Constant pirate attacks

[issssk]

Does anyone know how to deal with these pesky pirate attacks? I'm in the first mission and constantly have to deal with pirates attacking me. I have two attacks simultaneously going on, on two different islands. If I deal with them, it only takes about 10 min for the next attack. I need to build double watchtowers (one won't stop them) everywhere, and I can't afford to build 30+ towers. This seems terribly bad by design. Is there no better way to deal with this?

[Genesis]

I was playing multiplayer with a friend and faced the same issue from game start. They kept coming every few minutes. This is after the most recent update.

[MjrPvtParts]

i have 1 tower and 1 barrack on the central island, and 1 tower on the volcano island. That seems enough to handle to constant island attacks, the troops from the barracks just go across the ocean when they need to. This is on normal difficulty.

[Skybreaker]

Hi everybody,
please be aware with the latest update, we introduced an option to set pirate difficulty and even an option to turn those attacks completely off.

-cheers

[la merde]

Isn't it an issue, that the effected building is not active as long as the "under attack" sign on top of it is showing (no matter if they are surrounding the building or not)?
So it constant making chaos in the economy.

[issssk]

@Unerde : Thats great, but where is that option? I looked all over the options menu and can't find it.

[Imi]

引用自 issssk：

@Unerde : Thats great, but where is that option? I looked all over the options menu and can't find it.

You can set this when you start a new sandbox game.

There is a new drop down "Pirate Difficulty" in the panel (next to all the other settings like the victory conditions)

[issssk]

引用自 Imi：

引用自 issssk：

@Unerde : Thats great, but where is that option? I looked all over the options menu and can't find it.

You can set this when you start a new sandbox game.

There is a new drop down "Pirate Difficulty" in the panel (next to all the other settings like the victory conditions)

Ah ok, sandbox. I'm still in the first mission unfortunately, but I'll remember it for later.

[Imi]

引用自 issssk：

引用自 Imi：

Ah ok, sandbox. I'm still in the first mission unfortunately, but I'll remember it for later.

Oh, well.. for Missions, you can only decrease the overall difficulty which will also lower the frequency and strength of pirate attacks (among lower difficulty in other parts of the game).

But they should be quite winnable even in harder difficulty settings.

BTW.. if you like the mission map landscape and want to play them in sandbox-fashion to "take your time", you can start every mission map also in sandbox mode (and then disable pirate attacks completely) ;)

[vega]

imi you got a refund request inc. lets hope you and steam play ball.

[OogaJiggaWooga]

A tip for anyone else having this issue, it costs $500 but you can almost instantly relocate an existing guard tower to intercept a pirate attack so you never need more than 1 guard tower (the guards teleport with the tower). Make sure you place it near the targeted building on the side that the pirates are approaching from

[Zephyr]

This is indeed an absolutely terrible mechanic for a variety of reasons.

1)The tutorial doesn't prepare you at all to pirates. Criminals? Yes, it's covered. The tutorial explains how they work, hide, need to be discovered and how to deal with them. Rebels? Same thing. Pirates? Absolutely not. Therefore you arrive on the first mission not knowing pirates even exist.

2)In previous games, when pirates attacked, it was a one strike thing. They would target a building, attack it, raze it if it was undefended, and then, they LEFT. Now, they raze one building, then another, then another, then another, and it never stops until they are dead. Worse, in previous games you had a pirate relation meter. You could very well keep good relations with them by doing trade missions for smugglers for example, which often were a bit detrimental compared to the regular prices, but bought you safety. The new system make pirates more like like killer robots than pirates. They destroy everything and take nothing. There isn't even a threshold after which they take their ill gotten gains and leave. You can't even negociate with them, and you can't pay to get them to go away.

3)The way fighting works isn't well covered by the tutorial. You don't understand how to place the towers properly, just you need some, somehow, and again, you think it's only for guerillas. Also, your palace guard no longer helps during attacks, which is properly ridiculous, as they did in previous games once again. There is no reason for this huge step backward other than inconveniencing players. You need a fort to have a standing army. Fort has a non negligeable cost. It also needs a blueprint. Sure, guard towers can keep pirates away assuming you know where they are coming from. But in the event they somehow get past the towers, which happens even though they should not, as the soldiers there should block them and fight them, you need that fighting force. Basically all that are things you need foreknowledge for, which is very bad, as a lot of people will have to restart their first mission after they realise they have lost so much in repairing that their economy is tanked for good.

4)The frequency is ridiculous. Not only that, but you have no warning, or ways to have a warning. You would think after being gunned down the first time, or even multiple times, they would understand it's not a good idea to keep trying. It's tedious, it's not logical, it's not fun, and if you know how to deal with it, and have a good enough economy to get a fort and the people to man it, at some point it becomes a non-issue. A non-issue which cost you money which could be used for more interesting things.

So, to sum it up, it's annoying, it offers no way for the player to interact with them in any meaningful way, offer no real managing challenge, offer no different options or way to deal with it, is something brought to the game out of nowhere without tutorial integration to teach the players, is something you get hit by right of the bat, leaving players with a negative vision of the game("The game is going to be like this all the time, this sucks"). It is a huge design flaw.

