Hi all, any tips & tricks would be appreciated.

I am currently a Helmsman in the trader campaign, building businesses for Cayman. However, my convoy is coming under constant attack from pirates, which always win the fight (they have a great advantage even if I am prepared the best I can). Hence, my convoy is constantly destroyed and I have to sell buildings etc. to be able to purchase a new ship to continue the game.

Any tips for keeping pirates away? Am I not getting something? I am talking about a big problem since I cannot advance in the campaign due to constant, too difficult attacks.

The best way to keep them from attacking you is to defeat them.
Have three warships (best you can find) fulled "manned" about 70% Swords to 39% guns as well as full amount of Chain Shot & Grape. Then try AUTOMATIC battle or fight them manually.


If you want to capture ships then manual fight -
Chain shot to slow them down
Grape to thin their crew
The grapple - "Q "will slow (reef sails) so you can come alongside for long enough to baord.

It takes time to master but a good source of ships.

(05-05-2012 08:47 PM)Peksu Wrote:  Hi all, any tips & tricks would be appreciated.

I am currently a Helmsman in the trader campaign, building businesses for Cayman. However, my convoy is coming under constant attack from pirates, which always win the fight (they have a great advantage even if I am prepared the best I can). Hence, my convoy is constantly destroyed and I have to sell buildings etc. to be able to purchase a new ship to continue the game.

Any tips for keeping pirates away? Am I not getting something? I am talking about a big problem since I cannot advance in the campaign due to constant, too difficult attacks.

I have the same problem. Iv got 4 barcks set to auto trade, a Galleon and a Frigate that is togheter as one fleet. I have fully occupired the Galleon and Frigate with sailors massive amount off ammonition for them, but every time i leave port the pirates come raging in to attack, and i loose my to best ships. This keeps happening every time iv save up to buy thoes to ships. How are we suppose to defeate the pirates when ther small ships (barcks and beneeth) are sooo damn powerfull. What are we doing wrong?

Practice with a single ship. Use the Frigate because its more manoeuvrable Full Crew - with Swords and Guns Full load of all ammunition.

The Pirate Barcs are fast and they will ignore the sandbanks & reefs.
At the start of the battle - Run Away.
Sail with the wind and get ahead of the Pirates - you may take some damage


Then keep turning towards the ships that chase you and fire - refered to ias "over the shoulder - wait for the Green indicator if possible but any shot will do. Try and keep the fight at long range.



If they get right behind you drop and explosive barrel - "E"
Then take your time and batter them until the sink.



Then move on to the next one. I suspect that "Thorin" may post and tell you that the AI ships have "gas turbine" engines - the thing to watch for is them suddenly appearing from off screen very fast seemingly ignoring the wind , same tactic RUN AWAY

(05-05-2012 10:18 PM)billyplod Wrote:  Practice with a single ship.

...

Thanks for the tips. I had no way of winning with the automatic mode, and had problems with the manual way. Finally succeeded by using the tactics you mentioned and a lot of chainshots.

I guess the thing to avoid is the vicious circle where you lose to the pirates time and time again and they get more powerful, up to the point where you have a hard time supplying ships for fight.

well you can also just run without escorts , they will be plunderd but no loss of ships ,then again it will be loss after loss of cash in that aspect

i just set all heavy 30+ cannon ships as guards and as someone also mentioned just auto fight if you are not after boarding them and seizing them

First of all, I love the genre of game PR3 belongs to, I love trading and resource shuffling!

But for the same reason I left patricians, I'm slowly getting doubts about PR3. Those damn pirates...

At this point, I'd probably have to start over again, and try to get them one by one before they become too strong, as they are in my current savegame. They are everywhere, probably my fault for ignoring them for so long, as they have grown really strong and plentyful.

Okay, I've killed a few of their fleets with a single quick ship using the "sail just out of range-tactic". But it takes a good while to win a battle this way. Fun the first time, not so fun when it becomes a chore, and a really time consuming one. I want to trade, not fight pirates (yea I know, would be way to easy without pirates or any other obstacles).

