Just can't keep morale up

Whats the key to this, I sink everything that comes close, plenty of food. The pickings are lean and the crew is quickly dissatisfied. Why cant I give them shore leave or something. The manual gives no help re keeping morale up. Need help thanks all!

You need lots of money. Try to find lost cities/the marquis ASAP. Attack huge rich settlements such as Panama, Santiago, Havana, Campache.

I posted this on some of the other Pirates! forums:

I did some testing on the effects of Crew Morale.

The biggest factor is amount of gold per man. Length of time at sea factors in, but only in the first part of the journey. After a certain period of time at sea, the crew will start caring about their cut, and the amount they care will increase as time goes by. There will come a point when they have reached the maximum amount that they care, and only the amount per man matters after that. Difficulty level plays a part in how soon they get to each level of caring about thier cut, but it doesn't seem to matter in the amount per man necessary to get them to each level of happiness, once they have reached their maximum.

It is possible to sail forever without dividing the plunder, if you have enough gold per man.

I did some testing on my current save game. This crew has been at sea for 222 months. I used a trainer to change my crew to an even 100 men. Then I changed my amount of gold to see what it took to get them to each level of happiness. These are the numbers:

Less than 1004 per man - Mutinous
1004 gold to 2012 gold - Unhappy
2013 gold to 3021 gold - Content
3022 gold to 4030 gold - Happy
Greater than 4030 gold - Very Happy

In the above numbers, I had a Quartermaster, Cook, and Concertina. Removing the Quartermaster or Concertina had no effect on the numbers, but removing the Cook made the numbers change to these:

Less than 1200 per man - Mutinous
1200 gold to 2399 gold - Unhappy
2400 gold to 3599 gold - Content
3600 gold to 4799 gold - Happy
Greater than 4799 gold - Very Happy


I was playing on adventurer level. I used the trainer to change my difficulty level. Those numbers stayed true for every level. So the only difference in difficulty level is the amount of time it takes them to reach their maximum point of caring, so I did some testing on that.

The tests were done while having 100 gold per man. That number is well below the permanent Mutinous number. They were done from the very beginning of a game with the first crew. The crew starts the trip Very Happy.

After one month of Mutiny the crew will approach you and say that you need to divide. I only had one boat, so they could not take a boat, and I did not sail into and out of ports to see when the men would start quitting, and what percentage of the crew would quit. I only tested up until the Mutinous stage. Maybe, I'll do some testing on the total effects of Mutiny at another time.

Those tests were done with no items and no specialists. Adding a Cook delays the start of the decline in happiness by one month. Adding a Concertina also delayed it by one month. I was unable to add just a violin, so I am not sure what effect it may have. When I added the Concertina, I had both items. Adding both the Cook and Concertina delayed it by two months. Adding a Quartermaster had no effect on the first 3 happiness levels, but delayed the onset of Mutiny by one month.

I tried it at 50 gold per man, and at 0 gold, and those numbers dropped. I wasn't going to spend several more hours sailing around with different amounts of gold to find out the results. Just know that you will not get those numbers if you have less than 100 gold per man.

And, as I was sailing around killing time and watching the months go by, I watched my food level drop, So I did some testing on that while I was testing the other. I was in a Treasure Galleon so I could hold the max amount of food. When I started the game it said 132 tons of food was 26 months worth for my crew of 100. That 26 months worth ran out after 12 months. I then added a Cooper and the same 132 tons of food was now good for 40 months, and exactly 1 month of food was used each month. So, a Cooper does his job for sure.

Thanks for the info bigchief.

Hey one standart ploy in normal (i.e. first) Pirates is to fight a big battle before divinding up the plunder. There are two good points about it.
1. If you win you get even more gold
2. Some of your men die duringthe fight and therefore each mans share gets bigger
I have yet to test it for the new pirates...

i wonder if that would work, if you waited to engage a large battle up to the point your crew is mutinous/unhappy they suck at fighting