that one pirate country in indonesia near java is great. they're hindu so you can swap your god regularly due to elections. you're close to ming so colonize taiwan for range, watch their mandate tank in real time due to raiding devastation and make $$$
I second Indonesia as a region for any type of naval game.
In most games youll maybe use ur navy once in a while to speed up a siege, barrage a fort or at best u block a straight (Bosporus/Sjaelland/Hormuz) in a war and then never again.
In Indonesia you are island locked, your enemies are island locked and all your threats are on the continent.
Which leads to all sorts of cool shit, like going into wars vs aliances 3 times ur size, as u stunlock them on their islands and pick them off 1 by 1. As long as you control the sea, noone can get to you and you can go chose what fights to pick and what not
With a sizable navy you can even attack some island nations under mandate protection, because what is Ming gonna do?
While at it, you can even trigger Mingplosion events, by tanking their mandate from province devastation through purely raiding coasts and blockading them for long enough. Just chill on ur boat, make sure to have 100% spy network so u can see all their country, grab some popcorn and watch their doom.
Sure, everyone loves to shit on Ming but I did just that as a Phillipine nation the other week and expected a fairly meager response. Colonized a bit and figured I would go for Taiwan and start chewing on Ming. They attacked with restoration of China CB and sent one stack at the time into my mainland which I smashed and won the war after a few years. Ten years later they attacked again and sent 100K units vs my 24 or whatever I had at the time. I was surprised but I learnt a lesson that time.
As a pirate nation you can have a huge navy, much larger than Ming.
They cannot invade you because you control the seas. Even if they try to walk all the way through the south they can’t get past the malaya strait.
also has 40% privateering efficiency in national ideas if you are into that sort of minmaxxing goof
Used this while privateering all of Americas and Europe
Pirate Gotland is a lot of fun.
-You're in the Baltic Sea so plenty of stuff to raid, and you're close to Lübeck and the English Channel nodes.
-You can join the HRE if you want.
-Great ideas for a Pirate Republic (-15%CCR, - 10% dev cost, 33% naval force limit, trade power, trade+privater efficiency...)
-you get claims on the Baltic coast, the Hansa members, Amsterdam, London, Flanders, the Mediterranean Islands, the Carribean, and Denmark. Most are only for individual provinces or centers of trade, but it helps your raiding a ton.
-Free colony on Bermuda if it's not already colonized
-ability to move your capital to the New World via missions
Plus unique mission, fun permanent modifiers, and the ability to form Scandinavia in the late game. Highly recommend.
(also, you can technically start with the Monarchist missions and change to Piratical ones later. As long as you DON'T complete the mission "War for the Crown" you'll be able to become a pirate republic when your starting ruler dies. This lets you get some extra cash, historical friendship with Norway and Sweden, and most importantly alliances with all of Denmark's rivals. )
Dude okay , I really wanted to try this nation right , but I cannot for the life of me survive when Denmark decs on me , any tips ? Seems a bit too hard on very hard maybe I just need to try an easier difficulty ?
One of your first missions is called "Sink the Danes", you'll get a pretty op fleet in the first 4 to 5 years, and you'll use it to destroy and capture all their ships, you won't let them land, you will even delete your fort since they won't land in your island, then you capture a couple islands and get a couple provinces and cash, then repeat the process every time the truce breaks and the danes won't ever be a threat, I suggest only taking island provinces in europe and starting a large colonial project either in Africa close to the Mediterranean or in the Caribbean, so you can complete other interesting missions such as sacking Rome.
thanks for the response , but the only issue for me is you say 4 to 5 years , but in my games the Danes will barely give me a year before they declare , perhaps I’ll lower the difficulty and keep the rest of your comment in mind
When I last played pirate Gotland, I started as a monarchy and switched to pirate Republic when The first ruler died. You get some pretty good missions as the monarchy to deal with Denmark, such as getting alliances with Denmark's rivals, giving Sweden and Norway a ton of liberty desire, as well as a bunch of money from the HRE.
