Attacking Prizes More Effectively

Arr pirates!! Fer the crazy strategic pirates out there I want to share a strategy where you can be more efficient and taking down those pesky Prizes.

The strategy is based on the different types of troops, example: ARMADA or PIRATE types. And the Prizes contain different proportions of these, so if ye could get some info on those Prizes ye could send the most efficient troops to take down the Prize. The good news is ye can do that! Ye can send 1 bonnie to whatever Prize and, sure, she will die, but it's all for a good cause as ye will get to see exactly what type of army they got there.

So here ye see the example of me Bonnie scouting:

So ye see that in this specific case there are only PIRATE type of defenses on this Prize so it be making no sense whatsoever to send for example Turtle or Junk Ships to defend this because this be super inefficient. In this case ye better be sending Bonnies or Skirmishers or actually if ye have some Dragon Ladies who are very good at Pirate Defense then it be best to use em here since they be drinking too much Rum anyway.

Here below is another example with a level 30 Prize where ye can immediately see that the attacking forces are heavily skewed towards ARMADA which means this is the time where ye be wanting to use yer Junk Ships as they be most effective against the Armada troop type with their 120 defense against that specific troop type.

Lastly, if ye don't got no extra Junk or Dragon Ladies or such then the most efficient be the simple old Bonnies since they have an average of 19 defense (without upgrades) against all troop types.

Don’t be afraid to scout raid far

Arr pirates!! Here be some education and motivation to tell yer lazy Rum drinking pirates to not be afraid to scout far with yer Flying Dutchmen. Here ye see on the picture an example of me sending a whole wave of Flying Dutchmen south (down) of me Haven and ye see an example of me sending a raid far away to the East (right side) where I be planning on getting 50,000 resources.

and here be another example picture of scouting older known targets and again sending a whole line of Flying Dutchmen to another group of new Havens looking fer possible raid targets:

Trick to go beyond maximum resource capacity

Arr pirates!! I be sharing with ye a trick that allows ye to have more resources than your capacity allows. Normally if your capacity is reached yer Haven will not produce any more of gold or lumber or rum depending which one is full, so it is not a good idea to be there, but there can be many reasons ye keeping high level of resources - maybe adding up to make a big building upgrade.

So if ye reach yer capacity, most often this happens with Rum, then one simple trick ye can use is to put yer Rum for sale either at a 1:2 ratio if ye actually wanna maybe sell it or at any other ratio which means most likely ye will never sell it and then this Rum gets taken out of yer Haven and yer capacity drops. Any time ye need that Rum ye just go and cancel yer offer and all the Rum comes right back to yer Haven and ye don't even have to wait for it.

Here the example how at this time I was keeping more than 10,000 Rum extra using this trick:

Catching the Offensive Troops of yer Enemy

Arr pirates!! There could be a case that you have an enemy who hides in his Harbor every time you attack and then comes out and starts irritating you again. This can be very annoying. One way to punish him is to put a blockade on him, but this could be dangerous because his Brotherhood can come and smash it or ye have to sacrifice some of yer defense which increases the risk of yer Haven getting raided.

This is especially difficult if the people who can raid ye are not so far - then there is not so much time fer yer Brotherhood to come and defend yer Haven.

And if ye put a small blockade then he can liberate himself and if ye put a big blockade then he can call for help, so, since I had this sort of a situation I be thinking on how I can get him to lose his troops and I came with a very good solution and here I explain ye the strategy.

First, some days, even 1 week, only blockade him with 1 Bonnie or 1 Dark Corsair. Whatever it is always keep it the same. The point here is to teach him that every time that ye blockade his Haven it is always and always going to be that 1 unit. So when he scouts first, he will see this. Maybe 1 or 2 times blockade him with a big blockade with a few Dutchmen, so when he scouts he fails. So now he is learning that if he fails scouting there be a big blockade so he hides and when he succeeds in scouting then there is always 1 unit.

After this is 2nd stage, it helps to be more active. Ye only blockade him with 1 unit. He liberates, ye again blockade with 1 unit. Ye teach him that from now on it is always gonna be 1 unit. And there be 1 unit many times per day. So he gets so sick of this 1 unit that he stops to scout. When ye see that he stops to scout keep going with the 1 unit, so now he knows 100% that there be 1 unit, so he no longer scouts.

Now stage 3, ye put a big blockade. He goes to liberate with 1 unit he fails. Strange, he thinks maybe there is a little bit more, so he sends more - he fails. Now he is committed, he thinks he got most of it and sends more. I got this guy to lose all he had left - have a look at the screenshots below:

Here you see he tried to liberate 4 times:

Note for the higher level players - yes these are small numbers/units, but the strategy could work for your high levels a

Failed Liberation #1 - the small hit

Failed Liberation #2 - sends a full on attack

Failed Liberation #3 - sends what is left

Failed Liberation #4 - has lost hope, is cursing, sends last troops to die

...and so he no longer bothers any of my blockades.

