Card: Scout
Cost: 16
Non-stackable, one cast per 24 hours per target.
Description: Select a player. Plunder attacks against that player's fleets have a doubled maximum ransom.

Maybe a percent chance to fail in case the target was to find your scout, but the card would still be used.

Alternatively,
Cost: 8+X
Description: Select a player. Plunder attacks against that player's fleets have maximum ransom increased by 2000(X).

Numbers in this case would obviously need tweaking as you'd have to invest over 100 turns/25 attacks to see any significant increase with the above, it's just a handy example. 50,000*sqrt(X) seems like it would be better with a convenient effectiveness cap at some point, but is a bit more complicated than most cards.

Piracy tech should suffice imo

Piracy tech does not suffice. It only gives me gold from the game - I want to STEAL gold. This card might be a small step in the right direction. However, what should really be done, is to remove the "max plunder cap" of 250k completely. No cap, I say! Those sailing around with purses with tends off millions of gold should be at risk of losing a lot. That's the price they should pay, in my opinion. As it is, a large purse keeps you safe from having ships stolen, and it takes a bunch of plunders to even make a dent.

If the cap is removed, then certain plunders will again be more profitable than skirmishes. And maybe it would even make sense to use the otherwise almost useless "Advanced Piracy" cards every now and then.

if it is removed, how much will pirates be able to get per attack? (I know it depends, but maybe you could give an example)

Not a bad idea

Axy wrote:if it is removed, how much will pirates be able to get per attack? (I know it depends, but maybe you could give an example)

Well, the average result is 3% of the purse. For an 8,3 M purse, that's 250k. Of course, it's possible to get as much as 5%. Then a purse of only 5 M gives you 250k. So for targets with less than 5M gc, the result would be the same.

For a target with, say, a 20M purse, 3% is 600k. So that would be the average result for one single attack. However, since the purse goes down for each attack, the result of, say, 20 attacks would be around 9,2M. As opposed to 5M with the existing cap.