Reonhato

But you're not really attacking the capital. I have sailed right up to the Brit, Dutch and French capitals only instead of a dozen people it was just the 2-3 of us. Most players who are using the capital are generally still using smaller ships, show up in something bigger and most players just sail around you.

Two words. Shallow water

The biggest problem with reinforcement zones is their size. In areas with higher port density like the Bahamas and Lesser Antilles it is pretty much impossible to not be in a reinforcement zone.

So I found this completely by accident and reported it because I had no idea wtf was going on. Bought like 2000 oak at a price well below what you can get it at major player hubs, but above what you can generally get a small amount at ports that produce it. Kind of a nice feature to control price I guess, but it does seem to make resource production not really matter as much. It certainly does mean that taking a nations important resource production ports doesn't really matter since all it means is that they have slightly less cheaper oak/hemp/fir.

Ports already produce goods every hour. It may seem like they don't because people just buy everything using contracts.

Conquest flags to only be bought from regional capitals, at least give the defenders some time to organise a defense for ports that are not right next to major player hubs. Change winning conditions to - total annihilation or zone capture. For the zone capture, have a small area near the defensive spawn. Have something like 5 minute capture time for 1 ship, 4:30 for 2 ships, 4 mins for 3 ships, 3:30 for 4 ships and 3 mins for 5 ships and maxing it at 5, defense can stop the capture simply by having an equal amount of ships, having 5 ships in the zone prevents capture full stop. This results in defenders having something to defend, attackers having a clear objective to take control of and it stops run away and hide tactics.

You are just proving my point by mentioning undercrewed ships. This is a issue that time will solve. The only reason it happens now is because of the lack of players who can actually use the bigger ships.

How often are port battles full though? How do you know some issues won't be solved simply by practice, organisation and communication. At the moment it is a big effort just to get to a port to try and defend it, giving people time to actually plan and organise for a port battle might solve some issues or create new ones. Basically I don't think you should be worried about combat mechanics until the overall system is actually up to scratch.

The biggest flaw for PB is before the fight even starts. The attackers can take as much time as they need to organise their fleet, defenders get like 5 minutes. We need to actually get 25v25 port battles before the actual combat mechanics can be adjusted.

So recently the community voted for production buildings to be the next thing worked on. I personally don't think personal production buildings is a good way to go, I think it brings too many balance issues that isn't worth the trouble. I do think port infrastructure, including production buildings is a good thing though. So my suggestion is something like this. Each port has its base buildings/infrastructure. This not only means production buildings but also buildings that allow crafting, a lumberyard, small/large shipyards, foundry, etc. These buildings then charge players to craft, this adds a gold cost to crafting. Some might disagree with a gold cost to crafting, but I think it allows you to control costs a bit better and ships did just get a lot cheaper to produce. Upgrades might have to have recipes adjusted a little. The next step is to have infrastructure improvement. This could be done by taking some of the money spent on crafting or direct contributions. Improving crafting buildings can make things cheaper or more efficient labor wise. Production buildings obviously increase the production. The biggest issue I see with a system like this is that at the moment it is really hard to actually mount a defense on a port when you get 5 minutes notice. It could be easy for an enemy nation to take a port that your nation spends a lot of time upgrading.

Good to see moderators know this game back to front /s I think you will find it is the opposite of this for turning through the wind. Turning right is D Q and C Turning left is A E and Z Easiest way is just to go close haul double tap the 3 keys and then when you are through the wind press F. You can then learn to do it more efficiently from there,

Give me just one example of the Devs every saying they were ever going to limit the size of ships pirates can sail. It just isn't going to happen. Some players seem to be under the impression that this is a simulator and realism is the number 1 priority. News flash, it isn't, the priority is making a good game.

You can put out fires by using survival

You are not really discovering ports though are you, they are already on the map.