Contents

1. Introduction and overview
   
   
2. Strategy
   
   
3. Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
   
   
4. Acknowledgements
   
   

Introduction to Piracy :-

A new "minigame" in Ikariam, Piracy strives to be a dynamic and engaging method to progress through the game. In-game, it is described as:

"A powerful Pirate Fortress with a strong crew eager for your orders. They are looking to loot capture points and gold. Fame and enormous amounts of resources beckon the most successful pirates. From here you can start raids on other Pirate Fortresses."

At the top of every score board, the top ranked players of Piracy are those who have proved themselves by being active and tactical. As a reward, they have gained millions in resources (to the extent that they may have collected more resources from Piracy than from collecting resources the normal way).

Every piracy cycle lasts for exactly 3 weeks, you can check the timings in the fortress building.

Requirements :-

Research: Piracy (18 ) which requires Deck Weapons (Seafaring).

The Fortress explained :-


Below is the data for the Fortress. The range represents how far away a person can raid with the fortress and this is measured in islands (similar to trading post) and the base crew strength is the very basic amount of crew strength the player has (explained in more depth after).

Building level			Range	Base Crew Strength
Level 1	450	250	1	2
Level 2	906	505	2	4
Level 3	1,389	783	3	6
Level 4	1,935	1,112	4	8
Level 5	2,593	1,534	5	10
Level 6	3,427	2,103	6	12
Level 7	4,516	2,883	7	14
Level 8	5,950	3,949	8	16
Level 9	7,834	5,388	9	18
Level 10	10,284	7,296	10	20

Capture points explained :-

Gaining capture points is the main goal of piracy, and players should aim to collect as many as possible in each cycle. They can be collected in two ways:

1. Capture Runs :-
   The first and most basic is to send out Capture Runs. These are done within the Fortress menu, and have no risk associated to them. Raw data can be found below; as you can see, the shorter missions are the best for capture points and gold. If your focus is to use capture runs, choose short runs when you have access to Ikariam and long runs when you're away.
   
   

   Target		Duration		Capture points	Capture points per second
   Smugglers		2m 30s	40	115	0.767
   Fishing Boat		7m 30s	96	276	0.613
   Wine Transportation		15m	173	442	0.492
   Merchant Ship		30m	311	707	0.393
   Ram Ship		1h	560	1,131	0.314
   Diving Boat		2h	1,008	1,810	0.251
   Diplomat Ship		4h	1,814	2,896	0.201
   Castaways		8h	3,265	4,634	0.161
   Phoenicians		16h	5,877	7,414	0.129

   
   

2. Raiding players :-
   The second method for gaining capture points is raiding other players. This can be done by selecting a town in the island map, and selecting the raid option as shown here:

   
   If this option is not available, your opponent does not have a fortress built in that spot.
   
   Unlike other battle mechanics, the mechanics for raiding is relatively simple. Whenever a player tries to raid another, the outcome of the battle happens as soon the attack lands. If the player wins, the capture points reach the player immediately. When result of the raid is determined using the crew strengths of each side, and a factor called the "destiny bonus". This makes it so that both players randomly get assigned a bonus to crew strength between -10% to 10% (for example: 90-110, 106-94 etc).
   
   When there is a large difference between the players crew strength, destiny bonus will make little or no difference. When the strength of the players is similar, destiny will play a large role in the outcome.
   
   

Crew Strength :-

Crew strength has three parts to it, which are summed to make the total crew strength:

1. Base Crew Strength - determined by building level
   
2. Crew Strength Bonus - there is a bonus of 1400 strength once a player reaches 7000 capture points. You should therefore always keep a minimum of 7000 capture points.
   
3. Converted strength - Capture points can be converted into crew strength. 10 Capture points get converted into 1 crew strength, and the time taken to do this is:
   Conversion Time: 156 + (7 * Crew Strength)
   where 156 represents the base conversion speed.

