Pillage
A pillage is a voyage aboard a ship with the intent of attacking brigands and earning PoE. This is arguably the most common form of earning PoE in the game.
Contents
Starting a pillage
The commanding officer (CO) of the ship (often the most senior officer on board) charts a course between two islands. This can either stay inside the current archipelago, or use an inter-archipelago chart in order to go from one archipelago to another. These routes are generally a little longer than staying inside your current arch. If the commanding officer deems that there are sufficient numbers of pirates on board, he or she will hit the "Set Sail" button, and the pillage will commence. It is important to note that when you hit the "Set Sail" button, you are able to be attacked. You can be attacked either by computer-generated brigands or other players in PvP action.
Hiring jobbers is ordinarily done on most pillages. The option is available to officers on the ship to post a notice for jobbers. This will add a line to the notice board jobbing section, indicating your crew name, ship name, type of ship, and your current booty shares. Pirates apply for jobs aboard ships in order to assist on the pillage and hopefully add to the success of it, winning PoE from brigands and players along the way.
Attacking Brigands
The commanding officer on board the ship can use the radar in order to scan the ocean for other ships in the vicinity. These ships will show in different colors, ranging from dark blue through green to dark red. The color of the icon on the radar denotes the relative strength of the other ship in relation to yours, with blue being the weakest and red being the strongest. Once the Commanding Officer has identified a potential target, he or she will switch from the radar view to the crow's nest in order to see the exact configuration and status of the ship. In this view, the Commanding Officer will see the might ring of the opposing vessel. Each ship in the ocean will be surrounded by a might ring which denotes its strength relative to that of your own ship. The might is measured by an aggregate of the rankings of the pirates sailing on it. A historical practice among pirates has been to use alternates in order to circumvent the might ring calculation, and make their ships look comparatively weaker than they actually are.
Ships that would be encountered on a regular pillage are piloted either by other players (producing PvP action) or computer-driven, either as brigands or merchants. All of them are free to be attacked, but beware: attack a ship that is too far on the blue side of the might scale, and you run the risk of being attacked by El Pollo Diablo! (Please note that it is impossible to beat the ship unless you have a full Grand Frig, but it is still next to impossible. Attack a ship too far to the red side of the scale, and you run the risk of your opponents being too strong for you, and taking some of your booty.
Having selected an appropriate target, the commanding officer would hit the "Attack!" button on the "Vessel" interface, and you would attempt to catch the other ship. It can require great timing in order to successfully catch another vessel.
If you are successful in capturing another vessel, or indeed if one catches you, a sea battle will commence. The navigation puzzle is replaced by a large grid of squares, upon which will be shown icons denoting your ship, the opponent, and various rocks, whirlpools and winds. The basic object of the battle navigation puzzle is to shoot the other ship as many times as possible with your cannons whilst avoiding getting shot by them. Once the CO feels that you have shot the other ship enough, he will move the ship into position for a grapple to take place. Once that has happened, a group swordfight takes place, similar to a mass brawl. The winning side takes a percentage of the cargo that the losing side is carrying, along with a percentage of the PoE in the hold of the vessel. With brigands, there is normally a great deal of PoE to be won. With PvP, there may not be as much to win, because player ships generally don't carry as much in terms of assets as the brigands.
All of the goods and PoE won in the battle go into the booty chest.
Divvying Booty
At the end of the pillage, upon porting at the destination island, the CO goes to the booty chest and divvies the booty. The server calculates how much each pirate on board has earned based on the number of battles in which they fought. The booty is divvied based on the booty shares of the crew at the time. Even pirates that left the vessel in the middle of a pillage are included in the divvy. The CO will check that the amounts given to each pirate are fair, and he or she has the power to change the amounts awarded to a certain degree if he or she feels that some pirates have made more (or less) of a contribution than others. If you divvy commodities, they will go straight to the ship's hold.
Restocking
After divvying the booty, it is considered good practice to restock the ship with enough rum and shot for the next pillaging trip, so that the next officer on board doesn't have to pay out for those things. Crews will have their own policies for what happens to the remainder of the ship restocking cut after the rum and shot have been bought. You are also allowed to sell or transfer any extra commodities you don't need. Pirates that sell commodities to stall and shoppe owners plays an important part in the economy.
