Reintroducing Pirate Raids

[zolobolo]

I was thinking on how Pirate raids could be reintroduced in a way that is fun and does not cripple the AI (or player):

1. Target planet is selected among the top 30% richest planets from the top 3 richest empires (complementing the Marauder mechanic which is aimed to target new/young colonies)
2. Attacks start only when at least 2 empires have met each other for over 50 Turns (complementing again Marauder mechanic which is aimed as an early game threat). This would also thematically be correct as it is strange to see well-armed pirate fleets when some empires would still sturggle to put together a similar fleet, and would also autoamtically mean that it does not stack much with Marauder raids and cripple early empires
3. Pirate fleet would utilize the avaialble technology of the empire that has the highest tech score: This way they do not seem like an unreasonably advanced force and capturing their ships does not give an unreasonably big advantage. Countering them is also more realistic unless they are sponsored :
4. All Human factions on the map get a Diplomatic message from the leader of the Pirate fleet (unless they are the ones being targeted) offering the chance to sponsor their "enterprise" via options:
A: Do not sponsor: Small reputation degredation towards attacked empire - but still some which is important
B: Sponsor with small amount of coin: Medium reputation penatly towards attacked empire. Pirate fleet grows double in size and can host Cruiser. If succesfull, sponsoring empire gets medium amount of coin and) metal
C: Sponsor with large amount of coin (if has enough funds): High relationship penalty. Pirate fleet grows tripple in size and can host Battleship. If succesfull, sponsoring empire gets large amount of coin, metal and reasearch

The last point is important as it:
1. Gives an acutal reason ffor other empires to dislike the Humans and say: "Pirates attacked us"
2. Woudl have the same effect on human player: Now the player would rightfull be warry of Human factions on the map as these can visibly strenghten and profit from raids agaisnt them. Disliking Human facitons and trying to take them out would be a natural player reaction which would be mostly correct when playing other races and serve the fluff withouth actual descriptions explaining it. The player can organically see if the fleet has been sponsored witohuth any text explaining it and taking out the Human faciton(s) would reduce the pwoer of these attacks
2. Gives a much needed bonus to the currently underpowered Human faction withouth changing their difficult starting position for those who like it. Human pops are clearly the least usefull pops as they lack any sot of bonus except for Moral bonus when City building but this way Human empires can keep up with runaway Yoral, Ashdar or Tinker empires by weakening them withouth direct confrontation and profiting of their defeats
3. Would spice up the mid and late game consdierably: creating new conflict dimension which would directly effect alliances set up during the early game
4. Would give an interesting and unique mechanic to the Humans withouth any major change to the existing mechanic
5. Only Humans supporting the pirates makes sense from fluff side as they would probably supply the most privateer personnel for these adventures and due to their history, upper command chain can still have ties to the privateer captains
6. Would explain where the Pirates get their ships, personnel and weapons

[orvarth]

sponsoring pirates seems a gremak thing , they could sponsor both marauder an human pirate ; some of these pirates could defect to the better looking new found human empire ( pop and ships) .

pirates should have more variety in ships , gremak capture slaves and human captures ships , pirates clans could fields multi cultural ships .

[zolobolo]

To extend the machinc to further factions, the concept woud neend to be revised:
- Marauders already have an advantage via their Marauder ties (being able to assimilate time), furhter control via Pirate raids would give them an edge
- As mentioned, pirates currently only boost human ships. To reflect influence of other nations, new ship models would need to be introduced to reflect that, otehrwise it is not clear who sponsored them. If only Human faction can sponsor and you see a (Human) Battleship in the pirate fleet, it makes sense that it was the Human faction who is sponsoring them. A workaround would be to send a notification who has sponsored the current enterprise but that would further clutter the message board and the subtle nature of the mechanic would also suffer. Admittedly, even if Humans have this mechanic, there could be an issue if there are several of them on them on hte map but this is: A: highly unlikely, B: can be consdiered as a minigame of not being sure which one is sponsoring them
- Additional Gremak pirate ship models would increase the fatique of Grema style ships as they are already very common due to Marauders (though I am sure that a fresh paint would be welcome for quite a while )
- The mechanic of destroying the Human faction to reduce the threat of these attackes would not work: at least the Humans and the Greamak + additional races that have this mechanic would need to be eliminated which would make it much harder as a mid-game strategy (would take up much more resources and cause diplomacy incident): If the Humans are the universally hated species, it is realtively easy to attakc them withouth much resistence diplomacy wise, but the Gremak are not the universally hated and would present an additional race that would need to be singled out
- Relationship penalty text would need to be adjusted from "Human pirates attacked us" to "X Pirates attacked us" or just "Pirates attaked us" in general though this would not convey the information of the sponsor - this is admittedly the smallest issue though

Generally I think the mechanic only suites the Humans though in its current form (from what was already implemented so far).

Gremak are very much into slave aquisition, and pirate mechanic would be for resource gains: something that the Humans have been lor-wise lacking and are also lacking due to their least-effective pop-type

We should also consider not to make the mechanic too punishing for the AI and having more factions being able to sponsor, the likelyhood would be considerably higher that at least one faction always does. e.g.: Gremak usually have more funds to spend on such things then a Human faction does

Overall all three "monster" mechanics need to present some challenge but at the same time also not be too hard to deflect to spare the AI and keep them from being boring due to repetition:
1. Marauders; Early-game monsters; Fix targets (calculatable where they can strike); Low chance of actually attacking (paying off, being stronger); Only taking slaves but not occupying or devastating planets
2. Pirates: Mid-game monsters; Semi-random targets (somewhat expectable where they could strike: most prosperious planets of ricest factions); Medium chance of attack (when rich faction) but low to medium chance of strong attack (as Human faction is mostly poor); Only devastating a single planet
3. Harpy: Early to late-game monsters; Fully random targets (maybe dependent on Metal richness of system); Chance of attacks and strength increases lineary over time; Only attacking ships and stations + blocking system but not invading, raiding or bombing