Be a Pirate! Raiders: Raids, Enemies, and Battle Tips

What Does the Pirate Raider Do?

Be a Pirate! raiders have an offensive role: use your Pirate Raider to attack forts and villages as their defenders fight back. Raiding gives your crew objectives beyond defending its fleet, including bringing gems home. Understanding that role helps you distinguish your attacking forces from the Crown troops and monsters threatening your ship.

The Pirate Raider belongs to your arsenal. Your defensive battles involve Crownsmen approaching on foot, Crown Sloops traveling by water, and supernatural threats tied to the Crown’s campaign.

Raiding also has three achievement milestones:

Achievement	How to Unlock
Plunder!	Complete your first raid.
Buried Treasure	Bring gems home from a raid.
Raiding Party	Complete 100 raids.

Pursue Buried Treasure alongside your raid completions: its objective specifically requires returning with gems.

Your wider crew includes 15 recruitable Pirate Captains, each with permanent bonuses and upgrade paths. The active captain accompanies your ship into battle. Welcome Aboard marks recruiting your first captain, A Proper Crew requires recruiting 5 captains, and Red Raine's Rogues requires all 15. Each captain also has a personal connection to the campaign’s battles.

Official page: Be a Pirate! (store.steampowered.com)

Handle Land Troops and Crown Sloops Together

The Crown attacks by land and water simultaneously during each wave. Ground enemies change their routes as you build, while Crown Sloops follow the river.

Image: Steam / Noble Rogues

Plan your defenses around both approaches. Before committing Doubloons to another upgrade, inspect which route needs coverage and whether your chosen tower can engage the threat there.

Bridges add another consideration: they let land units cross water, but Crown Sloops still pass underneath. Keep the river covered after building a crossing.

For a path-building objective, The Long Way Round requires stretching the enemies’ march to three times its starting length. Work toward it by watching how construction redirects the ground route. Remember that extending the land approach leaves the river route intact.

Elevation also affects tower placement and performance. Check the surrounding terrain when choosing positions, especially where your defenses must cover separate approaches.

Other construction challenges place specific limits on your defenses. Skeleton Crew requires winning from Map 8 onward on Deckhand or Captain with no more than 10 attacking towers built. No Walls, No Problem requires winning from Map 8 onward without building a single palisade. Every Gun Aboard instead requires winning with eight different kinds of tower built. Choose which challenge to pursue before laying out your defenses.

Match Your Upgrades to the Enemy

Combat uses five damage types: Physical, Fire, Ice, Electric, and Poison. Enemies have resistances and weaknesses, so match your damage choices to the threat you face.

Image: Steam / Noble Rogues

Your tower options include the Cannon, poison-focused Voodoo Cauldron, beam-focused Heliograph Battery, and The Commodore’s Flag, which strengthens nearby towers.

During battles, Doubloons fund four upgrade tracks:

• Offense
• Range
• Specialty, specific to the tower
• Signature, a unique ability that changes its combat behavior

Choose upgrades around the problem in front of you. Increase range when coverage needs extending, and account for elemental resistance before spending more on an attack that the enemy resists.

Boss objectives introduce more specific demands. Dodged the Skiff requires defeating Quartermaster Voss without his skiff wrecking a tower. Disarmed requires defeating the Admiral’s Herald before he hits your ship. Keep those conditions in mind when setting your defensive priorities; winning the battle alone does not fulfill either challenge.

The Kraken adds structure-focused challenges. Clear the Way requires defeating it without losing a single structure to it, while Sold Out from Under Him requires selling a tower while its lash is winding up on that tower. Watch the targeted structure during the windup if you are pursuing the sale achievement. Bounty Hunter tracks a broader combat milestone: defeat 100 bosses, with mini-bosses counting toward that total.