Port managemant

[Jake Newport]

The game is of course a wargame and the battles and fighting are at the moment the most important part. However i think that that a lot of people would like to see both the economic side and the port handling side be improved so that the game can also cater to people who do not want to fight continuously or like me lack the skills of fighting 1v1.

I want to explain the things that I would like to see for ports and this is just my personal opinion. I do believe that the interface of the ports and the management system of the ports should be increased. Also i would like to see that a clan leader who is now responsible for the port, can delegate this responsibilty to a port administrator (call it whatever you want probably per nation there are some fancy titles)

This administrator would then be responsible for the running of the port and at the moment that isnt really a lot because there are not so any things that you can actually do with a port therefor i would like to suggest some options that could be implemented and that would stimulate also a bit the trade between ports.

The administrator would have access to the port warehouse a bit like a clan leader would have access to the clan warehouse. This would be used for storing the goods that you would need for running the port and its defenses. Like a normal warehouse this can be expanded to store more goods and a different variety of goods. Later will become clear what types of goods i am thinking about and why it would be important to have these goods always in the warehouse. This would not be like your own warehouse where goods are stored but this would be more for storing the goods that are consumed every day.

Forts are probably one of the main features of a port. A well defended port is harder to take and every port should start with 2 basic round towers that are next to the town. The administrator would then be able to add additional forts on places he believes are suitable for the defenses of the port. I would like to see it like with a shipyard that you will have to upgrade the forts that you build.

• Fort level 1: Basic round fort as we know it right now. To build it you will need to have stone, oak, muskets, provisions, iron, canons and a certain amount of gold. This fort could be placed anywhere on the map but depending on the location this can be upgraded to a bigger fort. Fort would also have to be maintained every day and would require a certain amount of the materials that are used for building it as well as gold for daily maintenance. Also after a port battle the damage would have to be repaired a bit in the same way that we have to repair our ships after a battle. This would also be necessary for the larger forts that follow but of course the bigger the fort the higher the maintenance.
• Fort level 2: This would be the basic suare fort like we know it now. This would only be available if you have allready a round fort in place and could only be placed on certain areas of the map to account for the underground etc etc. I would limit the amount to 2 forts of this type per port to avoid a port being cluttered by forts.
• Fort level 3: This would be the highest upgrade and i would call it a bastion. These would the upgrade for the level 2 fort and there could only be 1 of these forts per harbour. The places where these forts could be built should be limited due to there extended size. the most important change for these forts would be heavier guns and also mortars to defend the harbour.

It would be important for the administrator to always keep the resources available to maintain the forts because if certain resources are not the there the fort will start to decay. This will be shown in the port battle as a damaged fort allready and therefor will take less hits before being destroyed. Same thing would go if the administrator does not repair the forts after a port battle they would still be damaged.

Forts should only count as 300 points maximum in a port battle, no matter how many are destroyed, this to avoid too much emphasis being put on destroying only the forts and not fighting a battle with ships. The BR of a port battle should also depend on the size of the forts there are. A shollow water port with only 2 square forts should only get like 750 BR where a deep water port with 4 round forts, a square fort and a bastion would be 9600 BR or more, and maybe with other multipliers like county capital to go to 11000 BR. 

The prices for the maintenance should be set high enough that only the most valuable ports or the ports that a clan really wants to keep out of a strategic perspective, would have the biggest forts. A useless port would then also show up on the map as useless due to its BR.

Trade should also be steered by the administrator and a bit more then it is now. instead of the random dropping of goods per port the administrator should be able to attract traders or trading companies from different nations. He can then choose for instance to have a dutch trading company of level 1, 2 or 3 in his port and the highest level would then drop the rare dutch goods like Grietje van Dijk. I am just giving an example. However if the dutch trading company does not make enough money of course they will not come with the rare resources and they will not drop. This would stimulate the trade between different ports. Of course having a trader in your harbour would also mean that he needs to be supplied with certain goods which would increase the import and export of a harbour. Natural resources that drop in a port can of course not be changed by the administrator, or   only in a way that it is now.

the benefits of an extended harbour management system would be increased trade, less gold in rotation, other gameplay options, port battles would be more important, important ports would be harder to take not like at the moment where ports are constantly flipped and changing hands. It would also give the nations an option for a long time investment in a port and would make the loss of one of those ports really hurt.

[Slim McSauce]

I thought we were getting this already with the last port management update. We have all this port money that doesn't go anywhere besides labor reduction and whatnot that I've never seen used.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Slim Jimmerson

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Jake Newport said:

The game is of course a wargame and the battles and fighting are at the moment the most important part. However i think that that a lot of people would like to see both the economic side and the port handling side be improved so that the game can also cater to people who do not want to fight continuously or like me lack the skills of fighting 1v1.

