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Privateer
Description
Renaissance era ranged naval unit with the ability to coastal raid.Can only be seen by other Naval Raiders unless adjacent to it. Reveals Naval Raiders within sight range.
Historical Context
“Plausible deniability.” That principle of avoiding responsibility operated as well in the Age of Sail as it does today. The only difference – and it was a cutlass-edge thin one – between a pirate and a privateer was having a piece of paper, a letter of marque in hand granted by a sovereign. Privateers were privately-owned ships (anything from simple sloops to brigs and caravels) commissioned by a government to “gain reparations for the crown for specific offenses [by other nations] during time of peace” … or prey upon enemy shipping in time of war. After the crown took its share of the spoils from the privateer’s raids, the rest – the larger half – went to the owner and crew. Since just about everyone in Europe had a grievance against the Spanish during the colonial era, the 17th and 18th centuries were the heyday of privateering, especially by those English sea dogs coddled by Elizabeth I and by the French Protestant corsairs (who attacked just about everybody).
PortraitSquare
icon_unit_privateer

Requirements

Civic
Production Cost
Base Cost: 280 Production
Purchase Cost
Base Cost: 1120 Gold
Maintenance Cost
Base Cost: 4 Gold
PortraitSquare
icon_unit_privateer
Description
Renaissance era ranged naval unit with the ability to coastal raid.Can only be seen by other Naval Raiders unless adjacent to it. Reveals Naval Raiders within sight range.
Historical Context
“Plausible deniability.” That principle of avoiding responsibility operated as well in the Age of Sail as it does today. The only difference – and it was a cutlass-edge thin one – between a pirate and a privateer was having a piece of paper, a letter of marque in hand granted by a sovereign. Privateers were privately-owned ships (anything from simple sloops to brigs and caravels) commissioned by a government to “gain reparations for the crown for specific offenses [by other nations] during time of peace” … or prey upon enemy shipping in time of war. After the crown took its share of the spoils from the privateer’s raids, the rest – the larger half – went to the owner and crew. Since just about everyone in Europe had a grievance against the Spanish during the colonial era, the 17th and 18th centuries were the heyday of privateering, especially by those English sea dogs coddled by Elizabeth I and by the French Protestant corsairs (who attacked just about everybody).

Requirements

Civic
Production Cost
Base Cost: 280 Production
Purchase Cost
Base Cost: 1120 Gold
Maintenance Cost
Base Cost: 4 Gold