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For basic information on pillaging, see the article on sloop pillaging guide.

This guide was developed by Joakal from his experience in the high end game. To emphasize, this guide explains how to do run a pillage with big ships. However if one is lacking jobbers, there are some great tips here. In the development of the guide, the author prefers to use a War Brig with up to 30 blood-thirsty pirates.

Assumed knowledge

Stocking the ship
Battle Navigation
Know how to run a pillage
Management of pirates on stations

Routing

There are no official documents stating the difficulty of routes so you would most likely have to explore, search Wiki (links below) or ask other pillagers. Typically people prefer the long hardest route closest to a inhabited island. Keep an eye out for how other good pillagers pick their routes. Remember, harder routes equal harder ships relevant to your ship might which equals more booty.

Develop a system for your ship

When requesting jobbers, unless you feel fine with having jobbers picking stations and likely avoiding sails all-together leaving you with barely any moves. Yep, you need to tell your jobbers exactly what's available and the system of first come first serve works best in fairness since it's expected you wouldn't mind them taking any duty station (except guns).

Sloop

Maximum of 5 to start with.

1 Sailor

1 Gunner

1 Carpenter

1 Bilger

1 BNav

Why not 6 or 7? Going above 5 and on "orange" routes, I tended to attract Baghlahs and Longships which are quite scary as they can shoot much more in one turn than I can.

War Brig

Minimum of 14 to start with.

Minimum of 2 Bilgers

Minimum of 2 Carpenters

Minimum of 2 Gunners

Rest on sails (7)

Later on, a minimum of 8 sailors before new jobbers can take other stations.

Why the minimum? It's so I have as much moves to have the easier breathing space to think when fighting against Merchant Galleons or War Frigates (who can max me in less than one turn). Do note when getting jobbers, sailing skills are more valuable than other skills since you would require many sailors.

Amassing jobbers

Done off-ship and on-ship. If you haven't already, create a second account and create a hearty alt. You will need to develop this hearty alt into a hearty army. Try to make sure your alt is easily recognisable. Some ways include; Joakalsalt (Joakal's alt) and do a quick bilge mission on your alt for an incredible bilge trophy and name the trophy box: "This is an alt of Joakal for pillages" (Use your main's name though!).

When you have filled your main's hearty list, you should attempt to use the hearty alt and empathise that this is essential to filling ships for runs. You may, however, encounter some protests who want to be on your main. It's up to you whether to use your main or alt though, not them.

Before you go pursuing jobbers, you need to adopt a charismatic flair of attracting, influencing and keeping jobbers. Some tips and hints below:

Do:

adopt a very diplomatic attitude
be firm in running your pillage
give honest and sincere appreciation
leadership, make everyone feel they did a good job even if it feels like solo work.
use as best English and grammar as possible. More people are peeved at use of 'pilly' word more than 'pillage' among other words. Generally it's best to type full words.
have good standings, look good, especially in battle navigation. They will gauge if you're successful before wanting to be your hearty.
mention that you encourage fun and aim for big wins to tempt them.

Don't:

spread inflammatory opinions
create problem topics
condemn, criticise or complain
be impatient or rude. If they're busy, note their name on a paper, notepad or spreadsheet. Talk to them later
be too arrogant. "I'm always successful" "I never lose"
argue extensively, your word is final in the end
be condescending. "I'm better than most people" "My flag is one of the best"
treat them like sheep with jobbing before asking
avoid using ship wide whistles

Off-ship

You don't have to tell them when you are going to pillage. If they were to become a hearty, you would be able to notify them of events and pillages from seeing them online.

What kind of Jobber do you want?

I suggest good all round jobbers. Much like the stock math earlier, if you can not find enough jobbers, lower your standards. However too low a standard and you may face losing battles even if you do an incredible max-0. Good all-round jobbers will mean that they can take on most stations.

Best places to find good jobbers

Skellies or Zombies because they usually are qualified to get a mission so they are also quite qualified to handle brigands in a fight.
Docks, be sure to check out their info for good standings.
Big tournaments tend to attract good fighters (Wait til they finish if they're playing or when they have time)
Big events, competitions and other hangouts may have some candidates.
Joining pillaging and atlantis runs.

On-ship

After getting the stock and route plotted, now lets get down to the chaotic business of jobbing.

Configuration

Configure your voyage settings even if you're not going to put up a job notice. So that when you actually need a jobber, he'll see your desired pillage settings even if you don't have a duty navigator. Typically, if you do hard pillages then set your ship to use hard pillage setting.

Referencing and coordination

First, you should get a notepad or a spreadsheet. The latter is best for record keeping. You generally need to reference to make pillaging much easier with a lot of less typing by making use of Copying and Pasting (Hot keys respectively are: Control-C and Control-V). Here's my method:

First section (two columns width) is a flag list of allies. Add the full names of all your allies here, preferably with /fw, eg "/fw Castigo X". These sections assist with jobbing by giving you a list of online people in the flag when you type /fw <flag name>.

Second section (two columns width) is a general flag list. You best want to avoid adding 'enemies' but you can if you want to, just don't go around mentioning it. On the other hand, you could just have the two sections together.

Third section (one column width) is a to-job list. This is greatly useful when you're in battle so you don't have to memorise names. When you send out a job notice, it'll automatically bring them aboard when they accept. Do remember to send a warning to them when you're boarding the brigands.

Fourth section is the one-liners you're going to pull from a generic list that you use for a variety of situations. Below are the things you need to make up to make running a pillage easier but feel free to create your own;

Jobbing lines

"War Brig pillage, would you like a job?"
"Want job now and wait for out of battle notice or job after battle?"
"War Brig pillage, only sailors needed, interested?"
"/fo WB Pillage, send a tell to me if interested (must be renowned+ and good at sf to take on a hard route)"
"War Brig pillage, no open spots, you can laze for the moment.

