Pirates in dei

[rem123456]

Piracy was very significant in the ancient Mediterranean. It was the reason why Athens and Rome were a few miles from the shore and had separate ports (Piraeus and Ostia), to be safer from the raiders. Also it was a very common source of slaves. It was a very significant threat; to fight them "Pompey was given unlimited access to the Roman treasury, 500 ships, 120,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry".
I was thinking there could be a pirate lair building for the port slot, like there was in shogun II: http://www.totalwars.ru/encyclopedia...rate_lair.html

Unlike empire or shogun 2, it has a very minor role in the game as pirates cannot be seen or fought. This building could bring a lot of money and trade resources, especially slaves, but damage your diplomatic relationships with other factions. It could also serve to recruit military ships, maybe even a pirate ship unit (similar to the raiding hemiolia) which is very fast in both the campaign and in the battle map, has a pirate crew strong at melee combat and gets a huge bonus from cash gained from sacking settlements. The idea would be that each faction would have the option to become a pirate nation. In this way they would make a lot of easy cash but would have terrible diplomatic relationships. Also, you could form a pirate fleet and go around the Mediterranean sacking undefendend cities and using your superior speed to escape from enemy armies and navies. Historical pirate nations like Cilicia, Crete and Illyria could get special bonus to piracy to promote this activity. I think this would add lots of fun and immersion, the problem would be to make the ai use the pirate fleets to raid. Still, the human player could have a lot of fun being a pirate nation.

[Butan]

I'm playing as Ardiae in my current MPC and I have a fleet which keep on raiding (with raiding ancillaries/skills bonus, very important!) at sea and raping Italy's ports each time my force is enough to have a clear victory. Its bringing a ton of silver and slaves.
Also they have a dock lvl 4 which add +100% wealth generated per slave What I mean is that its possible to "act as" a pirate faction with the tools the game has, especially with the buffed "fleet raid" stance of DeI. And the units of "historical pirate factions" in DeI go slightly in favor of this behaviour (they have very good navies).

What I would like is a "pirate" faction which would just generate random fleets all over the world and attack everyone, just like in old TW. Same for land rebels.

[rem123456]

I'm playing as Ardiae in my current MPC and I have a fleet which keep on raiding (with raiding ancillaries/skills bonus, very important!) at sea and raping Italy's ports each time my force is enough to have a clear victory. Its bringing a ton of silver and slaves. Also they have a dock lvl 4 which add +100% wealth generated per slave [IMG]file:///C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.gif[/IMG] What I mean is that its possible to "act as" a pirate faction with the tools the game has, especially with the buffed "fleet raid" stance of DeI.

Sounds fun. You’re right, the Ardiaei have a corsair heaven building! I haven’t seen it before. It has a 100% slave wealth but it’s a trade-off because you lose the 140 industry and +20% commerce wealth. While I like this building (did dei added it? Nice job!) I think it should be a building chain available to many factions (not even Crete has it) and Illyria should have a tier 5 corsair heaven as its unique building. And in addition to the slave bonus it should add commerce wealth from all the goods acquired to resell. I don’t know if its possible from a modding point of view but it would be cool if you had the trade off of lots of money but diplomatic penalties from this building.

And the units of "historical pirate factions" in DeI go slightly in favor of this behaviour (they have very good navies).

Many Illyrian ships are pirate in name but serve other functions. Their two ships with corsairs are actually slow, heavy ships, not any different from other heavy infantry ships. I respect the choices of the mods but if they overhaul naval combat in dei I would suggest adding a cheap, fast ship with corsairs, with a long campaign movement, specialized in raiding.

What I would like is a "pirate" faction which would just generate random fleets all over the world and attack everyone, just like in old TW. Same for land rebels.

