Pirates and merchants role balance discussion

[Grimrock Litless]

What do pirates think of traders and traders think of pirates?

And what do you feel like is unfair between you and them?

People who is neither can talk about how they feel about them.

[not a pirate]

This forum has no reason to be here. Opinions are known and voiced often.

[Malachi Constant]

They are simply titles given to players that embrace certain aspects of the game.

Trade, plunder and voodoo are all equally accessible, so I don't understand the question. It's a matter of style.

I choose tiger style, cause the WuTang clan ain't nothing to *@&% with

[Shadowood]

One reason I like this game so much is the freedom it gives the player to play the game how they want. If you choose to go hard core merchant then you are choosing a life of wealth. Wealth attracts pirates and you must prepare accordingly. If you choose hard core pirate then you are choosing a path of hard work and no love. No one really loves a pirate. Except Nelson of course. Again you must be smart on how you pirate to make a living. There are those that live within the boundaries of both those worlds (myself included). I wouldn't say any one path has an advantage of the other. Yes merchants may make more money but they have a bigger risk in my opinion.

One thing I wish there was more of is Pirates. Those to stir the pot a bit more. I would like to see a bit more "action" so to speak.

[Haron]

I disagree with Shadowood - we can't have many more pirates. The game needs to have more "traders" than "pirates", or it breaks down!

Apart from that: If a "trader" is a player with 400+ ships, mainly trade ships, who do NOT plunder others except for retaliation, and a "pirate" is a player with max 5 fleets, ALL of which are mediocre or small combat fleets (no trading ships), and gets his main income from plunder, I'd say the following:

The traders will, on average, make more gold each day than the pirate. Which, I think, is necessary. However, the smart pirate may be able to make a decent amount of gold, too. The traders may think it "unfair" that the pirates so easily can hit them (they have, after all, lots of ship), while it's more difficult to hit the pirates back, but they need to remember that even without hitting the pirate back, they will actually usually earn more gold than the pirate - on average. That said, there ARE ways for traders to defend against such attacks, and it IS possible to hit pirates. It's just expensive.

I think the "problem" is that the traders - the BIG traders - cooperate too much (they are in large guilds, and the large nations all have agreements on who is to control which port). That is, of course, an advantage for them; they make more money this way. If, however, there were more competition among the traders, there would be more "action", and perhaps more hybrid players, but also less profit for the traders, of course.

[Bmw]

Soem people say I'm a trader I am a trader at one point I was looking at pirate for the option but since I don't have much time I can't be on to do everything a pirate does but I do know both sides of the conflict both sides are right and wrong one side has an advantage over the other but it's the same for both sides it depends on how you use your brain

[William one eye]

Soem people say I'm a trader I am a trader at one point I was looking at pirate for the option but since I don't have much time I can't be on to do everything a pirate does but I do know both sides of the conflict both sides are right and wrong one side has an advantage over the other but it's the same for both sides it depends on how you use your brain

i agree with this quite strongly, using ones brain gives you an unfair advantage

[Grimrock Litless]

When ever there is a argument happens between the merchants and pirates, the pirates always compare us, the smaller merchants with the bigger merchants.

Don't they know how different we are to them? In ship amount, voodoo chest and such.

[DezNutz]

Is this really an issue?

Pirates are always going to complain that it's difficult to be a pirate. Yes it is, and in reality it was difficult for them. From a game standpoint, piracy needs to be difficult. If piracy was easy, everyone would be a pirate and there wouldn't be enough traders for pirates to make any profit.

[Grimrock Litless]

To be fair, its difficult for both roles, but to me, as a small merchant, its too easy for pirates to attack merchants, but hard for merchants to hit them back. That's my thought on the unfairness.