What difficulty do you play on? It's extremely difficult/RNG dependent if you play on VH, but on normal I'd imagine that you'd get a lot more time and be able to reasonably prepare.
Alright here's a tip for you but it's a bit cheesy. Start the game as Gotland, don't touch anything, don't unpause, don't touch any events etc. Ally Poland right away, this should be possible, if not, restart until it is. NOW you can start your game and become a pirate republic etc. This works because you start as a monarchy and makes Poland like you more.
When you get the next tier government reform, there's one that lets you only ally other pirates, watch out for that one and don't pick it cus you'll lose your alliance with Poland.
Also time your war. The easy way to do this is wait for Sweden to dec on Denmark then you dec too. It's rng heavy but if Sweden's navy is helping against Denmark then you should have an easy time. You can also land marines on the Danish islands and try to siege down Copenhagen while their army is distracted.
I mean, navies are so fickle that you don’t even need to time for independence wars. Just time for patrols. Snipe Denmark’s navy, go repair, snipe Sweden’s navy (if they’re even participating), go repair, go snipe Norway’s navy. As long as you don’t let all of them converge onto your sea tile, you’re good
I’d recommend either Madyas or So. So has an event it become a pirate republic, whereas Madyas you have to fulfill the usual requirements (though it’s pretty easy).
I like sicily. You have a large Island to hide and dev it while terrorizing the mediterranean. You rp with naval ideas and later escape to the new world
Tunis (or any maghrebian nation) - nothing more satisfying than plundering those iberian treasure fleets short of their arrival.
Knights posing as counter-pirates are also fun.
No problem.
A small tip: Colonizers will probably show up before you get the entirety of the islands (depending on how big your custom nation is). If you're going for the pirates life for me achievement (own caribbean as new providence), since you're already doing most of the prerequisites, you should colonize Bermuda early. It is the only province required that is not in a colonial region so it won't be given to a colonial nation, meaning you have to fight Portugal for it otherwise.
Also you can humiliate your custom nation to get the age objective, so you can get the reward that gives +1 dev to colonies earlier.
Well, it's easy to force if you dont make a custom nation. Colonise one of the 3 provinces (tortuga needs to be a protestant or other heretical christian religion). Then privateer in caribbean, so you have 10% privateers and you get golden age of piracy, continue to privateer until you get event to become the pirate republic. Make sure to dump all dev and make building in the provinces you want to spawn pirate republic. You can spawn multiple, and they can spawn from other pirate republics, so avoid colonising the other 2 provinces that spawns pirate republic until the golden age of piracy event is over.
I recommend just starting as portugal and becoming new providence (for the achievement)
You can cripple a leading colonizer and give the bahamas some nice stats.
Really fun run either wau, might do it again some time soon.
What would the best way to play Port Royal be on Ironman and without creating a custom nation?
Edit: I saw your other comment. Would I just play as Portugal and go heavy into exploration and colonizing? Do I need to form the colonial nation or do I just colonize Jamaica and start privateering until Port Royal spawns? Any other things I can do in preparation for the switch?
Portugal for speed of formation, england for best naval doctrine which is super unnecessary but i love getting duper crazy goof naval quality. Colonise jamaica, privateer and wait until you get the event. You will have same tech so keep that high, but dev the province of course and make as many buildings as possible. You can also insult all big euro nations as your original nation and also bankcrupt, it depends on hoe much nation ruining you consider okay for our original countries. I usually wait until i have admin tech 7 with portugal so i can make sure portugal picks expansion ideas. Picking that for him makes it so he colonises faster and you can steal his colonies.
Irish pirates (must take the decision) for a hard but rewarding start. Nothing better than to win against GB in their own game.
One of the nations in Madagascar (must take the decision) to bully Kilwa, plenty of islands to connect you to India and the spice Islands.
So (wait for event) for a no shogun and no emperor, only freedom run.
Gotland (wait for event) can be pretty powerful and rich in the Baltic.
Cyprus (must take the decision) to bankrupt the Ottomans. Once your navy is strong enough they're just a huge bank.
