Back in the old days, in Patrician 2, holks were rare and difficult to come by. I had always wanted to capture them in as undamaged a condition as possible. With a convoy of smaller ships, it was possible to board (and lose the boarding battle) while positioning the next two ships in the convoy against the hulls and immediately retake the lost first ship and also engage the holk again. Each loss of a battle against the holk left it with fewer crew members, and you ultimately captured it undamaged.
The strategy is applicable in Patrician 3 also, and in fact is a bit easier. It often happens at the beginning that you do not have a large ship, either to take a pirate vessel, or to take an AI cog; the best you can do is smash it into kindling. In P3, attack with a convoy of small ships using your worst ship first to board, and while the boarding battle is going on, send your next ship up against the hull prepared to board. Just before your first ship is utterly defeated, hit its surrender icon (white flag). Your ship isn't taken (but is looted) and the battle is immediately resumed with your second ship. The enemy has a smaller crew now, and with a small fleet of snaikkas cascading upon him you can capture any ship without firing upon it. With a pirate, he never takes the surrendered ship, but sometimes will fire upon it if you are not well positioned in the boarding battles.
Levon's Gold Nugget is well adapted to a cascade type strategy, and can be an infinite money exploit if you pirate. Give a cog, or holk, preferably with no catapults, etc, aboard to the pirate in the tavern, best a poor one who offers you the most share of profits. Set it to sail in a limited area near the city. Have a convoy, one ship (the leader) with full crew and cutlasses, the second a large vessel of the same type you gave the pirate, full of the most valuable cargo, furs are best, and a captain who is excellent in fighting skills, and preferably a third ship identical to the second but empty of cargo. These next two ships should have no cutlasses at all but have full crews. Attack the pirate with your leader, and loot the pirate. This is to steal all his cutlasses and it prevents killing crews on either side. Next, you attack the pirate again, but with the second ship full of the rich cargo and the icon set to loot rather than capture, and immediately on boarding, surrender. He loots your ship, and pays you your share. Next, you attack again and similarly have the ship set to loot; board, and loot him; you defeat him because your captain is a better fighter and the pirate is outnumbered as well. Neither crew takes losses in numbers. From here on, no crew is lost on your ship or the pirate ship, and you can board/surrender/get paid, retake the cargo, board/surrender/get paid as many times as you wish, chasing him around the area.
I like and use the Cascade a lot. The Gold Nugget modification as outlined above is ideal, but really is just a money exploit, and I rarely have used it. It probably should be allowed in your contest games for the white doves, if they finally destroy the pirate so he never attacks any AI ships.
