Argh maties, a bottle of rum, and all that: AKA the pirate thread

[futurehermit]

Ok, so what are peoples' experiences with pirat...I mean "privateers" so far?

I want to try a game where I beeline astro-chem and go on a pirate frenzy.

My sense right now is that if you don't beeline them hardcore they have a very limited window of opportunity cuz they die hard to frigates. So, once your opponents start getting chem the life of pirates is on the decline.

So, ideally as you are teching to chem you want to avoid trading around the prerequisites.

The nice thing, however, is that both astro and chem can be lightbulbed with GSs. So, I'm thinking: what if you were to avoid CS (which is ok in a SE!) and focus on lightbulbing your way up the Astro and guilds-gunpowder-chem lines?

Well, that could work in theory, but what does it give you:

-A unit that doesn't fear any pre-renaissance naval unit and can take down galleons (and hold their own vs. ships-of-the-line or whatever they're called)

-A unit that can pillage opponent sea resources without any diplo penalty or war

-Perhaps most importantly (!!!): A unit that can blockade opponent naval trade routes denying them to your opponent and giving you plunder $$$ I'm thinking if you could do this to enough of your opponents (all of them theoretically) then you could really stifle their economy and give yours a nice supplement

And at the end of the day, let's face it pirates are just plain cool

Thoughts?

 

[Jet]

Someone suggested they're a good way to farm great general experience points.

 

[dozenlong]

I admit I had some fun building a fleet with these and pillaging every single sea resource tile every other civilization had, as well as killing all caravels and galleons I could run across without affecting my diplomatic rating whatsoever. I was disappointed to find that they didn't even attempt to return the favor, but my Dutch Crossbones wreaked much havoc until the advent of the destroyer!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

The AI can build an incredible number of trimeres now. If you have a tech lead, privateers can be a lot of fun.

Especially if you catch them at war. In my last game the Ottomans decided to attack Mansa who was on nearly the other side of the world - but connected through the coastline of a large continent. A nearly infinite stream of trimeres and galleys sailed past my coastline. They got slaughtered at the other end by Mansa's frigates, but it was fun to watch and I could add to the fun with privateers.

Later fighting Shaka, he sent a force of 30 or so trimeres against a handful of privateers and frigates. Lots of kills. Discovered one stupid AI bug - he sheltered 8 trimeres in a fort along his coastline. My cavalry then walked in and killed them all without a shot being fired.

The nice thing about Privateers is just parking them in every city of a civ that is behind in the Astronomy/Chemistry race. Its a cheap way of suppressing them and keeping them behind and the privateers keep sending you income, paying for themselves.

 

[frob2900]

I really like the new ship to ship combat graphics they implemented for privateers:
Or was that another Sid Meier game?

Seriously, though, how good is the trade route plunder payoff? Is it worth pursuing on archipelago like maps?

I'm guessing the naval trade routes of the AI ought to be pretty weak once they start running mercantilism, so is a completed chemistry beeline viable before the majority of the AI get banking? Perhaps it would be a good way to punish Hannibal and the other Free Market nuts?

God I hate Hannibal and Mansa.

 

[sumit1207]

I got anywhere from 2-6 gold per city. One privateer can usually blockade two coastal cities. They die often from 2-3 caravels and galleons though.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

You can make disgusting amounts of Gold/Turn with a nice fleet of Privateers. The blockade area tends to be really large, and i usually have no problem setting up 3/4 city blockades from a single location.

My tactic (aside from beelining them for the very reasons you mention) starts with Caravels to circumnavigate, and explore rival territory to find a bunch of juicy 3-5 city blockade spots. I send them out in pairs (or 3 if it's going to blockade 3 size 12+ cities with plenty of hammers for caravels/galleons). Pairing is important because the AI will slam you with 4-5 caravels fairly frequently, and that will easily kill 1 Privateer.

Spam your mini-fleets out from any coastal city that can spare the build time and set them up, starting with enemy capitals / core cities first. Target more advanced civs first (prioritize by how far from astro/chem they are) since the window of opportunity against them is smaller, but spread your fleets out to any civ you can get 3+ city blockades from ASAP.

Keep spamming Privateers until you see frigates, than I'd stop building them and have any privateers near a Civ with Frigates be ready to run away. Surviving runaways should be relocated to go pillage civs that haven't reached Chemistry yet.

You can easily be rolling in 75+ gold per turn with 10 mini-fleets. Most will blockade 3 cities for about 2-3 gold per city (so 6-9 gold total). Some of the sweetest locations will pull in 6-12 gold from their cities so a well placed pair of Privateers can easily rake in 20+ gold alone per turn.

