Privateer beeline strat

[xanadux]

Many have come to love the Privateer in BTS. I've often implemented the following strategy quite often to take advantage of this very nice unit.

The main thing about privateers is that you have to get them far before the AI to make good use of them. If you can build privateers, you can build frigates, and frigates own privateers. It should be noted that I usually play on Emperor, and usually can win. On higher levels, this is probably not viable because the AI will tech faster and the window of opportunity will be smaller or non-existant, and investing lots of hammers in privateers most likely a mistake, remembering that as soon as frigates show up, they will be hunted to the ends of the earth.


This is clearly a strat for an empire with 2 or more good production coastal cities. Smaller maps are good, because coastal cities are more common, and obviously any island type maps. In these type maps, I will often grab the colossus if feasible. In that case, there are 2 typical tech paths.

Path 1: On archipelago maps where everyone knows everyone. Early beeline to education for oxford. Then tech to chemistry. Take astronomy with liberalism, and you can build privateers. You next tech steel for drydocks, and pump out promoted privateers.

Path 2: On maps with civs divided by oceans. Early beeline to optics, opening tech trading with other hemisphere, then same as above.

Astronomy is delayed to be the last tech to open up the privateers when the colossus has been built. With the slow AI tech rate in BTS, I've found you can have from 50-100 turns of your packs of privateers ravaging the AIs. An additional benefit from this tech path is highly productive workshops relatively early in the game.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I excercised this strategy in my last game and noticed a few caveats:

• As mentioned, you have to be the first to Astronomy/Chemistry, and you have to do it well before the AI.
  
  
• Privateers have to be in packs of 2-4 (and preferably hug the coast) to disuade Caravel swarms.
  
  
• Your top production cities get diverted from land units, which can lead to a weakend army and open up a land war if not managed carefully.
  
  
• This typically ends with the AI possessing a large Navy, which makes being invaded more likely and being the invader much more difficult.

On the plus side, you're a shoe-in for Circumnavigation, reap tons of stolen during the height of the Privateer Era and finish with a Modern Navy full of level 6 and 7 upgraded Destroyers.

Oh yeah, and if you haven't spawned one already, you're all but guaranteed to spawn a Great General with your Privateer combat.

 

[Sisiutil]

One thing that I've been doing to prolong the lifespan of Privateers is to leverage espionage. Know when the other Civs are researching Chemistry. Once they get within a couple of turns of it, it's time to get to heck outta Dodge.

You can keep harassing the more backwards civs for some time after the more advanced ones have Frigates. I find this easier to do on maps like Big and Small where there are lots of islands and snaky land masses; the AI seems to like having its Frigates patrol the open ocean. I usually have my Privateers in pairs, one doing the pillaging/blockading and the other acting as a sentry. If a Frigate shows up, they run and they don't stop until they're home in port; the Frigates will, as you say, hunt a Privateer to the ends of the earth.

I also find that the AI prioritizes Chemistry if it's being harassed by Privateers. The bigger, more advanced AIs make better targets (because they have better trade routes to blockade and because they're you're rivals). However, if they're relatively close to Chemistry (i.e. once they have Gunpowder) it may be a good idea to pull your Privateers away from them. Maybe they'll pursue other techs at that point and give you a longer chance to harass weaker civs.

 

[Welnic]

Being able to promote navy units with Blitz is going to make Privateers even better, I can't wait. Plus being able to safely stash them until you can promote them to destroyers.

 

[KMadCandy]

Being able to promote navy units with Blitz is going to make Privateers even better, I can't wait.

i'm in my first BtS game that's gonna last to stealth destroyers. they can see "stealth ships". am i interpreting that correctly that they can see each other but not subs? if so, then i probably should not upgrade my ultra-deluxe former-privateer destroyers because they can see subs. i can always make more stealth destroyers but i won't be able to make more plain-ole-destroyers after a certain point at all. is that logic sound, or permanoob?

signed, anonymous, who doesn't want to start a new game to do a test is WB since then she's lose her autosaves. thanks.

 

[Welnic]

I think the logic is sound, but I don't think the way the game works at the moment is correct. I think this is something that should be fixed, stealth destroyers don't do a very good of replacing regular destroyers. You should either be able to still make regular destroyers or stealth destroyers should be able to detect subs and protect transports.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

One thing I'd like cleared up if anybody knows, do Privateers affect trade routes your getting from an AI, i.e. you blockade city A and one of your cities has an intercontinental trade route with city A will you now lose that?

I'd assume it works similar to how intercontinental trade routes work when only one civ has astronomy.

 

[Guardian_PL]

@50_dollar_bag
Last time I checked it Privateer plundering wasn't affecting income in Your city trade route, unless game hid it from me (You know, few coins here, few there... Nobody will notice )

 

[Dan Quale]

If you are really desperate and playing a high difficulty (immortal+) You can always just declare war on them and stack battleships up while you'r privateers blockade, you still get the gold, and as long as you are at war with whoever is attacking they always hit the battleship. Even if its diety, just surround their continent with an invincible navy and shoot their uranium with cruisemissles/spies, then feel free to plunder their entire intercontinental trade each turn. I did it to a whole continent on immortal a while ago. It was completely pointless, but being in control of 2 out of 3 continents, I felt it would be more fun to harrass, then win.

East indiamans and privateers are still useful until 2050 simply because of their unique abilities. Stealing gold during a war, and keeping your millitary units inside rival territory, never get old.

 

[Evie]

Being able to promote navy units with Blitz is going to make Privateers even better, I can't wait. Plus being able to safely stash them until you can promote them to destroyers.

