Well I don't usually get involved in game BS and politics, but this has gotten out of hand. First off until there is a direct design and clear understanding of the game and how it is to be played. There should be NOTHING of Exploits until the design has been programmed into the system. This GAME is in development.
That being said let me explain to you the amount of preparation and planning that went on in order to make this happen!! If these plans are an exploit, you can figure that game is destined to FAIL.!!! I pray (hit PRAY key here) this is not the case.
1. First off we had to get 25 people in first rates. (We all KNOW that amount of work this takes. The countless hours of sailing and trading and in the case of 25 to 100 man clan with or without alts it takes to do and grind to make happen at this point in the game.)
2. We had to arrive HOURS before port battle in order to get past prescreening sailing from St. Mary's to Savannah.
3. Plan port battle entry point and tactics, and communicate it to group.
4. Sail in TIGHT formation with ships so as not to be tagged by the 20+ ships between St. Marys and Savannah that were prescreening anyway. (Because our Intel told us that Great Britain was offered a deal for the entire Gulf coast to help come protect a Port Battle that was going to take place.) This is not exploiting because in real combat we would know that battles would occur at a certain place at a certain time within an hour or 2 in order to help a nation out! (THIS WOULD REALLY HAPPEN?????? OR EXPLOIT???)
5.Stack on top of each other as not to get attacked by the countless number of prescreeners that were attempting to get a good BR attack by attacking using the edge of the circle to get a tag on just a few of our fleet that would have been stacked on top of each other in real life.(THIS IS REAL????) GAME MECHANIC EXPLOIT?
6. Get pulled into combat TWICE, With fleets which ran, and a few fought or were just to close to have gotten away before decimated. Then we had to escape together in which 2 people got tagged unfortunately because a fleet arrived outside in which we can't see because of Game mechanics and the fact that we would not be able to see a distant fleet coming from the horizon! (Regardless of the fact that its another Nations Fleet!) <-- THIS IS NOT AN EXPLOIT EITHER Because random nation politics happened in a matter of seconds back in those days and communication of distant lands and KINGS were immediate. (ie TEAMSPEAK) were grossly outnumbered 3 to 16 in which we lost our Mortar Brig for the port battle.
Image here shows that battle and Skill of our players. No BS just pure skill and commitment to the Battle.
7. After second battle we jumped out and into Port Battle which we had 2 more people get pulled from the group and ganked and boarded and ships taken due to faulty ability to be outside the circle in which we needed to be and still click on the battle icon due to limited visibilty of the port ( NO HUGE X OVER THE ENTIRE AREA OR WALL ON THE PB RING THAT CAN BE EASILY CLICKED TO GET IN THE BATTLE.) Unfortunate incident due to game mechanic that was not in our favor, But we are not whining about it as an exploit.(also will elaborate more on this point in later bullet.)
8. Well we all know how the Port Battle went. The US ran from battle outnumbering us as shown.
Legitimate Numbers on both parts and they ran in first few minutes, Were they hoping that enough of our fleet had been tagged or kept from battle in order to have a decisive Victory? And because we weren't decimated by the numbers outside they chose not to fight a Legitimate battle???? (SO everything before this point was not an exploit to keep from loosing the port???) Alliance with others / ALts from other nations in order to keep normal game play from happening???? (<---NO EXPLOIT HERE)
9. After capturing the port and went out and recaptured our 1st rates or made sure they were not taken by the Great Britain's. OR forced them to destroy it!!! Recovering one and loosing one to forced destruction. In which 2 individuals had to survive and keep numbers busy during the Port battle time. Sacrificing countless hours of play in order to have something that they worked countless hours to create get robbed from them due to EXPLOITATION by using outside resources like teamspeak and such to affect in game alliances and play.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
Maybe we should not allow tagging of Fleets by other nations in the boundry water areas of a port Battle once its set, ONLY the 2 nations involved!!!
Maybe the small circle size in the tag circle should be increased to combine the BR of all other ship circles that overlap in an area in order for screening fleets to be able to run with port battle fleets and increase the BR to great for smaller groups to tag
Maybe Port Battle should be lobbied to where those with highest hostility get first seat in the battle? And then they get to choose out of those people who goes or don't go?
Maybe Nations with the most population get all trading prices increased and experience decreased by the percentage of the population they control?
Maybe when it come down to it, why not force people to have at least half BR for a battle to take place in lobby and NO Escaping until at least the BR of the loosing side is 1/2 of the winning side.(SO Battles will be fought as intended, instead of all the BS ganking outside the battle, and Skill and building of good ships wins the game?
Maybe we should all be working to make this game a better game and not try to get people banned or in trouble because a group of individuals found a way to work together and organize in a way that is exceptionally precise and well executed within the mechanics of the game. Everything outside of this game can be considered an exploit technically but it is impossible for it to be banned, because the DEVS cant put someone at your house watching what you do while you play a GAME on your computer.