Why so few pirates?

[Solfius]

I think the problem with piracy is that it requires suprise and speed, but the game is engineered so that there's little speed advantage: it's deliberately slow to allow for the fact not everyone is online at the same time so that they have a chance to react.

[CrashBlizz]

things happen at certain times. Boats move, work is done on projcets and people travel at the same time each game hour. People who can be online when needed DO have an advantage and others don't have time to react.

If you know when to do it you can hit everyone, steal everything, undock and be an hours travel away in a matter of minutes.

[The Cantrian]

Me and my big mouth, was just complaining about the lack of effective pirates and now one of my characters got kidnapped by a crew of pirates.

I must agree that being a pirate in Cantr is difficult and very complex. The game does not really encourage piracy, with the element of surpise very dificult to obtain and use. Plus your crew needs to be absolutely loyal, and awake at the same time. There's nothing worse than sitting waiting for a crewmate to wake up so you can raid and pillage a town.

So, is it better then to be a land pirate? If you have a fast vehicle, you can escape with relative ease, and you can then also surprise the people of a town, no "you see x start to dock" or stuff like that.

[sanchez]

So, is it better then to be a land pirate? If you have a fast vehicle, you can escape with relative ease, and you can then also surprise the people of a town, no "you see x start to dock" or stuff like that.

Yes! I want to hear an approaching car or van from same number of turns out as sailboats are announced.

[Crosshair]

Most of my characters on coastal towns have tried a bit of piracy... but the closest any of them got was stealing a large ammount of stone and making off with it. i was quite proud of the feat in itself lol. Other times i have hoped that pirates come to my town so i can join them, but they will most likely kill me...

[Leo Luncid]

So, is it better then to be a land pirate? If you have a fast vehicle, you can escape with relative ease, and you can then also surprise the people of a town, no "you see x start to dock" or stuff like that.

Ugh, if you don't mind, the term pirate is really getting old right now. How did it ever came into the habit of calling people who steal things pirates??? Why not bandits? Rouges? Assassins? Hitman? Anything BUT pirates. Get creative already...

Anyways, from my perspective, what's really hard about raiding cities is finding the right people who will go by your side, hand in hand. It always seems that people are just too good nowadays, so one may not even take the chance to privately ask another to join his or her plot into seizing a city.

[Missy]

people are just too good nowadays, so one may not even take the chance to privately ask another to join his or her plot into seizing a city.

I think peoples perception of "good" is off quite a bit. Many people can appear good and do bad in secret, but would the whole world see it? Probably not. Would the character have balls to admitt that while he's supposed to be making steel for the town he's pocketing at least 50% of the product? Etc. That doesn't make him good, but it would make him stupid to admit that he'd done that.

I lump pirating and boat thieving as one in the same. After all it appears that a good majority of pirates have stolen boats. One of the problems with pirates isn't that you can't find a crew, because in big cities it seems like every day there's someone spawning and explaining: "I'm looking to join a crew." (Now maybe the sleeping of crew mates is a problem but it's not one in the same as not being able to find a crew altogehter.) I think a good reason to suspect why there aren't many pirates could be that all these boat thieves don't get very far half the time any more. At least I know of a few towns that catch their boat thieves almost all of the time. It's not hard to steal a boat, frankly. People are always unlocking them so someone else can come aboard/exit or forgetting to lock it. Building one and forgetting to jump on right away, etc. (That happens so much in one particular town that for a while I was about ready to rip my hair out. No sooner do you get back from chasing and apprehending a boat thief and someone else jumps on your boat and tries to take you and the boat out to sea. You get back from that and here the boat you just passed out at sea? Well everyone in town's gone chasing it because someone stole it too.)

[Doug R.]

The problem with most pirate crews is they tend to stab each other in the back normally through fear of being stabed in the back.

Evil feeds upon itself. Ever hear that saying? Vader betrayed the Emperor, pirate crews revolt against their captain, Number 2 ran out on Dr. Evil, etc. Why do you think evil super-geniuses always have morons for lackies? Because they are too dumb to betray.

The only way evil can exist for a long period of time is to:

1) Wrap in in the trappings of acceptability so your followers don't know you're evil (the Blackrocks, Andur O'Shan)

2) Institutionalize it (the Barons). Leaders change, but the diabolical machine marches on.

3) Keep it private. The best way, but no one ever knows, so what fun is that? (although two of my blood-sucker's prisoners got let out, but if they talk, I doubt they'd be believed.)

I am toying with the idea of turning my one character into an assassin. He can drag most people single handed, and is an expert fighter. Could be fun. Mary Williams better watch her ass.

[Marian]

Bumping this thread, because it's true! There are just so many towns that deserve to be attacked, that actually need to be attacked for the good of the game.

It's complete BS to call a place with a few sleeping newspawns standing around a 'town'. There's no organization, no government, unless you count the old guy snoozing beside them, or maybe one or two people that are always locked in a building. Why aren't there more takeovers? Theres no way a place like that should be able to survive, it's completely unrealistic.

[Bowser]

I use the word Pirate and Boat Thieves. I would prefer not to use Pirates to describe someone who docks, steals things, hits people, and undocks in a flash. The problem is when someone is called a boat thief, you don'r know if that means they stole a boat or they are thieves travelling by boat.

All boat thieves are boat thieves, but not all boat thieves are boat thieves (most are though).

[Mafia Salad]

Why would someone want to go to a town full of sleeping newspawns? There is nothing there for them.

[Marian]

Why would someone want to go to a town full of sleeping newspawns? There is nothing there for them.

Except for all the locked buildings, of course...

And even if there's not much loot there's all the machines and things that were made back when the place was more active. All these ghost towns are basically sitting there just waiting for someone active to put them to use, but the only thing keeping them from being taken over is because it's not 'polite', I guess.

[Missy]

Why would someone want to go to a town full of sleeping newspawns? There is nothing there for them.

Except for all the locked buildings, of course...

And even if there's not much loot there's all the machines and things that were made back when the place was more active. All these ghost towns are basically sitting there just waiting for someone active to put them to use, but the only thing keeping them from being taken over is because it's not 'polite', I guess.

And have you made steps to do something about it?




And

(Now maybe the sleeping of crew mates is a problem but it's not one in the same as not being able to find a crew altogehter.)

I want to add that people on pirate crews can't sleep any more or less than some of the people in charge of towns. If some town is more active than your pirate crew, it's still just one town. What about the countless others where not a soul will answer you for days at a time?

[Marian]

And have you made steps to do something about it?

I've tried making a pirate, but you can't seem to get anywhere in this game unless you *smile* a lot as a newspawn, and the only char I've ever had evil enough to kill people for no reason hated everyone and was too antisocial to get a crew.

[The Cantrian]

Bumping this thread, because it's true! There are just so many towns that deserve to be attacked, that actually need to be attacked for the good of the game.

I have a new charcter now, and she's definately gonna be a pirate, attacking all those deserving towns

Now just to get a fast boat, some heavy weapons, decent shields, lots of healing food, a pirate crew............

Watch out world!