Rewards :-

Players in the top 50 are rewarded resources at the end of the cycle. The amount of resources received is equal to your rank's multiplier multiplied by the total safe limit from warehouses in the town plus the 100 safe from town hall. The rank multipliers are as follows:

Rank	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11-20	21-30	31-50
Multiplier	11	10	9	8	7	6	5.5	5	4.5	4	3.5	3	2

So an example of this would be someone achieving rank 6, and having a total warehouse safe limit of 36,100 in a town. They would therefore receive 36,100 * 6 (the multiplier for rank 6) = 216,600 of every resource in that town. As you can see, the potential rewards are huge!

As of 2nd April 2017

Rank	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11-20	21-30	31-50
Multiplier	2.75	2.5	2.25	2	1.75	1.5	1.375	1.25	1.125	1	0.875	0.75	0.5

So an example of this would be someone achieving rank 6, and having a total warehouse safe limit of 36,100 in a town. They would therefore receive 36,100 * 1.5 (the multiplier for rank 6) = 54,150 of every resource in that town.

(EDIT: rewards v.0.7.6~iots.)

Strategies :-

Here are several strategies that you may consider using. They are split into three sections - for the raider, non-raider and miscellaneous.

For the raider :-

• Finding targets - One method of finding targets near you is to go on to the world map and look for islands near you which have a black pirate flag on them. This means there are 1 or more players on the island with fortress built in a town, and you can therefore raid them. Alternatively, you can select targets within your region and close to your current rank in the pirate fortress. To do this, hover your mouse over the persons name, and if you find you can click it, it means the players fortress is within your reach. Remember you need to make sure your fortress is built enough so that the island is in your range. Image of the black flag in world view, and in island view:
  
  Image of the black flag in world view and island view.

  
  
  
• Determining opponents crew strength - There is no definite way to do this, as spies tell us no information about an enemies crew strength. Having said that, you can use spies to look at things like online activity (more active players tend to gain more capture points). Or perhaps you can use last months highscores to determine how the player did when they took part last time.
  
  
• Mobile towns - These are temporary towns that are set up to hit targets far away, and then demolished once the pirates are back. In order to do this effectively, you simply need to choose your target (which can be far far away), colonize on the island, build a level 1 fortress, attack and then demolish the colony once the pirates return. However, make sure the fortress you set up isn't your only fortress - if you only set one fortress up and demolish the town, your points will be deleted. Also, beware of corruption if your GR's aren't high enough.
  
  Image of mobile town.

  
  
  
• Spies - These can be used to check whether the target is online or not. If they aren't, you can safely assume they won't be able to quickly convert capture points into crew strength using amrbosia.
  
  
• Lost an outgoing raid? - Not to worry! You have not lost any capture points yet. Your opponent may think he has a greater crew strength than you, but this isn't necessarily correct - you may just have had bad luck with the destiny bonus (explained above). In any case, you should prepare for any counter attacks by building up your crew strength.

For the non-raider :-

• Staying under the radar - While your goal is to maximize your capture points, you don't want to collect so many at the beginning that you look like a juicy target to others. In the first 1-2 weeks, it could be advisable to lie low and build crew strength for defensive purposes. Being in a remote location may be helpful in servers with little activity, but on the most recently opened servers, you can expect players to raid you from all corners of the map.
  

Miscellaneous :-

• Ambrosia - If you have an incoming attack, a large number of capture points and little time to convert them, do not fear! At the cost of 10 15 ambrosias, you can instantly convert any number of capture points into crew strength. To do this, select the small orange "tick" on the right of the crew strength progress. This should bring up an option to verify your ambrosia transaction.
  
  Option to use ambrosia.

  
  
  
  
  
• Help from alliance/friends - It is within the rules to ask alliance members and friends to collect points which you can raid off them. In this case, players normally do long capture runs such as the 8 or 16 hour ones, as these require little effort. If you wish to share the rewards at the end, be sure to stay within pushing rules!
  
  
• The last minute - Only 2 days left for the cycle? Now is not the time to relax! Most active players will have prepared some form of strategy to gain points very rapidly in the last few days (if not hours/minutes/seconds). Some will have left juicy targets untouched which they will hit at the last moment, or some will be clicking away at the shortest and most efficient capture runs. Whatever happens, expect the capture run highscores to change a lot near the end.

EDIT: Capture Point Conversion - 15 ambrosias ~iots

Reserved.