War and Peace

[van Veen]

I do not think that forum/TS diplomacy should be an integral part of the game. It is certainly essential for tactical teamplay, but diplomacy wise it's more of a social add-on. And I think that centering in-game diplomacy around clans leads to big clan leaders making decisions (which is what is going on right now, but not formally). This is more a social experiment than a war game - big egos, big drama.

The proposed system takes the decision about war and peace to either server admin (manual setting, imagine server events with 4 hour wars!) or to an AI (representing the nation leader) which takes into account multiple factors to decide upon war and peace (see post#1). However, as the AI takes into account what really happens on the server, every captain has the means to create "diplomatic incidents" and you can go out and start a war with some friends! Or you decide to rescue some other nation's players in battle and forge an alliance. 

Example:

You are member of the US and neutral to the British and the French. The Brits are at war with the French. You stumble upon an OW battle Brits vs. French. You can choose the side and this will have an impact on your nation leader (AI) decision. Choosing British side will push your nation leader towards a US-British alliance and France declaring war on US in retaliation. If you chose French side, it will be vice versa. Sensitivity of the AI towards such incidents would need to be tweaked and fine tuned.

I'd love to see leaders with different traits, e.g. peace lovers, warmongerers and rogues. For instance, Pirate leaders should be flavored to not mind multiple enemies, should be easily triggered to go to war, but at the same time make peace quickly when own losses are too high. 

You might find your nation in a position where a war starts that you did not want. Or in alliance you do not like. But hey, that's life! You can choose to sit it out or take action and do something about it. 

[van Veen]

5 minutes ago, Le Raf Boom said:

I woudn't mind such a system in place, it seems well thought out - war should be driven by economics so if you beat one nation to a dust there should be an option for said nation to negotiate some sort of a ceasefire.

Totally agree. There should be a strong bias to peace if the economy is down, but should be heavily flavored by nation leader's taste, e.g. pirate leader should not mind economy if there are still enemies to sink :-)

[Raf Van Boom]

2 hours ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

Some clans don't do politics other than diplomatic incidents. Not on purpose mind you, but just because they read "enemy player", and "enemy player" has only one meaning really.

You cannot herd wolves into a sheep pen.

This actually has the ability to generate more PvP when it funnels the conflict to certain areas.

[Forbin]

@van Veen : I love the idea, this would need some serious tuning but I admit this could be very very interesting.

[Hethwill]

5 minutes ago, Le Raf Boom said:

This actually has the ability to generate more PvP when it funnels the conflict to certain areas.

Yes, of course. It is all viable solutions, but a "human government" also make the Master Forger very very happy. So yeah, maybe you get a point.

I still stand to the present mechanics - Enemy Player means enemy player. Choices to join a side or the other already in place in the "join battle" circles.

[Norfolk nChance]

@van Veen

 

I read the OP 2-3 times and thought about it overnight. I really like the idea and thought behind it. Nations need a purpose in Naval Action and imo must remain. Like you, I express a dislike of the voting system in my idea.

The crux at each and every point is the PC with power wielding higher or out of game strategy to form policy. This in every NA-OW case becomes less and less dynamic in game as a whole from “Care Bear Alliance” to the “East v West” packs.

Next step is to individualize nation behaviour. Each nation should have one leader with different emphasis w.r.t. which of the criteria above is more important for them by a bonus system. This way you get individualized leader profiles and different nation behaviour. 

If I may suggest instead,

Next step is to individualize nation behavior. Each nation should have one leader that is an in-game Dev PC. An example GB Nation “King George III”. GB Nation PCs can send letters of intent and petitions to the PC.

Once a quarter, all same Nation PCs will receive a letter “The Crowns strategy”. This incorporates PC request ideas and over all campaign strategy (and suggestions made) for the Nation for the next six months. Unfortunately, like you said it must skew into the Nations Back Ground story...

peace lovers, trader friends, warmongeries, and so on. For GB “The Madness of King George must show at times...”

 

I like your idea, but think the Dev’s may struggle to roll something like this out. The one clear view I have is PC Nations naturally collapse in abject apathy overtime as we’ve seen already in NA-OW past.

 

Norfolk nChance [ELITE]

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Norfolk nChance

[Knobby]

17 hours ago, BuckleUpBones said:

“Nations” is the mechanic for solo’s to tag along and into battle.

 

Most players try a game before joining a clan, how would you implement this, joining clans first without knowing them is dubious to say the least, all sounds like band-aid over band-aid stuff.   

RvR has never been a solo or beginners activity

16 hours ago, Old Crusty said:

I am very saddened when I read all the responses about coming together as Nations and working together as teams.

   I have never seen so many selfish, hateful, egotistical, and just general shit attitudes in a single thread than I do with Diplomacy and getting people to play as a team.

