Privateers for Dummies...

I think the frigate advice is good. If the Ai develops frigates leave the waters. Some Ai just mass build frigates in each of the cities. This may not seem a problem. Only issue is when the Ai upgrade them to destroyers.

Hopefully by this time your privateer stack should of been upgraded to destroyers.

Something i noted. Frigates that kill in their cultural borders will simply return to their port and you wont be able to kill them. Why waste good privateers.
 
LuCiver said:
Will AI ships follow your privateers into a fort in 3.17, or is it treated as a city? Can someone build a pirate's cove fort in Worldbuilder and give it a test?
Click to expand...

I've never had AI ships (Frigates, Destroyers) attack my Privateers while they were hiding in my cities (This is 3.17 with the unofficial patch). In an earlier version of BtS, my Privateers could actually go into AI cities, and perhaps that meant that AI ships could likewise attack your ships in harbour.

I have no experience of hiding Privateers in a Fort. AI ships will definitely attack them when they're stacked with non-Privateers out in the open.
 
I'm pretty certain that you can't enter forts that aren't in your territory with ships...so my guess is that privateers wouldn't be at risk there.
 
UncleJJ said:
On dealing with frigates when they emerge, I've found that it is possible to eliminate them by aggressively attacking them first with superior numbers, at least for a time. This allows you a longer operating period and also continues to give you GG points in peacetime even if your losses increase.
Click to expand...

6K Man said:
Thanks for the feedback. :) I see what you're saying when it comes to Frigates - if you're lucky, a C2 Privateer could kill a green Frigate (7.2 vs. 8) and unless you're really unlucky, a second Privateer could finish off a wounded Frigate. A 1:1 kill ratio might be a bit optimistic, though - unless you make a point of not attacking Frigates on Coast. And the AI does seem to have a habit of throwing its naval units in piecemeal, instead of waiting to concentrate 3-5 Frigates.
Click to expand...

In my last emperor game on marathon (with Hatty) I had an opportunity to see just how long privateers could stand up to frigates. I conquered my continent and then started to harass the other continent where Mansa was about 7 techs ahead. I found that with the benefit of espionage superiority (to see what they were building in cities) and airships (to see where the friagtes were) it was possible to sink frigates with privateers and get a ratio better than 1 to 1. Here are the stats for my privateers until Mansa finally researched Combustion and my privateers had to retire home as destroyers are nearly unbeatable.

Code: 
Total Ships Sunk
Galley        13 
Trireme       1
Caravel     237
Galleon       7
Frigate      40
Sot Line      4
Ironclad      1

Privateers  Built 64, Lost 43, Remaining 21
The ironclad was killed after it popped out of a city and killed a privateer and then next turn it was attacked and killed another sacrificial privateer before being sunk by another. So the exchange rate was 2 privateers for 1 ironclad. Generally the coast could be blockaded from ocean tiles outside the cultural borders so ironclads did not stop blockade. Two other privateers were lost to ironclads popping out of ports unnoticed.

Caravels, galleons and galleys were all sunk with the loss of about 2 privateers. Ships of the Line were the same as frigates as far as privateers were concerned only slower. Frigates were tackled either by allowing them to attack a sarificial privateer in coastal waters or by drawing them out into the ocean and then attacking with a sacrifical privateer (which occassionally won) and then a follow up privateer


The odds for privateers first time attacks were as follows
Privateer C1 v Frigate C1, ocean 21.9%, coastal 10.9%
Privateer C3 v Frigate C1, ocean 30.6%, coastal 25.9%
Privateer C5 v Frigate C1, ocean 63.8%

This meant that a first time kill was quite common in ocean tiles and the frigate was always killed by the second privateer. This gave an exchange rate of much better than 1 to 1 probably about 80% privateer to 1 frigate.

This blockade of the other continent for several 100 years has slowed Mansa's research rate down to half of mine and Hatty is now 4 techs ahead having stolen several from the other continent and researched the rest. The game can be won by either Domination (as long as an AP victory can be avoided, Mansa has the AP under control) or by Space Race or maybe even UN with some conquest and vassals.
 
I was considering writing my own article on this but did a search and found this one. So instead I'll just say what changes I'd make. The article is very good, but not 100% complete.

Blockading the moai statues city is obviously a good choice if the capital is not available as you deny commerce, food, and hammers - often they're one in the same. Also note that civs with astronomy but not chemistry will give better blockading yields. Even better would be Carthage (due to Cothons), or the civ that built the GLH (if it wasn't you). Another interesting thing is that peacetime blockading via privateers actually eliminates trade routes from a city, which isn't the case in wartime blockading.