In my current game most pirate convoys are at about 100+ strength. If I put a good amount of gold into a strong fleet, I will have to spend time resuplying it and repairing it after each attack. Sailing from town to town to get sailors and waiting for repairs, then out again and instant battle again.

It got to the point where I had enough, bought ships and equipped them with everything i could buy and hire, 21 ships total, varying size, and put them in convoys/fleets of 3. I then positioned them around the map to patrol. I got battles popping up with few minutes between them, and after just a short while my fleets were gone, and pirates still running around. To the extent I have to bother with these pirates, as it is now, its way too time consuming for my taste.

Good post, sums up the problem rather well.

odd, i never had issues with pirates , played 5years or something like that , i see them harass the npc but my fleets goes unscaved, + taking over towns are just easy, sent in 3x galleons took cayman islands , ofc nations become mad at me but due to having 5+ mill cash stored i just docked my ships , waited till the reputation crept to 25% and back to normal, rinse repeat, i can own the whole caribbian -.-

(05-05-2012 10:55 PM)Peksu Wrote:  

(05-05-2012 10:49 PM)Becomes Wrote:  

Good post, sums up the problem rather well.

Upload a save game somewhere - I played through the Trader Campaign and had very little (less than you guys) trouble with Pirates. I'll have look.

Well of course, if I'm to take billyplods advice, I should start hunting them early in the game. Might work well to keep the pirate population down, but I'm sure its going to be a very time consuming task. Time I'd rather use on perfecting my trade routes and gaining rep/building supply chains.

---

I'd love to give you my savegame. About two hours ago it seized to exist. I've been spending the day trying to find a decent trainer for this game. A trainer that would increase the strength of a ship to fenomenal amounts. My plan was to get a few of these, and place them on patrol around the map, to automatically eliminate any pirate activity so that I wouldn't have to bother with them. Earlier today when I found out that the only trainer released only will provide the player with gold, unless it is paid for with real money, I thought I'd try to modify the fleet strength myself. After tinkering a while with different programs, and realizing that I still can't comprehend assembly code I gave it a rest. Meanwhile I had modified different values in game to test what values changed what, so my save was rubbish and got thrown out.

But on the bright side, I'll get a chance to start a new one when I have the stamina, and deal with them from the beginning. And I'll find out just how much time I have left for trading and empire building.

howto for automatic fight:
1) take the 21 ships in one convoy
2) take out all non military ships these ships should trade to supply the remaining fight-convoy
3) give that convoy full men/munition and sword/riffles in 70/30 ratio
4) press max button
5) autofight the first pirate
6) organise
7) deselect the damaged ships
8) select 3 other undamaged ships
9) search for the next pirate and goto 5)
if no undamaged ships exists or you dont have enough munition/men/sword.. go to your hometown and repair -> after that goto 3)

- in autofight bigger is better
- in autofight have enough sailors on your ships it gives more strength
- the more convoys make automatic fights the higher the chances are you loose track of what happens where and is there a convoy in need of asssistance (refill/repair/...)

(05-05-2012 11:13 PM)Falko Wrote:  howto for automatic fight:
1) take the 21 ships in one convoy
2) take out all non military ships these ships should trade to supply the remaining fight-convoy
3) give that convoy full men/munition and sword/riffles in 70/30 ratio
4) press max button
5) autofight the first pirate
6) organise
7) deselect the damaged ships
8) select 3 other undamaged ships
9) search for the next pirate and goto 5)
if no undamaged ships exists or you dont have enough munition/men/sword.. go to your hometown and repair -> after that goto 3)

- in autofight bigger is better
- in autofight have enough sailors on your ships it gives more strength
- the more convoys make automatic fights the higher the chances are you loose track of what happens where and is there a convoy in need of asssistance (refill/repair/...)

Um, my understanding is that a convoy can hold a maximum of 3 warships. If not, great news

It's three ships that fight in each battle - what Falko is saying is that at the end of each AUTOMATIC battel three of your ships will have taken some damage, take those away to repair and carry with the remaining 18 - join them back up once they are repaired, so you now have 7 battles worth of ships ready to go - stops teh pirates regaining strength. AND if you come across a Pirate hideout it gives lots of sailors fro the land battle.

