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11 Expeditions are the at-sea content layer of Corsair Cove. The haven runs in real time; the moment a fleet leaves the piers, decisions shift to expedition orders, dice-based at-sea events, and the turn-based combat layer covered in Naval Combat. Every expedition is a population, supply, and timing commitment. Crew lost on a bad run come off the haven's roster, supplies spent at sea have to be re-produced by City Building, and a fleet held at sea past its provisions risks mutiny.
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33 Expedition Types
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66 TypePurposeRisk ProfileRaidsStrike enemy ships and settlements to take goods, gold, and crew by force.Highest direct plunder. Heaviest casualty risk; raises notoriety, which pulls in pirate hunters.Smuggling RunsMove contraband between ports through patrolled waters.Pays in trade rather than loot. Interception risk scales with route length; cargo can be lost entirely on a bad engagement.ExplorationPush into uncharted waters and chart new islands across the archipelago.Long durations and high event variance. Rewards are intel, claim sites, and unlocks; sometimes legendary creatures.Treasure ExpeditionsHunt buried, sunken, or rumoured caches.High variance. Some runs return empty; others pay out far above raid haul. Often tied to story missions.
77 Each expedition draws from the haven's stores: hulls, cannons, supplies, and crew come out of Goods and Production. The captain assigned, the ship outfitted, and the specialist roles loaded all affect what the expedition can attempt and how it survives.
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99 At-Sea Events
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1111 Between objectives, expeditions resolve small dice-based encounters along the way. A storm, an unknown ship on the horizon, or a chance to board a wreck plays out as a roll rather than a scripted scene, with the captain's hand, ship stats, and crew specialists feeding into the outcome.
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1313 Storm-class events damage hulls and supplies. Encounter-class events open optional fights, optional trades, or recruitment opportunities. Wreck-class events typically offer salvage and the chance to pull Crew and Population out of the water.
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1515 Discovery Points
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1717 Exploration legs are organised around discovery points: charted stops a fleet reaches as it pushes into new water. Reaching the first discovery point requires a minimum landing party, so an exploration run needs at least ten crew aboard before it can claim that stop. Crew sizing therefore gates early exploration as much as ship choice does, which ties the expedition layer back to Crew and Population and the haven's population economy.
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1919 Voyage Length and Haven Trade-offs
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2121 Longer expeditions pay more but force harder decisions back home. While a ship is out, the workers assigned to it are not in the haven; consequently certain buildings on the island may need to pause production while the expedition runs. Players have to weigh which structures can afford to idle versus which need to stay staffed to keep Cohesion and Morale stable.
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2323 This is the loop that ties the city-builder layer and the naval layer together. A Notoriety raider can keep most of the haven running because its raids are short and brutal. A Seafaring captain pushing exploration into uncharted water may need to brown out half the haven's production chains for an entire voyage.
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2525 Threats Faced During Expeditions
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2727 ThreatWhereNotesCrown NavyPatrolled lanes, near royal portsOrganised state warships under royal authority. Scales with the run's notoriety and territory claims.Pirate HuntersAnywhere the player has notorietyFreelance crews paid to put pirates down. They tend to chase the havens that have built the loudest reputations.KrakensDeep waterMythic deep-sea creatures from sailor folklore; turn an exploration leg into a fight for the hull.Monstrous WhalesOpen oceanOutsized whales that turn a long-distance voyage into a survival fight.Otherworldly ThreatsUncharted watersA catch-all category for sea horrors beyond ordinary fauna. The bestiary has not been fully disclosed.
2828 Tying Back to the Pillars
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3030 Each of the four Progression Paths expresses itself partly through expedition mix. A Notoriety haven runs more raids; a Wealth haven runs more smuggling and trade convoys; a Seafaring haven runs exploration deep into uncharted water; an Empire haven uses expeditions to claim territory and project political weight. The expedition layer is where pillar choice becomes a tactical doctrine.
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3232 Named Event Locations
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3434 Most expedition destinations are procedural, but the campaign names specific ones. Barbos Bay is the earliest of these, reached during the tutorial sequence. Completing it returns the fleet and opens a journey summary screen recapping the voyage, after which play routes back to the Pier. Two post-launch patches touched it, fixing a tutorial stall after that summary screen and a rare crash on entering the event.
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3636 Buccaneer's End is a second named location whose surrounding waters ships navigate; an August 2026 patch corrected ships clipping through the islands around it. Both sit alongside the three starting islands, which are build sites rather than expedition targets.
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38+How a Voyage Runs
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40+Reaching an event means building a ship, crewing it, and sending it out to the event's location. The voyage plays out in real time and usually takes a few minutes, during which the haven keeps running and other hulls can be given orders. The simulation speed can be raised to shorten the trip.
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42+Only one ship can embark on an event at a time. Assigning a second unassigns the first, which then stops where it is and waits for orders, so switching targets mid-voyage strands a hull in open water. On arrival the captain speaks and the ship halts, or shadows the event if it is moving. Entering it presents either a decision or a set of objectives, and everything else pauses until it resolves.
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44+Regions are hidden under fog of war until a ship reaches their discovery point, and the fog returns once no ship has been in the region for a while. Keeping a map open therefore takes ongoing presence rather than a one-time visit. See The Seven Seas for the regions themselves.
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46+Friendly Ports
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48+Completing a region's quest line converts one of its quest locations into a friendly port, described in-game as a fishing port safe to resupply at. A ship entering one is repaired, re-crewed, and resupplied on the spot for coin and resources from that island, with no goods shipped from home and no waiting. Cargo already aboard stays aboard.
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50+The reason this matters is the Sea Legs buff from the Seafaring structure Shrine of the Sea, which accumulates while a ship is out and is lost on returning to the pier. A friendly port lets a fleet stay useful in a far region without giving that up, which effectively extends a run's operating radius.
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3852 Unconfirmed Details
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4054 Specific expedition durations or distance scaling.Mission tier counts or per-type campaign progression.Whether expeditions can be recalled mid-route.Named expedition objectives, factions, or rival pirate crews.Specific at-sea event tables and probability tiers.Treasure expedition reward ranges and rumour-track sources.