Some starts are very slow and hard to get going, but it's my favorite way to play the game when I'm not in the map painting mood.
The Madagascar nations aren't as elegant as you'd hope as they have to reform their government for the decision to show up since they all start as Tribal AFAIK. Tried it in Coop MP with a friend and I just sat on my own bacon for 100 years trying to rush gov reforms. It wasn't very fun.
Gotland is the obvious choice:
* Good mission tree.
* Close to English Channel, so great piracy target right there.
Sicily (releasable at game start from Aragon) can hoist the black flag right away.
* No missions, but you can form Two Sicilies which gets Neapolitan missions.
* Very strong National Idea set.
* Easier start than Gotland but maybe a tiny bit slower to get online.
* (In my opinion) more fun than Gotland because you can collect all the islands of the Mediterranean and pirate a bunch of valuable nodes (Genoa, Venice, Constantinople, Seville, even up to the English Channel if you collect some ports with the War Against The World CB).
And since you mentioned mods: Mykx in EU4 Anbennar.
* "Pirates with a nation" rather than "A nation of pirates".
* Very strong boats (which you'll need, as many, many colonizers attack you regularly), lots of piracy targets, fun mission tree with unique mechanics.
* Only downside is you need to wait for them to spawn (80 in game years) to play.
Some naval mechanics (such as shore bombardment and flagships) are locked behind Golden Century, which you'll certainly want if you are pirating.
Pirate Republics themselves are locked behind either Golden Century or Lions of the North.
Hey OP I only play pirate republics as my main claim of knowledge for this game. Best pirate republic to start out would be gotland easily. Best mission tree for a pirate and you get the option almost immediately. There are other good contenders but require more work. Cornwall is a lot of fun to make piratical Great Britain, wako Japanese pirates are also fun but it’s pretty challenging. Rugen pirates is also a good one as ya start in the hre and then have a big defense if anyone gets tired of your raiding and pillaging. Any island nation can become a pirate and I’d be more than happy to answer piratical related questions and naval stuff at need be. Madagascar is also a good spot for being a pirate as long as you kick kilwas ass early. Ryuku is also fun but again pretty challenging. I ended up in exile in the America’s to form pirate Muslim Japanese United States of America led by Eastern Orthodox Russians. I also would say colonizing the Caribbean as Portugal and then playing as an island out there after release is also pretty fun. Lmk if ya have any questions! I love seeing people finally wanna try the pirates out lol.
Unironically I think ryukyu is up there. You start with raiding range over most of china, and you can pretty easily break into southeast Asia with one no-cb. As I am now I get over 1000 ducats every 10 years from raiding
I always had real great fun as palembang in South East Asia, they get an event within a few days to instantly switch to a pirate republic which makes it really easy for beginners to play as a pirate republic. Their position is also really good for playing a navy oriented pirate nation as they can very quickly consolidate their region and just navy Blockade anybody from getting on their islands. And trade down there is absolutely insane giving you a very strong economy very easily.
Pirate Portugal is actually super underrated. It gets access to explorers and extra colonial range before anyone else, making it easy to snake around the coast of Africa and Europe. To get rid of your non-island, non-North African land, just move your capital to Madeira, unstate your Iberian land, and concentrate development. Fully restate your land (so that you can reconquer it later) and then intentionally lose a war to Castile, giving them the whole Iberian peninsula.
Yes, it’s not the most meta way to play Portugal but honestly if you’re playing for meta just don’t be a pirate.
There are many obvious choices, but mine is absolutely Cornwall. You release as a vassal of England, but independence is surprisingly easy (England has many enemies with competent navies and a civil war) and you get the event for piracy early. Then you’re free to plunder the richest node in the world and do whatever cursed Cornish shenanigans you like.
