From the Manual:

"When the Timer expires, the red skull will start to flash indicating that there is a brief amount of time before the pirates launch. This gives each empire a last second opportunity to outbid their neighbors to determine the pirate's target."


How long is a "brief amount of time?" And how is "a brief amound of time" determined? Several times the timer has gone off so I blitz to the bounty screen and sink a bunch of cash into an enemy, until his bounty is much higher than mine. At which point I close the pirates screen and go back to what I was doing. A second later I hear "a pirate attack has been launched" only to discover it's been launched against ME! Because the jerk raised my bounty after I raised his. The game may have told me, but Ididn't here, or was thinking about something else at the time assuming the pirates had been dealt with.


Another issue that happens this: I'm currently attacking the player I'm putting the bounty on, so I put the money down, but am slowly draining it back. The game tells me when MY bounty goes up! But it doesn't tell me when another players bounty has drained to the point where my bounty is now the highest. As you can see, managing this sort of situation requires knowing exactly how long until the pirates make their decision... or at least having an idea of how that's going to work.

I have plenty of cash... what am I supposed to do? Am I really supposed to sit in the pirates screen and stare at that little red skull for until it stops blinking? That seems like a silly waste of my attention in a REAL TIME game. The duration of this last minute bidding phase seems to vary and I'm trying to get a feel for how to handle it.

Any ideas how long it lasts and how that duration is decided?



Any suggestions?