Big Raid Smashed with Brotherhood

Arr pirates!! I be telling ye now of some benefits and costs of joining a Brotherhood in Pirates Tides of Fortune. I know we pirates are free souls and we be not wanting to have no rules and we be wanting our freedom, but ye are still better off joining a Brotherhood so ye can better help each other against other groups of pirates. Sure, that be meaning that sometimes or a lot of times ye have to send yer troops to Brotherhood Havens to help defend, but other times yer friends will come and help ye out if ye are in a tough corner.

Here be an example of such a case where a big attack was coming me way and so I made it known in the Brotherhood channel that this be happening and we said no way, nobody gonna raid our Brotherhood. By the way our Brotherhood be the Smiling Death - a Top 3 ranked smashing guys. Here be our flag and leader:

So as I was saying, the raid was coming my way but the reinforcements were much faster as the travel time between Brotherhood members is faster.

...and so when the raid arrived there was a serious bloodbath and the attacker was crushed completely! So here be the lesson: get into a good Brotherhood (BH) and communicate with yer friends and help them and let them help ye out, so yer all can grow strong together!

And here be the result of that big failed raid - notice he be especially massive on the bombardiers (ye can make the picture bigger if ye click on it)

Scout a lot to Find Raid Targets

Arr pirates!! I be emphasizing again to ye the importance of scouting! Scout a lot to find really good targets fer raiding. Anyone after level ~15 can be good, also look that they be not part of a Brotherhood at all or the BH they in be very weak.

And there be no such thing as too little, here be 30 of me Flying Dutchmen going off in one direction:
How many Flying Dutchmen do you send? Put in the comments.

375 Rubies boost production for 25%

Arr pirates!! Here small Analysis on boosting resource production if ye got some Rubies. You can boost yer gold, lumber and Rum productions by 25% for 3 days for 375 Rubies either by clicking on top left arrow on the resources tab:

or in the Smuggler's Den ye can click on the Resources tab the options at the bottom:

So the question is, is it interesting to do this or rather is it better to buy the resources directly for 100 or 200 Rubies? Let's see:

100 Rubies buys you 5000 Rum or 200 Rubies buys you 5000 gold or lumber.
if you boost this to 200 or 400 Rubies you just get double the amount.

Boost on 1000 production

Now, if we look at the 25% boost, say ye are making 1000 of each of the 3 resources per hour. This means that ye be getting 1250 per hour. If we take 24 hours in the day ye get 250 x 24 hours = 6000 extra resources per day and for 3 days ye get 18,000 - and this is all for 376 Rubies.

For Gold and Lumber

If ye were to buy directly (5000 / 200 per piece), then ye be getting 376 x 25 = 9,400 Resources immediately, so actually it comes out that it is better that ye buy the boost since you can produce then approximately double the amount of gold, lumber and Rum per day.

For Rum

If ye were to buy directly (5000 / 100 per piece), then ye be getting 376 x 50 = 18,800 Resources immediately, so actually it comes out that it is better that ye buy directly if ye be earning 1000 of Rum per day.

Break Even Point

So the break even point is 1045 production per hour for Rum and 522 production per hour for gold and lumber. If ye are above this than it is better to buy the boost and if ye are below this buy direct.

Don’t Send Dread Units to Prizes

Arr pirates!! Here I be sharing with ye some of me pain and be screaming at ye my advice = don’t send Dread Fleet units to attack or defend Prizes!

Here I had calculated the correct amount of Bonnies that I need for this Prize (In another post I be explaining how to do that) and just to test things out, because I have Rubies and all, I threw in EXTRA, sort of like the icing on top of the cake, my dear friends 2 x Harpooners Dread Units and lo and behold one of them died.

This was mathematically not supposed to happen, because the attackers were:

29 * 80 + 6 * 20 + 1 * 40 + 3 * 60 =
2320 + 120 + 40 + 180 = 2660 points of attack!

And only the additional bonus defense from the Harpooners is more than that, not even talking that the Bonnies alone give 8260 defense so there is no logical reason for one of the Harpooners to die, but the fact of the matter is that he did, so there be some random factor in the game, so don't be starting to argue with the game, but instead, like I be saying don’t send Dread Fleet units to attack or defend Prizes!

What to do if too much Rum?

Arr pirates!! We be dreaming maybe but there is actually such a thing as too much Rum. Yes I know ye want to be drinking it and ye never want to give your Rum, but you got to :) it is fair economy after all.

So if ye got too much rum there are 3 things you can do:

1) Ye look to see if ye can research some technology which is costing much more Rum than gold and lumber.

2) Ye can ask in yer Brotherhood chat and see if someone needs it and help them - this better than giving to the enemy for sure and better than having Rum on Limit.

3) Ye can Extend Offer in the Market's Trade Resources Tab and offer Rum for either gold or lumber at a rate of 2:1.

If ye think there is something else that can be done with Rum just put it below in the comments and if ye like my advice please share with other pirates.

