Privateer madness

[Udey1]

I'm sure there has to already be a thread about this, but it is my first experience with it since i usually play pangea.

I upgraded my privateer fleet to destroyers and set out to kill austria, who still had a large number of privateers in her fleet.

The odd thing is, all my privateer destroyers captured all her privateers, which i understand is expected, but, those converted privateers were able to be upgraded to destroyers as well. Frigates i captured were unable to upgrade in the same way.

My fleet went from 4 destroyers, to 17 destroyers in 20 turns.

So is this really working as intended?

 

[Harv72b]

That's normal. Whether it should be part of the game is a matter of debate, but at least for now your privateers do not lose the "prize ships" promotion when upgraded.

Frigates upgrade to battleships, which you may not have been able to do because of shortcomings in either tech or oil.

 

[Mizou]

i think privateers should only have a 50% chance

 

[civnoob13]

Anyone played as the ottomans? If you think the privateers are awesome you just wait ... utter domination.

 

[Callonia]

Firaxis need to wake up and allow people to use Ship of the line, England wasn't the only nation to use it, sheesh.

 

[BobDole]

Firaxis need to wake up and allow people to use Ship of the line, England wasn't the only nation to use it, sheesh.

Yeah, and that's off-topic. What's that have to do with Privateers/Prize Ships?

Anyway, yeah, Privateers, and the Prize Ships promotion in general, are really strong. It basically gives you a free supply of cannon fodder at the very least (since nearby enemy ships will go after the newly acquired ships since they have 50hp), and at best, gives you a near unstoppable naval force. It makes the naval game even easier than it already is, and since you can promote your privateers, you never really have to worry about building your own navy once you get them: just steal everyone else's ships, even later in the game.

 

[Callonia]

Yeah, and that's off-topic. What's that have to do with Privateers/Prize Ships?

Anyway, yeah, Privateers, and the Prize Ships promotion in general, are really strong. It basically gives you a free supply of cannon fodder at the very least (since nearby enemy ships will go after the newly acquired ships since they have 50hp), and at best, gives you a near unstoppable naval force. It makes the naval game even easier than it already is, and since you can promote your privateers, you never really have to worry about building your own navy once you get them: just steal everyone else's ships, even later in the game.

Because if ship of line is buildable, one will be torn between having privateers capture ships or go with ship of the line because ship of the line will turn small frigates into splinters upon the vast ocean.

Ship of the line can have like 80+ cannons while a frigate will only have like 28 or so cannons.

And that's not even mentioning the epeen factor of having ship of lines duke it out and win.

 

[Buccaneer]

Firaxis need to wake up and allow people to use Ship of the line, England wasn't the only nation to use it, sheesh.

No. Unique Units are one of the awesome things of the game. We probably can come up with variation of each unique units that other nations had. So let England have their unique unit.

 

[Thry]

i think privateers should only have a 50% chance

Nope, 100%.

 

[thadian]

i do not like the idea of unique units losing bonuses when they upgrade, it makes the unit go from "still unique" when upgraded to "worse in this age than in the prior age".

however i also do not like upgraded privateers stealing modern ships. then again, without making the sea beggar lose the promotion it would be impossible to keep balance with everyones privateer losing the bonus.

i don't have an answer for this one...

 

[Thry]

i do not like the idea of unique units losing bonuses when they upgrade, it makes the unit go from "still unique" when upgraded to "worse in this age than in the prior age".

however i also do not like upgraded privateers stealing modern ships. then again, without making the sea beggar lose the promotion it would be impossible to keep balance with everyones privateer losing the bonus.

i don't have an answer for this one...

The fact that the AI is incompetent does not mean that something should be nerfed.

The AI fails at everything, even when given huge bonuses. The AI just throws units and money at things in the hope that it can somehow win.

Yeah, privateers are powerful. It's to kick-start everyone into trying to assert naval dominance midway into the game.

 

[Udey1]

17 privateer -> destroyers is now over 49, no losses, game over. Commerce + glh + privateers, beeline destroyers... Profit.

 

[HelloGoodbye123]

that's normal. Whether it should be part of the game is a matter of debate, but at least for now your privateers do not lose the "prize ships" promotion when upgraded.

Frigates upgrade to battleships, which you may not have been able to do because of shortcomings in either tech or oil.

i think privateers should only have a 50% chance

stop trying to destroy this game with so many restrictions !!!!

 

[Drawmeus]

If you haven't seen the carpet of privateers duking it out - where ships don't die, they just change colors, over and over and over - well, let's just say it needs to change. I'd take "Privateers have been removed from the game" over what we have now.

 

[Gucumatz]

stop trying to destroy this game with so many restrictions !!!!

Destroy?

Things gets reduced and balanced all the time - not sure where the apocalypse was added as a scenario though...

50% sounds more fine.

 

[smallfish]

Destroy?

Things gets reduced and balanced all the time - not sure where the apocalypse was added as a scenario though...

50% sounds more fine.

50% is decent; it'll be like the old "convert barb" mechanic that two civs have, and can result in much more memorable games than currently.

 

[nefloyd]

Randomness is a gimpy solution. Either it should work or it shouldn't. Why create reload fodder?

Give both the privateer and the captured vessel a negative promotion that reduces combat effectiveness by 25% (to represent transfer of crew). If you wanna remove it you gotta bring it back to your zone and pay 1/8th its rush cost. If a ship with this promotion is captured again it is simply destroyed outright and the attacker does not get debuffed.

 

[Thry]

Don't touch the prize ships promotion. The fact that the AI is ******ed doesn't mean a nerf is in order.

The AI can't find Naval battles at any degree...on any difficulty. The only AI remotely decent at it is Korea, which has a strange habit of making a bazillion turtle ships.

Your complaint is that it's too powerful. In regards to the current state of the Civ V AI and it's ability to create, manage, and deploy a naval fleet;

That's like playing chess with a pigeon and complaining that pawn promotion is too powerful. It doesn't matter how many ways you cut it, the pigeon is still going to get up, walk all over the board horsehockyting on it and knocking down the game pieces, which is pretty much what the Civ V AI does right now.

The deity AI is a small improvement on itself, except that we've put the human in a straightjacket so he's forced to move pieces using his mouth, given the Pigeon his own personal butler, and removed every piece on the human's side except for the king and pawns.

 

[thadian]

The deity AI is a small improvement on itself, except that we've put the human in a straightjacket so he's forced to move pieces using his mouth, given the Pigeon his own personal butler, and removed every piece on the human's side except for the king and pawns.

And once this is the game, nothing will make it better - no feature will make the game better, and even more pigeons and butlers to deliberate the pigeons moves, the real game-state remains as is.

Prize ships promotion is nice - i had one funny game and i kidnapped turtle ships, and english ships of the line. I think for multiplayer its best to leave it how it is, for normal games its hard to justify any action.

units losing promotions when upgrading is not fun and makes you feel like your unit became less special - and the only way to remove it from units on promotion is to also do it to the dutch. unfortunately, that would be less fun for the dutch so i don't see a good way to solve this. nor do i know if i view it as a problem or not and to what end.

 

[elprofesor]

50% chance to convert seems like a bad solution to me. The first conversions in the game make-or-break Germany already, I don't want to have that with other civs too.

I don't really have a good solution for this though. Maybe make it so ships with the "Prize ships" promotion can't be converted. That way you wouldn't have privateers constantly changing sides, but rather sink, and after a while of naval battle, there wouldn't be any more "Prize ships" units left.