Pirate Warlord

[Jperkinson]

Anyone ever get a naval tech lead and make a Pirate Warlord and go on an XP binge?

Pillage the world, and obtain ridiculous upgrades and gg points! (At least I think on the gg points... is that true?)

Feels kind of exploitive, since the AI 'could' take out the ship with it's gigantic stack of caravels that it keeps in the citys.... but it never attacks pirates unless they are wounded or get frigates.

Thoughts?

 

[Sephlock]

All you'll end up doing is making a lot of enemies. I guess if you raced to Privateers you could dominate the seas that way...

 

[Rusty Edge]

Lots of us attach a GG to a privateer, just for the fun of it. It was proposed on this forum pre-release of BTS.

Yes, privateers can earn GG experience points as long as they are sinking ships of other civs ( as opposed to barbs).

Sometimes the A.I. weakens privateers with airships, then sends out a cluster of caravels to clear the coasts, or at least that's how Hannibal usually handles it.

Monty usually sends out single caravels the turn he completes them.

Others often fill the port with caravels, but won't use them. I think the new patch adresses this.


I miss the Civ III abillity to capture, rather than sink a ship. Otherwise It's one of my favorite aspects of the BTS expansion.

 

[KMadCandy]

i've earned 6.5 GGs in my current game and i'd guess 3.5 were from privateers . sure i lose quite a few but they are soooooooo fun and i don't have to get all those messy -1 you declared war on our friend points. i actually pillaged my own oil well and uranium mine so that i could make more of 'em. is that bad?

they moved grenadiers so that people wouldn't race to chemistry and it wouldn't be so, i dunno, game-defining to get to chem early. i didn't race for it pre-BtS unless somebody was beating me up. but now i sure do! i'm in love with privateers, they're so shiny!

 

[Lord_Zath]

In the game I finished last night, I had a GG with Combat IV, Flanking II, Navigation II, Morale, Leadership.

One time I actually ran out of promotions (had 126/120 XP, and no more promotion opened up at 120).

 

[PibbZ]

I'm still playing England, and attached a GG to a privateer and called him Franscis Drake. Was great fun, his ship is a level 8 Destroyer now though.

And i can promise you, imperialstic and beeline to privateers can really make a difference. Check for yourself (Picture attatched):

Spoiler The work of my Privateers :

As for the time played, i often let the game run while sleeping and work ^^

 

[kniteowl]

Too bad there isn't a wonder that can allow you double GG points from won battles outside your boarders or those Privateers under the Imp trait would be insane.

 

[peter450]

Privateers were in sid meiers colonisation game, that was a very old game, came out inbetween civ 1 an civ 2 i think, it's about time they showed up in a civ game! but better late then never i guess, warlord privateers can be a lot of fun, they work best in a pirate fleet/stack i find

 

[weregamer]

Solver's patch seems to have fixed the most basic problem with Caravels vs Privateers - if they have enough Caravels to take out your Privateer stack they'll throw them at it. Lone Privateers they'll eat for breakfast with 4-6 Caravels. But they are more reluctant to try to take out a stack unless they have enough to take it all out. They don't gamble their 20 Caravels to take out 1 of 4 Privateers in a stack, even though that's probably a good move.

 

[peter450]

Well the new patch allows naval units to be upgraded with blitz, so a pirate warlord unit could go from being a fun novelty to being a pretty good way to use one of your GG so here's hoping it works out that way

 

[KMadCandy]

Solver's patch seems to have fixed the most basic problem with Caravels vs Privateers - if they have enough Caravels to take out your Privateer stack they'll throw them at it. Lone Privateers they'll eat for breakfast with 4-6 Caravels. But they are more reluctant to try to take out a stack unless they have enough to take it all out. They don't gamble their 20 Caravels to take out 1 of 4 Privateers in a stack, even though that's probably a good move.

i play with solver's patch and isabella sits there with sometimes up to 9 caravels within 2 tiles of me, but none are stacked more than 2 in a tile. and she didn't attacked me ever unless i was badly wounded, she just let me hit her, whether i had one privateer there or four. silly girl. for a long time i blocking the coastline between an island she settled and one that she and i both had a city on, so that she couldn't bring a spy over, while i was waiting for more privs to come over. she'd move to come the other way since i blocked her to the south, but i could move further so i'd block her to the north that turn, rinse repeat. she wouldn't go on offense.

shaka's the best tho. he keeps sending his, one at a time, over and over and over.

i just checked stats. i've killed 309 caravels! i've lost 22 privateers, which is more than i've lost of any other unit by far (only had two wars, and i really overprepare for wars), but it's worth it. that's a darn good ratio, and quite profitable *giggle*.

Well the new patch allows naval units to be upgraded with blitz, so a pirate warlord unit could go from being a fun novelty to being a pretty good way to use one of your GG so here's hoping it works out that way

blitz is awesome, and some of my guys have 37ish exp. it'll drop to 10 when i upgrade 'em waaaaah. i'm tempted to use a GG, never did consider it before.

