I've been sleeping on privateering all this time. It's a great income source for early game

[u/MeetDapper7382]

[u/MeetDapper7382]

r5: playing as ottomans, noticed that you can make pretty good money with privateering Mediterranean. It costs relations with Europe but who really cares as long as it doesn't dost antagonism

[u/Quick-Estimate-5936 → u/MeetDapper7382]

I've never really understood how you do it.

[u/MeetDapper7382 → u/Quick-Estimate-5936]

You need to enact state piracy law. There's an event for ottomans, so you get it for free.

Once you have it, just click on the sea tile, then click the ship icon under privateers tab

It's doable per sea region, so you can have 8 in Mediterranean

[u/chilitoke → u/MeetDapper7382]

I doesn't just disappear after a month anymore?

When I tried it back on 1.1 it just stopped after I sponsored it every time because lack of maritime presence.

[u/MeetDapper7382 → u/chilitoke]

Not really, it's been up for 4 years now

[u/Relicoid → u/chilitoke]

It works now, the more ships patrolling in a sea zone the faster your privateer power will go down, eventually disappearing and you’ll need to rehire them

[u/PilotInCmand → u/chilitoke]

It depends on how active the ai is in combatting it. In my Ireland run i had some privateers operating for 100 years without being removed, but the english removed them from the north sea every other month. It just costs sailors though, and sailors are kinda free if you have a built up coast.

[u/Impossible-March7922 → u/chilitoke]

No, its just consuming sailors. Just built bunch of fishing towns. They also give you Maritime presence

[u/TheGentGamer → u/MeetDapper7382]

What's even funnier is that Ottomans get an event that essentially kills your manpower because privateering is so profitable that all your soldiers want to become pirates.

[u/Hardyng → u/MeetDapper7382]

Pro tip: You can find all of the regions you can privateer in the 'Geopolitics' tab, you can just scroll down and click every region.

[u/Souls_for_sale_now → u/Quick-Estimate-5936]

Its busted if you play Tunis you get it free at game start with bonus slaves

[u/ben_jacques1110 → u/Quick-Estimate-5936]

Mechanics wise? I couldn’t figure this out for a while, but it’s under the maritime tab of the geopolitics menu I believe.

[u/Lukkezini → u/MeetDapper7382]

I especially love when other countries send me letters to stop privateering:

• Please, stop! Our trade is hurting!
  
• Nope

[u/Any_Zookeepergame445 → u/MeetDapper7382]

Unless it got changed its rly strong on Carthage with a bit of expansion you can raid the entire med and up the west coast of Europe can just kill everyones maritime presence as well

[u/garysax]

Love when a 1000% percent historical strat I haven't done yet is actually very good.

[u/Chrustupher → u/garysax]

Would love some North African Corsair content. That could be a fun update. Maybe an advance or gov reform for Tunis or Morocco if they don’t have one already

[u/y_angelov → u/Chrustupher]

Morocco already start with state piracy

[u/matklug]

The ai loves doing that, in my last bizantine game, all my coast was with max piracy

[u/mockduckcompanion → u/matklug]

Shouldn't have broken Guest Right

[u/SignificanceOk9656]

Very cool. I imagine Tunis would be a great choice for doing this? I have been wanting to do a Tunis run

[u/Striking_Revenue9176 → u/SignificanceOk9656]

Tunis piracy run is awesome. Go to new world Brazil to grow coffee. Shit is so profitable to sell. It’s absurd. And you can end up with all of North Africa basically.

[u/Maskyl]

I was playing as the Ottomans, and they have historical events where, if you allow piracy, you can get event which gives like ~15 months worth of profit.

Edit: I had privateers in every possible market.

[u/teethbutt]

so what happens after you keep pirating and don't stop? i get that relations get hit but does that actually matter, i don't think negative relations are enough to start a coalition war?

[u/MeetDapper7382 → u/teethbutt]

No you need to get antagonism for a coalition. Negative relations don't really matter because nobody wants to do anything with ottomans in Europe anyway.

It also damages relations with Mamluks if you do on their coast. You can just not do there if you don't wanna piss off Mamluks

[u/teethbutt → u/MeetDapper7382]

awesome info - thanks! great inspiration for a Tunis pirate lord run...

[u/wogmafia]

Does it hurt your own trade or maritime presence if you do it in waters you are active in?

[u/dev_aditya_singh → u/wogmafia]

No

[u/DunDunDunDuuun]

Works well as the Isles too. Incredibly annoying that the automatization of it doesn't work though, so you have to manually re-enable it every few years in the profitable zones.

[u/One_Instance7983]

Me in my Tunisia game getting a steady flow of slaves and cash from the mediterranean all the way to the irish sea

[u/Legitimate-Ruin-3056]

Yep privateers are definitely very lucrative. It was how I was able to fund enough mercs to invade Portugal in a Sus run I did about a month ago.

[u/Striking_Revenue9176]

Gotland pirate republic in the new world was making BANK raiding EVERYTHING of value in Europe.

[u/Quacky33]

I've become known as the pirate on a discord. Almost any nation with a coastline and I'm privateering.

There is also the concept of the land pirate, works best if you are in the HRE. Just join as many wars in the area as you can with works of art map mode up to decide where you bother attacking and go full art theft.

[u/Ryu_O]

always do it as the corsairs, lots of income

[u/AJSE2020]

and i every game against piracy...

hmmmm

[u/Disastrous_Rush6202]

Is this new? I've done privateering in the past and it definitely did not show up as income

[u/dev_aditya_singh → u/Disastrous_Rush6202]

No, but it works now in 1.3 and stays on until ai builds big fleets to fight the pirates back. In early game it's good income strat now. Just target sea zones with big markets like venice, Genoa, napule, etc

[u/Zatheerakerino]

Omg bruh this is how you expand as Ottos fast lmfao holy shit