Gyrodyne Scout Flying Dutchmen Killer

Arr pirates!! I bring sad news to those who care for their anti-scouting defenses made of the beloved Flying Dutchmen. I myself be very proud of them and keep a whole bunch of them defending me Haven, but lo and behold - the steam filled Gyrodyne Scout be a specialized killer of Flying Dutchmen.

Ye can see on the picture I put below that even though this high level pirate failed to scout me Haven and lost pretty much all of his Gyrodyne Scouts, he actually killed 17 of my Flying Dutchmen out of a big bunch which were defending. So a small force of Gyrodyne Scouts be strong enough to make kills even if they be confronted by a much larger force of Flying Dutchmen.

So beware ye lovers of defense, there be indeed a countermeasure designed to lessen the ranks of yer true defenders of the sky!

Scouting Tips: 1 Dutchmen = 1 Relic

Arr pirates!! I know it be annoying to be losing our dearest Flying Dutchmen, which is why some of ye might be giving up and sending yer raids blindly, but there be some good news out of that big disaster, actually 3 in particular that I can give ye right now:

1) Ye got yer Deeds Most Fowle that needs to be collected and with a lot of scouting ye can get both yer medals and yer rewards!

2) Ye might be able to raid blindly for some time, but if only one time ye fall into a trap or an ambush then ye can lose A LOT more than ALL yer previous raids put together.

3) Relics! Aye! This be why I started this post in the first place. Ye can get relics fer yer scouting efforts, no matter if ye be losing or winning and below picture be the proof!

100k+ Resources - My Record Find

Arr pirates!! Remember I be telling ye to scout aggressively with yer Flying Dutchmen looking fer some juicy targets to raid in between of yer enjoyment of drinking barrels of Rum? Well here be my victorious day as I found my record fat and juicy full of gold and lumber and Rum resources Haven and I want to share this with ye to give ye inspiration to look harder and find good targets for yer pirate crew to raid!

Ye Raid Based on Yer Imagination

Arr pirates!! Ye may be thinking I put a strange topic "Raiding based on yer Imagination" but this be true I bet ye 10 barrels of Rum on it.

Ye see when ye start out ye be super happy raiding small Havens and getting 1000-2000 resources without any fight. Ye can even grow big doing that 10 times per day, but here I am to tell ye that ye better grow yer imagination because there is a lot more out there to raid than 1000-2000 size Havens!

And to prove it to ye I be putting below just some examples from me recent scouting and ye know what? I am even sure there are targets a lot better than these!

(by the way I don't always scout with 7 Flying Dutchmen, I did just this time and i felt like 7 was a good number as I was ready to plunder and raid these :P)

Be Aggressive in All Actions in PTOF

Arr pirates!! Here ye be reminded or given confidence to put some ARRRR in yer actions! Be strong, be confident and be a true Pirate!! Arrr!!

Send lots of scouts, yer Flying Dutchmen got no use sitting and blowing hot air. Send those rascals out and let em die if need be.

Do ye see a blockade belonging to yer enemy? Don't be lazy - liberate that Haven, every slap ye can give to yer enemy is a slap worth a barrel of Rum!

Do ye see a shipmate in danger? Send yer defense and give em a hand. They be helping when ye be looking into a thousand cannons pointed yer way!

And raid, raid and then raid some more. Gold, Lumber and Rum are not going to appear magically in yer Haven, ye gotta take it with force!

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:

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.

Guide on How Scouting Works?

Arr pirates!! We be doing some learning on scouting, going from A to Z just making sure all pirates benefit 100% from full understanding.

So first up, to do scouting in Pirates Tides of Fortune ye need to have at least one Flying Dutchman. This be yer flying units who can go and scout enemy Havens fer ye!

If ye don't have one or the ones ye had died ye can train more of them in the Dutchman's Hangar:

Now before ye raid or blockade an enemy pirate's Haven it be a really good idea that you Scout with your Flying Dutchmen:

Ye can send 1 if ye think there is no defenders. This be a good idea just for checking resource levels fer the Haven's which you regularly Raid. Now if ye wanna get information on some new Haven that ye don't know nothing about then ye might want to send many, like 10 or 20 or 30, because ye be assuming that they have defending Flying Dutchmen there so ye will lose some of yer Dutchmen but ye will get the info.

