they don't, unless raids have been accumulating there and not leaving.

but yeah you guys are right about culture, doesn't affect pirates. mind, eyes of the converted still works on 'em, but you can't knock out the base with culture.

For the record, I do use this tactic when I want to colonize a nearby world (for example a well defended desert planet), just go in with your fleet, target the militia siege frigates, colonize with colony capital ship and move out. Once the sisge frigates are destroyed, make sure you turn auto-attack off. The goal is to keep the local militia intact (except for siege frigates) to protect the planet. The militia will only target the constructors, so dont bother building structures, just upgrade the planet's infrastructure instead.

But this will be different if u have maps that have multiple pirate bases.

Anyway, thanks for info!

I'm not sure on this one.  I know all other colonizable planets always have at least one siege frigate, but I'm not sure about the pirate base.  I know they can have pillagers, but I'm not sure if they always do.  In any case, like all siege frigates, a few carriers can pop in and remove them before the rest of the defenders actually close in.

IIRC, you cannot even target a pirate base directly with a deliverance engine because it doesn't have population.  Maybe I'm confusing it with uncolonized planets, but I seem to recall being unable to use my deliverance on a pirate base.  Unless deliverance culture is somehow different from regular culture, it won't "defeat" the pirate base, either.

Actually, I just checked, and Pirates do have pillagers in the gravity well at the start of the game!

it can be targeted directly. just won't do any good in terms of its allegiance.

Why would you wait for so long before conquering a pirate base? Unless you rush for the Novalith Cannon (which is not a very smart strategy at all), it's much easier to just send in a decent sized fleet and kill all pirates and colonize the base. The pirates may look intimidating, but a fleet with a Capital Ship (any of them, really), a few Hoshis, Carriers and HC will own the crap out of them. And if you have a lvl 6 Marza it's no problem at all. You hardly even need a fleet then.

Also, this late into the game, the extra 3.5 income won't make a big difference since it'll be reduced by a whole lot because of the fleet upkeep. And most of your income should be trade income anyway by that time, especially if you're TEC.

I just confirmed in game that the pirate base CANNOT be directly targetted with a deliverance engine.

You get an error stating "target must have population"

When I started this post in 2008, it was for the SOASE at that time, which did not have any pillagers in the pirate grav well.  Infact, I think the pirates only had corsairs but I am not positive.

I checked in my current game of Agamennon's Bounty (sp?) and there is infact 3 pillagers, so when you colonize immediately destroy the planet.  There are two explanations for this:

1. They nerfed the NAP.  It would not make any sense to defend your planet with siege frigates.  The only possible reason they exist would be to prevent the NAP strategy so I think the game developers nerfed this strategy.  However, the planet still is nuked and does not recover.  To prevent this strategy completely the pirates would need to have colonizers.
2. Drugs or Alcohol.  Somehow I managed to destroy the siege frigates previously and never noticed them before, but I do not think this is the case.

In either case, the Akkan will need a buddy or two to take out the 3 siege frigates and as Darvin3 points out, the pillagers can be surgicaly targeted and taken out fairly quickly and then the buddies can be retreated.

 Well pirates having colonizers make me think of a suggestion...

what if pirate raiders bring along a colonizer & COLONIZE the planet they looted?

that would make pirates more dangerous and significant

Pirates arn't intended to be another player really.

Wouldn't you have to make sure that you destroyed the pirate ships that bombard planets?  Otherwise, they'd just destroy the base, although they could not colonize it again

Yes, the 3 pillagers should be surgically removed.

As was said earlier, this whole strategy no longer applies because of recent patches. The original post is almost 6 months old.

See reply #34 above.

Well, before and after the patch, it doesn't change anything : i can hardly see a situation where the strategic advantage is worth the investment. If you build defenses instead of researching novalith, pirates are not a annoyance anymore.

And even if you colonize the thing, you would have to make expensive civic upgrades...

RS-fx, what civic upgrades are you referring to?  The planet naturally produces 3.5 credits a second.  This planet is second only to your home world.  Assuming you have other uses for the Akkan and Novalith Cannons , there would not be any investment to make to recieve this revenue stream. 

The point is if you leave the gauss cannons intact, you do not have any investments to make.  Once the pirates are no longer useful, why would it ever not be a good investment to colonize the pirate base?  You certainly do not need to use the NAP to take the pirate base, a level 6 Marza will clear out the pirates no problem, but wouldn't taking the base be one of the best investments in the game?

It would if the novalith thing was not so damn expensive that the time you build one of this thing you don't need 3.5 more credits per second anymore. The experience that pirates bring is more important as it can allows you to level up your caps that wouldn't stand a long time against focus fire in mid game if you engage them at low level.

The strategy looks nice but it would only be useful on very very long game where you can research novalith cannon without wasting a lot of money that could have been going to your fleet. In early and mid game where pirates are a annoyance, every credit is important and you can't afford to do the NAP. Attacking your ennemy is a far better investment.

Agreed, the pirates provide much needed xp.

The expensive civic upgrades you were refering to were the military labs you need to get the cannons and the cannons are the big investment.  I thought you were refering to civic upgrades to the pirate base.

If you used a NAP strategy, it would be late game after you have the xp you needed.  I do use the Novalith cannons against the ai if they are still around in a large or medium map.  The idea is to take out worlds prior to assaulting the grav well to allow for more of a blitzkreig so they are not an extra expense to me, but I think I understand your position and I would not build Novalith cannons only to nuke the pirate world, a marza would be more cost efficient if you were not going to bulid the cannons anyway.  Keep in mind there are some maps that have multiple pirate worlds.

What confused me was the last sentence that appeared to discount the value of colonizing the pirate world, but you certainly can win the game without it.  another advantage of getting rid of their base is it stops the incessant notification that "one of our world's is under siege!" which is tiring after a while.

so that was part of my problem cuase the moment I  colonized the base, the seige ships demolished me, and my akkan didnt escape.