How the heck do i use the friggen privateers?

[Kinimod]

Hmmm.. well, apart from the total lack of any multiplayer whatsoever, including hotseat () the game is pretty good. the civilopedia is pretty useless tho. For instance, it says: use privateers to attack other civ shipping without identifying yourself (hence not provoking war). However, it does not say HOW you attack the shipping . I try to just move into a city w/ a port... no attacking settlements, it says. I have 6 privateers fortified around the city.. nothing. What do i do? Are they just for attacking enemy boats??? I dont actually get luxuries or strategic resources?? In any event, if anyone has figured out how you use the stupid pirates, please reply to this post. In the meantime, I will be conducting further research ingame...

[Jaybe]

Privateers are for attacking other shipping.
OTH, I had a Privateer looking for some 'not yet an enemy' (I hadn't declared war yet) and a caravel of a friend of mine attacked and sank it. They obviously thought my "pirates" were a threat to the shipping lanes.

[Vitmore The Great]

I think "attack shipping" just means you can attack other ships (eg. triemes) of other civs without the a declaration of war. They don't know you did it. But the downside to Privateers is that they are not very powerful, so you would be discouraged from mass producing them. But I do think it is somewhat suspicious that a trieme (from ancient times) ALWAYS beats my Privateer (with Age of Sail cannons). In fact, it pisses me off and is very unrealistic. The Privateer is totally useless if it cannot even beat the earliest type of ship.

Vitmore

[Spagina]

Yeah Vitmore, that's one of my beefs too. I've had a frigate armada annihilated by a couple tireme's. Really takes the wind out of your sails (No pun intended) when early aged boats can sink massive ships with cannons.

I've been wondering though. How does one blockade a port so they can't ship out resources and bring resources in? I've been trying to blockade a computer port with my frigates, but I can't seem to cut them off.

[player1]

Prvatters have stats of 1/1/3 like GALLEY.
I thnik that this is an error, not design decision.
Hope that it will be change in patch (to maybe 2/1/4 like in manual)

[Dida]

you can change this on your own, with the editor.

[Vitmore The Great]

Originally posted by Spagina
Yeah Vitmore, that's one of my beefs too. I've had a frigate armada annihilated by a couple tireme's. Really takes the wind out of your sails (No pun intended) when early aged boats can sink massive ships with cannons.

I've been wondering though. How does one blockade a port so they can't ship out resources and bring resources in? I've been trying to blockade a computer port with my frigates, but I can't seem to cut them off.

The manual says you blockade a city by occupying every ocean square touching it with a ship.

Vitmore

[Admiral PJ]

I'm glad the privateers aren't too powerful, it pis*ses me off no end when an enemy sinks my transport with 6 units on it.. imagine even friendly civs being able to sink all my transports!
Maybe privateers should not be able to attack weak transports or a war will be declared.. it will be seen as butchery by the other nations.

[Spagina]

Thanks Vitmore. I've been occasionally flipping through the manual to find a lot of the stuff, I must have missed it.

[Rommel393]

Your problems with losing naval battles to tirmes by more modern ships has never happened to me. My first game, I built a fleet of 2 frigates and 2 privateers, to destroy about 5 barbarian tiremes that were hovering around my coastline. All the ships were built around the same time and within 3 turns. All the tiremes were dead, and I hadn't lost a ship. The privateers killed 3 of them. Both of the pirates had lost 1 hp and the frigates didn't take any damage. Since then, I have fought many naval battles/wars and have never lost a ship to a tireme. I think you guys have just been getting unlucky.

BTW, I think when they say "use privateers to attack other civ shipping without identifying yourself ", it means you can only attack enemy ships, not trade.

[Jason]

Incidentally, although this may be undesirable for play balance, Galleys were actually able to capture "roundships", especially when becalmed. They didn't have to rely on sail in combat. On the other hand, their shallow draught meant they couldn't mount many cannon, if any.

Once roundships got more ability to maneuver with less windpower it started getting a little more uneven, and of course galleys required huge manpower and had limited range, etc.

[Pyrodrew]

I'm glad the privateers aren't too powerful, it pis*ses me off no end when an enemy sinks my transport with 6 units on it.. imagine even friendly civs being able to sink all my transports!

Prvatters have stats of 1/1/3 like GALLEY.
I thnik that this is an error, not design decision.
Hope that it will be change in patch (to maybe 2/1/4 like in manual

I would think 2/1/3 would be better.

[Grunthex]

Originally posted by player1
Prvatters have stats of 1/1/3 like GALLEY.
I thnik that this is an error, not design decision.
Hope that it will be change in patch (to maybe 2/1/4 like in manual)

I think it is a design decision, just not a great one. I like 2/1/3, just the extra point of attack. That means they can usually beat galleys (which they should), sometimes beat frigates and caravels on the attack (but not always), and tend to get soundly beaten if frigates attack them. I don't think 2/1/4 is quite right, most pirate/privateers were smaller ships, and don't have the high ocean speed of the larger ships.

