Disable Pirates

[Yoozah Dileetid]

Well. Good day!

I play this with a controller. I also played Patrician 4. My problem with Patrician 4 was, that you are unable to disable those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying pirates. They do not pose a threat. They just pop up again every 5 minutes. AND I CAN NOT DISABLE THEM!

I have better things to do then fight in a seabattle I always win. Or: I have better things to do then hunting pirates and fighting them.

So how about this game? Anyone found a way to disable those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ buggers?

[Anonymous Helper]

Not that I know of but over the 31 hours (accoriding to steam) I played the trader campaign I wasn't attacked once by pirates. Pretty much only way I found pirates was quests I got from taverns. I tried to find pirate hideouts few times but never found pirate to follow to it's lair so pirate activity must be pretty low in that campaign.

I just checked the free play mode and it only allows you to increase pirate activity beyond normal, not decrease it. Oh and I haven't tried it but one of the DLC's allows you to play as pirate with your own pirate hideout as your base of operations.

Just so you know town building and towns themselves are more boring compared to at least Patrician 3 (I have 4 but haven't played it yet). Same could be said about sea combat (only 3 vessels per side, poor controls probably designed controller, not mouse and keyboard in mind). Also be warned that game freezes sometimes (seems to happen when you enter town screen) and you'll have to forcibly shut down the game when it happens. It doesn't like anti aliasing either so if clouds fligger and sea turns orange while in town, turn it off.

[Stryderunknown]

From my playthroughs, You have to gain a particular Rank before Pirates start becoming a problem.

[Yoozah Dileetid]

As said... they are not a problem. They are annoying. I do not want them to become a problem. I do not want them to be annoying. I want them turned off. Nothing more. Nothing less.

[Libre Ckut]

One strategy which I love using is to have a bunch of trade convoys consisting of just 1 ship each, with no crew, and no warship. That way they don't get attacked nearly as often, despite not having any way of defending, either.

[Yoozah Dileetid]

That is a nice strategy, thank you very much for taking the time to share it with us. But I am horribly afraid you do not understand what I meant to say. I am unreasonably angry - no! enraged! - that there is NO option (not even via .cfg-files) to turn off pirates completely. It was not there in "Patrician 4" and it is not there in Port Royale 3.

This is absolutely worse then releasing a Zombie-Survival-Game without zombies! I am engulfed in the flames of anger! I do not want my money back (that, I would gladly accept with DayNoZHereBuddy) but to play this game without any NPC-pirates.

May I ask you, if you are able to catch my drift now, good sir?

[Archie]

just curious?? -- well there isn't any direct way to have no pirates - but why do you not like the pirates???
You do not have much time?? so want to build your empire of trading and getting married.
you aren't to good at fighting the pirates - doesn't take to long if you know how to do it.
just do not like fighting??

If you like to make lots of money you need the pirates as you get there loot free goods, you regrow good relations again with a nation you may have pissed off, it is a way, ie if you raid a pirate den, of seeing spectaclar hideouts (pity we cannot use them our selves) and most importantly it is a short cut to getting lots of goods from your factories as it consumes around 10 or 15 days to win.
It is all to easy - you just get your pirate hunting fleet or fleets to eventually get to level 5 in all combat and sailing areas then your aim is more efective etc which lets you attack treasure fleets and get 1 or 2 million a time. You can easily take towns by force and really grow your business - get the tax from each town you own which gets very high with 12000 folk in the town.

I love the fights now but earlier it took ages and ages to win a fight that sometimes could be an hour long. But now I do things differently you need to do as many missions as you can early in the game to gat a carrack from grand bahama then learn to fight - it is easy with practice you eventually need a carrack a liner and caravel to fight with then build the fleet to about 12 boats each arm yourself with 3000 each of grape shot chain shot quickly choose the attack my target choose grape shot for all boats and shoot out the sails of your opponents, followed by the chain shot to get rid of all the crew, then board the boats fix them then them or put them in your attacking fleets. You need to sail ahead of the enemy boat and steer back to shoot them and of course you can use the "Q" key to unfurl the sails so that you are stopped ahead or astern of your target so you don't get hit but you dessimate them.