Dangers of Leaving Army in the Open

Arr pirates!! Super important lesson or reminder to all ye pirates never, and I say again - never, leave your army out in the open on yer Haven and log out, leave the house or go to sleep. Ye be taking a big huge risk of someone smashing your hard earned army to little pieces and ye be waking up to a nightmare scenario.

Especially do not leave yer army outside of yer Harbor when you have serious enemies who be checking and scouting yer Haven regularly.

Here below I show ye my big enemy made this huge mistake and left his army out sitting in his Haven and, as I regularly scout him, I sent a bunch of scouts and 7 died. Normally this is bad news as I hate losing my Flying Dutchmen, but I got really happy because if 7 of mine died then he must have 20+ Dutchmen there, so I immediately sent my fleet to smash them and I found his whole army, both defense and offense, sitting there and so I smashed them all ARRRR!!!

and, on top of that, not only I got a really nice relic as you see there, but I saw that not all of them died, so I immediately sent my army again to finish of the remaining enemy pirates!!!

so again, big lesson to everyone - do not leave yer army sitting in yer Haven or ye be risking a complete destruction!!

Faster Training Speed for Prizes

Arr pirates!! Ye may be rushing putting yer hard earned pearls into the Witch Hut training fer speed fer yer pirates, but here I am to tell ya that also the speed of training be very important because when you are attempting to raid Prizes only with Bonnies and Marauders (not to lose good troops) then ye be having a big problem of training them in hundreds and thousands, because they be dying off much faster than ye be training then.

Both Bonnies and Marauders take 3 minutes to train 1 at regular speed and each point of training is going to cut down the training by 1 second. Now that be not sounding that excellent but consider large numbers. 10,000 Bonnies would take 30,000 minutes to train (or 500 hours or 21 days), now if you cut down the training by say a few seconds, let's say 3 seconds less then the same amount of Bonnies would take 30,000 seconds less which is 500 minutes less or 8 hours less. Triple that and you win a whole day of training.

Event T’Do List

Arr pirates!! I be sharing with ye my Event T’Do List fer yer use and fun. So here

1) Train a Gazillion Bonnies and Marauders
2) Send em to their death in exchange for Event Items & BOOTY - YEAH! ^^
3) Raid yer regular safe spots avoidin’ trouble with other pirates durin’ da event.
4) Trade off excess Rum, due to lots of dead pirates, for gold/lumber.
5) Use all ye got to train more Bonnies and Marauders.
6) Deserve yer rest!

Unit Overview HARPOONER

Arr pirates!! We gonna be havin' a closer look at the HARPOONER - the most accessible Dread Fleet unit out there costing 450 rubies.

The good thing about the Harpooner is not only his cost but how easy it is to get him supported with the correct units fer the maximum bonus fer defense. He be happy enough with Bonnies and Skirmishers and people have lots of those so getting just 100 pirates to support him is not difficult at all especially when comparing to other Dread Fleet units which require more difficult to obtain units like Fleet and Armada.

As with most Dread Fleet units it is not his offense or defense that is impressive but the bonus that he provides and he can give up to 2300 additional defense on top of his 294 which is almost 10 times more.

So if ye be wanting to boost yer defense and ye got some rubies to spare then consider the bad ass Harpooner for the job, he be having a very good time with yer Bonnies :P

Offensive vs. Defensive Strategies

Arr pirates!! I be telling ye 'bout offense or defense strategies in Pirates Tides of Fortune. Ye see once ye got the ROYAL Cannon built ye have a choice and that is to play nice and go more into defense and level up yer Royal Cannon to level 6 and get +25% to yer gold and lumber production or ye can go into offense and raid enemy Havens and make enemies in which case most probably someone will raid ye and break yer Cannon.

On the defensive strategy in 5 days ye can get yer Royal cannon giving ye the 25% boost to yer gold and lumber production. Sometimes ye will still be raided and lose the cannon, but most of the time if ye got strong defense and Flying Dutchmen blocking scouting only stupid pirates will attack ye without scouting.

On the offense strategy ye can't hold the Royal Cannon most likely since ye will  p i s s  someone off but then ye better be making real good raids which will give ye at least the same benefit as a 25% boost from the Cannon.

Time for an example. Say ye be producing 1000 gold and 1000 lumber. If ye get the cannon to level 6 then ye be making 1250 gold and lumber which means extra 6000 gold and extra 6000 lumber per day just from the cannon and that means that if you are on the offense strategy then ye better be bringing home minimum that much extra otherwise it be better going in a more peaceful way.

The "Peaceful" pirate will be raiding say 10 times 1000 x 3 resources, so that's roughly 10,000 gold, lumber and rum + the 1250 gold/lumber production.

So the "Offensive" pirate must raid for minimum 16,000 gold/lumber and 10,000 rum to be equal to the "Peace" pirate.

For newer pirates I be recommending to go and grow the peaceful way.