I have been playing this on xbox now for a few days and cannot help but notice how quickly and how far away the damned ships begin to attack. i was on a sloop and sailed into a new zone only to be met by 3 different damned ships. As you can imagine with 3 ships firing cannons, my ship lasted no more than a few minutes.
My suggestion is maybe make them a little more passive, so you'd have to be real close or engage in attacking them before they react and fire back