How would you know if the ships have cargo - If your a Priviteer?

[ashley26ph2003]

If you re a Priviteer and you meet a ship caravel or fluyt/carrack
how would you know If has cargo inside?

 

[dalgo]

fluyt/carrack

- from Imperialism II perhaps?

 

[Wheldrake]

If you re a Priviteer and you meet a ship caravel or fluyt/carrack
how would you know If has cargo inside?

In real life, you would see how low in the water the ship is running. That would give you a general idea of the weight of cargo, or if the ship is running empty. You might also have information from spies in port who could tell you when a given ship is leaving port with a given cargo.

As things currently stand in the game, all you can see is where the ship came from during the turn - if your screen was focused on the area during turn change. You may then know if the ship was coming from Europe, or exiting a colony. Ships coming from Europe often run empty, or carry a few guns or tools or colonists. Ships coming from a colony are often full of goods to be sold in Europe. The only way you can tell, currently, is by knowing whether the ship is arriving from Europe, or leaving a colony port.

IOW, it's hit or miss.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[The Great Apple]

- from Imperialism II perhaps?

Probably AoDII

 

[HermannLombard]

Wheldrake is quite right. Of course a ship may run low in the water because it's carrying a cargo of lumber while another may run high carrying jewels. "You pays your money and you takes your chances." I usually find that I can tell which way the ship is going because of its facing on the map, and I'll usually leave inbound ships alone hoping to catch them on the return trip.

 

[BobTheBull]

In fact, you might want to shadow that inbound ship to see where it's port is, and then lay in wait for him to leave port, almost assuredly with cargo. If you have frigates, you can use them as spotters; patrol around the other col's ports with frigates until you see a ship leaving; then send a "secret" message to your privateer to catch him.

 

[HermannLombard]

"The Shadow knows!"

Yep. Doing that for a living playing as the Pirates in AoD II.

No frigates, though.

 

[WumpusCivName]

this is a game--you don't see a ship riding low if the graphics won't allow it. why not ambush ANY ship going to Europe from the colonies, esp. the rivals' ships--like what really happened in history?

 

[Wheldrake]

this is a game--you don't see a ship riding low if the graphics won't allow it. why not ambush ANY ship going to Europe from the colonies, esp. the rivals' ships--like what really happened in history?

Note that "any ship" *is* your rivals' ships. There are no other ships to sink.

And frankly, I pretty much attack any ship within range of a privateer. Sometimes, coming from Europe, they have horses or guns. Almost always, coming from a colony, they have some goods for sale in Europe. Those get sold to natives, or taken back to Europe, or if the quantities are small, just dumped.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[WumpusCivName]

yes, my friend,you're right. everybody plays differently than everybody else, so if it were me i'd usually send ships loaded with goods to sell from the colonies to europe, but my caravels and galleons usually return empty from europe, except when they carry some colonists; so if a privateer ambushes my colony-bound ships, she would usually find me empty. but i think some other players' ship would have some goodies to bring from europe.

 

[prolefeed]

The game I'm currently playing is on a small map, so the lone European civ keeps respawning their caravel from the exact same spot and following the same route to nowhere, never carrying anything useful I can capture. So I just keep sinking it over and over again shortly after respawn with my lone privateer, as soon as I can repair the damage from the last attack, building up Great General points and allowing the military FFs to appear.

 

[dalgo]

The game I'm currently playing is on a small map, so the lone European civ keeps respawning their caravel from the exact same spot and following the same route to nowhere, never carrying anything useful I can capture. So I just keep sinking it over and over again shortly after respawn with my lone privateer, as soon as I can repair the damage from the last attack, building up Great General points and allowing the military FFs to appear.

Maybe it is not carrying any useful goods but at times it could have valuable colonists aboard and it may be possible to capture them by taking a merchantman along, at least it worked for me once.

 

[Wheldrake]

I think the AI just hasn't got a clue how to use ships. Or any other troops, really, especially in the vanilla or basic version of the game. They seem to do a little better in the AoD2 mod, but they're still easy prey.

So your privateers will just rack up experience points, then die against the ships of the line sent out by the REF in the end game.

If the AI knew how to make better use of ships, the game would become far more challenging.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[HermannLombard]

So your privateers will just rack up experience points, then die against the ships of the line sent out by the REF in the end game.

Au contraire! The privateers--with experience, Bolivar, and a couple of Great Admirals--can wipe out the Royal Navy, assuming that you control LB production so that there aren't many Men 'o War out there. With 9 privateers and a token frigate I faced off against 5 MoW. I lost 3 or 4 privateers but the King lost all his ships.

 

[prolefeed]

Dalgo said: "Maybe it is not carrying any useful goods but at times it could have valuable colonists aboard and it may be possible to capture them by taking a merchantman along, at least it worked for me once."

Wow, this works great. Tried this in my current game, and picked up two pioneer colonists in two turns using this, before my privateer got too beat up and had to duck into a city to heal.

If you know where the foreign civs respawn (hint: play a small map), you can gain a hell of a lot of colonists for a small investment: 2 privateer/merchantmen pairs, with one pair healing while the other one attacks.

 

[HermannLombard]

Maybe it is not carrying any useful goods but at times it could have valuable colonists aboard and it may be possible to capture them by taking a merchantman along, at least it worked for me once.

That's very interesting! In what seems like a thousand threads I don't remember ever read that. Do you mean "merchantman" generically, or won't a caravel work?

 

[dalgo]

I only found it by accident, I had a privateer sailing with my merchantman for protection when an enemy caravel went past. I attacked it with my privateer, and a pioneer and an ore miner turned up in my merchantman. I assume any cargo ship would do. The privateer has the ability to capture goods but cannot carry units so they would usually be lost. Give it a try.

 

[HermannLombard]

Dalgo, that's very cool, I will have to try it. Pity I didn't know it a few (game) hours ago. I was trying for another privateer victory, this time as the Dutch (so without Bolivar's LB combat bonus). I went into the WoI with 12 Privateers (built 8, bought 4, I think). I could have been bagging colonists as the French and British reestablished the colonies that I had wiped out.

Anyway...success! My 12 privateers (and 2 token frigates, 1 bought, 1 from J.P.Jones) faced off against 5 Men 'o War. I lost 5 privateers and sank all 5 MoW, three with troops aboard.

So privateers seem more efficient than SoL for this purpose. The rule of thumb with SoL is that you send in one to soften up an MoW then finish it off with a second. With privateers you send in one or two to soften up the MoW, then finish it off with a second or third...or a frigate, if the MoW is really crippled.