Blocking off an entire small to medium island will do a lot of damage, particularly if whatever land tiles it has are food-poor. The city will starve in short order and be cut off from all the resources of its empire.

Note that you can blockade as many cities as are within the blockading radius, so look for blockading locations that hit multiple cities. 3 cities is a good goal, but I've been able to do 5 before on archipelago. The radius is 3 tiles distance including the diagonal corners.

I'd also add more to the article about surviving once a few civs have chemistry + astronomy.

1. Frigates will chase your privateers almost indefinitely. The only real way to escape is to outrun them with a movement bonus or enter the borders of somebody they have closed borders with.

2. Pay attention to diplomacy. If, for example, Tokugawa is on the map, is technologically backwards, and has no open borders with any of the civs that have frigates, then blockade/pillage/destroy in his borders. Unless there is a declaration of war upon tokugawa, tokugawa gets frigates, or there is some change in diplomacy, your privateers will be safe.

3. Be the first to circumnavigate the globe so that your privateers can more effectively escape frigates. If you didn't circumnavigate the globe, there are viking frigates on the map, and that civ has astronomy/chemistry... lets just say the turns of your privateers are numbered outside of your cities. There's also a quest that can add navigation to naval units. In that case bring the valuable ones home to be upgraded later and leave the expendable ones in or near a civ that has closed borders with the civ that has +1 movement. For this reason it's also good to prioritize crippling/destroying the vikings or whoever circumnavigated before they have frigates.

4. Start moving individual privateers in a stack in such a way that they can see any frigates that could reach them. With sentry and one movement away from, say, the blockaded location, you can see 4 movements away. One privateer moves one direction 1 space, another moves the other direction, THEN both move back and ask for directions the next turn. If they see a frigate, all privateers can escape without combat unless the frigates are faster than them. On a coast you can see all threats with 2 privateers doing this. In the open ocean it'd be 4.
 
Great article! One small addendum:

"Each stack of Privateers should have one ship with Medic I as soon as possible. Medic I is the difference between a stack of 3 or 4 ships that can take turns attacking each turn and then healing quickly to attack again 1-3 turns later, and having a stack of 4 ships that can only attack every 3 turns because the healing process is so slow."

I tend promote scouts/explorers and transport ships to Medic I, making them into 'mobile hospitals' or 'hospital ships'. Since I already tend to have these units available, I will try to add these 'hospital ships' or galleons loaded with my Medic I explorers/scouts to my privateer stacks in leiu of giving the Medic I to one of my privateers.

Also, I use my "flagged" ships as scouts for my privateer stacks.
 
I posted some stuff on privateers recently in another thread, about how the blockade system works for privateers and in part compares to wartime blockades. Questions about privateers seem to come up quite often, and it doesn't seems like many know how they work so it might be worth adding. I've done a little more playing with WB and ingame since and found out more too.
Would it be better to make an article on the mechanics of blockades?

Most of it has been mentioned by Tephros , but I did it with examples :D

I agree that the world politics has a huge effect on privateers and privateers can have a huge effect on it (dno if blockades actually cancel deals if they do they'll be even stronger).

-Trade embargoes can be significantly more damaging if you use privateers to prevent any overseas allies trading with someone, you don't even need to go close to the cities so can be done with decent safety even in the modern age.

-Your trades can always pass through your privateers blockades (both ways). Found this while attempting something I thought could be a major exploit! :lol: But it didnt work :p

Your trade routes can pass out for profit but rival civs trade routes to you are blocked, 1 way trade benefits are fun :D

-If you blockade the map top to bottom on both sides of your continent (continents map but you can modify a bit and It'll work on any non-pangea) you can cut all trade between continents (except to you!). This likely means all the big juicy routes go to you (possibly hurts AI diplo too) and that the AI will have more resources to trade with you :D. With a blockade box that is 7*7 this doesn't take as many privateers as you might expect.

Tested and it took 8 to blockade top to bottom on a continents large map so 16 can royally screw the world trade network by blockading an entire continent without even being close to it! Again seems fairly doable when the AI has destroyers as you don't need to get chased around.
 
ditchhook said:
I tend promote scouts/explorers and transport ships to Medic I, making them into 'mobile hospitals' or 'hospital ships'. Since I already tend to have these units available, I will try to add these 'hospital ships' or galleons loaded with my Medic I explorers/scouts to my privateer stacks in leiu of giving the Medic I to one of my privateers.
Click to expand...

