[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Krill]

The Privateer needs to have a counter of some description.

If you look at the tech requirements above, Compass and Optics are roughly 1.5K beakers, equal to Guilds. Given Compass is not a widely researched tech until you need to go to Astro, I don't think it's unreasonable to state that Astro is something like 6K worth of tech, compared to 4K for Guilds and Gunpowder: the counter to Galleons is easier to research than galleons themselves, plus you get Guilds and muskets. Good techs to have.

Optics and Compass at 1.5K though, means that yes, if someone just dumps privateers into your coastal tiles and blockades, you can build a cheap counter and hit him. That is hte purpose of caravels with that bonus, but you can't use caravels as offensive weapons. Just a counter to one use of privateers.

If you are using just caravels but an opponent has both Astro and Gunpowder, then the defender at a tech deficit shouldn't be able to cheaply defend, but then the frigate is just one tech away and frigates trump everything.

The point is that there is a counter to someone bee-lining Astro, there is a counter to someone bee-lining gunpowder, but a tech deficit should be punished. You can still rush caravels to wipe out triremes and galleys.

Maybe the privateer should be 4 moves, I wrote 5 moves because I thought those were the vanilla stats. 4 moves is fine, IMO.

[Thoth]

4 moves and strength 5 for privateers? 6 strength seems a bit much.
Keep +125% strength for caravels?

[Mardoc]

I agree with the philosophy, especially the part about a general tech lead still giving an advantage.  I think cutting privateer movement would make caravels close enough to competitive, but still not something you want to rely on if you don't have to, which seems to fit.

I think "someone just dumps privateers into your coastal tiles and blockades" is too rare to worry about, 80h and a beeline is a lot to pay for a fairly limited effect.  But privateers still need a counter of some sort when covering galleys so I won't argue the point.

[Mardoc]

4 moves and strength 5 for privateers?  6 strength seems a bit much.

That just moves the problem to Frigates being uncounterable, doesn't it?  At least with 6 Str you can try to 2v1 Privateer vs Frigate and buy a little time.

[Krill]

If you think it's rare...just look at this game of an example where uncounterable boats control the game.

That's also why, if the privateer is lowered to 5 strength, it has to have a bonus against galleons. C2 galleons have odds of defence against unpromoted privateers and it's close to even odds until C2 privateers. That has impact of the strength of charismatic, Theo and Vassalage. Galleons shouldn't get great odds versus privateers but privateers at strength 5 and 25% against galleons should be fine.,

[Krill]

4 moves and strength 5 for privateers?  6 strength seems a bit much.

That just moves the problem to Frigates being uncounterable, doesn't it?  At least with 6 Str you can try to 2v1 Privateer vs Frigate and buy a little time.

Frigates being a stop gap period to reset naval wars imo is not a problem, and SoL exist to then stop frigate fleets running over islands. If there were concerns here...I'd suggest making privateers have a bonus against SoL. And SoL are Ind era units so that's a different issue completely.

[Thoth]

4 moves and strength 5 for privateers?  6 strength seems a bit much.

That just moves the problem to Frigates being uncounterable, doesn't it?  At least with 6 Str you can try to 2v1 Privateer vs Frigate and buy a little time.

Ships of the Line? 

[Mardoc]

If you think it's rare...just look at this game of an example where uncounterable boats control the game.

Haven't seen a single blockade.  All the threat seems to be from the passengers.

...which, I admit, does support your unconcern about Frigates somewhat.

[OT4E]

That doesn't help though, because without Astro unless you are blockading your own coast line galleons just ignore the privateers.

Not really. You can probably unload on a tile you want but lose galleons afterwards. Is it worth?

[Old Harry]

Shouldn't a good bee-line get a reward? If you have good enough boats and good enough hitters to hurt someone why shouldn't you hurt them?

Or, if you're set on the change then, thematically, privateers should require optics or compass to get into ocean tiles.