Illegal Trade. Piracy and diplomacy Suggestion.

[Volcanus]

First I would like to add that this only works once diplomacy is added to the game, as it would probably make a lot of use out of the planned diplomacy once added to the game. So don't take this as something I personally think needs to be added RIGHT NOW kind of deal.

Now I will explain the title in short here for those who are TL;DR type people. Though if you are on the forums and are like that while playing a game like this where travel can take hours and you have little to do, then why the heck are you playing this game or on the forums!! Haha!
I have only been playing this game for 81 hours over a week from when I start writing this, so yeah I have less power over what should and shouldn't be in this game, but as a lover of this type of game and by that I don't mean ships on the sea in first/3^rd person battling, but as a lover of tactics and trade using a faction based system.
But I think I have ways of making certain aspects of this game great or maybe even perfect for all types of players. And I will list some of these and go in depth in this thread about some of them, so read on if you want but if you hate walls of text which I tend to make most the time, then skip down to the TL;DR part of each section or just read the conclusion of each!

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Illegal Trade.

Short info:
We have all seen the AI ships who sail around with the big red letters in their info saying “Contraband”, we have all at a time probably salivated at the sight of these fellow faction AI who hold goodies. But I want to expand or have the DEVs expand on this concept.

How?
Adding a blackmarket system and need and demand to the game will help with this. This will work on a AI based soft system of diplomacy which isn't controlled by the player. How this will work is the mayor or leader/populace of the said port will have random spats or taboos on certain IRL days or even weeks which will change or jump at a certain reset day so you don't or can't just farm or prey on one location all the time and camp it. By it I mean a system of contraband items for certain ports.

This will work on the reset and soft diplomacy system so that those ports will have a black market for certain goods which are already in the game or not in the game yet so the Devs can by them self expand on the idea.

Things like alcohol/wine/spirits, Slaves or even weapons can be these contraband goods. So a port will put a restriction on certain things, like booze because the leader of said port just doesn't want drunk rowdiness to happen or drink related crimes. So they slap the port with this restriction, then a tab will appear for said port and the price of say, rum, will ten fold making a use for it in the world which just isn't there at the moment. Slaves can also be a part of this, having a player based vote system on how and if they want the use of slaves in their factions ports. Weapons are another fun one to work with, this will be more a part of another suggestion I have and will explain more later.

What does this add?
Well this adds one thing, more reason for PvP and more reason and possible gains for players who want to make money in alternate ways. It will increase PvP because in certain areas around or near the said port will become no go zones for those items you hold in your cargo. So when you enter with these items in the circles around the ports (SHOWN HERE: http://imgur.com/tStIB0A) which have said item under restriction you will be highlighted or seen as someone holding contraband and can be attacked by your own faction and allies which have diplomatically aligned with you. I know this is why the contraband system was added for in the first place and I totally did take this idea from the DEVS them self as I can see they plan to line this contraband system up in a later patch or update. I just want them to know it is a very good idea.


Conclusion:
Contraband system for ports and players so they can be targeted by allies and have some kind of risk in safer areas and possible more gold earned for that risk in trade. This will help piracy and trade adding more PVP and PVE content to the game and being more realistic/fun.

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REBELLION AND UPRISING

Short info: A system which works along side the diplomacy. When nations all band together, port citizens and people who live in the towns around the ports may be upset or will become upset about some of these alliances, so what do they do? They rebel against these decision and fight or take over the port. Also if something is contraband and isn't supplied by black market from players they will try overthrow or take over the port.

How does this work?
Basically the diplomatic system the Devs add will most probably cause some nations to just band together and never break away from each other ever. In the start of these merging of cultures and alliances will cause a lot of citizens to act out and cause problems for their towns as visitors come and enjoy their port, food and their daughters     . So what do you think they would do in this situation? Well they act out and try a show of force to challenge the powers in place to get things changed.

How it works with the illegal trade is these ports who have high risk of rebellion and incited rage will ask for weapons and explosives. And you, can chose to sell it them and supply them with the means. Or you can help quash the rebellion/uprising by stopping players selling to these ports.

Once and if the port/citizens are successful the port will become a neutral type or hostile port where no one is able to sell to the port or the buildings are razed in the port so production for a week or so in real time is no longer producing at the rate they were prior.

Also killing other players or boats around these ports will also add a fear based reaction. The more pirates attack or plunder a port(if and when added as a means to not just take over a port), the fear of the citizens will increase. It will also work the other way around, the more missions done for the ports and kills of pirates around these ports will decrease the fear. Also adding a system where the pirates can pay and support rebellion/uprising to make it later easier for pirates to take over the port for them self. This adds more tactics for the pirates to expand their reach over the other factions and makes them a bigger threat in the game other than someone who will kill you on sight. Now you will have to watch out for the port screwing you over due to a crafty pirate who helps them out.