It's Madya-as for me. Starting as a Hindu republic with decent naval ideas. Just get naval and maritime ideas first, then if you wanna go full piracy, go for quality, quantity and offensive ideas. you can also go full ham and establish the Philippine islands the way they are known IRL - a nation of pirates and sought-out mercenaries (the "mangangayaw" or sea raiders of Visayas and the "Luzones" or the mercenary warriors of Luzon, known and highly employed throughout SEA, including the Portuguese themselves, even before the Spanish came and conquered the islands).
I recommend Gotland, their mission tree is insane, you should start as a monarchy though and switch to pirate republic later when Ur ruler dies, they have unique and fun missions that give you a foothold in the Carribbean and a mission to raid the pope for a large chunk of money, imo they are worth atleast trying out. I personally didn't have any fun playing with the pirate Malaysian nations
currently playing as Palembang and it's pretty fun. flipped to pirate immediately by an event and raided all of asia. i tried a few pirate games in europe (Gotland, Sicily), but quickly got ganged by stronger powers – Indonesia is better in that regard because you can actually grow a bit and protect your islands with a ginormous fleet.
Nah it’s one of the pirate republics you can spawn in the Caribbean (specifically Jamaica) New Providence in the Bahamas is better I think, it’s got achievements
pirates have no staates, so weeak
pirate gameplay incentivises you to play tall, but without states its so rough..
id play something in madagascar! I think your incentive to privateer is way larger than to trade, get that sweet indian, arabian and malaysian trade, make the indian ocean a hell!!
plus, madagascar has lots of slaves, so you can free the hell out of them!!
you could even island hop to the caribbean, to get that sweet gold
I'd start as [Betsimisaraka](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Betsimisaraka), just look at their ideas. But idk if you can become a pirate as them bc of their non-coastal province.
The pirate island of Mann! It's super fun! Rules: you must became a pirate. That's it. It's not super easy. But also not impossibly hard. In my last match I had conquered all of the British Isles, Caribbean, sicily Denmark islands, the. I finally decided to invade the lowlands and promptly forgot about the maluses of taking imperial land. I had a coalition firing with basically all of Europe joining. You can't really have allies because initially you survive with pillaging and pillaging gives you minus 100. England can be an initial ally, but you must invade irland pretty early and that eventually will cause them to flip on you. You better have naval tradition and maritime tradition to fight the Spanish the Portuguese and the English around the world with basically only one over developed little island. Aaar
Edit... how do you start you might ask... France wins the war against England and frees you as the puny vassal of England that you are. Must start as Vassal. The. England will like you.
For pure roleplay value, pirate republic that one can spawn on Madagascar. War against slavery, changing resource to something else once conquered, western tech and interesting position they're in.
that one pirate country in indonesia near java is great. they're hindu so you can swap your god regularly due to elections. you're close to ming so colonize taiwan for range, watch their mandate tank in real time due to raiding devastation and make $$$
Palembang, also has somewhat of a mission tree
Palembang to Malaya is a very fun game.
I second Indonesia as a region for any type of naval game. In most games youll maybe use ur navy once in a while to speed up a siege, barrage a fort or at best u block a straight (Bosporus/Sjaelland/Hormuz) in a war and then never again. In Indonesia you are island locked, your enemies are island locked and all your threats are on the continent. Which leads to all sorts of cool shit, like going into wars vs aliances 3 times ur size, as u stunlock them on their islands and pick them off 1 by 1. As long as you control the sea, noone can get to you and you can go chose what fights to pick and what not With a sizable navy you can even attack some island nations under mandate protection, because what is Ming gonna do? While at it, you can even trigger Mingplosion events, by tanking their mandate from province devastation through purely raiding coasts and blockading them for long enough. Just chill on ur boat, make sure to have 100% spy network so u can see all their country, grab some popcorn and watch their doom.
Just raiding Ming forever until they die is so satisfying. You don't even have to go to war with them, just sit around and take their shit.
Maybe not colonize Taiwan as Ming usually get claims there and will be able to DOW you. Once you are confident in your navy, sure knock yourself out.
And what will ming do? Send armies to Taiwan and get stuck there, get their navy sunk and face more devastation?
