I agree by nature they need to be all over the world but you need to
start somewhere and perhaps a safe haven would be a good place to
start but I'm looking at allsorts of options at the moment, to a
powerful faction having someone in you city that can provide you with
another source of income whilst all you have to do is provide
protecetion can not be bad , the problem with safe havens is that once
you step outside a haven you become a target to those people vieing
for control around the port, whereas a large faction would be able to
provide protection so that a robber/pirate would have to cover a
larger area inorder to attack.