I agree 100%!
Also, there is no Cilicia faction in Rome 2, which is disappointing. Some of their territory belongs to the Seleucids, which is historical, but the rest belongs to Cyprus. Cyprus was just an Egyptian province while the Cilician pirates were independent and quite powerful; it took Rome a lot of men and resources to subdue them.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

I'm playing as Ardiae in my current MPC and I have a fleet which keep on raiding (with raiding ancillaries/skills bonus, very important!) at sea and raping Italy's ports each time my force is enough to have a clear victory. Its bringing a ton of silver and slaves.
Also they have a dock lvl 4 which add +100% wealth generated per slave What I mean is that its possible to "act as" a pirate faction with the tools the game has, especially with the buffed "fleet raid" stance of DeI. And the units of "historical pirate factions" in DeI go slightly in favor of this behaviour (they have very good navies).

What I would like is a "pirate" faction which would just generate random fleets all over the world and attack everyone, just like in old TW. Same for land rebels.

Totally agree. The fact that Rome 2 has loads of factions is awesome, BUT there were still MANY more factions and tribes IRL. So why not add rebels to simulate this. Pirates too.

[Chris P. Bacon]

What raiding ancillaries and skills do you use Butan? I'm not very knowledgable when it comes to the skills that admirals have.

[Scythion]

1. Choose an illyrian faction.
2. Listen this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoZsgNHquM
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!

[Barune]

1. Choose an illyrian faction.
2. Listen this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoZsgNHquM
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!

Dat Alestorm.

[Post Hoc]

1. Choose an illyrian faction.
2. Listen this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoZsgNHquM
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!

+1 for the Underpants Gnomes reference

[Butan]

I also think DeI could push toward more faction strenghts and more faction weaknesses (for pirates factions, weaker land/stronger naval, better commerce/slave/raid buildings etc...). I'm pretty sure its in the package in future versions (like for every factions... its a long job).

Maybe I over-estimated Illyrian navy, I havent compared with other navies and just spoke with my guts.

What raiding ancillaries and skills do you use Butan? I'm not very knowledgable when it comes to the skills that admirals have.

I will screenshot some of what I have the next time I continue my MPC (I dont know anyway to load a multiplayer campaign than inviting the guy I'm playing with). I dont know much more than you, I just leveled a fleet and admiral to incredible levels since I made one guy do much of the heavy fighting and I saw many interesting fleet skills (I still have to see them all, especially lvl 2+), especially the ancillaries which are "granted" when you do relevant actions (fleet bonus ancillaries when you do fleet things).

In the end there isnt tons of things to level up for raiding but you'll see it can still be quite piratish.

[Fluke]

I would love to see that screenshot when you get the chance.

I also think DeI could push toward more faction strenghts and more faction weaknesses (for pirates factions, weaker land/stronger naval, better commerce/slave/raid buildings etc...). I'm pretty sure its in the package in future versions (like for every factions... its a long job).

Maybe I over-estimated Illyrian navy, I havent compared with other navies and just spoke with my guts.





I will screenshot some of what I have the next time I continue my MPC (I dont know anyway to load a multiplayer campaign than inviting the guy I'm playing with). I dont know much more than you, I just leveled a fleet and admiral to incredible levels since I made one guy do much of the heavy fighting and I saw many interesting fleet skills (I still have to see them all, especially lvl 2+), especially the ancillaries which are "granted" when you do relevant actions (fleet bonus ancillaries when you do fleet things).

In the end there isnt tons of things to level up for raiding but you'll see it can still be quite piratish.

[rem123456]

I usually don't bother asking CA for changes because they don't seem to listen too much to their fans, but for once they gave me what I asked for.

"Pirates & Raiders Culture Pack

Become the scourge of the ancient world with the Total War™: ROME II - Pirates & Raiders Culture Pack. Introducing a new playable culture consisting of three new raiding-focused factions, Pirates & Raiders brings new buildings, technologies, religion, faction traits, battlefield and naval units to Total War: ROME II. "

[Butan]

There might be some cool features to add to the not so many raid-loot game features.


Believe me or not, but I managed to take screenshots of my soon to be dead ardiae campaign, but seems like reinstalling steam-R2 killed my cloud I though it would be linked to my steam account but nop.

