Desire: to make pirates more interactive instead of just speedbumps for military empires and annoyances for pacificist/ecological ones.


Proposal: Items added to the marketplace that interact with the pirate groups.


Examples:

Letter of Marque: -pirates are less likely to attack you for X amount of turns and will give you a small share of their plunder if they attack your foes.   


Bounty: -pay pirates to raid a rival.  Self explanatory.


Give Provisions - divert some resources to pirates.  They will grow, but leave you alone.


Pact: pay pirates to leave you alone.  They will ignore you for X turns, but will grow and you'll see no other benefit.


I feel this would make pirates much more interesting and also a quirky but dangerous tool for non-military races to utilize.