Privateers ...few notes.

[arras]

Privateers ...as opposed to pirates were operated under some kind of legal status ...they received so called "Letter of Marque" which was basicly license to operate from government under certain conditions ...which were to attack only ships of enemy and to bring prize to government port where it was sold (ship, cargo or both), part of profit was given to privateer and his crew, rest went to government treasury (about 50% if I recall right).

If privateer attacked ships of neutral nations it was not considered as operating under license, therefore he could be hunted down as pirate. Of course some countries unofficially supported privateers to operate against opponents even if nations were not actually at war. But in such case such ships were treated as pirates and could be dealt as such by opponent. Also such activities (if government support was obvious) could lead to worsening of relations, issuing diplomatic ultimatum or could be even cause of war.

Privateers in game however are considered as part of other nation units and cannot be attacked if you are not at war or dealt in any other way.

I understand that effect of privateer on trade in zone represent in game effect of such privateer on general trade not attacks on your merchant ships particularly but there are few problems then:

- privateers steal resources from trade routes of countries regardless of war/neutral/allied status.

- privateers cause havoc to trade even if all ports in zone belong to neutral or allied countries

Therefore in game they act like ordinary pirates not privateers.

So I think that:

Either let privateers to be liable for attack even without war, in which case they will be considered as pirates

or prevent privateer from stealing resources from trade routes by neutral/allied countries and calculate effect on merchant trade by number of ports/docks in war with are in sea zone (since trade is calculated from level of docks in zone according to manual). that would make them act as true privateers. This would have some nice side effect of historical realism as there was no sense for England to field large force of privateers while France went for all out privateering war against English merchants. And this suggestion would have similar effect since most trade routes on sea are to/from England.

Yes I know designers wanted to represent unruly character of privateers who sometimes resorted to piracy if there were not enough enemy shipping around but then should have given player ability to react accordingly.

May be easiest way would be to allow player (or AI) to attack privateer in zone where his merchant or trade route is present. In other zones it will be considered neutral unit as usual. In such case it would be nice if AI knew to protect/patrol its trade lanes too of course.
Well I know problem is that if there is other merchant in war with privateer or enemy trade route, privateer is operating legally but I dont know any other simple solution.

[Mike Parker]

I wrote at some length on this in the past.  I pretty much agree with you here with one exception.
 
A state of war and issuance of Letters of Marque and Reprisal were considered seperate items.  I wish I knew how to say it better.  In essence it was possible for a nation to issue Letters of Marque against another nation and not initiate a state of open warfare.  Usually war came at the same time or very soon thereafter, but not always.   Often limited warfare occured where Privateers attacked shipping and proxy fighting in the colonial areas would occur but the home nations remained ostensibly at peace.
 
What is really needed is some sort of relationship status that is between war and peace, where Privateers would become active AND vulnerable.  Also just to add, Privateers also were known to engage in 'side piracy' or to turn turn 'feral' as it were, Kidd is an example if I remember properly.  Likewise on the high seas before the days of radio.. a frigate that came across a privateer might not worry too much about the niceties of declared hostilities or not.  If the English were issuing letters of Marque against the French, a Spanish frigate might take the opportunity to prosecute an English Privateer it came across.
 

[Anthropoid]

Seems like the privateers could use a bit of tweaking in the game. Good ideas for the devs to think about.

[arras]

Anthropoid >> thanks for support

Mike Parker >> I agree 100%, that's why I think you should have ability to attack privateer regardless of war or not. You could not issue Letters of Marque and then play to be surprised if opponent was hunting your privateers. ...Well you could, as happened in so called War of Jenkins' ear, but as name suggest result was actually war and reasons were of course not officially stated ones.

P.S.: please, post link to your post, I could not find it. Thanks.