What I can tell is that there is a lot of things that boosts what a proper pirate fleet is supposed to be : full melee - ramming - enslave.



I found dresden mod guide on the internet and I can actually show details of some things I used.



+ those ancillaries (I dont remember the effects, I remember I used them extensively):



+ fleet traditions (didnt find any spreadsheet of them), which have some who boost melee/ramming + looting/raiding revenue + others I dont remember.


My most important fleet had: night commander lvl 1 + veteran marine lvl 3 + dread commander lvl 3 + slave trader and raiding/looting traditions.

My fleet consisted of 75% small melee ships who could one-shot ram most other boats (not only transports), and 25% very heavy melee ship who protected the admiral and participated in the naval battle when things were smooth.
Since I only bough boats who had 120-160 men in, I had a 20/20 stack of around 3000 men who could rape most garrison ports (even walled settlements lvl 1) and I always chose sack (or loot if I was sure I wasnt getting attacked, to flee when it was my turn) which gave me around 1000 to 3000 denarii and hundreds of slaves very regularly.

At one point I had all Illyria, 80% of the population was slaves and I was at a public order balance (thanks to buildings and governors), the edict to slow slave pop reduction and lots of tax buildings which were boosted by +150% when you counted taxes+slaves bonus.

[rem123456]

Cool campaign. That's the kind of campaign I would expect from the Illyrians. Just wondering, you played like that because it was cool or was this more useful that occupying the settlements and defending them. Also, did you had profits once you covered the upkeep of your navy?

[Butan]

At one point I had 50% of my budget for 1 fleet, it was not being covered at all by the sacking/looting: I began to merge the costier 160 illiryan peirates units (control+m) everytime I had losses and it quickly decreased to an acceptable level.
It was mostly a RP choice but if one wanted to "optimize" this kind of choice, it can be a very profitable enterprise (especially the long term benefit of slaves won by sacking/looting ports, if public order is managed). I was literally crushing every settlements and fleets (and transports...) with 90% survival chance in auto-resolve, so I could have easily decreased to say 15/20 stack of purely light illyrian raiders.

I didnt have enough land armies to defend the settlements, and even if, I wanted to keep my arch nemesis the romans as an eternal target to prey on: they kept repairing their buildings, I kept assaulting their ports everytime I saw an opening it fed my economy and I could focus my land armies on Illirya and surrounding provinces.
At one point Italy got conquered by some of my allies, so I was preparing to backstab them properly to keep feeding my fleets, but then...

[rem123456]

I will try this once the culture pack comes out, with the new Illyrian ships and raiding bonus. I will be counting the days until Thursday.

[RandomRoman]

If the new illyrian units will be in DEI.


(you know, maybe are already in the mod or they are not historical correct).

[Butan]

I asked that on the general discussion forum but noone answered me : does the DLC include some gameplay tweaks (especially tweaks to stances/buildings bonus/technologies-factions effects that would make more powerful raid/pillage gameplay path) or will they just have a roster which (I talk under your control) will be an inferior version of DeI ?

[rem123456]

I asked that on the general discussion forum but noone answered me : does the DLC include some gameplay tweaks (especially tweaks to stances/buildings bonus/technologies-factions effects that would make more powerful raid/pillage gameplay path) or will they just have a roster which (I talk under your control) will be an inferior version of DeI ?

CA says that they specialize in stealing wealth but I wouldn't expect a new stance. They will probably have a bonus to cash gained from raiding, sacking or looting as the Balkan culture bonus.

[Dumanthis]

Well pirates or not, I am now pissed. Having played a long campaign as Odrysians and the Ardiaei, the CA decides now to lock them up and ask me for money if I want to play with them in the future. Man I am pissed.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

Well pirates or not, I am now pissed. Having played a long campaign as Odrysians and the Ardiaei, the CA decides now to lock them up and ask me for money if I want to play with them in the future. Man I am pissed.

Uhhhhhh..... They're free son.