Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (Full Version)

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aaatoysandmore -> Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/2/2014 11:30:24 AM)

I'm not sure I like Pirates expansion as much as the other ones but I like the challenge more for the most part.

If only the other expansions made you start out in them in pre-warp and you encountered the other races instead of all these pirates. There's nothing less than 6 pirate factions I've discovered in my latest game and I'm just getting started and of course they ALL want protection money (that I surely can't afford in the beginning) and one even attacked me and then cut off just as I was about to be destroyed saying something like "next time don't be so cheap pal" lol Then comes back with like 6x the amount of money he wanted for protection I couldn't afford in the first place.

Some things are just sort of ridiculous in Pirates the expansion. Like my own citizens revolted and I was +1 on the positive side. No warning, no hey buddy lower taxes or we're gonna make you wish you had Obamacare. [:D] And they also with 64k to my 1k of troops left pulled off at the last second and gave me the chance to get approval back up to +8 at least.

Money is so well needed in the early game I can't believe there are so many events that require you to give it up so often and readily. I mean it's like the devloper went out of his way to make the game harder that way instead of improving the ai performance. Then felt sorry for us at the last minute and pulls off attacks and revolts that would take us out of the game. Such a wonderful guy. [:-]



Unforeseen -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/2/2014 11:39:16 AM)

First of all, you could have simply reduced the # of pirates in the game and set them to spawn further away from you. Second of all, building and running a fledgeling SPACE EMPIRE is not going to be 'easy' or 'cheap.



Bigtouf -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/2/2014 12:45:13 PM)

Yes ! First time it's INSANE ! They are like vultures ready to eat YOU ! But with a good synchro you may :
- Take Protection with some pirates
- Slowly increase your fleet/Defensive Base/Firepower
- Get some "Defensive Contract"

Try to have Positive Income (also if it's a ridiculous income >+1k) and grow, groW, GROW !

And after some years, give them a backslah by fighting pirates one after the other !




aaatoysandmore -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/2/2014 1:22:04 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

First of all, you could have simply reduced the # of pirates in the game and set them to spawn further away from you. Second of all, building and running a fledgeling SPACE EMPIRE is not going to be 'easy' or 'cheap.



I wanted a Pirate game (like real pirates that stormed the sailing seas and plundered ships) not Pirates the MAFIA that want protection money everytime you turn your back. That's all I see in this version is Pirate Mafia. Hell, they hardly even bother my ships they come after the main planet/colony all the time.



Unforeseen -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/2/2014 1:49:35 PM)

Ah yeah well..it's kinda somewhat in line with the story if you read the backstory for shadows in the manual. But you can make some edits, firstly in the game creation screen you an edit how many pirate factions there are, how close they are to you, how strong they are at game start, and if they respawn when you or someone else destroys their faction.

Also, about the MAFIA attitude they tend to have, it won't completely alleviate the effect but you can go into the race files and make it so that all races are raiders. Normally there are three personality types, Raider, Smuggler and balanced. Raiders tend to attack more often, smugglers don't attack as much and instead focus on selling you resources which help you build ships early on, and obviously balanced is kind of in between.

You can also optionally choose not to accept the protection agreement. But i don't really advise this in a prewarp game. As i said in the other thread, i think you should possibly not play Prewarp and instead playing a regular game. You will start out pretty much with all the resources you need to get started and be able to immediately start constructing colony ships.



Keston -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/2/2014 7:05:31 PM)

There are also Mercenary pirates oriented to "kinetic" contracts. All flavors want to sell security services at a price that seems to relate to both how strong you are and maybe how strong they are.

The trick of course is not to open the pop up until after you check intelligence on the faction through the diplomacy window. Right now in my game there are pirates who want money ranging from those with almost nothing left to those with firepower exceeding half at least half the empires - and that's not including the Legendary ones. The Legendary ones are another reason to check intel first before clicking on pirate messages, since then I might have agreed to pay them, at least for a while. But I clicked no first, and they did not give me a second chance. With another war under way to win first, it took a lot of effort to take down their base on my border, and their substantial attacks delayed things overall.



