As we all know, titles are a pretty central feature of the game in regards to your nationality and standing within your nation. As you rank up, you get some pretty sweet rewards that, in my humble opinion, far outweigh what the simpletons known as "pirates" get. Here are the meager awards that this bunch of dogs get:

*Recruitment does not require influence.
*Recruitment is free of charge.
*Cannons are free of charge.
*Upkeep costs are halved
*+10% fame earned from plunder (ie if you earn 1000 fame, you earn a bonus of 10%, aka 100 fame more.)

Keeping in mind that pirates operate with very low ship numbers as the more ships you sail, the more you allow yourself to be vulnerable to retaliation and the like, these benefits are very negligible. Compared to reduced recruitment costs and ship repairs costs, a % increase in profit from selling resources, and a% gain on fame for Kings, the difference between the benefits is very astonishing.

When I am not flying a nation's flag, I get to save a couple thousand maximum for preparing my fleets, and my upkeep of <10,000 gold is halved?! AND I get to gain 2,200 fame per plunder victory and lose 200k per defeat as a consequence of the game's mechanics for fleet size as a pirate?! Wow, I sure have it nice!!! Especially compared to (insert player here) who gets to make extra tens/hundreds of thousands extra off of resource selling, cheaper ship upgrades and cannon costs, who is also eligible to receive payouts and stipends from their nation?

Why would anyone ever want to be something other than a pirate?!?!

My qualms are not even with the gold disparities, as it is just the difference in the two playstyles. Obviously it makes sense for merchants to be able to generate more and more gold as they grow larger and larger and move up the ranks of their nation. I do think, however, that pirates should get either tweaked benefits or completely overhauled benefits.

I do think that there should be some sort of benefit that merchants don't get their hands on in one way or another- pirates get free recruitment, but merchants still get reduced recruitment costs. Pirates get 10% plunder fame, merchants can climb to the top of their nation and get 1% total fame. Sure, the merchants costs are higher objectively to reach the benefits, but pirates forego those costs in exchange for less reliable income and no access to the NPC tax features of the game.

Any thoughts on something that wouldn't make piracy too strong, but incentivize it more? I am more looking for community ideas on things completely unique from what merchants are able to get a semblance of themselves- things related to plundering, a lower ship count, etc.

How about bring back the idea of a pirate sanctuary? I wasn't around when the idea started, but it makes some sense to me. The island in between Thorakas and Vaasburg was the ideal location, I believe.

Introduce the Flagship with some actually usable buffs to "buy". Like stealing twice as much gold from the target.

Remove the max plunder cap.

I don't think any other pirate, myself included in this, truly wants a port for the long-term. It's been done before but it costs exponentially more than it does for actual nations as the tax benefits and law benefits are completely useless in a pirate port.

I don't want my ships to be safe in a sanctuary- I don't want to de-incentivize merchants from moving all over the map through the action of a game mechanic- I don't want anything like this.

Rather, I want more incentives for my ships to not be safe. I want more incentives to make merchants worry about trading heavily through a certain port by my individual actions.

In other words, I want more incentives to being a pirate and living whole-heartedly in the playstyle rather than getting a net benefit of a few thousand gold coins maximum every day. I'd gladly pay upkeep costs, cannon and recruitment, etc. if I could get something actually worthwhile as a pirate in exchange. As it stands right now, I see no difference being King of Luxembourg and being a Pirate with the black flag hoisted up, other than my Upkeep is <5k instead of <2.5k, and I get to slowly drain the treasury with payouts until I leave the country.

Sorry for double-posting, but I like Haron's suggestions.

I obviously am still eagerly waiting any news on the highly discussed flagship, but my hopes for that wane as time marches forward.

Above all, introduce competition between traders. Real competition. So that when one trader fails, others benefit. That will give traders incentives to see other traders fail. Today, peace is too lucrative.

Remove the "automatic alarm" options when guild members are attacked. That alone would help a LOT.

Instead of removing the plunder cap for pirates, maybe just increase it.

I never agreed with the attack alarm. It was very bad to introduce in the first place.