Pirate Hideouts

  • My solutions for the pirate hideouts up to now has been pretty much scorched earth. I generally have sent in a single ship and played hit and run until the pirate fleet was either sunk or fled, then demolished the towers with it. I tried automatic brute force hits before too, fleets of captured pirate cogs (not much other use for them for me).


    But both are inelegant. All those beautiful pirate ships, wasted. So, just how have other players managed the hideouts? Is there a good way to capture most of the ships without losing too many of your own? What do you think is the best approach?

  • Kill them, kill them all. Well, that is what I have done. I will use 3 or 4 crayers and take everything out in one pass. I have noticed that you can separate a ship from the rolling ball of stupidity which would give one the opportunity to take every ship in the hide out, but then if you sink everyone and go back isn't there always another ship each time? I imagine that hitting the nest 20 times before the contract is up would yield 21 captured ships.

  • AFAIK the only way to capture pirate ships in the nest raid is with an auto-fighting convoy. Holks with large catapults or bombards and cogs with small catapults. It appears that ships with small catapults have a tendency to capture mor than those equipped with the large weapons. 24 ships should suffice, 9 holks the rest cogs, all crewed and armed to the max with 10% extra cutlasses and as many good sailing & fighting captains as you can muster. It may be worth stopping an autoroute and runing it manualy to give the convoy an extra captain.
    I have not gotten a nest mission in eons during the contests since the pirates never capture anything, a requirement to get the nest raid. If they just pilfer one or two ships than the damage will cost more to repair than what you get from looting the nest. A juicy nest will yield over 1M, a poor one just 1 - 2 k.

    Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
    Wer niemals einen Fehler gemacht hat, hat noch nie etwas neues probiert Albert Einstein

  • In standard Game I do like Bitzpro a big convoy fully equipped with captains in Autofight.


    In the contest no raid is offerd. I read that feeding the Pirates with ships will activate the nest missions.
    Take a snaika wiht som goods and let it capture by a Pirate.

    Niemand braucht ein einfaches Spiel! Ein gutes Spiel reicht!


    Für die Dunkle Seite! Auch Piraten wollen Handeln!

  • That will do it. Also, if you leave a ship unmolested to sail once about the Hanse, that can activate the nest mission. Sometimes, if you take every ship, they disappear for many months. In English, that is called "Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs."


    I am running in the contest as a trader, but a left handed one. So, permitting some of the pirates to raid and loot the AI, and benefitting from their piracy is of use to me in that I can take out nests and potentially get more ships. Especially nice is when they are equipped with snaikkas that prey on the AI alone.

  • It's all in the convoy composition. Since I have snaikkas as covoy leaders I can't allow any pirate cog to escape their nests. And since for some strange reason the seas are almost "clean" of white ships, the priates have no other targets than my ships.

    Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
    Wer niemals einen Fehler gemacht hat, hat noch nie etwas neues probiert Albert Einstein