Any ideas

[Meliva]

as others have said, good escorts and proper tails go a long way to lessening losses. Hitting back also helps, and if you run proper escorts, and they use big ships like SotL to hit your fleets, then a few leviathans might just let that fellow know to not come back for seconds. Maybe even sink the ship entirely, salvage it up and put it on the market with their name to twist the knife so to speak. Regardless if your getting hit repeatedly, then your obviously an easy and profitable target, and asking them to play nice won't change that. What will change that is if you become a hard and unprofitable target. Then many of them will move along and look for easier prey.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

One idea I have tried to pass onto the new folk who join:

A successful trader has to think like a pirate, and a successful pirate has to think like a trader. As a trader, if you know what pirates are looking for when it comes to a target, you then adapt to make yourself less of a target than someone else. As a pirate, if you know what a trader is thinking, you know where to look for the most profitable vs risk target.

So, if a trader is getting blasted by pirates, and losing swag, doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is...insanity. I see entire armadas of trader fleets coming into ports that with two well timed HNs will reap 10-25M in less than 5 minutes for a pirate. No spy network required - HNs are plentiful and cheap enough to simply fire a barrage at a mindbar until a couple squeak through. Let the frenzy begin!

I see LM fleets everywhere, leveled up but no guns. I see trade fleets with no tails or escorts, all bunched up in the same ports. Pirates can get by with Pigs and Frigs!

There's lots of things one can try. Several have been mentioned here. There's many that have not been mentioned, and many that have yet to be discovered. Bottom line, pirates take the risk by putting their ships on the plunder screens after a successful campaign. They have measured the risk and picked their fleets accordingly.

Traders should be doing the same as the more fleets a trader runs, the more risk, so it should be considered. Spread out fleets, apply escorts and tails, perhaps come up with ways to make more with less. See what other traders are doing, and figure out how you can be less of a target than they are, and you reduce the risk. Let them float the swag bait while you keep yours.....

[Shadowood]

Pirates can get by with Pigs and Frigs!

I will agree with SHM. What I am going to say next may sound ego centered, but its not.

I have tried to accomplish all things in this game. Trader, Pirate, Privateer, National, Banker, Gold Smith, meh Plantations (ok not really plantations), etc... Point is I have tried it all. And have reached all the goal set for myself. While I don't think I am the greatest player ever to have played the game, I can say I have a good understanding of all aspects of the game, which gives me a leg up over someone who just does 1 thing in the game.

So branch out. Turn pirate for a month. See how it works. If you are a pirate, turn trader for a month and see how it works.

There are so many ways to play this game, but don't just pigeon whole yourself to one thing.

[sXs]

Pirates can get by with Pigs and Frigs!

I will agree with SHM. What I am going to say next may sound ego centered, but its not.

I have tried to accomplish all things in this game. Trader, Pirate, Privateer, National, Banker, Gold Smith, meh Plantations (ok not really plantations), etc... Point is I have tried it all. And have reached all the goal set for myself. While I don't think I am the greatest player ever to have played the game, I can say I have a good understanding of all aspects of the game, which gives me a leg up over someone who just does 1 thing in the game.

So branch out. Turn pirate for a month. See how it works. If you are a pirate, turn trader for a month and see how it works.

There are so many ways to play this game, but don't just pigeon whole yourself to one thing.

100% agree with this. I have sold off all my trade fleets 3 or 4 times in the last year. I went through GS phase for awhile and actually got my GS profitable before the recent Gold Bar price spike. I had 5 of the top 20 plantations a month after release.

Personally I sought out those that were raiding me and learned from them. Learn how and why they do things and you learn how to prevent them from doing it to you.

I learned the most from getting completely cleaned out a few times so use this as a learning experience. You have been given hints as to why it happened ......... now learn how to prevent or limit it from happening again.

[The Lamb]

you all are great and there was some great advice/things for me to tweek. And yes i was guilty the other night of having a large sum of cashola that i was late to collect and stash.

Thanks for the insight, im making adjustments as we speak. Buuwaaahhh haaa hhaaaaa

And for the record that was NOT a challenge!

[Meliva]

you all are great and there was some great advice/things for me to tweek. And yes i was guilty the other night of having a large sum of cashola that i was late to collect and stash.

Thanks for the insight, im making adjustments as we speak. Buuwaaahhh haaa hhaaaaa

And for the record this is totally a challenge against any pirate in game.

You hear that? he's challenging all you pirates, better go raid him.


in all seriousness good job for taking the advice and adapting, some people tend to ignore the advice they get when they ask for it. Good luck to you in the future.