Qwolf

In my view, this would be a huge disruptive change, crush any national spirit that exists, channel everyone into a few, very profitable clans, and be historically inaccurate. I strongly oppose the proposed clan mechanic. If the problem is that small nations are undermanned and not much fun to play, here are simple solutions in my view: Problem: Smaller nations have no chance: Solution: Give each nation 3 unconquerable regions to protect smaller regions and make it fun and fair for everyone. Problem: No incentive to join or remain in smaller nations: Solution: Give a salary of gold and/or marks to captains, based on rank, that equals number of regions in a nation divided by number of captains. Salaries are historically accurate. Captains got paid. Make this salary visible on join nation screen to help captains decide. Big nation captains would likely make less than small nation captains and provide incentive for big nation captains to join small nations. How it could work: Nations with lots of captains but few ports would get small salaries. Small nations with even 3 unconquerable regions would get good salaries. If you could make 10x the amount of gold and marks serving another smaller nation, players would consider that in choosing their nations, even things out. Example: 100 British captains control 10 regions. 1 region for every 10 captains. Based on rank, British Rear Admirals receive salary of 10000 gold a week. Conversely, 10 Spanish Rear Admiral captains control 3 regions. Or 1 region for every 3 captains. They receive a weekly salary a much higher salary of roughly 30000 gold. Finally, I continue to believe that if you want improved RVR (which is fun and is working, not sure why some are calling it "broken") you need a way to give nations some sort of national power. Elected leaders setting national objectives. Serve two weeks. New election, new leader and new clan required. Let those leaders use tax revenues and conquest/victory marks from controlled regions to unite the nation behind a common goal. Options for elected leader(s) 1: Distribute some or all of national revenue to captains 2: Use tax revenue to reward PVP play against certain nations. 3. Use tax revenue to reward hostility points in certain regions or for port battle attack or defense. 4. Use tax revenue to reward shipbuilding resources sold in the capital or elsewhere. Final point, if there are only 3 Spanish players, in a national leader system, that means one of them is president/leader every 4 weeks. That's a strong incentive to join Spanish, be El Presidente!

Disagree strongly with the proposed changes. Here's why: 1. People seek out gold ships precisely because they are the best. People like to seek out and acquire the best, or close to the best. Its fun. In other games that might mean playing a little longer to get a better sword, or better spaceship. Same goes for upgrades. People like to customize their ships with upgrades. Its also just another thing to chase, which adds meaning to the game. 2. There is plenty of variety in the game, I've fought plenty of battles with basic ships, especially last minute surprise battles I didn't have time to ship my finest into the area. I also use basic ships as fleet ships all the time. 3. If you want more variety in the quality of ship, you need to incentivize that variety. A victory costs roughly 6,000 labor hours to build. Why wouldn't you spend another 1,000 to make it GOLD instead of basic? Now if that GOLD is going to cost you 12,000 labor hours, instead of 6,000, I'd be surprised if smart individuals didn't start to consider just how high in quality to make that ship. Is a GOLD vic worth 2 basic Vics? Interesting debate. You control the rules, you control the incentives. And the way you've structured the rules, you've incentivized building only GOLD ships. Incentivize building other quality and they will absolutely appear and appear more regularly. 4. Another reason why everyone builds GOLD ships is that you've incentivized building gold ships in order to drop blueprints. Make the blueprint drops roughly equal, and remove that huge incentive to build GOLD lynxs and gold pickles, so you get a BP drop. 5. Stop allowing the AI to flood the ship market with basic ships. There is ZERO incentive to build basic ships because the AI floods the market with them. I'm fine with allowing cutters in every port, but Green Connies and Trincs? You can't complain that nobody builds less than gold ships when you give the players no reason to do so. Almost everything in life comes down to incentives. If you incentivize building a variety of size and quality of ships, people WILL build them. But currently, the smart player builds mostly huge gold ships. Because that's what you've incentivized. Test dramatically increasing the cost of bigger and higher quality ships, and allowing BPS to drop from all ship builds. My guess is that youll start seeing good frigates in the OW instead of just GOLD SOLs.

Regional bonuses are great, add more national map/attack/defend strategy, crafting strategy, and force shipbuilding and commerce out of the capital region. Just about everyone I've talked to in our nation enjoys the idea and is looking forward to building ships with the bonuses.