So, at that point, you have two options, you get rid of it completely. No one will mourn them. That's option 1. Second option, you make the pirates a foreign power, allow the players some interactions with them(trading, requests the same way the factions have, possibility to pay pirate protection, become friend with them and lead them to some crown ships to hit for shared benefits, but with a crown reputation hit, etc etc. There are some REALLY interesting possibilites, they are just left unused right now). THIS would be interesting, and even could be fun. It could lead to different playstyles and paths down the colonial era. Support the crown for benefits, support the pirates, or play both sides for maximum profit? And you take something which right now, is downright pain in the tuckus, to make it something meaningful. That's option 2, it requires work, but it would vastly improve interactivity and player experience.

[curtadamsCA]

I just build a fort as one of my early buildings. Kills the pirates every time. I agree the pirates shouldn't destroy your whole settlement if you don't kill them.

[issssk]

引用自 OogaJiggaWooga：

A tip for anyone else having this issue, it costs $500 but you can almost instantly relocate an existing guard tower to intercept a pirate attack so you never need more than 1 guard tower (the guards teleport with the tower). Make sure you place it near the targeted building on the side that the pirates are approaching from

Hey, thanks for the tip. I gave the game another try, thinking that I could finally finish that mission now. The relocating worked, but unfortunately the guards on the tower didn't do anything when a group of rebels less then 20m away planted a bomb. So it seems like that's not a solution either.

[Alley Cat Disposal Unit]

引用自 Zephyr：

This is indeed an absolutely terrible mechanic for a variety of reasons.

1)The tutorial doesn't prepare you at all to pirates. Criminals? Yes, it's covered. The tutorial explains how they work, hide, need to be discovered and how to deal with them. Rebels? Same thing. Pirates? Absolutely not. Therefore you arrive on the first mission not knowing pirates even exist.

2)In previous games, when pirates attacked, it was a one strike thing. They would target a building, attack it, raze it if it was undefended, and then, they LEFT. Now, they raze one building, then another, then another, then another, and it never stops until they are dead. Worse, in previous games you had a pirate relation meter. You could very well keep good relations with them by doing trade missions for smugglers for example, which often were a bit detrimental compared to the regular prices, but bought you safety. The new system make pirates more like like killer robots than pirates. They destroy everything and take nothing. There isn't even a threshold after which they take their ill gotten gains and leave. You can't even negociate with them, and you can't pay to get them to go away.

3)The way fighting works isn't well covered by the tutorial. You don't understand how to place the towers properly, just you need some, somehow, and again, you think it's only for guerillas. Also, your palace guard no longer helps during attacks, which is properly ridiculous, as they did in previous games once again. There is no reason for this huge step backward other than inconveniencing players. You need a fort to have a standing army. Fort has a non negligeable cost. It also needs a blueprint. Sure, guard towers can keep pirates away assuming you know where they are coming from. But in the event they somehow get past the towers, which happens even though they should not, as the soldiers there should block them and fight them, you need that fighting force. Basically all that are things you need foreknowledge for, which is very bad, as a lot of people will have to restart their first mission after they realise they have lost so much in repairing that their economy is tanked for good.

4)The frequency is ridiculous. Not only that, but you have no warning, or ways to have a warning. You would think after being gunned down the first time, or even multiple times, they would understand it's not a good idea to keep trying. It's tedious, it's not logical, it's not fun, and if you know how to deal with it, and have a good enough economy to get a fort and the people to man it, at some point it becomes a non-issue. A non-issue which cost you money which could be used for more interesting things.

So, to sum it up, it's annoying, it offers no way for the player to interact with them in any meaningful way, offer no real managing challenge, offer no different options or way to deal with it, is something brought to the game out of nowhere without tutorial integration to teach the players, is something you get hit by right of the bat, leaving players with a negative vision of the game("The game is going to be like this all the time, this sucks"). It is a huge design flaw.

So, at that point, you have two options, you get rid of it completely. No one will mourn them. That's option 1. Second option, you make the pirates a foreign power, allow the players some interactions with them(trading, requests the same way the factions have, possibility to pay pirate protection, become friend with them and lead them to some crown ships to hit for shared benefits, but with a crown reputation hit, etc etc. There are some REALLY interesting possibilites, they are just left unused right now). THIS would be interesting, and even could be fun. It could lead to different playstyles and paths down the colonial era. Support the crown for benefits, support the pirates, or play both sides for maximum profit? And you take something which right now, is downright pain in the tuckus, to make it something meaningful. That's option 2, it requires work, but it would vastly improve interactivity and player experience.

Thanks for this summary. I just came off Tropico3 looking for some more depth and a better challenge....and then this happened. Im like WTF? I hate having to hit forums to figure stuff out. My palace guard are not protecting the town? This is stupid. I set them as I high priority to protect thining it would be sorted and it did nothing.

The solution of moving towers around might work - but it is also really stupid.

Developers, as Zephyr said, this is the first mission, if you are going to continue to do BS like this, I dont really know if I should continue.

(Side note - the UI really sucks compared to Ttropico 3)

[Jevak]

引用自 OogaJiggaWooga：

A tip for anyone else having this issue, it costs $500 but you can almost instantly relocate an existing guard tower to intercept a pirate attack so you never need more than 1 guard tower (the guards teleport with the tower). Make sure you place it near the targeted building on the side that the pirates are approaching from

This won't work when i get 7-8 pirates with each wave, this game for me is unplayable at a certain point.

https://prnt.sc/vkbr7g