I want to explain the things that I would like to see for ports and this is just my personal opinion. I do believe that the interface of the ports and the management system of the ports should be increased. Also i would like to see that a clan leader who is now responsible for the port, can delegate this responsibilty to a port administrator (call it whatever you want probably per nation there are some fancy titles)

This administrator would then be responsible for the running of the port and at the moment that isnt really a lot because there are not so any things that you can actually do with a port therefor i would like to suggest some options that could be implemented and that would stimulate also a bit the trade between ports.

The administrator would have access to the port warehouse a bit like a clan leader would have access to the clan warehouse. This would be used for storing the goods that you would need for running the port and its defenses. Like a normal warehouse this can be expanded to store more goods and a different variety of goods. Later will become clear what types of goods i am thinking about and why it would be important to have these goods always in the warehouse. This would not be like your own warehouse where goods are stored but this would be more for storing the goods that are consumed every day.

Forts are probably one of the main features of a port. A well defended port is harder to take and every port should start with 2 basic round towers that are next to the town. The administrator would then be able to add additional forts on places he believes are suitable for the defenses of the port. I would like to see it like with a shipyard that you will have to upgrade the forts that you build.

• Fort level 1: Basic round fort as we know it right now. To build it you will need to have stone, oak, muskets, provisions, iron, canons and a certain amount of gold. This fort could be placed anywhere on the map but depending on the location this can be upgraded to a bigger fort. Fort would also have to be maintained every day and would require a certain amount of the materials that are used for building it as well as gold for daily maintenance. Also after a port battle the damage would have to be repaired a bit in the same way that we have to repair our ships after a battle. This would also be necessary for the larger forts that follow but of course the bigger the fort the higher the maintenance.
• Fort level 2: This would be the basic suare fort like we know it now. This would only be available if you have allready a round fort in place and could only be placed on certain areas of the map to account for the underground etc etc. I would limit the amount to 2 forts of this type per port to avoid a port being cluttered by forts.
• Fort level 3: This would be the highest upgrade and i would call it a bastion. These would the upgrade for the level 2 fort and there could only be 1 of these forts per harbour. The places where these forts could be built should be limited due to there extended size. the most important change for these forts would be heavier guns and also mortars to defend the harbour. This was proposed in the original idea of the devs, but I think that the programming task will be too heavy for the current dev team - especially the persistence of damaged forts - It may not be a burden on a server when it's one port, but 170 ports might become a different task. Secondly I think that the forts and towers shouldn't be limited in the points they drop - this would force factions to think strategically on their strenghts and weaknesess and the strenghts and weaknesses of their opponents.. DK/NG for example has very few experienced mortar captains - hence it would make sence to build many forts, Russia and Sweden on the other hand has a few very good mortar captains that lacks the soul required to feel bad when they destroy their enemys first rates from afar and thus it would make sense for the enemies of Sweden and Russia to focus on their battlefleets so to avoid losing too many points on the forts, but at the same time have enough fortifications so as to deter other factions from attacking.

It would be important for the administrator to always keep the resources available to maintain the forts because if certain resources are not the there the fort will start to decay. This will be shown in the port battle as a damaged fort allready and therefor will take less hits before being destroyed. Same thing would go if the administrator does not repair the forts after a port battle they would still be damaged.

Forts should only count as 300 points maximum in a port battle, no matter how many are destroyed, this to avoid too much emphasis being put on destroying only the forts and not fighting a battle with ships. The BR of a port battle should also depend on the size of the forts there are. A shollow water port with only 2 square forts should only get like 750 BR where a deep water port with 4 round forts, a square fort and a bastion would be 9600 BR or more, and maybe with other multipliers like county capital to go to 11000 BR. 

The prices for the maintenance should be set high enough that only the most valuable ports or the ports that a clan really wants to keep out of a strategic perspective, would have the biggest forts. A useless port would then also show up on the map as useless due to its BR.

Trade should also be steered by the administrator and a bit more then it is now. instead of the random dropping of goods per port the administrator should be able to attract traders or trading companies from different nations. He can then choose for instance to have a dutch trading company of level 1, 2 or 3 in his port and the highest level would then drop the rare dutch goods like Grietje van Dijk. I am just giving an example. However if the dutch trading company does not make enough money of course they will not come with the rare resources and they will not drop. This would stimulate the trade between different ports. Of course having a trader in your harbour would also mean that he needs to be supplied with certain goods which would increase the import and export of a harbour. Natural resources that drop in a port can of course not be changed by the administrator, or   only in a way that it is now. In general the economy needs an overhaul - atm no one is poor unless they really want to be. To make econ more playerdriven before the base is secured is either a very good idea or a very bad one.. I'm still undecided.. but as a general idea as to make more gameplay options available I like it.

the benefits of an extended harbour management system would be increased trade, less gold in rotation, other gameplay options, port battles would be more important, important ports would be harder to take not like at the moment where ports are constantly flipped and changing hands. It would also give the nations an option for a long time investment in a port and would make the loss of one of those ports really hurt.

 - And remove the reinforcementzones and have the port manager pay for ai patrols of varying size (depending on the amount the clan is willing to put out for ai patrols) to patrol the vicinity of a port.