I can without a doubt say I've enjoyed this game tremendously and played it more than any other multiplayer game ever. I'm not even a huge gamer. But this game is something I look forward to playing daily when life allows me to, (much to my wife's everlasting annoyance). In fact, playing in early access has probably made the game more fun for me. With big changes coming every month or two months, it helps keep the game fresh and evolving, along with strategy and tactics. Moreover, this game has an incredible amount of potential as an open world MMO set in the historical age of sail. Given the steady progress and great changes over the last few months, (Voting, port battle ship size changes, outpost hopping, combat tweaking, etc...) it seems to be on that path to even more greatness. I continue to think it could use a touch more "never quite done" aspect to character development, carrots to keep even maxed out players chasing a goal and a dream. But that's perhaps just something I personally want, that others maybe don't want or need, to keep us coming back a year from now, with the sense that we continue to build towards something every time we log on. Then again, I already log on despite being mostly maxed out. So to the developers I say this: Ignore the petulant shouts of the impatient displeased few. The silent majority love the game and constructively provide feedback to improve the game that you can take or leave depending on the strength of the idea and your resources. Thanks for working to create such a great game that continues to get ever better. I think most of us love this game concept, enjoy the current game, and appreciate that it is being improved steadily.

1. Having to shuffle ships around because we can only have 5 in one port. Perhaps this could be an upgrade you can buy for more dock space? Fleets were helpful in this regard, but I feel like I'm constantly having to shuffle ships between ports to manage ship and fleet numbers. Unfun. 2. Once you've maxed out XP, you cannot improve your character. I'm not sure what the solution here is, but a few options to increase forever play: crew members that gain XP and skills and also die (partially implemented, and implemented well, but would love to see more officers), resource buildings in unprotected ports that increase output over time/use(without a cap), shipyards in unprotected ports that very slightly improve ship quality by building ships (without a cap), kill/capture/port statistics per player, ship specific statistics, ship hall of fame, fortress building, and time in nation that increases your votes over time. More discussion below. 3. Rapid and wild nation switching. I'm all for allowing nation switching, but it happens very very frequently, and can lead to a herd effect that alters the map over night and chases people loyal to a country from the game when their nation crumbles with player switching overnight. See above #2 for solution suggestions. #2 discussion. So you've maxed out your player in XP. There isn't much more to accomplish in game to keep you coming back. I humbly suggest the following additions to increase forever play in game. Officer experience: This was already implemented, and implemented well, for one officer. LOVE this. Want more officers, shorter life spans. This will keep players constantly working to get an experienced crew of officers, with MAX level infrequently achieved. Even when achieved, an officer death will quickly reset the need to get an experienced officer. Resource buildings that increase output with time/use in unprotected ports: In real life, a coal mine that has been around for 9 months is going to be much more efficient than one that has been around for 2 days. This could be reflected in game by increased output/lower cost over time and use. Would make long held ports strategically very important bread baskets for the nation and reward staying in one nation and fighting for your ports. Will militate against nation switching. Shipyards that increase ship quality with use: A shipyard that has built 500 ships should make better ships than one with 5 built. In an unprotected port (especially intriguing with new regional bonuses) a long serving shipyard could be a huge asset to the nation and player, and give maxed out players something to shoot for, or rebuild once its destroyed by an enemy capture. Will also militate against nation switching. Stats/ Hall of Fame: Stats would be fun to track, and give a player something to shoot for. A ship hall of fame would be fun. Top pvp kills/captures/assists for a particular ship before it sinks. Would give maxed out players something to shoot for. Fortresses: Perhaps you could make fortresses something that could be built or improved at GREAT expense over time, to protect critical ports. If forts degraded over time as well, this would mean overwhelming forts wouldn't be everywhere on the map, just the places where players really actively focused on building/improving them, as they decayed elsewhere. Would give maxed out players something to do. Time in Nation: Increased votes for months spent in a nation not only feels right and fair (newcomers shouldn't get same votes as long time members), it would slow rapid nation switching and give maxed out players a reason to stay in game by increasing their vote with time.

Not sure how technical issues somehow morphed into someone yet again asking for a merge. But let me clear in the strongest possible of terms: PVP2 is the experience many captains prefer and choose. Maybe your favorite thing is PVP1. Cool. Ours is PVP2. Also cool, right? Everyone can just do their own thing. Pretty sure you wouldn't like it if I started asking the devs to merge PVP1 into the PVE server. That would totally change your experience right? And if you wanted to play PVE you could already just choose to play on the PVE server right? Same thing for us on PVP2. Thanks.

