Pirating and hunting pirates

[Nikki]

So I wanted to know if I have a fleet hunting pirates in node X BUT also have another fleet privateering in that same node, do they conflict with each other? Is it worth more to just hunt pirates in my main node and do pirating myself in another node?

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

If you pirate at all, it's never worth doing in your main node, because you're stealing a portion of your own trade income to then give to yourself. Pirate in wealthy nodes near you that you aren't collecting in, especially if doing so also steals the income of your rivals or future conquests.

[Nikki]

Oh okay, got it. Thank you

[Omniconda]

pirating rivals also give Power projection, its only worth doing so in your own node if you have a very small share of the trade and or you need a %age to become a priate

[RCMidas]

I wonder, if you had a sufficiently boosted privateering efficiency value, would privateering in one of your own nodes give you more money than just trading/protecting trade?

[Malvastor]

Początkowo opublikowane przez RCMidas:

I wonder, if you had a sufficiently boosted privateering efficiency value, would privateering in one of your own nodes give you more money than just trading/protecting trade?

So, I'm just hypothesizing based on the wiki- don't really have the patience to properly set up a test- but based on what I see there:

1. Privateering increases the trade power of a placeholder Pirate nation in that node. 50% of what that placeholder earns is divvied among the nations privateering the node.

2. Privateer efficiency doesn't seem to increase earnings directly; it just increases the trade power your pirate ships add.

3. When collecting trade on the other hand, you get 100% of the earnings modified by trade efficiency, which apparently caps at 200%.

4. So given a hypothetical node with a total trade value of 10, if you pirate 100% of the trade power in the node you're getting 5 ducats. Nothing else will boost that amount. Whereas if you have 100% trade power and collect from that node with, you could get as much as 20 ducats, based on the equation the wiki lists.

5. Also, if you're relying on piracy to get income from a node, I don't think there's a way to avoid splitting it with anyone else pirating that node- since based on how Hunt Pirates works I think it would decrease the trade power of the dummy Pirate nation, not the individual nations contributing to it. So you might wind up splitting that 5 ducats with other nations, with no way to stop it short of war. (That might be the direct answer to OP's question- hunting pirates will decrease the trade power of all pirates including yours).

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_warfare#Effects

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Trade#Collecting_trade

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_warfare#Hunt_pirates

[RCMidas]

Shame, of all the mechanical shenanigans that exist, that one would at least be amusing to minmax. Would make for a better Tall RP Pirate game at any rate. Looks like you'd still be about 40% Privateer Efficiency short of overcoming a full 200% Trade Efficiency if that WAS how it worked anyway, crunching the numbers elsewhere.

[Malvastor]

Początkowo opublikowane przez RCMidas:

Shame, of all the mechanical shenanigans that exist, that one would at least be amusing to minmax. Would make for a better Tall RP Pirate game at any rate. Looks like you'd still be about 40% Privateer Efficiency short of overcoming a full 200% Trade Efficiency if that WAS how it worked anyway, crunching the numbers elsewhere.

If that were possible, it would be interesting to try and baffle out an in-universe justification for how stealing your own trade is somehow more profitable than collecting it normally like a sane empire.

[Omniconda]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Malvastor:

Początkowo opublikowane przez RCMidas:

Shame, of all the mechanical shenanigans that exist, that one would at least be amusing to minmax. Would make for a better Tall RP Pirate game at any rate. Looks like you'd still be about 40% Privateer Efficiency short of overcoming a full 200% Trade Efficiency if that WAS how it worked anyway, crunching the numbers elsewhere.

If that were possible, it would be interesting to try and baffle out an in-universe justification for how stealing your own trade is somehow more profitable than collecting it normally like a sane empire.

the insurance money,

[Njorl]

Początkowo opublikowane przez RCMidas:

I wonder, if you had a sufficiently boosted privateering efficiency value, would privateering in one of your own nodes give you more money than just trading/protecting trade?

If you are a Caribbean nation and colonial powers control the gold sources in the new world, then absolutely pirate yourself. The money involved in ordinary trade and privateering is peanuts compared to the treasure fleet seizures.