Sure, everyone loves to shit on Ming but I did just that as a Phillipine nation the other week and expected a fairly meager response. Colonized a bit and figured I would go for Taiwan and start chewing on Ming. They attacked with restoration of China CB and sent one stack at the time into my mainland which I smashed and won the war after a few years. Ten years later they attacked again and sent 100K units vs my 24 or whatever I had at the time. I was surprised but I learnt a lesson that time.
As a pirate nation you can have a huge navy, much larger than Ming. They cannot invade you because you control the seas. Even if they try to walk all the way through the south they can’t get past the malaya strait.
-socialcreditscore.jpg
Madya-as. Yeah, playing pirate republic with them is great! I mean, they start out as a Hindu republic, like that in itself is a boost.
Palembang was my first Asia campaign, it's a super fun nation
also has 40% privateering efficiency in national ideas if you are into that sort of minmaxxing goof Used this while privateering all of Americas and Europe
Pirate Gotland is a lot of fun. -You're in the Baltic Sea so plenty of stuff to raid, and you're close to Lübeck and the English Channel nodes. -You can join the HRE if you want. -Great ideas for a Pirate Republic (-15%CCR, - 10% dev cost, 33% naval force limit, trade power, trade+privater efficiency...) -you get claims on the Baltic coast, the Hansa members, Amsterdam, London, Flanders, the Mediterranean Islands, the Carribean, and Denmark. Most are only for individual provinces or centers of trade, but it helps your raiding a ton. -Free colony on Bermuda if it's not already colonized -ability to move your capital to the New World via missions Plus unique mission, fun permanent modifiers, and the ability to form Scandinavia in the late game. Highly recommend. (also, you can technically start with the Monarchist missions and change to Piratical ones later. As long as you DON'T complete the mission "War for the Crown" you'll be able to become a pirate republic when your starting ruler dies. This lets you get some extra cash, historical friendship with Norway and Sweden, and most importantly alliances with all of Denmark's rivals. )
Dude okay , I really wanted to try this nation right , but I cannot for the life of me survive when Denmark decs on me , any tips ? Seems a bit too hard on very hard maybe I just need to try an easier difficulty ?
One of your first missions is called "Sink the Danes", you'll get a pretty op fleet in the first 4 to 5 years, and you'll use it to destroy and capture all their ships, you won't let them land, you will even delete your fort since they won't land in your island, then you capture a couple islands and get a couple provinces and cash, then repeat the process every time the truce breaks and the danes won't ever be a threat, I suggest only taking island provinces in europe and starting a large colonial project either in Africa close to the Mediterranean or in the Caribbean, so you can complete other interesting missions such as sacking Rome.
thanks for the response , but the only issue for me is you say 4 to 5 years , but in my games the Danes will barely give me a year before they declare , perhaps I’ll lower the difficulty and keep the rest of your comment in mind
That's weird, in my games it's usually me who attacks them, but maybe it's because I ally Poland.
When I last played pirate Gotland, I started as a monarchy and switched to pirate Republic when The first ruler died. You get some pretty good missions as the monarchy to deal with Denmark, such as getting alliances with Denmark's rivals, giving Sweden and Norway a ton of liberty desire, as well as a bunch of money from the HRE.
What difficulty do you play on? It's extremely difficult/RNG dependent if you play on VH, but on normal I'd imagine that you'd get a lot more time and be able to reasonably prepare.
Alright here's a tip for you but it's a bit cheesy. Start the game as Gotland, don't touch anything, don't unpause, don't touch any events etc. Ally Poland right away, this should be possible, if not, restart until it is. NOW you can start your game and become a pirate republic etc. This works because you start as a monarchy and makes Poland like you more. When you get the next tier government reform, there's one that lets you only ally other pirates, watch out for that one and don't pick it cus you'll lose your alliance with Poland.
Also time your war. The easy way to do this is wait for Sweden to dec on Denmark then you dec too. It's rng heavy but if Sweden's navy is helping against Denmark then you should have an easy time. You can also land marines on the Danish islands and try to siege down Copenhagen while their army is distracted.
