[sterlingice]

Splitting planning and raiding into two actions aren't necessarily a bad idea. I just think that if you did that, you'd see almost everyone put points into dueling and trade because the other four just aren't worth it. As it is right now- boarding is just such a useless skill from a meta-gaming standpoint. You still only have a d4 shot at finding a ship and the better ships are much higher whereas towns don't move at all. And if you spend your points building up a good cruiser and boarder, well, you're going to be dead from your lack of dueling ability. While you spent your first 3 upgrades and initial boost to get you cruising and boarding up to d8, that other guy has a dueling at d8 and trading at d8 so even if he's not as good at planning or raiding or cruising or boarding, he's getting twice as much loot as you when he succeeds so it cancels out. Never mind that he can just kill you with his d8 dueling, to boot. Much easier to build up gold either by getting better trades or killing another pirate for it. That said, if there's a giant pirate killing spree, I'm guessing it's like Omerta- there's only limited replay value when everything you've worked for is lost so easily.

SI