Privateer

[Arrian]

Right, and privateers are great for that stuff... unless the enemy has frigates/ships of the line. In other words, privateers are cool unless the enemy has tech parity with you. Then they get sunk (assuming roughly even numbers).

Kuci's point was rather simple. In a war (declared war), Frigate > Privateer. This is before he knew privateers didn't require iron, mind you. To boil it down to the most basic equation, Kuci claimed 8 > 6.

The points about the usefulness of a privateer outside of war - which is really the purpose of a privateer anyway - doesn't really have any impact on that point.

He was responding to the OP, which specifically asked about using privateers as the primary fleet ships in a shooting war.

-Arrian

[dac]

Hmm, as an old player of Colonization, shouldn't privateers at least require sugar (in order to make Rum)?

Ok, I'll be quiet now.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Arrian
Right, and privateers are great for that stuff... unless the enemy has frigates/ships of the line. In other words, privateers are cool unless the enemy has tech parity with you. Then they get sunk (assuming roughly even numbers).

Kuci's point was rather simple. In a war (declared war), Frigate > Privateer. This is before he knew privateers didn't require iron, mind you. To boil it down to the most basic equation, Kuci claimed 8 > 6.

The points about the usefulness of a privateer outside of war - which is really the purpose of a privateer anyway - doesn't really have any impact on that point.

He was responding to the OP, which specifically asked about using privateers as the primary fleet ships in a shooting war.

-Arrian

Well, sure. That's all obvious. Still, dismissing the peace-time uses of the privateer is a little bit of a circular argument, seems to me.

I guess to me, it comes down to this: how many hammers is it wise to spend on your navy? There's some limit, of course. Every hammer you spend on a ship is a hammer that could have been spent on a research or gold producing building, on land units, or, if nothing else, on producing Research.

So, given limited hammers, is it better to invest in a unit that is only useful during a small portion of the game (let's call that X%), or to invest in a unit which has widespread use during (100%-X) but is weaker during X?

Most players probably have X% = 15-25% perhaps. Some players more, some players less.

Even if you have to send your privateers in pairs or wolfpacks, and have to trade 2 for 1 to kill frigates, the peacetime benefits will outweigh the wartime disadvantage in many games.

Not all games, and it will always be a trade-off. The best mix would probably be a few of each. That way, when your opponents get frigates themselves, you can send a frigate to escort your privateers.

Wodan

[Arrian]

Well, sure. That's all obvious. Still, dismissing the peace-time uses of the privateer is a little bit of a circular argument, seems to me.

Neither Kuciwalker nor I was doing that.

-Arrian

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Arrian


Neither Kuciwalker nor I was doing that.

-Arrian

My bad. I guess I misunderstood when you said:

The points about the usefulness of a privateer outside of war - which is really the purpose of a privateer anyway - doesn't really have any impact on that point.

He was responding to the OP, which specifically asked about using privateers as the primary fleet ships in a shooting war.