I'd like to add this thought: There are no real manuals or tutorials in this game. The manuals and tutorials are therefore the veteran players that take in rookies, give them hints or tips, agree to sail with them to a fleet battle or two, and get them involved in clan operations. That and youtube videos with interesting English accents. Kinda hard to watch hours of that stuff. In our nation, the rookies that ask for and receive help from veterans stay in the game much more often than those you see quietly sailing around on their own, figuring out a complicated game. Heck it took me three months to even figure out that fleet missions were great for exciting PVE leveling, because I though "fleet missions" meant you needed a fleet. Another player taught me otherwise. I figured the basics of the game out on my own through a long period of trial and error. Not a smart choice. But it didn't really get fun until a clan taught me the rest and got me involved in player actions. My fear is that a rookie area will deprive rookies from the veterans and clans that can get them started, shorten the learning curve considerably, and keep new players invested in the game. What is the problem this is designed to address? I was winning PvE battles by day 2 or 3 after losing a ton of cutters my first four to six hours online. Is there a rookie ganking problem? Do people really seek out rookies and gank em? I've been ganked maybe three times. And once it was my 100% fault for being AFK in a warzone and ramming the coast like an idiot. Lost a lot of ships in battle, but its usually a mutual thing. Been playing a long time. In sum, I understand the desire for a small rookie on rookie area. I'm ok with that. Might even reduce the stigma of PVP and get the PVP fires burning in rookies. I'm just not sure its a great way to learn the game on your own like that. Maybe create a small cutters and rookies only area for rookies to teleport to and sail around and slap each other with 6 pounders? But I wouldn't keep them from their capitals where they can actually learn the game quickly from veterans.

Dear USA, You are being Zerged. It happens. You already know what I'm going to tell you, but it might be helpful to hear it again. You'll be fine. Fall back. Organize. Fight when you can. Have fun. This is nothing new. It has happened a few times before to other nations. Same reasons given, same finger pointing, same nation switching, same taunting. Hopefully the pirates and brits will honor the server wide agreement to leave you five ports. Or maybe you'll be able to defend five ports instead of 150. Either way, it should be a fun new challenge. Either way, you'll come back. New players will join. Tensions will ease. New clans will form. New leaders will rise. A different nation will become the object of conquest. You'll grow again. It won't be long. Enjoy the ride and the new challenges. Many of us has been through this before. We are still here, and still having fun. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing you rise again. It will happen. Everything is gonna be alright.

Thank you for designing alliances! This should be fun to test. Any reason why instead of rounds of voting directly on alliances, you didn't go the "elect a leader who quickly decides alliances and enemies" route? Seems like a leader and/or his foreign minister could negotiate alliances quickly, and in interesting ways that voting could never do... that said, I'm very grateful for the new content, and looking forward to testing it!

Quick thought, because I know if there is a loophole, it will be exploited. Since we can switch nations fairly easily, it might be prudent to require a voter to have a certain residency requirement, of say a couple weeks or a month, to vote. A few votes could swing an election. And I shudder to think it, but I can think of certain larger "nations" that might have a dozen players switch to another much smaller nation just to swing an election, then switch back. This might be irrelevant under the system the developers are considering, or they may have already thought of this.

Agree with this. And the point that ships that strike their colors are EXACTLY what an opposing captain would want. They don't want the ship to sink. They want the prize with little damage to the prize and their own ship. XP should thus be awarded accordingly, just as high for sinking the ship. You force a ship to strike their colors by proving you are going to win, by speed, force, skill, etc, and you've achieved the ultimate goal of any ship captain. This will also mean no hurt feelings by ships striking their colors and "depriving" opposing captains of XP. The ultimate goal should be a ship striking their colors, not sinking it. Of course, captains should feel free to take their crew, officers, and ship to the bottom if they prefer to sink instead of strike. But honorable and sensible captains strike their colors when the battle is obviously lost.

