Argh Matey. Privateers.

Zardnaar

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Has anyone here used Privateers much? Any strategies th them? How useful/usless are they?

I have only used them once. In a game as the Byzantines some of my cities on the cost ran out of things to build. I was also a democracy and I had a idea. I also had Magellans Expedition. The age of piracy was about to begin.

I had 4-6 cities making them. Unfortionatly I only seemed to have 2 in 1 place at any time. I wanted a 2 packs of 6+of them or so. Anyway it seemed every AI in the game sent boats over to my coast 2 kill them. Since I had nothing better to do at the time I kept on building them for fun. I lost alot due to a weak attack vs frigates but vs caravals they rocked. Also the enslave ability was useful. Its alot of fun to enslave a ship and using the new privateer attack another boat and get another one. 3 Privateers for the price of 1.

In the end due to heavy casualties - AI boats attack them on sight I usd them to raid from my harbours and then retreat back into the harbor. The AI never decleared war and the Sumerians and Incas would have stacks of 5 Frigates cruising off my cost which were bait for me basically. The age of piracy ended with Ironclads turning up. My pirates still attacked them but sustained irreplacable casualties when better things to build turned up.

If I had to do it again I would try and mass them up into squadrons of 6 and have them hide behind Galleons. I also have a theory involving Englands UU and Privateers working togather which will have to be tried out. However at the end of the day although it was alot of fun and gave me a way to strike back at the AI during peacetime I wonder how effective it was. I'm sure I got more bang for my buck for the amount of shields spent vs shields sunk but they weren't decisive in any way methinks. I also wonder at how many galleon/caravals/galleys sunk had units in them.
 
I edited mine to be able to stealth-attack galleys, caravels, and galleons. The result is highly overpowered, but boy-- are they a BLAST! I was helping Korea out against every single other nation on the planet, sinking their transports and such. (Korea attacked India and commercial Ghandi got everyone but me into the war. I made a killing due to the fact the only person Korea could trade with is me.)

I cannot count how many Beserkers drowned in the depths of the ocean in that game. :D That'll teach those nasty Vikings to not sell me saltpeter.
 
I don't use privateers much, but I should think that their only use is to clean up whatever galleys and caravels are left by the time you get to the late middle ages/early industrial age.
 
The best use I have ever found for them, which was back in GOTM17 (the Carthage one) was to prevent contacts. There were multiple continents, with wide seperations of ocean, so the AI couldn't contact one another until Navigation/Magnetism, which I got to first. I then cranked out about a dozen privateers and used them to kill any ships trying to reach the one continent (I think it was England/Persia) so they would not meet one another while I continued to broker the last few techs of the Middle Ages. By the time the English got Magnetism, I knew they would get through, so I sold contacts, but it was fun while it lasted.
 
AFAISI, currently the Privateer is almost useless, except for being able to put some limited havoc on your opponents, although being at peace with them.
Since the AI gets on them at every sight and has good odds to succeed - even with Galleys and Caravels- most time they even don't get far from your own shores.
Privateers in my eyes are the by far most unbalanced ("misbalanced") naval unit. And naval warfare is even weaker then any other warfare sub-concept in Civ!
The idea of making their prey become a new Privateer is funny for the first time, you encounter this. After that, you realize how unrealistic this is.
It would have been much better to make the enslaved ships become an own class, maybe "prey ship". This would require escort and have low stats (0/0/5) and would have to be moved to a harbor of your own, where you would be able to upgrade it to a new Privateer at nil cost.
Of course, the whole naval stats should be revised before this new class should be incorporated.
 
And by that thinking ships should also need to return to port every few turns to refuel and supply. But in Civ ships can remain on the other side of the earth forever quite independently.


Privateers are my favorite unit in the game, but it does annoy me that some lousy galley can come along and sink them. It seems like they never get enough use before they're obsolete.
 
What about stacking Privateers with other unit types? Have a single Galleon sailing around with a wolf pack of privateers with it. Hit AI ship sail back into the stack?
 
Originally posted by Zardnaar
What about stacking Privateers with other unit types? Have a single Galleon sailing around with a wolf pack of privateers with it. Hit AI ship sail back into the stack?

Yeah, wow! This seems like a great idea. Just don't try that against a human opponent.
 
Originally posted by jaafit


Yeah, wow! This seems like a great idea. Just don't try that against a human opponent.

Well my next game will be as England. I think I'll be more aggressive than usual. I'll be stacking privateers with Men o War. They both have enslave. An endless fleet idea I've been cooking up. Its only a theory at the moment though although it seems like a good idea.

