Sometimes in the taverns you'll spot other captains, or they will approach you when you enter.
If you talk to them (them not approaching you) talk about the business, and if he/she has something planned you'll be invited to their ship for a bit more detailed conversation (It's basically the same when they approach you).
So, you go to port, get on the ship, and with "sail to" find their ship and sail to it. When close enough, launch a boat and meet them on board. There are two possibilities. Either he will tell you about some fleet carrying goods (silver/gold/slaves mostly) that was caught by storm, and ships were badly damaged, so the crew savaged the goods and is waiting on the shore for a fleet to take them and their goods to safety. The other possibility is the fleet is near the shore so you have to board the ships and capture the goods (A good way to identify the ships carrying the valuable goods is checking out the captain with spyglass. If the captain is a merchant/not a military commander, that ship is carrying the goods. So you can prioritize those ships first).
If you reject before he tells you the details, you can go freely and possibly deal with that captain in the future, but if you reject the deal after you hear the details, captain will hide and his crew will attack you (bare in mind that you're alone on that ship, so it's usually 5-6 (maybe more) people against you alone) and you won't be able to deal with him in the future if you survive.
Anyway, after agreeing to the deal you won't have much time to reach the destination so save prior to entering the map (in case you miss a location, storm, battles, etc etc). If you reach that shore on time you have to moor, and than fight begins - similar to city capture (or board the ships if its the second possibility) . After all sailors from that fleet are dead, pirate captain will approach you. There are two options depending on the two possibilities mentioned above:
- In case of the first possibility (fleet damaged and moored on the shore), the pirate captain tell you about your share which was loaded on your ship(s) - from what I've seen it's 50% of the loot, so it can be very profitable, especially if you have only one ship, in that case only sailors form the pirates ship will attack the "enemy". You can't back out of this deal.
- In case of the second possibility (fleet have to be captured), the pirate captain will ask you for his share of the loot (50% of total said goods, counting all the ships). You have an option to agree or refuse him (basically double-cross him). He will get angry and his guards will attack you (usually three) while he flees. After you dispatch of them you can get back to your ships and get all the loot. If you do this multiple times, words of your dishonesty will spread among the brethren of the coast and no pirate will want to deal with you in future (not sure if this can be smoothed over with the Diplomat in pirate colonies). So only do this once or very infrequently between subsequent agreeing with the captain.
If pirate captain dies during this missions:
- In case of first possibility: if he dies before you mooring on the shore (in ship combat during the voyage), you will get a logbook update that you don't know anymore if the goods are really on the shore. The quest will be over and it will transfer over to the "Completed Quest" section. Even if you get on the designated shore on time you will find no one when you moor.
- In case of second possibility, same thing will happen if the pirate captain dies before engaging with fleet mentioned. But, if he dies during the engagement with the fleet, you will get a logbook update that you are free to get all the loot. So you can easily board the ships and get the loot. You can even do this if you got the loot already and the pirate captain died in engagement with the escort military ships. You won't get any reputation loss with the Pirates.
Based on original from Skodarap's CoAS Site (used with permission). Original is here .