Is al i see is people with a different opinion than yours, it's your own views that color it thus...

Fact is that diplomacy without in game mechanisms will always lead to conflicts within nations or between alliance partners, simply because it is impossible to enforce. Every nation has had one or multiple conflicts that were solely caused by current (lack of) mechanics.

You think it's a coincidence that virtually all experienced RvR players in this thread agree that (national) diplomacy as it is doesn't work? These guys never agree on anything!

Edited August 17, 2018 by Knobby

[van Veen]

1 hour ago, Norfolk nChance said:

I like your idea, but think the Dev’s may struggle to roll something like this out.

Well, I see this point as the devs seem to push for final release and might not want to implement new features before release. 

However, war, peace, alliance status has been in place already. It probably needs some polishing to be re-added to current game version and expanded by "trade agreement", but should be feasible within 1 week maybe? With server admin being able to switch status manually you get the first part on the way quickly. 

Second step is the nation leader AI which needs some coding based on the daily (or weekly) log files. Extract information, evaluate and weigh the outcome. Basically you need a formula for each possible war/peace status transition. And you need contradicting factors to be taken into account to prevent one-way-streets in the decision making process. This takes a lot of time to tweak I guess at least 1 month for the first working version and then months of tweaking. 

Third step is individualized nation leader preferences to add the spice to it. Would be great to have a really mad King George with erratic decision making, have warmongering pirates that quickly go to war and beg for peace quickly, peace loving dutchies who want trade agreements with everyone and so on....

[Norfolk nChance]

I see your point and the three steps application works.

Don’t want to push my NPC idea but it actually sits beautifully within your concept.

 

Norfolk.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Norfolk nChance

[vazco]

Wow, a lot of dangerous and popular (I guess populistic) ideas appear here

In order to have any RvR, you need leaders - you need a guy or a group who will organize things and get everyone to act together. After that you need a guy who will lead a battle.  Those two roles are usually connected, and they give people with those roles a power to decide which port to attack and how. The same people forge alliances by talking on TS/DC.

Those people won't just organize fleets to attack random enemy of the day that AI pointed them to attack. They want to fight for their real goals - important ports. They will find a way to go around the system, or  decide they don't want to be involved in a silly AI diplomacy, which destroys their own alliances that they crafted with significant time investment.

What you describe could work only with a fully PvE - based RvR, which wouldn't require coordination.

[Norfolk nChance]

@vazco

 

I absolutely agree. Speaking for my idea only you needn’t follow any of the threads. The BLING will in turn show the whore inside. The [ELITE] and [EDARK] operations and agenda work outside that of the GB Nation overlays. When aligned PERFECT when not we won’t take part.

The idea (mine) is to create templated campaign flexibility to encourage multi clan and solo team work within the same nation. I believe you are taking it to a too far RESTRICTIVE view.

This is probably, actually is my fault in my poorly worded script...

Norfolk.

 

[Hethwill]

Yep, everyone is 100% correct. The ones that do not want human councils, the ones that do not want NPC rulers, the ones that do not want to be told who they can or not attack.

In truth the Clan system solved the problem to the point of - "wash our hands" - not caring about other clans driving their own diplomacy.

Remember, this was our own request to overcome the difficulties of herding cats, so groups could pursue their own objectives without having to council with anyone else if they so chose.

[Old Crusty]

How many clans are there in game that can totally fill a port battle with a BR of over 8000? I have no idea myself. 

   In the US I belong to one of the biggest Clans with about 60 People on the roster. We might have 15 that are active  and it would take an act of God to get ten of us on at the same time. 

   In order for us to do RvR we MUST cooperate with other clans. There is no way at all for us to take a port, or defend a port by ourselves. That then means that we MUST have common interests and goals with other clans. IE: Nation

   In order for us to do RvR we must piss someone off. We have to take what they have. We have to go to WAR with them.

if we do not have a port that sells a resource that we desperately need then there are only two ways to get it. Take it in WAR or NEGOTIATE WITH A NATION THAT HAS IT. That is called diplomacy. 

   If, as a group of clans in a nation we negotiate a trade agreement to get the resources without war but with a trade agreement, it becomes necessary to not allow Mister Solo, PvP, you can’t tell me what to do, player to attack the traders of that nation we have the agreement with. If it is allowed, Mister Solo PvP player is then the one that is telling the rest of us that we cannot have this trade agreement. Mister Solo doesn’t care because when he needs a new ship he just buys it with PvP marks with any wood build he wants. So Mister Solo PvP, you cant tell me how to play, has absolutely no need for this trade agreement. Mister Solo PvP player is the one player telling the rest of us what we can or cannot have.