Nice trick. :goodjob: Unless you're at war, you have no risk of losing your hospital ship. Of course, it can never defend, either, so you still need to keep at least one Privateer at full health or close to it. I'm not sure if that shouldn't be considered an exploit, considering a human player would know that a) Privateers can only co-exist in the same tile with their owner's units and b) Privateers can only be healed by other Privateers or other units flying their owner's flag...
 
6K Man said:
Nice trick. :goodjob: Unless you're at war, you have no risk of losing your hospital ship. Of course, it can never defend, either, so you still need to keep at least one Privateer at full health or close to it. I'm not sure if that shouldn't be considered an exploit, considering a human player would know that a) Privateers can only co-exist in the same tile with their owner's units and b) Privateers can only be healed by other Privateers or other units flying their owner's flag...
Click to expand...

You are right. I wish the code would allow AI opponents to recognize the truth of that-- as well as the truth of what is going on when they see a privateer enter or leave a town-- and give the owner a nasty (-3?) diplomatic hit.

With that in mind, I'd like to be able to 'grant independence' to any towns I own/found into 'barbarian' status, and allow privateers to hide/heal in barbarian towns. It would be fun to found 'pirate coves' on small islands near my targets!
 
Ghpstage said:
I posted some stuff on privateers recently in another thread, about how the blockade system works for privateers and in part compares to wartime blockades. Questions about privateers seem to come up quite often, and it doesn't seems like many know how they work so it might be worth adding. I've done a little more playing with WB and ingame since and found out more too.
Would it be better to make an article on the mechanics of blockades?
Click to expand...

Your linked report was very informative. It appears to me that the AI literally traces out a 'clear' trade route each turn, and only if it can find such a route will it 'allow' the trade route. It is more sophisticated than I first thought (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=253608).

In your example where you isolate a continent using two long picket lines of privateers, what if there were an island within one of those picket lines, with a fort or city on each side (out of range of your privateers), and a road in between. Would that road facilitate trade for all neutrals (with respect to those island towns)? In other words: will the AI search out a land route if your privateers have blocked all the sea routes?
 
The best thing about Privateers for me is the ability to hurt my allies.

If I'm at war with another Civ, then I can mess with them in all sorts of ways. If I want to keep a Civ as a long term trading partner and even as a war partner in future conflicts, however, then I have to consistently play nice with them. Still, I don't want them teching or growing too fast. I want that shiny tech advantage or extra land for myself!

Enter the Privateer: Now I can take out all of a neighbor's seafood resources to drop their health significantly. I can cut their trade routes (on the right maps, at least). I can waste their production, encouraging them to build more caravels, etc. when I destroy the old ones. I can rack up some Great General points toward an otherwise unavailable Heroic Epic if I never hit 10 XP against Barbarians and I'm not ready to go to war yet. I can rack up Great General points to settle in my Heroic Epic city if I did get 10 barbarian XP to build the HE.


Yo ho, yo ho, a Privateer's life for me!
 
Whoah, wait a sec, so if you have a trade route to foreign city A and a trade network to city A and you blockade city A, you will retain the trade route and trade network but city A will lose it? I always assumed if you blockaded a city you were trading with, you stopped trading with it. Is that not true? Is there no downside to privateers at all?

Btw I love privateers even if i'm not so sure how they work, I always have a port city churning out these guys. I had one game recently where I was making over 80 gold a turn in blockades for hundreds of years. The AI kept wanting to trade for my astronomy but I always denied them as they REFUSED to tech it themselves even though they had physics and beyond. It was pretty funny. Many years later they cleared out my privateers with destroyers.
 
Jonesy79 said:
Whoah, wait a sec, so if you have a trade route to foreign city A and a trade network to city A and you blockade city A, you will retain the trade route and trade network but city A will lose it? I always assumed if you blockaded a city you were trading with, you stopped trading with it. Is that not true? Is there no downside to privateers at all?
Click to expand...

After quite a bit of testing I'd say this is true, even for one tile islands!
I did a few more tests, and found 2 particularly interesting things out:-

-First by blockading just outside your waters you can prevent AI trade routes profiting from your cities, while letting you profit from theirs! I can see some use for this on archipelago maps although it could borderline being an exploit. I mean it hurts the AI as much as running mercantilism but lets you run whatever you want anyway while having your privateers within movement range of your own forts, kinda lame.

-Far worse however is that when you trade resources with an rival the resource only goes to the capitol where its then sent out, so if you use privateers sever the capitol from the trade network every other city doesn't get access. Again this is probably only an issue on archipelago maps but this has potential to be a major exploit.
Why worry about giving an AI iron if it won't be able to use in any city bar the capital anyway!?

