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

[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.

[Prussian to the Iron]

my trade has been going great. anyone will accept trade for military access, even people on different continents.