I'll try this, going for a new game right now

(05-05-2012 11:13 PM)Falko Wrote:  howto for automatic fight:
1) take the 21 ships in one convoy
2) take out all non military ships these ships should trade to supply the remaining fight-convoy
3) give that convoy full men/munition and sword/riffles in 70/30 ratio
4) press max button
5) autofight the first pirate
6) organise
7) deselect the damaged ships
8) select 3 other undamaged ships
9) search for the next pirate and goto 5)
if no undamaged ships exists or you dont have enough munition/men/sword.. go to your hometown and repair -> after that goto 3)

- in autofight bigger is better
- in autofight have enough sailors on your ships it gives more strength
- the more convoys make automatic fights the higher the chances are you loose track of what happens where and is there a convoy in need of asssistance (refill/repair/...)

The costs of having 21 ships in a convoy with all the ships fully pumped with men would , as far as I have experienced the game-play , be insanely costly , also guns are expensive....

As far as I am concerned then while Kalypso may have learned a little from its total screw up with the "Patrician IV" game with pirates and difficulty and seemingly made it easier (at least at easy difficulty setting in Port Royale 3) and at the same time seemingly turned Port Royale 3 into some Patrician IV clone , then Kalyso have so totally f***** up the "Port Royale 3" ships fighting also as "Kalypso" seems to have learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with respect to the ships (in) fighting system (ref. : "Patrician IV")......
They should have made the ships battle system like e.g. the "East India company" game where one can choose between "arcade mode" and "realistic mode" and where one can pause the game , make strategic decisions, choose ones ships , "issue orders" , point and click and then let the ships fight it out , while pausing in between making new strategic decisions and issuing new orders....
Ofcourse the "East India company" game is far from perfect itself (and got some stability issues and some bugs) and ships in the "East India company" game are so stupid that they will sail onto the rocks in game while in battle, but at least the idea of the battle system concept is far better than the constant "s**t" flowing from the Kalypso game designers !!!
I do know why it is so hard for "Kalypso" to understand :
If I want to play a "simulator" then I will buy a simulator game , if I buy a "supposedly" trade and "strategy game" the I have absolutely NO INTEREST WHAT SO EVER in having to play the battles as I were playing a simulator , I do not want the work , I do not want the hassle and I do not want the stress.
Yes , I can choose "auto battle" and that has been necessary for me to do as I wanted to play the game , but one of the "cool things" about e.g. "Port Royale 1" were that you could play the battles as strategy and NOT have to do it as "simulation" and at the same time one could , by making the right STRATEGIC decisions (while game paused) , sometimes capture the ships one fought and then either keep them or sell them.....
Basically the batlle system of Port Royale 3 sucks as big time as that of Patrician 4 because it absolutely have to be the f***** darn simulator "realistic" piece of s**t it is !!!!

And on the "Pirate subject" of "Port Royale 3" then I have seldomly been playing a game with something as annoying and totally pointless and stupid as the "Psst , I have a tip for you" with the idea of where the pirate hideouts might be , because not not only have "Kalypso" taken the standpoint that people do nolonger have "the right" to expect that a map be included with the standard version of the game (oh no that is only for the "collectors edition" not available in UK language) but also they uses expression and names, when hinting the supposed location of the pirates hideout, that are so vague stupidly expressed that one doesn't know where to go..... "North East of the Bermuda Islands" the idiots says/writes but how the f*** am I going to know where that is and which isles counts as in and which is out (do I need to consult history books or a map just to play this darn game?) and HOW FAR North East..... It is so totally "moronic" and useless information that one is given if paying the guy in Tavern that sells the information..... In the original Port Royale one would be given the location with an X marks the spot (as far as I remember) and that were at least a lot easier to find out....

I have already spent 30 hours trying to play this game , but I think Kalypso disappoints greatly again........ The game absolutely have its brighter spots but a lot of the game/"game concepts" is/are extremely annoying....