In your example where you isolate a continent using two long picket lines of privateers, what if there were an island within one of those picket lines, with a fort or city on each side (out of range of your privateers), and a road in between. Would that road facilitate trade for all neutrals (with respect to those island towns)? In other words: will the AI search out a land route if your privateers have blocked all the sea routes?
Click to expand...

I just tested this making it smaller by using 2 cities isolated by ice so one privateer could do the job, interestingly despite there being a long one tile thick 'bridge' through the blockade with roads and forts the trade routes were still blocked unless an unaffected city was placed on the land and the city had to be the side (of the blockade) of the AI's capital.
I didn't do too much testing for that though, might do more at some point.

**(Edit the presence of forts makes trade networks a lot more complicated (Strange trade routes appear without the need for privateers :confused:) so this really needs testing quite a bit to say for sure. So far I've had mixed results. I'll do some tests at some point and maybe post some pics.)


On a funnier note, I accidentally (didn't have BUG at this time!) won a domination victory due to my privateers killing most of the worlds population while I was off settling the Astro only islands on a map very with very little land available pre-Astro. I was just disappointed it wasn't called a Pirate Victory!
 
A great thread and Ghpstage's info makes it even more useful. Follow his posted link.
 
I found this at

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3971412&postcount=41

<quote>

Although there is a mistake in the earlier post, trade routes are one way
so if
Athens has on its city trade screen
Rome =+2
Berlin = +3

That does not mean that Rome has Athens on ITs city trade screen.
(Rome could have )
Berlin=+4
Moscow =+1

</quote>

I'm guessing that's why the privateers are letting "irreversable" trade happen.

To create any trade route with another city, one needs an exposed road, river, costal and/or (with astronomy) ocean route on one's map. Correct? What privateers do is 'black out' all costal and ocean squares on everyone ELSE's map (for trade purposes) within a 2 space radius.

It would be nice to have a toggle that exposed ALL the current trade routes on the map, and/or the trade routes of a target civilization. One could thus look for possible choke points, etc. This option would really help understand how a player can use sea blockades, closing borders, etc by giving immediate visible feedback. Exposing the current trade routes also might be something a great spy or merchant would need to enable.
 
I am currently using Privateers only to kill 3 nation's caravels/galleys/galleons to hold them off from finding each other and two barb continents I want to settle.

I have read the aspect of the AI not normally attacking stacks with at least 1 full strength Privateer.

I am almost to Carriers and they still don't have Chem. So I have started adding a Medic-II Destroyer (Pre-build for later modern Navy stacks) to my Privateer stacks.

Q. Does the no-attack tendency only have the AI consider the Privateers in the stack or my destroyer as well, as far as health of stack is concerned?
 
sparkuss said:
I am currently using Privateers only to kill 3 nation's caravels/galleys/galleons to hold them off from finding each other and two barb continents I want to settle.

I have read the aspect of the AI not normally attacking stacks with at least 1 full strength Privateer.

I am almost to Carriers and they still don't have Chem. So I have started adding a Medic-II Destroyer (Pre-build for later modern Navy stacks) to my Privateer stacks.

Q. Does the no-attack tendency only have the AI consider the Privateers in the stack or my destroyer as well, as far as health of stack is concerned?
Click to expand...

If the AI is not at war with you, the Destroyer shouldn't count when it comes to the AI assessing whether to attack Privateers stacked with the Destroyer.
 
Question:
Others have mentioned that Privateers can be used to go toe to toe with frigates, at a nearly 1:1 ratio, and that SotLs are the same as far as a privateer is concerned.

So this leads rather obviously into my question:
If you are at war with someone using SotLs, and you do not have military science yourself, are privateers your most effective SotL counter?

80 hammers vs 120 2:3 ratio
6 strength vs :8 3:4 ratio

A 2:3 hammer ratio for a 3:4 strength ratio.
Avoiding the =50% modifier vs frigates, seems definitely worthwhile.
The added speed/movement means you chose when to attack, and if you have 2x the number of privateers to SotLs, you should get much better than a 1:1 ratio.
6vs 8 has a chance of winning on its own, and the 2nd privateer is almost guaranteed to finish off a damaged SotL.
The extra movement points means that your privateer stack get re enforced much faster, and one should easily win a war of attrition vs SotLs with privateers, no?

Its too bad I can't recall seeing the AI use SotLs.
Seems if you are being attacked by SotLs in a defensive naval battle, privateers are the way to go.
 
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