[Sarxis]

2.1.4 sounds good to me. The Privateers cost just as much as the Galleons and the Frigates. The Frigs have 2 for attack and defense, plus can bombard. The Galleons have 2 for defense, and can transport 3 units. The 4 for movement actually gives the Privateers a fighting chance. I have noticed that the AI will pretty much always blow them out of the water when spotted. So otherwise, the privateers are just plain sitting ducks with their defense and slow movement rate.

[Spagina]

Rommel, barbarian tireme's are easy to sink, it's other civilization's tireme's that offere a lot of problems for me and my frigates.

[FeathersMcGraw]

In the one game where I tried to make use of privateers, I needed about a 3:1 ratio of veteran privateers to other civilization's galleys/caravels. I chose to spend my production energies cranking out settlers, workers, and defense units for a new continent instead of trying to blockade the computer from getting there. I have to admit, this made for a very interesting 1700-1900 imperialist age, as the computers and I raced to claim unused space on the free continent, but it also suggested to me that the privateer is essentially a worthless unit with the current settings.

I'd really like to see the numbers tweaked so that a privateer should be able to take out a single galley (but has tougher odds trying to take out two without repairs), maybe 50/50 against a caravel, and may require force of numbers to overwhelm a galleon. Yes, I know I could go after the game with an editor, but I barely have time enough to finish my games now, let alone playtest and balance.

[Plutarck]

The reason the barbarian ships were so easy is because the player receives a bonus when attacking barbarians which is decided based upon what difficulty you're playing at. I believe on the easiest level the bonus is as much as 150% against barbarians.

That's why the barbarian's seem so easy while the other civs seem so damn hard.

[player1]

I also think taht Caralvels should have a defense of 1, since in those days, ship cannons where not yet discovered.

Anyway I don't see a reason of having Caravel with defense higher that Privaters (these ships where small).

That way Privatters & Frigates can sink Galleys, Caravels & Privateers easily (if attacking), but Galleons & Firagtes only if they are lucky.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I don't even have the game yet, so this is just a shot in the dark:

Does the privateer behave like the partisan in CivII? That is, does it have a huge attack bonus against any ships with an attack strength of zero? (Are there ships with an attack = 0?) Or is the only bonus the safety from a bad reputation?

Could borders have an effect? That is, if the ship is attacked within your borders, or outside it's own, is there a bonus?

It sounds odd that a unit designed for "attacking" would be so weak.

[Auslander]

I think the privateer should be more powerful ( 2/1/4.) However I have seen my privateers defeat enemy frigates. One thing I found is the AI will hunt down your privateers. Even if they haven't done anything yet. My allies typically destroy my privateers even when they are on enemy territory. Like when I was trying to secretly help the AI in a naval battle, he attacked my ship! Ignoring the ships he was attacking. Oh well, that's how it should be I guess.

I would have made the privateer an automated only unit. (or maybe have a (P)irate command that works like (E)xplore) Which is how a privateer works anyway. They are commissioned by a government then operate for their own profit. They would automatically target the most wealthy Civs (except the commissioning civ) since they would be the ones carrying gold, etc.

Also I have never seen the AI create their own privateers. Wonder if that's because it has the stats of a floating chariot.

[marcuspeddle]

Perhaps the people at Firaxis were thinking of this song when they designed the privateer with its somewhat weak attack.

Barrett's Privateers
by Stan Rogers

Oh the year was seventeen seventy eight
I wish I were in Sherbrooke now!
A letter of marque came from the King
To the scummiest vessel I've ever seen
God Damn them all! I was told
We'd cruise the seas for American gold
We'd fire no guns, shed no tears
Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett's privateers.

Oh Elcid Barrett cried the town,
For twenty brave men, all fishermen, who
Would make for him the Antelope's crew,

The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight.
She'd a list to port and her sails in rags,
And a cook in the scuppers with staggers and jags.

On the King's birthday we put to sea.
We were ninety-one days to Montego bay,
Pumping like madmen all the way.

On the ninety-sixth day we sailed again.
When a bloody great Yankee hove in sight
With our cracked four-pounders we made to fight

The Yankee lay low down with gold.
She was broad and fat and loose in stays,
But to catch her took the Antelope two whole days

Then at length we stood two cables away.
Our cracked four-pounders made an awful din,
But with one fat ball the Yank stove us in.

The Antelope shook and pitched on her side.
Barrett was smashed like a bowl of eggs,
And the maintruck carried off both me legs.

So here I lay in my twenty-third year.
It's been six years since we sailed away,
And I just made Halifax yesterday.

Copyright Fogarty's Cove Music, Inc.