Pirate (Age of Empires III)

The Pirate or Buccaneer (which is what many cards or buttons call any pirate) is an infantry unit in Age of Empires III, it is strong against Light Infantry (once it gets within range) and exceptionally strong against hand cavalry due to it's high melee resistance. In a one on one fight it will always beat average cavalry shipments (with no upgrades) in the Colonial Age, with the exception of the Lancer. All in all the pirate is at it's best in the Colonial Age, and only situational in fortress and beyond.

With the Dance Hall card a pirate takes up the same population as 2 Hussars though it cannot kill two Hussars. While this may seem ineffective it's relatively low cost compared to those two Hussars (100 coin versus 240 food and 160 coin) balances out it's population use. Essentially 2 Hussars are worth 4 buccaneers in terms of pricing, and 4 Buccaneers can beat any of the possible hand cavalry shipments in the Colonial Age with noted exceptions.

Spanish Pirates
A Spanish Pirate has 323 hitpoints and inflicts 18 / 29.34 damage with each attack if all associated cards have been sent (not including minor civilization upgrades from trading posts). This totals 72 / 117.36 damage every 1.5 seconds versus light infantry and cavalry (which lack melee resistance).

TEAM Hand Infantry Attack (Colonial Age): +15% Attack.

Unction (Colonial Age): +5-63% Attack depending on number of nearby missionaries.

Dance Hall (Colonial Age): Pirates cost 4 population instead of 6.

Wild West (Fortress Age): +35% Hitpoints, +35% Attack

Spanish Gold (Industrial Age): +50% Hitpoints

Lizzie's Buccaneers
These units can only be trained during The Fountain of Youth and Spanish Treasure Fleet battles in Act I: Blood, they are slightly more expensive and lack the heavy melee resistance of their skirmish counterparts. They have more hitpoints and use fewer population as a trade off.

During the Spanish Treasure Fleet you can train alot of them very quickly due to the captured Spanish Galleons production of gold. They are an adequate replacement for the Inca you initially free, as they have better hitpoints and are limited only by population. They are essentially fodder units, something to keep the Spanish and Boneguard units from attacking more valuable targets such as the Highlanders, Falconets and Mortars.

Basic Strategy
Use them to clog up the enemy or swarm around them and engulf the other army in a meat wall, this will force any ranged units inside to use less effective melee attacks (especially Spanish Musketeers). While they are surrounded by the buccaneers use your own ranged units (including cannons) to tear apart the clustered enemies in the midst of the buccaneers.