Privateers

[Ahab]

I'm working a game going for a 20k city, and for the fun of it, used my coastal cities to produce Privateers to harrass the shipping in a narrow channel between myself and the Aztecs to the north.

Prior to this, the Aztecs were "polite" to me, but within a few turns it had changed to "furious". Can the AI know where the Privateers are coming from and have that affect your standing with them?

There are other reasons why the Aztecs might be mad at me (my hoarding of the world's iron for one) but I was curious if my naval shenagians were at fault here.

Thanks for you opinions.

 

[silver 2039]

Yes the AI's attitude drops when you use hidden natonlity. It also knows where all your units are.

 

[zerksees]

So apparently the only advantage of the privateer is that you can attack without starting a war?

So far I have never built one

 

[silver 2039]

Yeah it's not that useful either. The minute you send it out of port the entire AI navies head for it.

 

[akhenaten]

There are times when it's useful to draw the AI's entire navy to the other side of the world. Mwahahaha!

 

[Jaded_Feriluce]

In the scenario that I made.... the Privateers are way more powerful... but not overwhelmingly so.. I also made it to where they can hold two units... lol so I made the Immortal's have hidden nationality and aphibious assult.... All in all it made the whole privateer thing alot more fun... and since everyone goes for em... Im now the most powerful navy in the world.... half the time. lol

 

[Point13]

i do like privateers, if only to prevent expansion, blockade, and to create diversion to land my troops on an island

 

[superpelon]

Privateers can be really useful in blocking the colonization of those reasource-rich inhibatited islands that pop up when you and the AI discover Navigation and Magnetism. A couple privateers patrolling the waters around one of these islands can kill off any caravels or galleys, creating more privateers in the process...

This happened in my latest game, where i noticed that the AI was desperate to colonize a small continent north of my home islands. I killed galleys, dromons, carracks and even a few galleons while i built a nice colonization expedition.... many turns later that reasource-poor island turned out to have 2 oils, 2 aluminums and rubber.

 

[Balao]

Here's something fun to try. I went into the editor and switched the AI's barbarian naval unit to privateers. Much more challenging.

 

[Mortodo]

I modify privateers to have bombardment capability and then use small groups of them for "resource denial" against my competitors. Actually, the AI uses them against me for this purpose too, but it's not very coordinated.