Pirates are DESTROYING me

[hermanJnr.]

Started in 1820. Had one ship, made tons of cash. Got a cog.

Suddenly, PIRATES EVERYWHERE. Every second trip now seems to result in a pirate fleet ambushing me.

And it's always a fleet, and somehow they move so fast that even their Hulks can board my much smaller ships and I pretty much can't do anything to stop it.

I filled the Cog with catapults (thus ruining my ability to trade >_<) and I can beat pirates one-on-one, but now they're in fleets of 3+ and I've basically ragequit because I can't get any income now without having a boat sunk, captured or plundered every third trip.

Help? :(

[Draconyx]

When you end up in a naval battle watch the clouds, the faster they move the faster you can go in that direction and the direction they move in is which way the wind is blowing. Crayers are much nippier than cogs and hulks but can take less damage.

My strategy is to resort to piracy and grab a few unarmed cogs then upgrade them as much as possible and arm them. That gives me at least one ship that I can use for convoys as the defending ship - I never let this one get full of goods and the other ships in the convoy are the cargo carriers. I've gotten a fleet of over 30 ships without building any by doing this. Mostly from pirates that I captured.

[AlP]

I mostly use snaikkas early on. My first cogs are used for pirate hunting. Then I only use cogs in convoys lead by snaikkas, that's mostly safe (pirates try to sink the leader, and the snaikka captain is smart enough to run away).

If your ships have a lot of cargo in them, they move slower, that's why you get captured so much. If you hire a captain with sailing skill, your ship moves faster. I had fully loaded snaikkas with a Sailing 3 captain escape most encounters.

You can also damage the pirate fleet a bit and run away, they'll move slower until they repair. That way they won't be able to capture your ships so easily.

[Zeetarb]

Is it pirates everywhere or the same handful of guys? If they win a few battles they get some more ships and power, and they can travel around. If it's that, then if you can eventually beat them your problems will be reduced.

Otherwise, you can beat up on weaker pirates and capture enough of their ships, eventually you might have a larger convoy with a better chance of keeping on top of these other guys.

In the meantime I guess like the others have said, with smaller, faster, speedier ships you should be able to outrun them. If you auto resolve I think it doesn't work as well though.

[heervandering]

Play on easy (Krämer in German, merchant in English?). Set in 'details*' pirate activity on low, for a better start you can also get 2 ships there. In the beginning I even never take any weapons with me, because you don't get attacked, only if you take a special mission in the inn, than I do it with a crayer, max.sailors with cutlasses and ship ballistae or cannons, bombards. You can board the pirate and take his ship.

[AgentX320]

you need a crayer it's the fastest ship in the game and with only one crayer heavily armed you can chase every pirates fleets of 3 or 4 ships are not a problem cause they can't reach you and you can turn around them shoot and flee it's really free kills

[macbraveheart68]

you should get a pirate hunting fleet together at least 1 crayer captain rating "-,3,4" and 1 cog. capt rating at least "-,4,3" have a full supply of sailors and cutlasses. guns on your ship are not a big deal. I usually under arm my Cog a bit. 1 ship more than the Pirate means you probably won't have to fire a single shot.
Pirates go for Armed ships first usually. I play missions with high Pirate activity because it's basically free ships and weapons. only problem is you can't downgrade a ship once it's upgraded. only flaw in the game really. learn how to maneuver in a battle. "save" before attacking and replay till your comfortable.
Back to pirate hunting
make sure your carrying a small stock of goods in your ships so you can see the pirates. 10 of pretty much anything works i like salt it's cheap. and I usually don't sell it on accident,
At the beginning of the fight try to flee in as many directions as possible. see who chases who if you have a free ship take out the guy you can get to and beat send the others on a slow retreat. once you lock onto a ship from behind move on to your fastest ship and change direction so you don't move off the screen. work the next ship
Pirates go for Armed ships first. it's important to remember that if you instigate an attack you can't surrender. which takes out the domino or spam attack. I think that's what it was called see below
"So you can't attack a cog with a crayer surrender before it's captured and then hit with another and another if necessary. it's possible to have snaikkas capture a hulk in this manner."
remember the pirate convoy leader is the only one with a captain. the others are easy prey.
it is also possible when out matched by ships to maneuver them off the screen it's tricky however and doesn't always leave you any room to get on the remaining guy

[Judaspriester]

i dont have big problems with pirates. i mostly use crainers because they are fast. equip 1 full with weapons, and sail manually in stead of let the ai do the work. sail away, turn, shoot, repeat.
i also already managed to kill 3 pirate cogs with 1 crainer (equiped with 10 cannons) without even get hit once.

if u want to hunt some pirates active, get a hulk, equip it full with cannons and put like 30 skins as cargo in it. then sail around and rape every pirate convoy that tries to get the skins. ;)

[Skindancer]

get your crayer armed to form a convoy and have at least 5 other unarmed crayers join it, dont bother with weapons except cutlass so you have more trading room, once attacked set the leader to flee and once the pirate gives chase run him down with your other boats, capture and repaet, make sure you swamp them one at a time, keep an eye on how many sailers you have to man the boats though, if one of the crayers get captured you should have another boat ready to pounce on him to recapture, works a treat for me and you capture the boats undamaged. make sure you only take on two pirates at most, any more then add more crayers, at least 5 per hulk is a good target.