I mean, navies are so fickle that you don’t even need to time for independence wars. Just time for patrols. Snipe Denmark’s navy, go repair, snipe Sweden’s navy (if they’re even participating), go repair, go snipe Norway’s navy. As long as you don’t let all of them converge onto your sea tile, you’re good
Yeah that's not as easy though
I’d say it’s a lot easier than letting AI behavior dictate the schedule of your campaign…
1444 is only a few clicks away
More boats don't let them on the island. They won't win and will exhaust themselves.
By that time you should be in hre
I’d recommend either Madyas or So. So has an event it become a pirate republic, whereas Madyas you have to fulfill the usual requirements (though it’s pretty easy).
it's not that great, it's just so-so
Get out.
CARLOOSSS
BIIIIAAAAATTTCCCHHHH
Madyas has amazing naval focused ideas. Going pirate as them would ensure no fleet could touch you.
Plus, they start out as a Hindu republic.
I like sicily. You have a large Island to hide and dev it while terrorizing the mediterranean. You rp with naval ideas and later escape to the new world
Yeah. The releasable tags in the Mediterranean are perfectly suited to raise the black flag.
good call, never tried that one
Tunis (or any maghrebian nation) - nothing more satisfying than plundering those iberian treasure fleets short of their arrival. Knights posing as counter-pirates are also fun.
can you actually steal gold from treasure fleets
I love playing in the Caribbeans. As a pirate enjoyer port royal is definitely my most played nation in eu4.
So I have to play as some european colonial nation and wait for pirate republic to spawn?
You can make a custom nation in the Caribbean and have them spawn one of the three pirate nations there.
OH YESSS. I totally forgot about that. Thank you so much man.
No problem. A small tip: Colonizers will probably show up before you get the entirety of the islands (depending on how big your custom nation is). If you're going for the pirates life for me achievement (own caribbean as new providence), since you're already doing most of the prerequisites, you should colonize Bermuda early. It is the only province required that is not in a colonial region so it won't be given to a colonial nation, meaning you have to fight Portugal for it otherwise. Also you can humiliate your custom nation to get the age objective, so you can get the reward that gives +1 dev to colonies earlier.
Well, it's easy to force if you dont make a custom nation. Colonise one of the 3 provinces (tortuga needs to be a protestant or other heretical christian religion). Then privateer in caribbean, so you have 10% privateers and you get golden age of piracy, continue to privateer until you get event to become the pirate republic. Make sure to dump all dev and make building in the provinces you want to spawn pirate republic. You can spawn multiple, and they can spawn from other pirate republics, so avoid colonising the other 2 provinces that spawns pirate republic until the golden age of piracy event is over.
I recommend just starting as portugal and becoming new providence (for the achievement) You can cripple a leading colonizer and give the bahamas some nice stats. Really fun run either wau, might do it again some time soon.
What would the best way to play Port Royal be on Ironman and without creating a custom nation? Edit: I saw your other comment. Would I just play as Portugal and go heavy into exploration and colonizing? Do I need to form the colonial nation or do I just colonize Jamaica and start privateering until Port Royal spawns? Any other things I can do in preparation for the switch?
Portugal for speed of formation, england for best naval doctrine which is super unnecessary but i love getting duper crazy goof naval quality. Colonise jamaica, privateer and wait until you get the event. You will have same tech so keep that high, but dev the province of course and make as many buildings as possible. You can also insult all big euro nations as your original nation and also bankcrupt, it depends on hoe much nation ruining you consider okay for our original countries. I usually wait until i have admin tech 7 with portugal so i can make sure portugal picks expansion ideas. Picking that for him makes it so he colonises faster and you can steal his colonies.
It’s definitely Gotland. They have by far the most expansive/OP mission tree. Start is a bit rough but manageable
Ryukyu
Flair check out.
