Viscious Pirates

[Didz]

I don't know what you've done to the pirates but they are really viscious now.

I got a bit of shock in my first pirate battle, a 5th Rate Frigate 40 guns v a Pirate sloop and a brig. I thought it would be a doddle as usual but these guys were on steriods or something. The sloop just came straight at me and boarded, damn near killed a 3rd of my crew, and blow me if as soon as I cleared them off the deck the brig charged in and boarded as well.

Managed to win but I only had about 60 crew left.

Same with the Barbary pirates, I boarded one of their ships with a 2:1 advantage in crew strength, and they were 'Shaken' from close range grape prior to boarding and I still lost.

Mind you the Fluyts look like they've been nerfed in some way. I've come across a couple of them so far and they seem really slow now. My 5th rate was literally running rings round them.

[Beastro]

Boarding has always been messed up.

I stopped boarding early on after my full crew of a 5th rate flagship surrendered to 60 remaining men on a 4th rate, men we dieing twice very second.

So CA or Sage changed it so that the AI boards but they haven't ed the invincible AI sailors?

That's just great.

[Didz]

Oh! I use it quite a lot, if I have a crew strength advantage. The nice thing about it is that you are more or less guaranteed that ship as a prize. In my last Austrian Campaign most of the Austrian fleet were captured Turkish prizes. It also a great way to take out those annoying little galleys the Barbary pirates use. They only have 19 crew, so a sloop can capture them quite easily by boarding.

It just seems that since the last update they've got a bit of a melee boost.

[Beastro]

I've had light galleys defeating a boarding by frigates or reduce a battleship by 200 men.

I've found demasting a fleet one by one, then forcing them to surrender via coordinated roundshot/grapeshot easily forces a victory and capture of almost all ships defeated.

[Didz]

Well this new Spanish campaign since upgrading to TROM 1.52 and TROM_naval_mod_naval_mfe is the first time I've had ships crewed by 'Rambo' pirates, or witnessed the 'Leroy Jenkins' sloops.

I can see how giving the pirates more incentive to board makes sense as this would be their main objective. A ship has little value if it is sitting at the bottom of the ocean together with its cargo. However, I think its pushing the limits a bit when pirates start throwing themselves under the guns of naval vessels.

Its a shame CA haven't change the evade battle routine otherwise I would argue that pirate should avoid contact with naval ships. There is no profit in attacking a 5th Rate, it carries no cargo.