Some other tips:
-Leave your Privateers in their home port until you have a pair ready. Any AI sea unit will attempt to kill a privateer on sight (if it's weaker it'll wait for numbers), and you'll likely run into a few Caravels on your way to setup the blockade.
-Aim for the Civ that built the Great Lighthouse.
-Aim for the City that build Temple of Artemis.
-Aim for financial civs, or civs with lots of open borders (if you have enough spy points look up the cities and peek at the trade route values too. Higher values = more loot pillaged). I recommend financial civs only because they seem to love signing open borders with everyone they possibly can, so they tend to have more trade revenue. I've had enemy Capitals give up to 12-gold per turn, so you definately wanna find those tradewh0res and hit them first.
-Avoid blockading too many civs with a single pair of units. They'll draw more attackers than they can handle, even if it's only triremes/caravels they'll die quickly.
-Go with First Strike and the odd medic promo. The bulk of units you'll face will be weaker but more numerous for a long time, so killing them while taking little to no damage is ideal.

 

[Infantry#14]

too bad BTS didnt add a land Pirate unit. He can have stat like Str 8 and Amphibious.

 

[Welnic]

And don't forget if you keep them alive that long they upgrade to destroyers.

 

[frob2900]

too bad BTS didnt add a land Pirate unit. He can have stat like Str 8 and Amphibious.

That's called a "Berserker"

 

[Infantry#14]

That's called a "Berserker"

yes, but with hidden nationality.

 

[frob2900]

yes, but with hidden nationality.

Ah, I see, yeah that's actually a rather cool idea

What would happen if they captured a city? Perhaps they would be like gunships and not be able to capture them? Perhaps raze-only?

 

[Hellspark]

Is there something you have to turn on to see trades routes?

 

[futurehermit]

Trade routes are invisible. If you click on a privateer after clicking on blockade though you can see the area of coverage. As long as the area of coverage covers the city I assume that the naval trade routes have been blockaded. I haven't checked yet myself but I assume if you check your financial advisor you will start to see income from plunder if you are successfully blockading the port.

 

[frob2900]

And the blockade also removes the enemy city from their trade network, unless they have a land connection?

How about situations like an AI who is trading an important resource (e.g. oil etc.) from another AI, and their only connection is via the sea. Suppose I blockade all the ports of one AI. Will the Oil trade break due to their loss of trade connection?

 

[sukadi]

for GS lightbulbing beeline to privateer, here is the count:
1st GS: philo;
2-6th GS:MC---->machinary---->optics---->astro(2x), get alphabat, Aesthetics, calenda and compass before you click you GSs;
7-9th GS:engineering, gunpowder, chem(plus some research), of course must have all pre-techs.
toally 9 GS, sounds doable for a philo leader. and there's still a chance to win liberalism race with extra cash and crippled opponents.

 

[Innawerkz]

Seriously, though, how good is the trade route plunder payoff? Is it worth pursuing on archipelago like maps?

Best I've managed so far with one Privateer was 14 per turn. I blocked trade to Washington, Boston & Giza simultaneously. Washington gave me +8, Boston +4 and Giza was only +2.

Daddy likey!

 

[popejubal]

I just played out Sisiutil's game and grabbed Chemistry and Astronomy before anyone else had them. Their lifespan was surprisingly long because my opponents had to have both Chem AND Astronomy for me to have anything to fear on the water.

I still lost a couple of boats to unlucky die rolls, but that's just part of the game.

I went on a massive pillaging spree, destroying any fish/clams/crab that I found and I discovered that I had made a massive impact on the AI economies. The one civ who I didn't hit (he was just inconvenient to reach from the city that was pumping out all of the Pirates) jumped from 6th place to 1st/2nd place, right ahead of or right behind me depending on whose turn it was.

I also got 2 Great Generals out of the process and completely explored the entire sea-accessable part of the map. Having my Privateers start with Sentry was an outstanding bonus. It made them worth building even after my oppoents had Frigates.

The best part, however, were the additional sound effects. Hearing "Yarr! Avast ye!" every time a Privateer attacked was tremendous fun. It's wierd how the sounds seemed to be coming right from me and not from the speakers, though.

One final thing that I really enjoyed was being able to beat down my friends. I like my AI allies and I enjoyed having that defensive pact. That doesn't mean I want them to actually catch up to me in research or production, however! Being able to sabotage my "friends" was an outstanding feature that was severely lacking from Civ IV previously.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I was pulling in 80 gold per turn last night. If you watch city population, you'll see it drop a few points from a prolonged blockade, especially if it is a desert city surviving on sea resources.

Has anyone tried this with the vikings? Starting with Navigation seems like it'd be pretty nice.

 

[futurehermit]

The best part, however, were the additional sound effects. Hearing "Yarr! Avast ye!" every time a Privateer attacked was tremendous fun. It's wierd how the sounds seemed to be coming right from me and not from the speakers, though.

Ok, maties there is a new rule for this here thread. Everyone has to talk like a pirate while they post or ye will mop the poop deck. Argh!