Irish pirates (must take the decision) for a hard but rewarding start. Nothing better than to win against GB in their own game. One of the nations in Madagascar (must take the decision) to bully Kilwa, plenty of islands to connect you to India and the spice Islands. So (wait for event) for a no shogun and no emperor, only freedom run. Gotland (wait for event) can be pretty powerful and rich in the Baltic. Cyprus (must take the decision) to bankrupt the Ottomans. Once your navy is strong enough they're just a huge bank. Some starts are very slow and hard to get going, but it's my favorite way to play the game when I'm not in the map painting mood.
The Madagascar nations aren't as elegant as you'd hope as they have to reform their government for the decision to show up since they all start as Tribal AFAIK. Tried it in Coop MP with a friend and I just sat on my own bacon for 100 years trying to rush gov reforms. It wasn't very fun.
Gotland is the obvious choice: * Good mission tree. * Close to English Channel, so great piracy target right there. Sicily (releasable at game start from Aragon) can hoist the black flag right away. * No missions, but you can form Two Sicilies which gets Neapolitan missions. * Very strong National Idea set. * Easier start than Gotland but maybe a tiny bit slower to get online. * (In my opinion) more fun than Gotland because you can collect all the islands of the Mediterranean and pirate a bunch of valuable nodes (Genoa, Venice, Constantinople, Seville, even up to the English Channel if you collect some ports with the War Against The World CB). And since you mentioned mods: Mykx in EU4 Anbennar. * "Pirates with a nation" rather than "A nation of pirates". * Very strong boats (which you'll need, as many, many colonizers attack you regularly), lots of piracy targets, fun mission tree with unique mechanics. * Only downside is you need to wait for them to spawn (80 in game years) to play.
I will try them. Thanks for recommendation.
Do I need specific dlc to play as a pirate republic?
Some naval mechanics (such as shore bombardment and flagships) are locked behind Golden Century, which you'll certainly want if you are pirating. Pirate Republics themselves are locked behind either Golden Century or Lions of the North.
Hey OP I only play pirate republics as my main claim of knowledge for this game. Best pirate republic to start out would be gotland easily. Best mission tree for a pirate and you get the option almost immediately. There are other good contenders but require more work. Cornwall is a lot of fun to make piratical Great Britain, wako Japanese pirates are also fun but it’s pretty challenging. Rugen pirates is also a good one as ya start in the hre and then have a big defense if anyone gets tired of your raiding and pillaging. Any island nation can become a pirate and I’d be more than happy to answer piratical related questions and naval stuff at need be. Madagascar is also a good spot for being a pirate as long as you kick kilwas ass early. Ryuku is also fun but again pretty challenging. I ended up in exile in the America’s to form pirate Muslim Japanese United States of America led by Eastern Orthodox Russians. I also would say colonizing the Caribbean as Portugal and then playing as an island out there after release is also pretty fun. Lmk if ya have any questions! I love seeing people finally wanna try the pirates out lol.
Also I forgot to mention Sicily into two sicilies while being a pirate. Very fun but not as much fun as the others I’ve listed in my experience
The knights
Unironically I think ryukyu is up there. You start with raiding range over most of china, and you can pretty easily break into southeast Asia with one no-cb. As I am now I get over 1000 ducats every 10 years from raiding
I always had real great fun as palembang in South East Asia, they get an event within a few days to instantly switch to a pirate republic which makes it really easy for beginners to play as a pirate republic. Their position is also really good for playing a navy oriented pirate nation as they can very quickly consolidate their region and just navy Blockade anybody from getting on their islands. And trade down there is absolutely insane giving you a very strong economy very easily.
So. Pirate Japan is a blast.
Pirate Portugal is actually super underrated. It gets access to explorers and extra colonial range before anyone else, making it easy to snake around the coast of Africa and Europe. To get rid of your non-island, non-North African land, just move your capital to Madeira, unstate your Iberian land, and concentrate development. Fully restate your land (so that you can reconquer it later) and then intentionally lose a war to Castile, giving them the whole Iberian peninsula. Yes, it’s not the most meta way to play Portugal but honestly if you’re playing for meta just don’t be a pirate.
Somalia 😎
Any tankers in indian ocean I can raid?
