No pirate duels if you damage their ship?

[Barnabus]

With the first few big name pirates I defeated, I got the usual swordfight sequence at the end.

However, last night I tracked down Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, and one other (Lafitte, I think?). With all three pirates, I damaged their ships heavily before boarding, and the ships just surrendered, instead of giving me the climactic swordfight with the famous pirate.

Is that normal.... you skip the duel if you just damage their ship enough? The enemy pirate takes a cannonball hit? Or is it a bug? The status screen showed the pirates as defeated afterwards, so I know it was the right ship. And I was looking forward to dueling Blackbeard. Oh well.
<img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":c" border="0" alt="mad.gif" />

Barnabus

 

[v4pirate]

Ya got it,

cept for Montelban, mendoza, and that other clown (can't remember his name, as I deinstalled this some time back), those guys just crash their ship, cuz you cant sink em, and will trigger the fencing scene anyway no matter how much ya damage their ship.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Right, mate. Watch your opponent carefully. If they stike their colors, you may board with no resistance. However, if you do get Raymondo or Montalban to strike their colors, you still have to fight said bad guys.

 

[Barnabus]

Oh Ho! I didn't know the combat animation included striking colors. That's a nice touch, I'll have to watch for that. Thanks for the info!

Barnabus

 

[skull]

Surrender'n widout a fight <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_eek.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":" border="0" alt="icon_eek.gif" /> Not on my ship mates <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

 

[bigchief]

After I get a proper boat (frigate, large frigate, or ship of the line), I will almost always beat the enemy ship down until it surrenders. I try running with as little crew as possible until I have built up enough wealth to keep them happy. I try to only divide the plunder once or twice during the game. Those times will be early in the game. I can't afford to loose men while dueling, so making them surrender is the best option.

With as many guns as those boats have, it is rarely worth it to haul the beaten up boat back to port for sale, so I just hit them as hard as I can, make them surrender, board the ship, take what I want, and sink the ship. Many times I will not even fire round shot or grape shot. If you can get a good shot on them, it only takes one or two volleys of chain shot to make them give up. Once their sails are reduced to below about 50% they will realize they are sitting ducks and give it up.

As the others said, you will still have to fight Montleban, Mendoza, and Raymondo. I understand that those guys wouldn't just give up, but if their crew has raised the white flag, they should not fight alongside the guy. It makes me mad that their crew will fight after surrendering, so I have taken to reducing thier crew to one man before I board. I hit it with chain shot until the ship runs up the white flag. They have lied to me in the past about surrendering, so I treat them as liars. At that point they wont fire back. I just circle the ship pounding it with grape shot until there is one crew member left. I then board the ship. Those bad guys aren't so bad if they don't have those large crews to back them up. They will surrender after the first time you hit them.

Using the method of making the ships surrender before I board, has allowed me to play until I was 60 years old, and I could have kept on going if I wanted to.