When ye send the scout it be going to the enemy Haven fer information:

And when it arrives to the enemy there are 3 possibilities:

1) The enemy will have a lot more Flying Dutchmen so yer scouts will die and you get no information.
2) The enemy will have some defense so some of your people will die but you will get information.
3) There is no defense - you lose nothing and get the scouting information.

Here be an example of one of my scouting reports:

Very often ye will see that ye lose Flying Dutchmen so ye have to keep buying more every day if ye want to keep scouting.

Don't fall into the danger of "not scouting" because ye can have a big problem if ye send attack blindly not knowing what there be waiting fer ye.

Ye can buy more Flying Dutchmen in the Dutchman's Hangar - they be especially expensive in the beginning:

Last 2 things to point out:

1) Ye can and should send many scouting missions at the same time, so you quickly collect information of what is going on and the resource levels of all the Havens that you normally like to raid.

2) The Veteran Flying Dutchman has exactly the same stats as the Regular Veteran Flying Dutchman, only it costs much less resources to buy it because it also costs Rubies, so this is fer pirates who put real money into the game. The appearance is also different but the use of them is exactly the same as the regular units.

Finding Relics by Scouting

Arrr pirates!! Did ye know that ye can even find nice RELICS from just scouting?? Well have a look at the picture I prepared for ye all below - I sent 15 Flying Dutchmen on a scouting mission totally not expecting anything special and "boom" I see the message "Ye've found a powerful Relic!" so I be like "Oh Yea!" :)

As a matter of fact ye can find relics also when raiding. So when ye do different things there is a chance of finding a Relic and then ye can move it to yer Chamber or ye can SELL it for ~1300 gold, lumber and rum, which is very nice especially in the lower levels.

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Stupid Raid Decisions

Arr pirates!! Today I had a very unfortunate, stupid, a few levels higher, pirate who scouted my New Tortuga skin Haven with full ground defenses (="look it's a heavy casher") with 28 Flying Dutchmen and failed miserably:

... and if that was not enough clue for him that there is a large defense force sitting there he decided to launch a blind attack anyways... "look at me, I gotz no brainz"...

so as you can see on the below picture he raided my Haven with a much stronger force but since i had very good defense for my level + the fact that I am a strong casher Haven he lost tons of his offensive power. Sure, he completely destroyed my defense (which by the way i immediately bought back with rubies) but what a stupid decision to blindly raid a heavily defended and super active casher gaining just a couple of thousand of resources and losing a massive amount of yer army.

So the lesson here is - always scout and do intelligent attacks whereby you can gain more than you lose, so that you can grow.

By the way I was online during this attack and i hit away my Flying Dutchmen and my offense but I left my defense there on purpose (could have easily hid it) to smash down his army since i have tons of rubies and i just buy them all back. But this really annoyed me because it was just a waste of rubies, even if i have a lot of them.

Large Raid Destroyed due to not Scouting

Arrr pirates! It be very important to scout before you raid otherwise you run the risk of losing all your armada!! If the scouting fails it means that there are defensive Flying Dutchmen. That can mean 2 things:

1. There is a very weak defense and the Flying Dutchmen posted there are trying to hide the fact that the defense is weak.
2. A more likely option: there is a strong defense.

Now on the battle picture below you see this not-very-smart pirate who tried to scout my well defended target, failed, and decided to send a large attacking force including offense as well as defense to capture the target I was holding. He lost everything! 

and there is more below the picture...

1. He scouted me and failed:

2. He made a very bad decision to send all his offensive and defensive pirate forces and lost everything:

3. And I was angry that I lost some of my pirates and also at the fact that he so carelessly attacked so I decided to raid his Haven without scouting counting for his level (higher than mine) that he could not have sufficient forces if he lost this major attack and 2 hours later when my raid reached his Haven I knew I was right! 

and that's also my record plunder amount!

So to conclude: do NOT attack, especially a complete stranger, without scouting!!!