And in general, I was asking how it could be that pirates could suddenly have a higher-tech and bigger fleet than the top civilizations in the game. I hadn't seen it before, but if other people are losing planets/having the game ruined, then i guess it may be more common than I'd thought.
The prev report about Pirates stealing 2 planets was not really about Pirates, probably Dread Lords. Pirates simply do not take planets.
The 'Pirates kill every moving ship' situation that you are talking about is one of the Mega Events in Dark Avatar (see how it is Mega?). THOSE Pirates are special; they generally have better weapons tech and miniaturization than anyone when they enter the game. You can turn off Mega Events when you are starting a game, on the first set up screen.
On the other hand, you can also learn to cope with the super Pirates. Remember, the Pirates are amoral; they wax the ships of EVERYBODY. One way to cope with them is to simply shift to internal development and research while everyone ELSE is struggling with them. Their weakness is that they never get reinforcements, so each loss even in one sided battles where they kill a fleet (hopefully someone else's) is permanent. Also they don't move around much unles provoked, so you
can hide the remnants of your fleet off in remote corners of the map if you can onec get separated from them. Then do your research and upgrade remotely. Eventually the remaining Pirates will be weakened enough, and your tech will be good enough that you can come out again.
drrider