Plus being able to promote those selfsame destroyers to missile cruisers as an extra option.

 

[Boodler]

...You can always just declare war on them and stack battleships up while you'r privateers blockade, you still get the gold, and as long as you are at war with whoever is attacking they always hit the battleship...

So far I haven't concentrated on naval forces; what action from the privateer will yield gold if stationed on enemy territory ? And also, how much gold we are talking about ?

Thank you in advance !

 

[MrFelony]

okay, someone explain what good privateers are besides pillaging fish, clam, and crabs. and being much better than galleons/caravels.

edit: so they steal money from cities that they're blockading? how much does it steal? and does it prevent them from having trade routes with you over seas? because intercontinental trade routes = lots of gold.

 

[Welnic]

Privateers can blockade, you put them around a couple of foreign cities, hit the blockade icon, and then you get money at the start of your next turn. After you set one up to blockade if you select it again you can see the area that the blockade covers. You can usually block at least two ports with one ship. They don't seem to stop the trade routes, they just grab money.

Any battles that you fight with a privateer earn GG points. So you can get those without being at war. You can also really get some highly promoted ships from killing many caravels. Once frigates show up, hide your privateers until you get to destroyers and then promote them. C3-5 destroyers with Sentry are pretty nice.

 

[Winston Hughes]

A couple of things I've picked up while wearing an eye-patch, swigging rum from the bottle, and being over-friendly with parrots:

Fast Privateers can be worth their weight in gold (literally).

Nav1 (only two promotions) plus the circ. bonus will allow them to escape from any hairy situations, and lose any ships that attempt to follow them. With Sentry giving advanced warning too, they can usually stay out of trouble.

Of equal value is the ability to quickly fan out and blockade a ton of AI cities. And if any one gets destroyed by enemy caravels, you can swiftly rush several more to the scene to crush the resistance.

(btw, Privateers with Nav2 (and the circ. bonus) are insanely fast - these sail-driven speedboats can outrun oil-driven Battleships and almost keep up with Destroyers. I can't imagine anyone but the Vikings getting many of these, though).

As Sisiutil mentions, espionage is also extremely useful when deploying Privateers - not only can it let you know when Frigates are imminent, but if you have enough EP for 'Investigate City' you can see when and where your opponents' new ships are going to be built. It's also highly entertaining to watch large AI cities starve when you've blockaded 2/3 of their food-positive tiles.

okay, someone explain what good privateers are besides pillaging fish, clam, and crabs. and being much better than galleons/caravels.

To my mind, the best use if Privateers is to starve enemy cities by denying them the use of any sea tiles. If you don't have 'Investigate City' (which is likely in most cases), then it takes a bit of calculation to work out which cities will suffer most, and you'll only see the damage by looking at the falling city sizes. But the effect on a city can be devastating - in a recent game I starved a rival's capital down from 23 to 9 in only fifteen turns (and there it stayed until he got Frigates). It makes 'Poison Water Supply' look like taking a razz in a reservoir.

They also cause the AI to spend its efforts building caravels instead of improvements or land units, which is very helpful when you consider that most of those caravels just get turned into xp for your Privateers and your GG counter.

Throw in the fact that they more than meet their own unit costs when blockading, and you've got one highly effective unit. As long as you get them in good time, of course.

 

[Evie]

I've found the first striking promotions somewhat valuable for privateers, enabling them to waltz in against caravels, practically sink them without the caravels getting a word in edgewise, then waltzing back out again.

 

[xanadux]

One thing I've noticed is that some AIs will spam out caravels, but others don't seem to do more than try to keep their usual amount. First time I tried this, I was harassing Pacal, my top rival, and he built incredible amounts of caravels. But he was stupid. They would all sit around in groups of 2 or 3. My pack of privateers built up to about 8 (I was also building frigates and Ships of the Line for attacking Greece on the other side of the continent), and I killed somewhere close to 100 caravels. I just had my medic ship sit just outside borders and swoop in, kill caravel, come back to heal. They should fix the AI on this, because Pacal had as many as 30 caravels I could see at once, and they could have easily taken out my 8 privateers. Sure, he would lose most of them, but he lost all and more anyway.

 

[KMadCandy]

(btw, Privateers with Nav2 (and the circ. bonus) are insanely fast - these sail-driven speedboats can outrun oil-driven Battleships and almost keep up with Destroyers. I can't imagine anyone but the Vikings getting many of these, though).

i've gotten circ bonus and then nav1 for free from the harbormaster quest since this map makes intercontinental war inevitable. i haven't given any nav2 but they're speedy and fun. of course when corporations came around and colony expenses increased i kinda wished i'd gone for +1 gold per harbor. permanoob, if intercontinental wars are inevitable then colony expenses are gonna be high, hello! cuz i'm afraid to make actual colonies.

 

[popejubal]

okay, someone explain what good privateers are besides pillaging fish, clam, and crabs. and being much better than galleons/caravels.

The best use of Privateers to my mind is using the ships to attack and destroy AI naval units while at peace with that AI. Being able to rack up a zillion XP and get a few Great Generals while at peace is a very nifty thing.

It's also nice to be able to pillage and blockade the cities of allied AI civs that you want to weaken when you don't want to go to war or damage your diplomatic relationship.

 

[D Wolf]

Just wondering, is it possible to attach GG's to Privateers?

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Just wondering, is it possible to attach GG's to Privateers?

Yes. The process is the same for any ship:

1. Remove all units from a coastal city.
2. Move Privateer into that empty coastal city.
3. Move GG into the coastal city with the Privateer.
4. Have GG Lead Troops as Warlord.
5. Done.

I'm not really sure I would ever want to do this, though.