EsoEs -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 3:05:11 AM)

I went straight from Legends to Universe, and man the pirates in Universe are serious!! I like to play on Chaotic/Extreme, but the pirates are absolutely brutal. Even when toning down there strength, if more than 1 pirate group finds you early it is SUPER difficult to get off the ground. They basically suck up all the income you would be using to build a military, and use your money to upgrade theirs!

I'm now playing Few/Weak/Distant pirates, I know the Collaborative Series somehow managed to deal with them, but I certainly can't!



aaatoysandmore -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 3:23:58 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: EsoEs

I went straight from Legends to Universe, and man the pirates in Universe are serious!! I like to play on Chaotic/Extreme, but the pirates are absolutely brutal. Even when toning down there strength, if more than 1 pirate group finds you early it is SUPER difficult to get off the ground. They basically suck up all the income you would be using to build a military, and use your money to upgrade theirs!

I'm now playing Few/Weak/Distant pirates, I know the Collaborative Series somehow managed to deal with them, but I certainly can't!


I don't know whether to continue this one or not as I said I've run into no less than SIX pirate races in my own back yard solar system. I just now figured out how to get a colony ship (see other post) and I haven't even discovered a colony that I can colonize. Everything is of another form to my own faction like ocean, desert and others that I need tech a million turns away to colonize and there are no independents around.

It seems like Pirates went "extremely" the other way of the other expansions and while I found those too easy I find Pirates rediculously harder. I don't know if I could even handle a real war with them as they just pulverized me our first meeting but let me go after blowing up my space port. It just seems Pirates is an expansion for the extremely sadistic type who wants more challenge than he or anyone else can handle and instead of the middle to end game being that way it's the beginning game that is that way now. If you get by the beginning it's going to be like all the rest and basically just a delaying action to the endgame you got from the other ones. I wish this type of play was in the other expansions/games, but only in the middle or end game not the start where it just frustrates you to no end with demand after demand that you just cannnot afford if you want to expand or even have half a chance to expand.

I will try your suggestion Unseen and restart and check proper boxes. I thought I had asked that Pirates be futher away but I guess not. Six in my own back yard is pretty ridiculous though and that's just the ones I've found so far. I did ask for the largest universe though I know that because it is HUGE (I never seen so many stars in my life I think, not even in the real world lol). '

Thanks for everyone's input, I'll try A Brave New Start (sounds like a game title huh and see what happens in the next one. Hopefully there won't be so many pirates in my back yard. thanks. [:)]



Max 86 -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 4:04:19 PM)

When pirates started coming at me with Capital ships and Cruisers I stopped playing and started over. Its just too ridiculous to think that any pirate faction could develop the infrastructure to build large ships. They should not be allowed to build anything larger than DD and FF and if they happen to board and capture something bigger then ok. But that should be the extent of their power.

The nature of the 'pirate culture' and all that it entails precludes them from ever rising up into a major power and any that do should be a rare occurrence and not the 'rule'.




ReadeB -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 6:10:53 PM)

They likely "found" the capitals after an AI triggered them to pop into existence.

I've had many times where I got a message about an abandoned ship only to be beaten to them and have to fight it instead.

I am fighting clouds of pirates at the moment and it's a bit rough. Funny to watch them fight each other over who can raid my colonized independents. The raids end up getting stopped by ground troops anyway.

Looks like I'll need titan beams just to put them in their place.



Unforeseen -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 7:01:28 PM)

Speaking of that, what happens when a pirate captures a colony ship?



Aeson -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 7:05:08 PM)

The pirates acquire a colony ship which can be used to found a new independent colony at an appropriate planet. If the pirates have already transitioned to something more similar to a standard empire (i.e. they've taken full control over a colony), that 'independent' colony might instead be a colony of your own, but I'm not certain. It's been a while since I played as a pirate faction.