   In my not so humble opinion we need a system that can make a player from a different nation not an enemy player. So if there is a trade agreement with Russia, and we see a Russian trader in the OW his label is not ENEMY PLAYER. It is RUSSIAN TRADER and there is no option to attack it. In this way Mister Solo PVP, you can’t tell me how to play, player has no choice to screw up the game for the rest of the people. Mister Solo will now have to find a different target.  

   I really do not think this is to much to ask and to difficult to accomplish. As NATIONS not CLANS we now do RvR. In order to do that RvR we MUST cooperate.

[Hethwill]

3 minutes ago, Old Crusty said:

cooperate

+1000

( not being told nor forced )

[p i t]

@Old Crusty the fact that your nation/clan cannot cooperate does not mean you need to force a certain game mechanic onto others that can.

I remember the starting days with WO and BLANC, together we sailed, with about 95% of all member participation, 1st rate pb ships from leewards to bermuda. Quite a long sail.

point is- you so happened to start off in a highly disorganized nation, and that's what your experiencing. learn from it, and if you desire, switch nations.

 

As for trade agreements,  France collectively decided to allow dutch traders into capital waters unharmed and vice versa. Once upon a time as a Brit, I would help guide dutch traders safely into KPR...It can be done easily.  You don't need any sort of game mechanic for this things, just a TS or Discord.

As Sir Traitor The RedDuke emphasizes - cooperation! and I'm sure even in those days it was a realistic factor in supremacy.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by pit

[SeamanStaines]

This all worked best when we had a few clans and was for the most part Nation driven. At that time we had a relatively large number of players. Now we have dozens of clans with only a fraction of the number of players. Imagine the chaos if the game is released like this and the player base gets big again. If the 300 or so regulars cant get 'casual alliances' to work and things fragment (as is the case) what chance it will work with 1000's of players? I don't have any magic solutions, there have been good suggestions. But I do believe the DEVS and should consider these problem before release.

For me National agenda should be set. Clans should operate within these parameters.

[p i t]

1000 new regulars are more easily manipulated than these 300 regulars core bastards.

[Raf Van Boom]

Also pit is a traitor.

That aside, I'd like to see more nations clashing. It makes for spectacular battles, the problem is, if one of the sides is not organized it usually leads to horrible defeats. Check that 'Great Battles' thread for examples. It's natural to evolve from that, away from a bunch of random players as shown in all MMOs that have a PvP component.

[Knobby]

3 hours ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

In truth the Clan system solved the problem to the point of - "wash our hands" - not caring about other clans driving their own diplomacy.

Remember, this was our own request to overcome the difficulties of herding cats, so groups could pursue their own objectives without having to council with anyone else if they so chose.

And yet what we got is some bastardized form of half nation, half clan based RvR mechanic that simply does not work.

[Slim McSauce]

Green on green and pirate mechanics need to be worked out before anything. Alliances alone don't work

[SeamanStaines]

13 hours ago, Knobby said:

And yet what we got is some bastardized form of half nation, half clan based RvR mechanic that simply does not work.

Yes more like Syrian Militia's than National Navies.

[Nelsons Barrel]

In a perfect world every nation fights 2 to 4 nations at the same time with enough players to not need any ally.

[Hethwill]

16 hours ago, Knobby said:

And yet what we got is some bastardized form of half nation, half clan based RvR mechanic that simply does not work.

I won't disagree  I like the historical starting point of NA - how history gets rewritten is up to the players. Gives a sense of being and belonging, but beyond that point it is down to the players to fit in - NOT to expect an entire nation to save their "anonymous" arse.

A nation of clans, each doing their own doing, is born of "crying and whining and finger pointing" all day long in nation because ppl can't handle loss and man up to the conflict. It is hard and everyone, everyone, had to grow up in a constant war and raids and whatnot. Everyone was a newcomer once.

In the nation's tour i came to a conclusion . all nations are the same regarding the "crying and whining and finger pointing" - 100% accurate.

The only exceptions, that prove that fact, happen when all "so called pros" orbit to one nation or when a nation population gets so depleted that it becomes negligible.

 

[van Veen]

Right now, RVR is done by clans. Each nation is just a locked alliance of clans and individual players. The game does not foresee any such thing as war and peace. Yet, players do declare war, negotiate peace and forge alliances. Not in game, but on Teamspeak and in the forum. So, the concept of war and peace is well known and it is applied. Consequently, it should be part of the game. Just because the previous attempts if implementation failed does not prove the concept wrong.

[Salty Sails]

Aliiances, was the boring thing, when it was implimented.

2 big alliances , almost the whole map was peace. at this time, there were more action on PVE Server!

 

fight for your nation, die for your nation or join the winnerteam!