just ran this mod with a plugin to test it out a bit come across the pirate captains giveing gold and trade in a port to be a little over power once there nothing for them to do but saying that there would be no normal way for someone to get the gold in a normal SP/MPG for it to be abused unless you intended it to be this way but it fun regardless. i also think the voice of the drowned ritual are a little overpriced as well unless your work around was them captains understandable there if that the case i would think the necromancers ritual price list would fair this class better since there resource pool pull form more are less the same things iv enjoyed how there work and i hope you keep making this game fun for everyone.

For suggestion for this wonderfully looking faction I have a few ideas, hope that they could be useful:
-A Pirate Pet Breeder (commander) - with a freespawn for your typical pirate pets, like monkey, but some may be unique, like some monkeys would be more versitile than others, like giving them a cutlass or flintlock pistol, their role would be of backline bodyguards, always near their owner.
-Parrot(scout) - can be used for the pirate ritual to send stupid scout around the world, or after becoming a lord using a ritual to get one as a pet on a shoulder, increasing his morale and giving him ability to sense stealthy units.
-A Pirate Tavern (site enchantment) - It's a ritual to create a pirate freespawn in the coastal settlement or port, it's pretty simple but would definitly give you some more low-tier units early game.
-Ogre Pirate (recruitable monster/ocassional recruitment option) - yeah that one is simple, similar to the normal ogre, just replacing his club with a cutlass and giving them a eyepatch at the start, maybe giving them little better stats than the normal ogres.
-Skark People (summon) - these boys are just cool, remember some sprites of similar people in Dominions Enhanced mod.
-Pirate Lycantrops (ocassional recruitment option) - Similar to the Bandit lycantrops, those could be either crabman or a weird sharkman.
I hope that those ideas are fun, I absolutely adore the ideas for this faction in this game, let alone a mod made by you.

There are some great ideas here.

I don't think I'll make a breeder unit but rather add some rituals to the captains to fulfill that role.

I did want to add pirates with monkeys and parrots on pirates' shoulders but adding them with how captains level up is a bit technically difficult. I'll add them somehow like on the spotter's shoulder or something. I like the idea of some piratey animals

Like Monkey guards, funny idea, in practice I think they might not be worth taking up ship space but yeah maybe monkeys.

Parrot Scout is good.

On Taverns, changing terrain and free spawns are annoying for a few reasons. You need to add terrains to a lot of groups for other rituals to work with them but more so free spawns are done with custom events and I've had people complain about there being too many of them in mods before and slowing down the game. This is why I gave the pirate lord 50% Gold and Trade bonus, so they can rally a lot of troops.

Ogre Pirates are Great, definitely adding them. They are perfect, the class doesn't have heavy infantry so they're a good alternative recruit for that. They fit on ships and thematically it feels like it works.

Thought about lycanthropes, never got around it, might do it.

If ships are hard to mod for more space, maybe just give the pirates the ability to recruit two or three of them for the price of one?

They already get 50% gold and trade bonus, they can get tons of gold and iron and Pirate Ships are significantly better.

They're normal speed, not slow and Pirate Ballista and Cannons can move at normal speed on them.

Maybe I could give them a Merc Chance recruit to get 2 for a reduced cost.

The Drowned and Damned units are hella nice, but usually you still need to wait a bit to gain relics to summon them, maybe you could add a money base ritual for the pirate to ,,employ'' one of the intelligent small tribes of the see, like Mermans, Ichids, the green fish people which name I forgot or something else.Nothing to make a full blown army but which would assist your accolite so he will not be yeeted by the seastag in early game.Maybe give it 2 rituals, first gives just some warriors from random tribe while second gives you a bit bigger host of warriors with a leader fitting their race.

idk, the acolyte can summon from coastal provinces and can command ships as well as any other commander, walking him into the sea alone and getting attacked by sea stags is just asking for trouble.

The summons, strong as they are meant to be like a bonus to the class but they are primarily a class that builds armies and uses siege weapons.

A ritual that works a bit like Twiceborn and lets your pirate lord come back as a ghost (preferably with ghost pirate recruitment / a ghost ship). I named my pirate lord LeChuck but it won't feel right until he's the Ghost Pirate LeChuck.

I said minion spawns were a good idea!

I'm not putting in special buff abilities, for Pirate King/Voice of the Drowned, that's not what the class is about. I also never envisioned blessings being a part of this class.

Mate, there's 1 way to make classes start the near the coast and it's this

likescoast <value>
A value from -10 to 10 indicating the willingness to start near the
coast

And I have ti set to 10. Feel free to search the code to see, if you can't find it you're somehow on an old version.

Can’t make Pirate ships not decay, not possible.
Units spawned by rituals like the Pirate fleet won’t use custom boats, only the standard one, I wanted them to use pirate ships but had to settle for normal ones.

You’re limited in what behaviour the A.I controlled units will do. I wanted pirate ships to seek out sea resource sites like perls and deep gems but I couldn’t get them to go for anything other than ports.

I’m not going to give them anymore resource producing rituals, I don’t enjoy the playstyle that the overhaul mod encourages. I’m barely on board with the Pirate King’s ability to make pirate ports.

Man, is your mod corrupted or something? You may be experiencing some mod conflicts. There are two rituals that summon ghost ships, Greater Summoning of the Damned and Summon the Ghost Ship Armada. Greater Summoning of the Damned summons a Commander Ghost Ship, Summon the Ghost Ship Armada summons 2 as units for the Damned Pirate King, there’s no ritual that gives you the Ghost Ship as a unit.

Thats fine. What ever you want to do with your mod is cool I was throwing out ideas. beggars cant be choosers as they say.

can you elaborate on what you mean by the playstyle of overhaul mod? you dont like change of terrain?

The AI is interesting im ignorant on the subject. I know theres different level to it. Simple dumb ants to crusades sacking castles. I guess another idea would be to put some sort of guard on them? that way when you capture one its protected. if pirates cant roam to them maybe there should be a specialized spell to either roam on protect them. like kobolds dragons? just an idea.

I was able to do both those summons. I think im confusing the situation. I am able to use all the summons you added I just remember a summon that gave an upgraded pirate ship that you sailed on. maybe im mixing up mods?

The only issue I was having was the tile of the port being off of the sea. I checked the code mine is indeed set to 10. Ill mess with it later and see if I can troubleshoot it. I literally played this mod by itself so idk what the issue is.