I personally gave up with combat in this game its so pathetically done, i understand its primarily a trading game, but if they have combat in it, they should atleast make it a viable way to have fun.

Always having to use the EXACT same strategy to win battles is quite boring to say the least.

The main thing thats the issue is that the AI ships have all 3 ammo as unlimited, while we are limited with the 2 vital ammos for capturing targets, while their ammo affects all 3 stats (hull, sails and crew) and can use them with no limit.

I have just stuck with automatic combat, i just don't bother with capturing ships no more, which means i am limited to the Trader Campaign, which focuses on my worst enemy........trading....but hey, you are technically forced into it really since the combat system in this game is a freaking joke and when it comes to the combat system, the Pirates game puts this game to shame.

I've only had a trading convoy plundered once. When that happened, I took that convoy out of service for a bit and just did manual trading for a bit. That allowed me to build up money and locate galleons and bigger ships to be turned into trade convoys. When I got a few war galleons in my own convoy; I went ahead and hunted the pirates down. It can take a bit of time but it wasn't awful. The key is not to send out any convoys that's below 100 combat strength. That will deter pretty much any pirate attacks. I would suggest placing a single ship convoy in cities with large shipyards all over the map so you can spot when a decent ship is available. I have 3 liners in my convoy. I can just use them to overpower pirate convoys and capture them quickly. That gives me a very cheap source of ships to act as cargo carriers for my fleet or sell them, plus you get paid for dispatching them. Locate all of the hideouts you can and send ships into them regularly to wear them down and get free ships. I rarely encounter any pirates on the open seas now.

And yes, the combat is simply retarded. It's at the point where I simply tell them to focus on the same target, select the ammo, and hit space until the pirate ship stops moving. Then I switch to grape shot and space for a few seconds to bring their crew down to almost nothing. After that I have the other ships switch to different targets while I capture the crippled one. Rinse, repeat. I very much preferred the ship combat style of PotBS.

Here's a stragey that I use to find Pirate Hideouts ... It's a general strategy I use for Pirates throught the game. I call it my Hook, Line and Sinker strategy.

Hook
First of all, at the beginning, we have our unescorted small craft (sloops and pinances). I keep them unescorted as bait for the pirates. Most of the time they plunder but not take the ship since it appears it's not much of a combat ship. Later in the game, if my lone ships are better (corvettes and better), the pirates take them.

Now, when these small craft get attacked, I pause the game (v1.2) and locate the attack. Once the battle has ended I use that convoy to shadow the pirate convoy for as long as I can, until I can get my 4-liner convoy in position to take over shadow duty. The pirates won't attack an empty convoy and I've noticed there is probably a point where they attack based on either the goods or the total price of all the goods on board.

Line
While my Liner convoy is enroute, I dispatch another lone convoy consisting of a single corvette. This corvette is my suicide ship that will attack the pirates to damage at least 50% of their attack strength. Remember, the pirate convoy will return to it's hideout under two conditions (PR2 manual) :

(1) Looted enough goods
(2) Damaged.

A corvette cost what, 30K ... the same price as a dumb hint from an informer (late game cost).

Sinker
Once I've lost my corvette convoy, I then shadow the pirates back to their hide out with my liner convoy and there you have it! I then patrol and wait for them to exit ... which isn't a long wait, like 3 days tops.

On a side note ... I run 4-Liner convoys, not 3. The extra Liner is there for back-up and also to provide more special ammo. Once my captain has reached what I call the "Fifty-Five, Stay Alive" (nav and cannon skill at 5 level each... 55), I transfer that captain to a trade convoy and start with a fresh captain for my liner convoy.

And yeah ... Ship combat is boring when I have Liners all the time, the rinse and repeat effect mentioned by Trecares.

(24-07-2012 07:04 AM)Trecares Wrote:  I very much preferred the ship combat style of PotBS.

PotBS ?

Anyway , I do not know what difficulty level you play on (and I do not play manual ships batles in Port Royale 3 as the game do not have the Strategic ships battle interface like Port Royale 1 or Patician II/III , the one in P4 and PR3 are like 3D shooter Simulators - and doesn't even give a battle mode choice game options settings like e.g. the "East Indian company" game) , but I would much prefer that it is too easy rather than the constant bother and game killing problems with the pirates that Patrician IV have even in it's easy mode...

