Anti-Piracy
The ocean is huge. Pirates are fast, dispersed, and intelligent; they know their geography intimately and have informants everywhere; and they need to succeed only occasionally, while patrols must succeed constantly.
- Reactive patrol
- Limited. Pirates know the patrol patterns, the ocean cannot be covered, and by the time a patrol arrives the pirates are gone.
- Convoy escort
- Significantly more effective. The protection is there when merchants need it, concentrated firepower deters attack, and the pirates must defeat the escort to reach the prize. Expensive, and it slows traffic, but it genuinely reduces losses. It is Forgegate's emphasis.
- Offensive operations
- Against the Coves themselves, extremely difficult. The geography gives enormous defensive advantage; destroying one base moves the pirates to another; attacking too aggressively risks uniting factions that were rivals. Shining Reach occasionally mounts punitive expeditions anyway.
- The intelligence war
- Agents inside Coves ports — incredibly dangerous, extremely valuable. Captured pirates worked by conversation and incentive; coastal watchers and lighthouse keepers reporting sightings; friendly privateers reporting movements for commission; and deliberate misinformation leaked to pirates to turn their own networks against them.