Ceorl -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 7:17:50 PM)

Its very random what will happen when a pirate finds a colony ship. I believe if the colony ship has a population that is friendly to the pirate's race there is a good chance that the pirates will get a free colony like normal empires, happened to me at least twice that I can recall. 9 times out 10 however, the race won't be friendly, the colony will immediately revolt and a new neutral world will appear. I think the pirate AI isn't programmed to take advantage of this as I've yet to see an AI pirate colony spring up.

As for the Cruiser and Capital "discovery" ya that's a 4x "feature" that's been annoying me since Gal Giv 2. Really wish there was a way to turn off the feature as it causes wild swings in game balance. Or at least incorporate the find into the gameplay in a way that allows the other factions to destroy the ship before it becomes a threat, kinda like the debris fields and world destroyer debris.

As for pre-warp standard empires, a large spaceport on your homeworld will fight off almost anything short of a "discovered" capital ship if you really don't want to pay the ransom. Otherwise try a game as the Teekans, they can generally can pay off pirates till the sun comes up.

On a side note, I'm fairly certain protection agreements with pirates gives you access to their resources which your merchants will then pay for and pick up from their starbases. Might be useful to boost your development or fill a resource gap. As a smuggler pirate I always wish there was a way for me to ask for a token protection agreement as I'm far more interested in setting up a trading network to earn mining income than money from protection fees.



BigWolfChris -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 8:45:52 PM)

If we had a way to completely disable ruins (outside of the required warp-bubble ruin for pre-warp games) and abandoned ships, you'd find the pirates most likely being alot weaker
Also, bare in mind, in pre-warp games pirates have quite a hell of a range advantage by fact of already using Gerax drives



Euler -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 8:59:34 PM)

When you get your first good fleet going you can go around smashing pirate bases. It's a great coming of age moment in the universe.



ciadude2 -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 11:04:27 PM)

I always play shadows era games.

My typical strategy is to research shields as my first energy tech and fighters as my first weapons tech. Pay the pirates off til I have my space port built. Then I cancel the protection, and smash anyone who has the balls to attack my homeworld.

While that's going on, I only build 2 exploration ships until I get the warp bubble, at which point I build two more and two construction ships. When I get the Gerax hyperdrive(the first 'real' hyperdrive) that's when I really start my fleet in earnest, along with a more construction ships as needed, and usually a couple dozen exploration ships.
I divide up my fleets based on what function I want them to have. Typically my first fleet will be a defensive fleet and my second will be an offensive fleet(around 10-15 ships each) with a couple of 'strike' fleets of around 5-10 frigates and escorts. Unless I'm playing with a LOT of really strong pirates nearby, this is usually plenty to handle them early on(and sometimes I'll build a defensive platform or whatever it's called if I'm really taking a lot of heat)
Towards mid game I'll build some 20-30 ship fleets specifically designed to take over systems(so lots of heavy ships and 4-6 troop transports).
After that, if necessary while facing a really powerful enemy, I'll create a huge 40-50+ fleet which I've taken to calling "The Armada" to stamp out strong points of enemy empires.
As for defending against pirate troops, 1 or 2 planetary defenders are probably going to be fine against most pirate raids assuming they get past your space defenses.

These tactics work for me. Other players might have better options, or even think my strategies are stupid lol. I encourage you to experiment and find the strategy that works for you.



Rhikore -> RE: Man, nothing but Pirates, everywhere you look Pirates!! (7/3/2014 11:53:20 PM)

Pro Tip: The second your first pirates show up, immediately go to Characters Screen, and Assign your Intel Agent(s)to begin Inciting a Revolution with said pirates as the target.
Ive found that inciting revolutions/Sabotaging Construction at the home of the nearest pirates tends to take the steam right out of them.



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