Also vs a human player I don't think I would care. Assuming he is on another island whats he going to do? Declear war and have his navy sunk and coasts blockaded and bombarded. No more luxury imports with destroyed harbours. Unlike the AI the human player isn't going to churn out bulk caravels and galleons to fight Man o Wars. They'll give up or make a beeline for Ironclads. His best option perhaps is build his own privateer fleet- and you'll still be faster and have more money for research/rushing units. You don't need a big army just a decent navy until detroyers turn up in sufficent numbers to make your life difficult. By then you should have your own destroyers/battleships and be able to make them faster.
 
Actually i like to stack 5 privateers together and patrol with them. They can take out a Frigate guarding a galleon like that which is a huge loss to the enemy and great for you
 
I use Privateers as a kind of spy boat, sailing around the coast of my opponents checking out what they've got, you can sail right up to a coastal city to see what kind of unit they have stationed there and it also provides a free territory map. I also put them on sentry on busy shipping lanes to act as an 'eye' and if something comes along that i dont like the look of i can send some heavies into the area:hammer:

Privateers are pretty useless fighting against the majority of sea vessles in the later years but they can still be used for other purposes :D
 
I'm testing the idea of removing the Privateer's need for Saltpeter, so they can be the "cheap man's frigate." :) If the cheap man has Iron, of course.

Might be too overpowering, but hey.

I've been playing a few very fun games with Portugal using my mod (link in my signature.) One game was on a small, island map with only the British and the Spanish as enemies -- was fun, but Spain bulked up on culture big time, and I decided to end the game before my defeat became too pronounced.

But I've now set up a new game on a tiny, island map, against *just* the British. So far I've got about 70% of the available land, but the British have a super-built up continent of their own. It's looking tough, but I'm hoping for some fun naval battles once their Man-O-Wars arrive on the scene!
 
i occasionally use privateers, one thing i wanted to try is to go up to a rival civ, put it on a fish/whale, sometime on desert/tundra areas a pop point or 2 drops off, but the real reason i wanted to do it was to see if i could get them to divert production to make a frigate or something of thier own ( they didn't, i eliminated that civ before they had a chance) they are also handy picking off the very occasional barbarian galley, new privateer :)
 
I seriously did not like the naval aspect of Civ3 and with the arrival of C3C its a chance to alter it bigtime.

I've modded ALL ships to have double their standard move, given all ships with bombard a Fatal Sea Bombardment, and allowed some ships like Frigate to upgrade to say Ironclad.

I've also given Privateers A3 D3, to enhance their survivability. Their stats as they stood made them completely useless. I had not even thought of removing Saltpeter to allow them to be built earlier again and thats a good idea. Their period is too short in the standard Civ to make them anything but a waste of shields.
 
Originally posted by Zardnaar
What about stacking Privateers with other unit types? Have a single Galleon sailing around with a wolf pack of privateers with it. Hit AI ship sail back into the stack?

If the AI attacks that stack of units, they will declare war on you. I've done that before.

I kinda keep it going. I have my Priveteers upgradable to smaller patrol boats as the ages change. I think of them as drug runners or black market merchants. It is alot of fun with all the "annoynomous" naval action going on. That is until battleships and planes come into the picture. The AI loves bombing the heck out of hidden nationality ships. Don't leave them too long near a shore city.
 
I have had a war where I used frigate to bombard galleon down to 1 hp and used privateers to capture the unit. This worked good untill ironclads and destroyers.
 
Originally posted by Mirv Sheelon
I had not even thought of removing Saltpeter to allow them to be built earlier again and thats a good idea.

Thanks. :) I have a few, now and then. ;)

I just figure, if you've got the ability to make Frigates you're going to probably make them in preference to Privateers. Whereas if you didn't have Saltpeter, I thought it'd be more likely that you'd want to use "underhanded tactics" like Privateering, to get what you don't have. ;)

It's a bit like building loads of Longbowmen because you don't have the Iron to build Knights or Swordsmen...etc
 
I use them to explore (if the world is not yet known). They are the fastest ship for their time so they work wonders for this.

If you have a +1 move wonder, and are seafaring, they are also much better. They can attack and reteat with ease. Keep them (in groups) in you cities close to shipping lanes and go to town.
 
Originally posted by IsTinPoliBoy
I don't use privateers much, but I should think that their only use is to clean up whatever galleys and caravels are left by the time you get to the late middle ages/early industrial age.

I use them for that, and for auto-exploring.

Also beefed their stats up a little, but that resulted in the AI building tons of the things. :eek:
 
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