Just a quick note to the developers, I can't find it in the patch notes, but my understanding and experience in game is that only the top rank of officers (Admirals) can buy port capture flags. I get why you did this. I don't even disagree with the logic behind it. But..... here's the thing. I'm in a small nation with very few active admirals. So we can't buy flags most of the time. A couple of us have been playing fairly regularly for many months. We know generally what we are doing, run our own clans, and have fought many port battles. But we haven't exactly focused on the XP grind. So nobody is an Admiral. Maybe the Admiral's only rule thing was overkill? Maybe allow the top 2 or 3 ranks to buy flags? Perhaps the new politics system is really going to change the port flag dynamic, but for now, the smaller nations might have some problems buying flags, even when they have guys ready and willing to jump into the fight. And that's a kinda crappy experience. For example, and this has happened, the whole nation wants a PVP port battle, but the lone admiral is having a date night, so nothing can happen. Not super awesome. I think you can accomplish your objectives with a lower, more reasonable bar to buying flags. Thanks!

Historically, not many ships "fought to the death." A frigate even approaching a poorly armed merchantman would cause the merchantman to quickly surrender. Why? Because who wants to sink or die in the middle of the ocean when the battle is already lost? Captured seamen and officers were treated reasonably well to encourage ships to consider surrendering when appropriate. I think the easy solution is consider a surrender a kill or capture for XP purposes.. Its the honorable thing to do on the loser's side, saves the victor dead crew from a bloody battle, gives the victor a prize (captured ship), and saves the defender crew from needless death. Indeed, historically, a quick surrender or a surrender at all was PREFERED over a sinking or bloody capture, because you got a prize without a bloody battle. And frankly, in my view, there is a certain honor to saying "you got me, I surrender." Increase the rewards for a surrender to kill/capture levels and everyone will be happy. Closer battles will get fought until a winner is obvious. At that point the loser can go down in an expensive blaze of glory or surrender. The winner won't gripe if he is getting fully kill/capture XP. Indeed he'll be happy to save crew and time. Also, prevent sinking ships from surrendering. That's too late in my view. Captains will have to balance when to surrender versus possibly sinking, like real life.

Subtle Clan Moniker: [DUTCH]. Clan Motto: "Live Free, or Die Hard." - Detective John McLane.

I like the proposed changes, and am certainly game to test them all. I would like to emphasize what would be both historically accurate and an incredible addition to the game: Crew experience. Sailing a ship was complex. Fighting a ship even more so. Green crews were slower to set sails, slower to perform sailing manuevers, and could buckle under the stress, noise, violence, injury, and death of combat. A highly experienced crew gave their ship a significant advantage in rate of fire, maneuverability, gun accuracy, and boarding actions. Losing an experienced officer, botswain, sailing master, etc, was a big loss for a ship, while good and experienced crew and officers was a huge asset. In reality and in the game, experience could thus be dynamic, ebbing and flowing with action and losses. Capture an experienced crew, and your experience might go up. Lose a large number of experienced hands, and the green replacements would lower the crews overall experience and efficacy. It would also be a joy, in game, to take a crew of green hands and officers and develop them, over time, into a crack crew, only to have to start to rebuild that experience when officers or crew were lost. So I'd like to suggest that the developers consider adding crew experience and officers, if and when able. This could be accomplished in easy ways: By simply adding an overall ship specific experience. Lose the ship, lose the experience acquired. Experience buffs sailing and fighting attributes (rate of fire, accuracy, sailing speed, ability to tack and work the sails) This could also be accomplished in more complex ways: A crew's experience ebbs and flows based on actions, captures, and losses. Officers can be hired, gain experience, and be lost. In my view, any method of adding crew experience to the game would both enhance the enjoyability of the game and its realism.

