How does piracy works?

[Pedrunn]

I see piracy is one great feature of the game but how does it really work and what penalties are given to the city who is pirating? what bonus is given to the pirating civ? And there really is a chance of breaking the trade route?

- Thanks in advance

[Martin Gühmann]

I think the piracy event doesn't work in CTP2 as it should work like in the CTP1 there is something broken. I can imagine that the Civ that pirates gets a regard penalty but I don't know actual. According the const.txt you should gain 30 gold if you intercept trade. Don't know for a certain number of turn or only once.

Acoording the const.txt there is chance of 80 (possible 80%) that the trader is killed. Does this mean only a trade unit or the trade route if just a trade unit is killed the trade route could stay intact. But maybe one could try if a floating variable would be better there and it just doesn't work anymore, because they changed it from interger to float but forgot to change it there. (Actual very unlikely.)

The last entry about piracy is the waste coefficient of 0.8, don't know what this means maybe if the route is pirated 80% of the possible income is wasted so that you only earn 20% of the normal income of gold.

According the strategies.txt an I will cancel a trade route if it is pirated in three following turns at least three times.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

Looks like those lines are toally unused. Thats wht made me start this thread after all I had never seen a route break because of piracy despite the const.txt values. Make the
I decided to test it.
-Here are the results i ran to:
-Piracy does not give any gold to the pirating civ.
-Piracy does not brak routes.
The pirated civ looses only get 50% of the gold they should get from the trade route.
It seems the piracy is more for annoyance than actually to get be strategic bonus. I have got to change this.

[SMIFFGIG]

I have got to change this

YAY

[child of Thor]

pedrunn, i've seen the AI break a trade route because of my pillaging - more than a few times. I usually send out a few subs when i can spare them just for this task. I'm not sure how many turns of pillageing it takes to break the route, and i think you have to actually perform the pirate action each turn, if you just do it the once and leave your unit there i think it doesn't affect the trade route. I'm suspicious of the AI's means to found a new trade route. It will just switch to another route, seemingly without cost as it can do it indefinatly. So my subs go back and forth - cut of one trade route - then go to the next one. I don't know how much money i get from this - but i sort of noticed a slight increase in my gold as i pirated the route.

[Pedrunn]

pillaging or pirating?
I did notice any increase but i will do the test again.

[Martin Gühmann]

It depends on the mod and on the AI personality how orten you have to pirate the route before the AI will break. You can find the values for this in the *strategies.txt's of the mods.

There you find something like this:

    // only accumulate count of piracy if it occurs within
    // memory of last piracy
    PiracyMemoryTurns 3

    // number of piracy events to accumulate before we kill the route
    MaxPiracyEvents 10

This means in GoodMod you need to pirate the one AI trade route ten within 3 turns before it breaks the route.

-Martin

[HuangShang]

damn does that mean all the pirating that i do deosn't help me a bit?
NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Pedrunn]

No it does, i hadnt noticed because the money is only given in the beginning of the next turn. And it is a lot of money more than half of the trade route gold and seem to be random.

[child of Thor]

Sorry pedrunn i did mean pirating, not pillageing. I always pirate an enemy's trade routes. I've definatly seen it change the route in SAP.

Martin, it's early so i might have missed something in what you said,but you are saying that in 3 turns you need to pirate the same trade route 10 times before the AI will change the route? I thought you could only perform the pirate act once per turn per unit? i'm ready to be red-faced when i get your explanation!
ok i got it by looking through the slic! sorry!

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by child of Thor
Sorry pedrunn i did mean pirating, not pillageing. I always pirate an enemy's trade routes. I've definatly seen it change the route in SAP.

Martin, it's early so i might have missed something in what you said,but you are saying that in 3 turns you need to pirate the same trade route 10 times before the AI will change the route? I thought you could only perform the pirate act once per turn per unit? i'm ready to be red-faced when i get your explanation!
ok i got it by looking through the slic! sorry!

You can use multiple naval craft to pirate the same route at different points. I've done this a few times, and the AI will break the route. I have also notice, however, that the route does not stay broken and will reappear after a certain number of turns.

[child of Thor]

If you use multiple pirate attacks do you get multiple benefits? I use just one unit per trade route when i pirate, mainly to try to economically squeeze my enemy(i don't think it is very effective in game,but it should be). And yes it does switch back - i guess the main trade routes it sets up are the most profitable, so when you pirate them enough to break the route, i guess the AI will switch to the next most profitable and so on. When it sees it's most profitable route is open again it changes back to that. At least it seems to work like this. Now if i could get multiple benifits from multiple pirating that would be great!

[TheArsenal]

That's a good question. I don't actually track my benefits when attacking at multiple points along a trade route. I do it because the AI will shut down that route more quickly. I have also found the AI does not track your pirate ships, and will reestablish a trade route right in their path again if you have not moved your ships since your last round of pirating.