 

[Rusty Edge]

i'm tempted to use a GG, never did consider it before.

Oh c'mon, it'll be fun! You can make a medicIII for healing your privateer fleet in hostile waters and name him "Surgeon General", or something...or "Black & Decker" if you load it up with drill promotions. Just re-invest one of those GGs by putting him and a privateer in a coastal fort.... It's that easy. You know you want to..

 

[KMadCandy]

Oh c'mon, it'll be fun! You can make a medicIII for healing your privateer fleet in hostile waters and name him "Surgeon General", or something...or "Black & Decker" if you load it up with drill promotions. Just re-invest one of those GGs by putting him and a privateer in a coastal fort.... It's that easy. You know you want to..

pshaw, if i do it i'm naming him Yo Ho Ho

 

[Rusty Edge]

pshaw, if i do it i'm naming him Yo Ho Ho

What? Not "Captain Spiffyriffic" ? I'm off to play Pirates!

 

[Cabledawg]

......quite profitable *giggle*.



Theres no giggling in Civ unless youre a chic....oh wait...youre a chic

 

[DemonMaster]

Pirate not so much. If I play Imperialistic (so I got many generals) I usually attach one to one of my battleships, creating a flagship that is very very good. I have plans to test (just for the fun of it) to attach one to a fighter or bomber. Perhaps I should give the pirate thingy a testrun.

 

[peter450]

You cannot attach a GG to a plane i tried it and the game wont let you. Warlord units got a boost in BTS intentional or not i dont know (but a welcome one all the same), due to the re-organisation of the promotions systems, for gunpowder units (they can get drill, very important for a late level warlord) & now the blitz promo for naval (when we get new patch) which i think is long overdue, will also make for far better warlord ships, since you'l get better use out of them, being able to leverage there str more an attack multiple times and being able to promote them faster.


Some warlord unit tips.

Spoiler :

The key for a good warlord unit, is making it early so you have the time to promote it up, this is especially true of gunpowder warlords, since they only get 1 attack, a gunpowder warlord should start life as a swordsmen or macemen, so you can add the city raider promos + have the time to get it up to a strong level of veterancy. Late created warlords should be knights, tanks or gunships, anything with the blitz promo, as this will let you catch up XP wise.

Always keep your warlords in a bigger stack of units, leading the army or navy is were they should be.

Odd's are also important, in order to gurantee a win you need to fight at odd's of 99.9, anything less an there's a chance it will die, i have fought many, many more battles at 99.9 than i have at 99. something else, i can recall loosing warlord and standard units at these odd's on occasions, but i have never lost a 99.9 odd fight, it seems 99.9 is the odd's threshold to let you come through, what i term a bad round, were no matter what the odd's you seem to end up loosing. Use siege units to soften up the defenders for your stack your early warlord should be able to find a straggler here an there that can be picked off at 99.9.

In time the number of promotions you unit has will get to a point were not only is it a great asset to your stack but practically all your combat will be odd's of 99.9, i'm currently in a marathon noble game, an my early swordsmen warlord is now a grenadier with the city raider 3 promo an a lot of other ones besides, once a city has been bombarded to 0% culture defense my warlord grenadier is tough enough to take on guerilla 2 riflemen fortified on a hill at 99.9% odd's, he's still has a couple of drill promotions missing, so he's not quite got it all yet, but hes not far off now, getting to a high level takes time, but it's readily do able on epic & marathon game speeds

 

[DemonMaster]

No warlord bomber, what a downer, that would have been so cool. Think of it, a super-phantom-bomber, or perhaps only a big waste of a general.

Edit: Good advise by there btw peter450. I have gotten a general reneacance lately so now I usually play Imperialistic civs and I don't use all my generals as advisors or academies (perhaps only on a city of two, depending in map size). Good planned warlords can be (have I lately found out) a real (battle) winner.

 

[alpaca]

For me the greatest experience is getting Chemistry early, building Privateers and blockading my opponents. Not only does their commerce suffer (sometimes big time) but I also get some money out of the things (4 or so on average for each city you blockade, since I always send two they roughly pay for themselves).
They also do get that interesting sentry promotion which comes in handy when you upgrade them to destroyers.

In fact I'd love some modern pirates

 

[peter450]

Good warlords really can help turn the tide indeed, especially mid/late game when there well promoted, i tend to start with a swordsman an then add a catapult or treb, the beauty of a great siege warlord is when you find a nice 99.9 fight, you can use the siege first get your 2 xp an then polish it off with your sword an get another 2 xp so your warlords are not competing for early XP but rather both getting it at the same time from a single unit, which is useful early in there careers.

Also once you get cannons that siege warlord really comes into his own as cannons are very strong, and can be got a lot more quickly than riflemen usually, can get cultural/city defenses down to zero an will be very high odd's (usually 99.9) on longbows or musketmen, and if well promoted on riflemen too