Several posters have identified a real problem in the game, small nations being destroyed and overrun. In my opinion elections, leaders with actual power to incentivize their decisions (goals/XP for completion) and term limits will actually help solve the small nation being run over by big ones problem. Here's why: Incentive to join and remain in small population nations As of right now, there is not an advantage to being in small nation. But if you are interested in running for office and serving in a political leader, diplomat, or admiral type role you'd could join a large nation and face huge odds against election or selection, or you could join a smaller nation and be one a few vying for the leadership positions. Provide small nations a chance to organize a defense/offense A small nation with, say, 20 to 30 active players might actually be divided up into 4,5, or even 6 clans. Thus while 20 players could easily defend or attack a port, clans with 3-5 active players cannot do anything. A national political leader, and accompanying admiral, capable of setting and incentivizing national objectives such as defending or retaking a captured port, would provide players the organization needed to bring the tiny clans together for the common good of the small nation. Provide an centralized diplomatic voice to negotiate with other nations In my experience, sometimes a clan leader in a nation will negotiate a peace with an opposing nation only to have another clan leader from that same country scream in Global "NEVER!!! FIGHT TO THE DEATH!!!" or words to that effect. Having a nation with real and centralized diplomacy able not only negotiate war and peace, tribute, alliances, and the like, but also able to set and incentivize national behavior objectives would eliminate this problem. For example, the British elected leadership believes that peace with the Pirates is good for the nation. Under a political system, they could negotiate that peace, prohibit British subjects from attacking Pirate Ports, and potentially also prohibit attacking Pirate player ships. Thus both sides can negotiate with the confidence that a deal is real and will apply to all members of that nation. This will also allow smaller nations to make real and lasting diplomatic arrangements with larger countries, such as alliances, trade agreements, etc, that would encourage larger nations to refrain from simply blasting a smaller nation from the map. For example, if alliances allowed nations to fight together in battles, port and otherwise, and trade agreements allowed merchants to sail without fear of attack into foreign ports, a larger nation might have good reason to nature and aid a smaller friend, instead of burning it into the ground. Other thoughts on ways to protect small countries, apart from the political system. -Make at least 3 or 4 ports outside the capital uncapturable, with all the needed mats available to continue a viable ship building effort. I think one of the main factors that drives a nation's collapse is the massive departure of players (from the nation, the server, and sadly, sometimes the game) who find themselves on the losing side, and who are rightfully afraid they will have nothing left once the much bigger nation is done capturing all the ports of a nation. Leaving a small nucleus of ports for a nation to use to trade and build ships, and begin to rebuild, makes sense and might stop total permanent nation collapse. -Come up with a trickle of per player per day logged on incentive for every nation, such as gold and silver. For a 1000 Americans, a 1000 daily national gold/silver income is 1 gold/silver a day per player. But for only 20 Sweedes, 1000 national gold a day translates to 50 gold/silver a day per player, and is a significant incentive to stay or join that country. Perhaps this could be modified by the number of ports a nation controls, and/or dispensed by national elected leadership as part of a tax collection/ incentives for national objectives program.

Two main thoughts: (1) The developers have done a great job making sure the merge is going to work relatively smoothly and fairly!! I mean, two months ago, did anyone think they would be able to keep ALL of their stuff in a merger? I think some of the drain from PVP2 and PVP3 came from the fear that you would lose everything in a merge. So thank you developers. You didn't have to be so fair, and yet you were. A good sign of things to come! (2) I tend to agree with SPHINX, PVP2 is a healthy thriving place, that offers gamers a North American option (language, time zone, ping), and a different player dynamic. The major thing that has hurt PVP population has been the fear of a merge with asset loss during the merge. So people jumped ship. PVP2 has a "small town" vibe. Players know each other. Any single player can help change the arc of his nations future. When you are one of 100 (or 60, or 50) active players in your country, you're important. Your presence can swing battles. You voice can change national politics. When you are one in 600 or more, not so much. Sure the population could use a bit of a boost, but what you can possibly expect with rumor after rumor of merger wipes flooded the community for months? I think if the developers said that PVP2 was here to stay for a while, the population would spike, from new blood and people coming back home. Plus with the ability to merge servers without loss, I wonder what the harm would be in keeping PVP2 alive for as long as players will support it? So I guess my point is, PVP2 can serve a purpose for the developers. Its very different place than PVP 1. Another option for its customers. And options are good!! If players prefer the "city life" of PVP 1, great. If they want the north american server/ small town life where everybody knows your name? Great. They can go to PVP 2. Options!

Really like the idea of testing this out! Love the idea three different ship categories for ports, and the divided capping areas. I also disagree that players will only bring the top available ship. In normal ports, having a renom that can rip at high speed, unmolested, from zone to zone, would be very helpful. Connies pack a punch, but can easily be outmanuevered and sunk by Trincs. Frigates are less expensive and widely availabe on the market, and still pack a nice punch. I would be surprised if players didn't take advantage of the variety of ships available to come up with fun strategies to tackle the new PB system.

