A question for the dev... pirates ???

The pirates in Diplomacy are overpowered.  Maybe what we need is for someone to make a mod that only affects the Diplomacy pirates, weakening them.  Are there any modders who would like to do that? 

If you ever decide that you want to play it against human opponents over Ironclad Online, note that almost all online multiplayer games have the pirates turned off and no one misses them at all.

Most peoples single player games have pirates off as well. Been a complaint since the release. Maybe this idea can be incorporated into the Project Equilibrium.

[Released] Diplomacy Pirate Strength Mod » Forum Post by Teal_Blue

I don't know what you are talking about. Once I got use to them I've been able to adapt my play style to totally defeat simply and easly adapted to. After about a week of with Diplomacy I've never had problems with them again. In fact I've had the exact opposity there over powering ability has been a great tool in defeating other players when my forces are other wise occupied.

     I newly discovered the requiem mod 3.1 which lowers pirate strength by 33% and took away their siege frigates, seems to be the perfect balance. I also after playing this game for years had to turn off pirates or lower the difficulty before enjoying? them again after this mod was installed.

Well Emplear, maybe you can explain to us how your playing.

I did not buy Sins of a Pirate Empire, because it seems either all my money goes to pay them or they are attacking me. The hole game was pirates, pirates, pirates.

Yeah I would also be very interested in knowing how exactly you are adapting your play style to suit the diplomacy pirates. Seeing as how in a game I have right now that's at about the 3 hour mark pirates are basically attacking everyone each time they count down. Bounty doesn't seem to even be a factor the axe comes down on me and all the AI though it doesn't really seem to affect the AI that much it's pretty frustrating when you essentially have to just say "ok well that planet is gone"

Worst part imo is that they seem to hang around after they've wasted the planet too. So unless you're willing to take down their ships around the planet you can't even take it back. Its silly.

Hm. I dunno how Emplear is playing, but I can tell you how I play. I have the latest version of diplomacy, and I enjoy the challenge of diplomacy pirates. The only thing I don't like is that the AI never bid against each other anymore.

I play single player. I'm usually TEC. I was playing versus all hard AI (either random or economist) and a while ago moved up to all unfair AI. I mostly play large FFA games, and ALWAYS with the pirates on.

I concentrate on my economy first and foremost. I rarely build more than the free cap ship until relatively late in the game, and often don't even send any support to it. I find that a single Sova is enough to take almost any planet, except maybe those tough deserts with 3 Kodiaks and their friends. This keeps my supply cost at 0.

If the enemy is close I'll build minimal defenses needed, always concentrating on the econ.

I click over frequently to look at the pirate clock, and if it's less than a minute away I'll curb my expenditures. When it hits 0 I sell all my metal and crystal, then I wait about 25 seconds (since 30 seconds is minimum for pirate launch) and (depending on the situation) then put at least half of my cash on whatever enemy is next to me, or seems the most threatening. Every few seconds I'll put another 250 or so to prevent them snipe bidding near the end (because they're trying to build up cash to beat me the whole time, or so I think).

Most games I don't get raided at all, and when I do it's usually because I was caught up in multiple battles and didn't notice the pirates were about to launch a raid. I've rarely seen the AI outbid 10k, so when my economy is strong enough I'll often bid that or higher and not bother babysitting the pirate clock for the whole 30 to 90 second countdown. Until I can do that though, I don't watch anything else while it's going.

So basically by concentrating entirely on economy, I can just hire out a navy instead of building my own. It's especially useful once you research the ability to send the pirates to particular planets. Even when I build my own navy, that's good for wiping my allies off of an artifact or otherwise juicy planet.

I've won entire games militarily while keeping my fleet supply cost at 0.

I am getting used to the clock, I need to be zoomed out so other sounds dont override. Also used a single LF to [SHIFT]  a bunch of circles around the planet they attacked and they spent the hole time following the LF not touching a single structure. I could even build.

Wouldn't a scout be more economical?

Anyway: IMO, this is one of the reasons why the TEC starbase has "Safety Override Protocol". It may seem a little...wimpy to have kamikazee starbases, but hey, if they can kill pirates that would otherwise waste your fleet and planets, why not?

Richter {^}

 LF had left a battle with like 20 hp left. Was repairing when pirates arrived but my fleet was engaged.  

Excuse me fist0, I was just making an observation. Not all of us are gifted with telepathic powers such as urself.

I was actually expecting you to say that the kamikazee starbase thing was a bad idea...

Richter {^}

Actually going to test that kamikazee SB idea, never used that ability yet.  

Why thank you good sir.

I honestly havn't either, but in the late-end game I"ll waste credits on that upgrade, and 12000 range w/ 8000 damage or something like that seemed pretty impressive to me.

Please do tell if it works, I don't have Diplo yet, so I can't test it.

Richter {^}

have the pirates ever produced any "enemy mine" situations where all the players ally to kill them?

That would be a sight to see...

however, whichever factions come out with the lowest losses will obviously annihilate the factions that took the heaviest losses, since the threat of pirates are gone.

Richter {^}