zaknafien

really? sure took the romans plenty of time and money to defeat them. and it was only temporary, of course. Not to mention the younger Pompey's pirate navy that harassed Augustus for years and years.

That rant started in 260-something BC. It was 228 BC when it ended (thanks to a premature CTD.

You're telling me I will have to waste 100k mnai every 40 or so turns to keep my sea lanes clean?

Let's be realistic, genuine fleets were never assembled by pirates. The vast majority of the time it was maybe three or four ships tops (most of the time just a single armed ship). Pirates also never attacked a real nation's trade. They might raid a single city without a navy/manpower to defend itself, but you have never heard of pirates in antiquity attacking say, Rome or Carthage's cities and sacking them. Their merchant ships sure, but not their actual warships.

The way pirates are in-game right now is obscene, and really quite unrealistic. I doubt that some random pirate with no command skills could get say, five hundred sailors under his control, and then defeat 100 trained mariners and marines educated by one of the world's leading powers in antiquity.
Just look at Salamis. A 150 to 200 Greek Triremes (at the time Greeks were some of the best sailors in the world) defeated between 300 and 400 Persian warships because they were better.

A battle hardened Admiral (five stars), with nearly 100 sailors and marines trained by the one of the leading Sea-powers at the time (as Rome had become by then) should defeat 500 pirates with little to no training, under a deadbrained admiral, with stripped down POS's for boats.

**Ravenic** · 07-07-2007, 03:34

The numbers you see is ships, not men by the way. So if a little Trireme picture says '26' it's actually 26 boats, not 26 sailors.

Personally, I think it's more realistic if a pirate stack of 1-3 'fleet's' show's up every turn or so and blockades a random port.