Conclusion:

This will add more for pirates to do as well as non-pirate factions to watch out for, causing some ideal trade locals to lock down and for more profit and expansion in the long run. Also countering allying with to many factions and causing a power Vacuum. The more players a faction has considered also by allied factions will cause more ports/towns to rebel against it and want their own ways only and giving a closer to home problem to deal with in game other than staying close to front line ports for your PvP action or fun. This will also help PvE players have something else to do later in the game as you can add anti-rebellion based actions similar to the mini-game you have for boarding a ship. Making it so you can add troop ships to the game where you hire buccaneers or military from said faction to 'board' the ports and clear/stop the crazed citizens.

Overall I think this would add a hell of a lot to the gameplay and would be very exciting for people who like management based gameplay.

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PIRACY

Short info:
Piracy needs more things to make it more viable in game. How I plan on changing this in a suggestion is to add certain quality of life things. Also a possible system which helps players do mean things to other players and still not be considered instantly a pirate for those actions until properly caught or they 100% agree to switch sides.

How will this work?

Simple. We add more aspects of piracy that existed in the first place.

I will do this in order instead of in a huge mash of words together.

First. Hideouts, I will list things this can do below.

1. Add a cave/hideout system to the game. Basically you make ports of your own but without all the flashy side of real ports. You as a pirate in a clan(must be a clan, or you are just really really rich or in a group), will put your money and resource together and if in a good location you can place a small hideout which you can dock/hide your ship in.

2. These hideouts will hide you so you can make a base of operation close to a faction or deep in the factions territory, think of routes where traders take in their goods, you can have the hideout close by and use it to launch attacks from the inside and make some good cash and cause a ruckus.

3. Hideouts will be hidden to all factions but Pirate. And all will be shown on the map if invited to see them by other pirate clans and you can pay for using them to hide in. You can pay that said clan to be able to hold loot in said camp.

4.You will only be able to hold one ship in this hideout with a max amount for players, so if you have a clan of 20, and the hideout can only hold 10 players worth of ships in it, then you can't place your ship or keep a ship in there until someone takes away one of their ships. So another hideout will be needed to be made as more ships would make the hideout bigger and visible to other nations. Or a system where you can have unlimited ships here but a limit to how much until it becomes visible to all on the map. As more ships and people the more known around it will become to info brokers.

5. AI will be able to make them randomly throughout the week, only player made hideouts that have been upgraded properly will be able to hold loot in them. Also you won't be able to keep your boats here as they will randomly move every week.

6. Information/interrogation. A mini-game system added or just a flat out way of getting information from a pirate player. Once and if you capture a player pirates ship you not only take the ship, you take the pirate and interrogate them for information on the location of their hideout if they have one. This gives factions a reason to takeover the pirate ships no matter what they are sailing to get information on what they are up to in the region.

Second is info brokers.

Info brokers.
This is needed in game. Someone you can go to in port and pay them a certain amount of money to tell you where pirates have been sighted, or where a AI based Hideout is so you can attack said hideout and get their loot and just out right root out the pirates from the area. This will show a general area of where pirates are, in a circle bases highlighted area so you can have a possible warning system as to where not to go. Of course this circle will not move at all so you constantly know where the player pirates are. But it will help some traders out possibly or scare the hell out of them. This is also a good money sink for the game!

Info brokers can have multiple functions and things you can pay them to do. Such as giving you info on what is selling/a price list on items in all ports in a certain area. Telling you where pirates are that are player pirates not AI. Telling you what ports plan on rebelling or what their fear level is. Telling you where a pirate hideout is that is AI based and more. There are many things this broker can do for you the possibilities are huge.

Third is Bounties, faction relation/fame and infamy.
As a pirate you want to be known. Infamy can make a player feel proud that his making an impact on the game as a whole. A list can be added in major ports which can be taken down by players as names to remember. The players deeds can be added on this board as info and money can be put on their head by AI and players. So if you even attack a enemy ship which is AI this will impact and put your name on the board as wanted by that nation. To receive this bounty you must capture the said pirate and in a quick yet functional way they will be jailed in some way and you will be paid for it.

A dead or alive system for this could work too. Alive you get more but dead you just get a set amount.

This system wont hinder the captured player. Once Captured you will just instantly spawn at a port of your faction but the bounty will be taken and your infamy will reset or lower considerably.

You will also gain fame. More ports you capture for your faction, or actions you do for the populace of the Caribbean will increase your popularity meaning you can be a lawful player who gets things done for the good of the sea you travel. This would just be more a Epeen stroke and not really gain you anything other than the bounties you collect but overall this adds a reward type system to players who want to play a certain way.

Fourth. Ship capturing.
The idea to remove AI ship capturing was smart in my eyes. Sure with the state of crafting at the moment it was kind of the worst time to make that update and remove this cheap source of fodder in game. But it was needed for crafters to actually profit and make more types of ships. But as I said, it was flawed due to the poor crafting system in place (not saying I hate crafting I just think it is too slow for the pace of PvP. And the sake of PvP).

I think Pirates should be able to capture AI ships. It makes sense for them to do this so why not. Players doing it who aren't pirate it just makes it to easy but it is a must for pirates as it is a dog eat dog world for them and they can be ripped off easy by their own.

