Flotilla hunting


 * For more information on flotillas, see the article on flotilla.

Flotilla hunting is the practice of going into a flotilla for the Treasure Haul puzzle. This is done by a sinking of a ship with PoE aboard for the sunken vessel treasure. If enough green ships are sunk, the Brigand King will go away and lick his or her wounds and in effect throwing all player ships in the flotilla, out to the league point.

Ship information
Upon entry to an empty flotilla, your jobber preferences on filling the ship help determine the red ship spawns of matching or harder difficulty. It's possible to see only one red sloop or one red war frigate, or spawn many red ships of varying classes. As well, different Brigand Kings prefer to spawn different types of red ships. For example, Brynhild Skullsplitter prefers to use longships as her initial red ship defense force. However, this may not be the case if other red ships in the flotilla are present from previous or present player ship entries. The only way for red ships to leave the flotilla is via the player's safe zone or the back of the flotilla board which subsequently spawns another red ship (possibly the same ship).

When a red ship sinks, another red ship or ships will appear in a short time. The newly spawned red ship or ships may be of lesser or higher class than the one sunk.

If the flotilla is left alone for at least five minutes from any player, then on entry, there will be a different set of green and red ships. The board settings (with whirlpools, rocks and such), will remain the same. Every time there's a reboot, the board settings will change yet the flotilla will remain until defeated.

Brigand King ships appear to have unlimited cannon balls and rum, and go dead in the water when near full damage.

Flotilla hunt
To provide a courtesy in lieu of jobber pay, take a sloop into the flotilla first to determine if you want to sink, assist or haul there, rather than job people then back out due to two red war brigs repeatedly chasing a player sloop that keeps re-entering.

Stock
Ship sinking information, for example a cutter that requires getting hit with approximately 12 small cannonballs to sink. This is misleading; it is the amount of damage that it can take to sink with no carpenters working. With working carpenters and a long battle, it can be well double the amount minimum needed to sink the red ship. Also, for larger player ships that aggressively pursue green merchant Brigand King ships in order to chase the flotilla away, an efficient navigator should, as a rule of thumb, sink a green ship for every 100 large cbs expended. Suggested stocking for flotilla voyages on war brigs and war frigates should generally follow a 1 rum/3 cannon ball ratio to achieve success.

Suggested sloop stock:
 * 250 small cannon balls
 * 40 fine rum or equivalent

Suggested war brig stock:
 * 600 medium cannon balls
 * 150 fine rum or equivalent

Suggested war frigate stock:
 * 600 large cannon balls
 * 200 fine rum or equivalent

Scouting
To begin the search of a worthy flotilla, chart a route that bypasses the flotilla, use flotilla voyage mode (successful Duty Navigation will reduce brigand and barbarian spawns en route). Put up and take down job notice for three fine swabbies. Put them all on sails and set sail. At first league you should be at least 70% in speed to which two bots should move to Carpentry and Bilging respectively, leaving the last sailor to fill the rest of the speed. When you have arrived at the flotilla, enter and take note of a few things:


 * Number of total green ship sinks by players in the flotilla. If this number is at or near 20, the flotilla likely only has a few more green ship sinks before it is killed off.  This is good if you are looking to kill it off, but bad if you want an extended flotilla voyage.  Plan your stock level according to this number but also realize that some flotillas go as high as 27 green ship sinks before being chased off.
 * Location of winds and whirlpool in the middle part of the board so as to decide an escape route in case of damage. Getting to the middle third of the board as quickly as possible is the goal when your ship is heavily damaged.
 * Location of any "corridors" along the back wall of the flotilla where the Brigand King's ships enter. These corridors would be 1 or 2 squares wide and are generally good places to trap ships and sink them.

Soloing or jobbing
At the flotilla, if there's any sunken vessels near the safe zone or far from hostiles, solo Treasure Hauling is optional. Otherwise, you should consider getting as many jobbers as possible that are willing to work aboard. Have fun.

Flotilla Pieces of Eight
The table below is an estimation of bounty collected at the time or when the sunken vessel disappears. Player ships that both land shots onto a ship will receive a portion of the bounty based on the percentage of damage done overall to the sinking ship. Additionally, if a Brigand King ship helps to sink one of its own ships, the bounty paid to the player ships will be reduced accordingly.

Non-sinking flotilla PoE
Note: A glitch with Treasure Haul is that Pieces of Eight stop hauling in despite incredible-excellent reports on ships. Refer to these threads for more info:

Tips and tricks

 * Abandon ship at flotilla league point. If everyone leaves and no one boards the ship in the next 15 minutes, it will auto-port to last port with damage and bilge clear. However any booty will be thrown overboard.
 * Plus maneuver token. If everyone did not start generating move tokens fast enough after Treasure Haul, this can be useful as a quick move when available to escape hostilities.
 * Memorizing most of the ocean. This is highly useful when flotillas are at routes with no adjacent shipyards to buy charts from.
 * Stock ships. Ships full of stock or prepared with stock at islands create short ship trips.
 * Flotilla hearty networking. Ask the flotilla leader if he wants to hearty you for future flotillas.
 * Scavengers. If there is already a ship of higher class in the flotilla, it's risky yet possible to Treasure Haul while the higher class ship fights. You must be prepared to move in a moment's notice.
 * Hold grab. After sinking a ship, a restock cut goes to the ship's hold. When your ship sinks, the hold will become inaccessible. In sinking flotillas, grab the PoE after sinking a ship. Vessel Logs will show how much is taken out. In non-sinking flotillas, due to a recent change, the PoE in the hold will not disappear. However, you will lose any booty accumulated.