Pirates during the shakturi stroyline?

[jakeblakeway]

Hi All,

I am trying to set up a custom game as a pirate and I can't enable the return of the Shakturi storyline. Is there anyway to do it? It would be awesome to see if I could hold out while the rest of the universe was crumbling around me

[HerpInYourDerp]

You can't have them on in pirate games.

[Aeson]

You might be able to start a standard game with the storyline enabled, use the editor to set one or more of the pirate factions as playable, export the map as a custom map, and start the game over as (one of) the pirate faction(s) you made playable.

[NephilimNexus]

The real reason why you can't have the Shakturi Storyline in pirate games has nothing to do with the Shakturi and everything to do with the Mechanoids.

Mechanoics, in story mode, start off at maximum tech. As an empire it would be suicide to attack them, and their story driven bonuses are so absurdly high that even a fully developed empire of equal tech level would be hard pressed to get past the (literally) several hundred ships that they can somehow support with only a single planet, all parked in permanent orbit over that planet. Basically, Mechanoids get free "god-mode" from the start.

Now, if you're an empire that's fine - just don't declare war on the them or attack their stuff and you're safe. But since pirates live in a perpetual state of war with all empires (good luck trying to get Mechanoids to pay you protection money) then what you would have is the Mechanoids sending out fleets to destroy you on day one. You, with one lone starbase, one builder, two tiny frigates and maybe a single resupply ship against a Mechanoid fleet. You'd be out of the game inside of a month.

That's one of the main reasons why NPC pirates in any Shakturi Storyline are so hopelessly doomed. No matter what they do, eventually the Mechanoids find them and kill them instantly. Again, the Shakturi have nothing to do with it.

However, all that being said, you can manually add both Shakturi and Mechanoids to a custom pirate game without storymode engaged. You can even start the Mechanoids off at TL7 if you want to punish yourself for some reason. All you'll really miss out on, then, is the century time delay and the messages.