Jobbing help lines

"There's room aboard. If you have any good hearties (renowned+ and good at sf), please send me their names in a tell."

Swordfight lines

"Small fast attacks. Avoid overbuilding, they're not skellies with an empty board."
"Teams of 3s or 2s. Stall if there's 2+ dots on ye. Have fun!"
"See the hat on the other side? Look at the hats on our side, they have much to fear of us."

Rumble lines

"Small fast attacks. Avoid overbuilding, they're not zombies with an empty board."
"Combos of 3 or 4 for strikers. Rapid sprinkling is good too."
"Teams of 3s or 2s. Stall if there's 2+ dots on ye. Have fun!"
"Arrrgh!!!"

Winning lines

"Good job mates!"
"We beat off the brigands!"
"We've scored some booty!"
"Enjoy the money shot from the auto divvy!"

Fail lines

"Nice try mates!"
"Good effort mates!"
"We'll re-engage for our booty back!"

Welcoming lines

"Ahoy! Welcome aboard, please take an open station."
"Ahoy! Please take a sail as we need to move better."
"I need a gunner, would you like to gun?"
"Only sailing spots left, don't take bilge/carp please."

Hearty requests and alt away

"Hearty for future pillages?"
"Hearty for future pillages? My alt will hearty ye."
"/away WB pillage, send tell to Joakal I may not be read it."

Headhunting

This is the order I search for jobbers:

By a crew broadcast.
By a flag broadcast.

Not enough jobbers? Time for specific hunts.

Shoot a onboard request to jobbers aboard to have names sent to you in a tell. (You can then handle the /tell communication to avoid the possible humiliation and embarrassment with declining unwanted jobbers by reviewing them beforehand)
Ask hearties on main.
Ask hearties on army alts.

Still not enough? Time for some flag and crew hunts. Good players tend to hang in groups of their own so check;

Your alliance links.
Your list of flags
Your hearties' flags.

Quartermaster

The QuarterMaster Pirate Helper can also help make things easier by: Recording planks, jobbers arriving and leaving, storing short cuts, count shots and more.

En route

By now, you should have enough aboard and prepared with the one-liners for most situations, it should be a breeze. Just set sail and I wish you luck.

Some tips en route

Avoid island sparkle reset, your jobbers' sparkle will reset when you touch an island. So remember to re-chart the league before touching the island. Also it's better to find long routes to avoid excessive back and forth re-charting.
Plunder your own spawns, don't intercept any ships. Let them attack you, 100% of the time it'll be your spawn unless you count players. This also means you will get your booty ramp.
Plunder your own spawns v2, if there's a spawn ahead or behind that seems to follow you, it's likely that this is your spawn. Try to maneuver to get attacked.
Let them attack, if ships attack you and you lose, you can re-engage them for a second attempt.
Avoid league sparkle reset, when your ship touches a league point, it resets all non-working jobbers' sparkle to brown. You will see this a lot when spawns attempt or have attacked you at league points. Do not get caught there.
Plunder someone else's spawns, if there's other hard pillagers out there, stealing their spawn will give you their current ramp's PoE, a ramp boost and a heated curse from the BNaver.
Use a duty navigator, they can vastly increase your spawns' difficulty to your desired pillage settings.

End of voyage

Bring your hearty alts aboard.
Thank everyone for their work even though you know they weren't here for the entire trip
It's expected you will win Kraken's blood. Unless you want to be a jerk and over-greedy, please sell your KB or deposit equivalent (especially if you're using an uninhabited island)
Start the division message
Stalk everyone aboard who are not on your hearty lists
Do the divvy
Adjust your stock levels as desired or just replenish for next voyage

Author's final words

This whole scheme, including finding jobbers has always works for me even in the dead zone of Puzzle Pirates when I've pillaged in the Australian evening (7 PM - 10 PM AEDT or 1 AM - 4 AM PDT). My War Brig pillages have yielded me hundreds of thousands from my solo runs. Quite good for those who wish to be a major benefactor to the blockade game. I hope this will prove that anyone can start fresh on any ocean and work their way quickly into huge wealth through the oldest PoE fountain the game (provided, of course, they can BNav and have a ship in the first place).

Some other tips to running a pillage

Keep cool.
Make some kind of loose fun topic, you're likely going to see a lot chat on your screen and most of it will be in tells. Your jobbers will see pretty much silence. Try asking aboard about desserts (ice cream, cookie, recipes), food, locations, jokes, etc.
Vary the armed pirates, give out old or unwanted swords or bludgeons. Some people who have been on Sea Monster hunts may give you their unwanted equipment. Avoid having sticks or fists on your side.
Undesired jobber hearties, remove unwanted jobbers from your hearty list when they are offline to save both you and him the embarrassment.
Divvy system, develop your own divvy system, people who stayed for entire voyage get a plus. Or people who were there at end get a plus. Up to you.
Stock adjustment, increase or decrease either stock at end of pillage as desired.
KB Divvy alternative, another way of KB divvy is to not sell it from booty chest but rather from hold. This way you should avoid keeping the restock cut of KB and give it to all jobbers aboard (mention this before attempting to divvy to avoid looking like a jerk).
A bonus for porting ship, if you need to go port, offer a bonus for helpers. Always give a bonus to new boarders who haven't been in a battle and you want to port.
Make a record on your officer bulletin board of wins such as total end booty, best plunder, etc.
Don't be a dick, you already get 30% cut as well as your jobber cut.
Fun! You want run a colourful pillage of rainbows, not a black/white pillage of monotony.

Joakal's Hard Big Pillaging Guide

Contents