Pirates of the Burning Seas.

Here's a video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpECUNibA...re=related That one of the First rate Ship of the Line with 112 gun broadsides. Slow beast with a lot of firepower. It was a great moneymaker but first rates cannot be made anymore. People who still have them keep them in the harbor because if it gets sunk, it's gone forever.

(16-07-2012 03:57 PM)Patrician_Player Wrote:  In the original Port Royale one would be given the location with an X marks the spot (as far as I remember) and that were at least a lot easier to find out....

Good news ... I started a new game and I'm up to the point where pirates appear. I took a deep breath and paid an informer 50k to tell me the location of a hideout. To my suprise, a marker appeared at the location that concurred with his vague direction. I went to the marker and clicked it, it vanished. I then sat there for over a month on patrol mode when, sure enough, the pirate left the hideout and bingo !!! ... The location was discovered.

Anyway, I think your suggestions are slowly making it into the program as well as others ... Now, as far as ship combat goes ... I don't mind the new combat system but your posts has convinced me that an alternate way of doing combat is needed. I fear that what we have now won't go away since you're talking about scrappping the whole thing. On that note, would you think the following would help ;

-- Automated Battle Strategy Logic ... Destroy/Capture/Disengage.
-- 3D Battle Pause Feature w/ More Command for AI ships.

I figured these suggestions have been mentioned but I'm looking at changes to their current design and not looking at inventing a new system or using another game system ... But, perhaps it's all in vain on my part and a new system is the only path to take?

(24-07-2012 09:05 PM)Nageln Wrote:  

(16-07-2012 03:57 PM)Patrician_Player Wrote:  In the original Port Royale one would be given the location with an X marks the spot (as far as I remember) and that were at least a lot easier to find out....

Good news ... I started a new game and I'm up to the point where pirates appear. I took a deep breath and paid an informer 50k to tell me the location of a hideout. To my suprise, a marker appeared at the location that concurred with his vague direction. I went to the marker and clicked it, it vanished. I then sat there for over a month on patrol mode when, sure enough, the pirate left the hideout and bingo !!! ... The location was discovered.

Anyway, I think your suggestions are slowly making it into the program as well as others ... Now, as far as ship combat goes ... I don't mind the new combat system but your posts has convinced me that an alternate way of doing combat is needed. I fear that what we have now won't go away since you're talking about scrappping the whole thing. On that note, would you think the following would help ;

-- Automated Battle Strategy Logic ... Destroy/Capture/Disengage.
-- 3D Battle Pause Feature w/ More Command for AI ships.

I figured these suggestions have been mentioned but I'm looking at changes to their current design and not looking at inventing a new system or using another game system ... But, perhaps it's all in vain on my part and a new system is the only path to take?

Thanks , Yeah ! I surely appreciate that someone can see that "an alternate way of doing combat is needed".....

Ofcourse "Automated Battle Strategy Logic - Destroy/Capture/Disengage" & "3D Battle Pause Feature w/ More Command for AI ships" would be better than nothing/no changes at all.....
But I actually don't think that "they" have to scrap it all to make changes , as if you look on "East Indian Company" then they have sort of made it side by side (realistic on one side and strategic arcade mode on the other) . Ofcourse the game engine on EIC is heavy and buggy and Nitro Games did not make a good engine until the CCOA game, a game which then on the other hand kind of sucks as it quickly becomes rather aimless playing it. Anyway , the point is that Nitro games have demonstrated more than sufficiently that it does not have to be either or but people make game engines so that you by options settings can choose how you want your battles performed.

Personally I think that Gaming Minds"/"Kalypso Media" ought to patch the Ships battles system om both P4 and PR3 (if for nothing else the as a labor of love towards the game) and make the games something that people can enjoy for many years (Like PR1 and PII/PIII) rather than something tarnishing their repotation in the long run,,,,

I thank you for your kind post - very kind of you.....