Of course you get rewards for capturing pirates etc so this is why I am curious as to why you don't like them.

[Yoozah Dileetid]

I would play without pirates, every now and then. I would run around and trade and build and see how I can make progress in a city.
I could even have the game run through a night, leaving my pc running, just to get a few coins to spend them on stuff again later. I could get into endgame and see how it is. When I have done that and am too bored, I would maybe activate pirates in a new game.

Now I can not do that. Everytime I start a game it takes two hours and then BOOM! A cannonshot is played through my speakers. (That was in P4, here you get a message and maybe a voice, telling you "your convoy has problems!" or stuff like that). And that BOOM! happens every BOOM! few BOOM! minutes BOOM!.

Of course I can get myself armed ships and go into battle with those. Of course I would easily defeat the pirates, because I already figured it out in P4 (maybe I would need some time to get into it again, here). But when you defeated those pirates it takes about half an hour - if at all - until there are new pirateships camping somewhere. And lets be honest. They do not attack other ships. Only yours. They do not have a budget or sell the goods they steal from you. They just sit there, raiding, waiting, annoying.

I like pirates in other games. No question. I love to watch "Black Sails" and I liked "Pirates of the Caribbean".

But I simply can not stand these annoying NPC-ships that are just in the game to annoy the ♥♥♥♥ out of you and be an obstacle. An obstacle you can not remove.

I want to train running. Why would I put those jumping-obstacles on my course? That is what the devs did here. It would be so easy. just say "Pirates: off" additionally to "Pirates: normal" and "severe" or whatever the other settings are.

But nope. That option was left out. Brains, please! -.-

Luckily I did not pay for this game.

Sadly, my buddy did and give me this copy. :(

[Darinthal]

Pirates are not normally a problem for me anyway. But once I have a fairly significant level under me and have my own city. I normally build a brothel which reduces pirate attacks. Two or Three cities later and Pirate attacks stop happening all together. Then I can pick and choose when to attack pirates. This also gives me a ready supply of ships for sale to build up cash reserves.

My normal play is belong to a country other than England. Start several trade routs to get some cash moving around then. Build up my fleet till I can take a small British military fleet that has a liner in it. Capture the liner then using that liner I can pick up more of them. Once I have a tidy fleet of 9 Liners fully equiped with Max Chain and Grape shot Max sailors and 2/3rds Muskets and 1/3 Swords this gives you best Attack Strength in Boarding ships and best chance of taking cities. Once you can take a city. Drop enough building materials on site to build your defenses up to 7 (Store them in the warehouse until you have the cash to build the defenses) once your defenses are up to 7 the city is very unlikely to be lost in a retalitory attack. Then build the Brothel, Shipyard and then jump into the manufacturing items to make your city great. Move on to the next city and Rince and Repeat.

[Pappa]

I agree I hate not being able to do a bloody thing about turning them off as well.

Also there should be a reasonable way to configure a convoy to be able to defend its self against most pirate attacks that includes Auto resupply of men and materials while continuing trade route after a auto resolved battle. But there isnt.

I would not mind if once in awhile a elite pirate fleet spawned in an area that just had to be delt with but the frequancy and there ability to take thousands of tons of goods on the three ships they attack with is nutz!

Lets get real If I was running a convoy in real life durring that era eschorted by 3 heavily armed frigates that convoy may have never even been attacked ever during the entire period. The only combat it may have seen was from a nation at war with you and a captain with a fleet and a letter of marque!

Historic pirate fleets, more than a single vessal were rare.

They need to give the player a way to ether turn them off or reduce there power by 100 % or more if they desire. I dont play the game to fight pirates. I play it for the ecinomic simulation.
Again an ocasional elite pirate that requires some more direct intervention fine. Not being able to automate convoy defense in a realistic way not cool!!!

[Yoozah Dileetid]

I bet they will never change this game anymore. I would not wonder if PR4 and 5 do not have any setting for it either, as the devs did not care of improving their games between Patrician1 and Port Royale3.

[LeChevalier88]

How about sending a military convoy to patrol their suspected hideouts or patrol at chokepoints?