Maybe like someone else had suggested, you make it so only Overworld roaming AI ships can be captured, or make them a little weaker then the fully crafted versions. But still let them be captured. They are pirates for christ sake not people who are meant to do good. The change at the moment only makes sense for non-pirate factions as taking a ship for your self is against the laws of some nations at the time.


Fifth. Bribes/Ransom.

This is pretty self explanatory. Players can pay pirates to not be engaged in battle. This happens before the battle starts in the prep phase. A player can offer a amount, and the pirate can counter offer or set the bribe/ransom price. This will let pirates have a possible gain on cash and get away before enemy ships enter the fray on the traders side or let the Trader get away with all his/her resources. Overall this would add a gamble situation to pirate ganks or even nation ganks, making things more interesting. 
Another thing to add to this system is a cooldown. Once a bribe/ransom is done, the pirate player becomes invisible for 300 seconds or more, giving time for them to leave. And for 24 hours of real time that pirate can't attack the same person that gave them the bribe, nor can the person who gave up his/her money, attack the pirate in question. 

Conclusion:
Well all these things make sense if you read it. But it opens up pirate play or reasons to be pirates on the PvE and PvP side of play and increases both play styles for normal nations and pirates all at once. Why would we not want that?


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I hope you guys enjoy this idea or ideas and add your own thoughts in the comments!

Thanks for your time.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Volcanus

[Reorx Redbeard]

Really well written. and I support all your idears. but I would like the hideout/base option for National playes also, and not only pirates.

[Volcanus]

Really well written. and I support all your idears. but I would like the hideout/base option for National playes also, and not only pirates.

I think once we get proper or better base building and build options in ports we won't need something like that really. Pirates need it more because it suits their play style. 

Though i see why you would want something like that as it would seem very good for ambushing other nations.

[Wilson09]

Omg, do you get "paid" ???

 

Damn, I need to read it now...

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interesting.

 

But not my "cup of tea", so I won´t catch up on this one...

Edited April 17, 2016 by Wilson09

[Volcanus]

Omg, do you get "paid" ???

 

Damn, I need to read it now...

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interesting.

 

But not my "cup of tea", so I won´t catch up on this one...

Do you get paid? What do you mean?

[Wilson09]

Meaning? My first intuition was, you should get paid (by GamesLab) for a such nicely presented text.

You must have put a lot of work into it....and you actually don´t even know what they are working on...

[Volcanus]

Meaning? My first intuition was, you should get paid (by GamesLab) for a such nicely presented text.

You must have put a lot of work into it....and you actually don´t even know what they are working on...

Well i guessed what they were working on really. Like i knew about things like Diplomacy, and knew that contraband is more of a placeholder to something they might expand on. So i took those ideas and ran with it expanding into this idea. This whole post came from looking at ships with contraband alone and then seeing the state of endgame/PvP and knew it wasn't stable enough for the long term. 

Getting paid would be nice though  , but i rather just see this game i absolutely love becomes even more viable for me to sink thousands of hours into.

[Volcanus]

Bump

+EDIT: Added another piracy suggestion/fix.

[Volcanus]

Bump because of new DEV post on Diplomacy! 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13596-such-is-a-lord-simple-politics-and-alliances-part-1-heavily-moderated/<their post here

[CaptainJTKirk]

Really well written. and I support all your idears. but I would like the hideout/base option for National playes also, and not only pirates.

why should nations be able to have hide outs.. they have things called towns & cities... for pirates when map is wiped we will start this game with 1 town again.. it is going to be some hard work for pirates in the next few months to get back to the point we are at the moment not to mention all the moaning that has gone on over the last few days by certain nations that pirates owned to much land so it took 4 nations working together to grab a hand full back...

[Volcanus]

why should nations be able to have hide outs.. they have things called towns & cities... for pirates when map is wiped we will start this game with 1 town again.. it is going to be some hard work for pirates in the next few months to get back to the point we are at the moment not to mention all the moaning that has gone on over the last few days by certain nations that pirates owned to much land so it took 4 nations working together to grab a hand full back...

Yeah this is basiclly what i was pointing towards. If they want things to be real later in game then hideouts and outposts would be a must for pirate players or give them the ability to raise a false flag to enter any port they want.

Giving the major nations the ability to outpost or hideout is a silly idea really and would totally ruin the state of PvP.

[Zeekoning]

It will increase PvP because in certain areas around or near the said port will become no go zones for those items you hold in your cargo. So when you enter with these items in the circles around the ports (SHOWN HERE: http://imgur.com/tStIB0A) which have said item under restriction you will be highlighted or seen as someone holding contraband and can be attacked by your own faction and allies which have diplomatically aligned with you.

Because contraband can be goods that are hidden due to not have the proper paperwork (to avoid taxes, etc.), I think that any good should be able to be contraband, and that there should be a toggle when buying resources which would mark the goods themselves as contraband.  This way people will not unintentionally sail through a no-go zone around a port when actually heading to a different port.  Also, to simulate the avoidance of taxes, contraband could be bought slightly cheaper than non-contraband.