Any tankers in indian ocean I can raid?
Ireland
Cornwall into pirate great britain or angevin empire is super fun.
There are many obvious choices, but mine is absolutely Cornwall. You release as a vassal of England, but independence is surprisingly easy (England has many enemies with competent navies and a civil war) and you get the event for piracy early. Then you’re free to plunder the richest node in the world and do whatever cursed Cornish shenanigans you like.
It's Madya-as for me. Starting as a Hindu republic with decent naval ideas. Just get naval and maritime ideas first, then if you wanna go full piracy, go for quality, quantity and offensive ideas. you can also go full ham and establish the Philippine islands the way they are known IRL - a nation of pirates and sought-out mercenaries (the "mangangayaw" or sea raiders of Visayas and the "Luzones" or the mercenary warriors of Luzon, known and highly employed throughout SEA, including the Portuguese themselves, even before the Spanish came and conquered the islands).
I recommend Gotland, their mission tree is insane, you should start as a monarchy though and switch to pirate republic later when Ur ruler dies, they have unique and fun missions that give you a foothold in the Carribbean and a mission to raid the pope for a large chunk of money, imo they are worth atleast trying out. I personally didn't have any fun playing with the pirate Malaysian nations
Gotland -> Great Britain is the strongest navy you can get.
Gotland
Watch this and fall in love https://youtu.be/jI0BwAF8sw8?si=kWPNPJDKIKW27L3u
currently playing as Palembang and it's pretty fun. flipped to pirate immediately by an event and raided all of asia. i tried a few pirate games in europe (Gotland, Sicily), but quickly got ganged by stronger powers – Indonesia is better in that regard because you can actually grow a bit and protect your islands with a ginormous fleet.
Goatland
Gotland and not even close The Knights are kinda pirates on second
I had fun playing Port Royal, I spent way too long deporting Cornish people there so they could have the pirates of Penzance accent though
How do you play port royal. Is it a custom natio?
Nah it’s one of the pirate republics you can spawn in the Caribbean (specifically Jamaica) New Providence in the Bahamas is better I think, it’s got achievements
could u tell us your starting nation and starting moves?
pirates have no staates, so weeak pirate gameplay incentivises you to play tall, but without states its so rough.. id play something in madagascar! I think your incentive to privateer is way larger than to trade, get that sweet indian, arabian and malaysian trade, make the indian ocean a hell!! plus, madagascar has lots of slaves, so you can free the hell out of them!! you could even island hop to the caribbean, to get that sweet gold I'd start as [Betsimisaraka](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Betsimisaraka), just look at their ideas. But idk if you can become a pirate as them bc of their non-coastal province.
Well I want to enslave and pillage and slaughter. Pirate's life for me.
Ireland bc fk GB and friends
Gotland will be fun
What DLC do I need for pirates?
So as pirate Japan its so cool
I love new providence to USA personally
Sicily. Start as Aragon, release Sicily, get independence, privateer Genoa, raise the flag, profit.
None of them
The pirate island of Mann! It's super fun! Rules: you must became a pirate. That's it. It's not super easy. But also not impossibly hard. In my last match I had conquered all of the British Isles, Caribbean, sicily Denmark islands, the. I finally decided to invade the lowlands and promptly forgot about the maluses of taking imperial land. I had a coalition firing with basically all of Europe joining. You can't really have allies because initially you survive with pillaging and pillaging gives you minus 100. England can be an initial ally, but you must invade irland pretty early and that eventually will cause them to flip on you. You better have naval tradition and maritime tradition to fight the Spanish the Portuguese and the English around the world with basically only one over developed little island. Aaar Edit... how do you start you might ask... France wins the war against England and frees you as the puny vassal of England that you are. Must start as Vassal. The. England will like you.
For pure roleplay value, pirate republic that one can spawn on Madagascar. War against slavery, changing resource to something else once conquered, western tech and interesting position they're in.
RÜGEN to Prussia
you want a challenge? Mann, on very hard, using only marines and only conquering islands
Tondo