My major concern is this: Leaders need a way to incentivize players to follow their orders or accomplish national goals. As it is now, it is far more profitable (if less fun) to do your own thing. Grind fleets. Run profitable trade routes. Port battles and PVP encounters, on the other hand, require hours of coordination, risking your ship, and often result in relatively low XP and gold rewards. Thankfully, plenty of players are willing to take up the national cause and fight with their clans. But why is a clan going to listen to the proposed national command? Why is the guy that just wants to make gold and XP going to spend his time and risk his ships for the national cause? It's analogous to the the tragedy of the commons. Players acting rationally, independently, and in their own interest (by grinding, trading, and avoiding the risk of PVP combat) behave contrary to the common good (defending and taking ports, risking ships for the national cause). That is why this game MUST find a way to make acting in the national interests MORE rewarding than captains acting independently and in their own interests. This problem is not fixed by simply raising the rewards for PVP. While this would make sense given the risks involved, it would do nothing to encourage players to follow their leaders. In the real world, captains of fighting ships that ignored orders and national objectives would be Court Martialed. This is a game. So maybe a carrot is a better way to accomplish the same goal: adherence to a national policy set by elected leaders. Does the nation need to take a particular port? Allow elected leaders to set a gold/xp reward for taking that port. If its more profitable to risk your ship in service of your nation than to grind AI fleets, players WILL jump all over this. Does the nation need to attack enemy shipping? Allow leaders to set bounties on enemy player ships. Does the nation need to build more ships? Allow leaders to reward crafters for selling ships on the market. Does the nation need to defend a port? Allow leaders to set a reward for defending the port. If you give the leaders control of the tax revenue, there should be plenty of money for this. XP available for rewards could be on a per nation or per port controlled basis. A game where players choose their leaders, set national policy, and then can actually get the server to follow national policy through incentives would be incredible. It would also more closely mimic historic war efforts lead by national leaders and admirals following those elected leader's orders. Of course players would still be free to do their own thing. But the real money and XP would be in service of your nation. Doesn't that make more sense?

I like the idea of lost crew. This would be particularly painful and interesting if they crew members gained experience through battles, only to later be killed or captured. For example, if a young hired midshipman who survived many battles became an invaluable second in command, his loss could be serious setback, necessitating the hiring of an expensive new second in command, or the promotion from within of a younger officer gaining experience through battles. The crew itself could gain experience, experience that would be lost through death or capture. There would also be a certain fun and sastifcation in watching a young mostly useless officer slowly gain the experience needed to become a valuable asset to your ship's crew. Perhaps with particular strengths and weaknesses (boarding, sailing, aim, etc.) A possible interesting wrinkle would be captured crew exchanges, which are historically accurate, negotiated at the national level between belligerent countries. Whole ships' crews were exchanged by belligerent nations enabling experienced seaman and officers to return to battle. Yet another thing to press your leadership (see political system post) to accomplish, crew exchange, beyond war and peace.

Who can vote: I respectfully suggest a voting system based on the captain's rank, with more votes per rank, would fairly allow those most heavily invested in the game have the most influence. They would also have the most experience with the game. It would accurately assign voting power to those that have acquired the most experience by fighting ports, players, or PVE. But I am also open to special voting status (or lordships) being given certain players for historic feats. I also imagine this system would be easier to implement than the plantation system. I also respectfully suggest the following structure as a possible alternative: Supreme Council (name not important). Three players that must vote on important national issues. Ex: War, Peace, Alliances, national tax rate, prisoner exchanges, player medals/awards(knighthood, etc.) I also think the council should be able to set national objectives, such ports to capture, or a port to defend, or sinking or capturing enemy PVP ships. They could encourage their objectives to be followed by offering XP and/or gold rewards (paid for out of the national tax collection) for accomplishing the national objectives. Example, the council votes to target a specific port. If it is captured (or raided) successfully, the council could set an XP/gold reward on top of the regular reward to encourage players to follow the national objective. Another example, the council wants to raid a specific enemies shipping. By setting a reward for kill/captures, paid out of the national tax revenue, they can encourage captains to risk their ships and crew by sailing enemy waters seeking a prize. The council serves for a month, with a week long voting window at the end of the month for a new council. There could even be term limits, of say, two months, to allow more players to serve as the highest ranked leaders in the game. Players interested in running could pay an entry fee to run for election, of say, a million gold, and write a brief summary of their qualifications and platform. National Admirals: appointed by the Supreme Council to lead national war efforts, coordinate fleet pvp battles, and have the power to reward those under their command in battles with XP/gold based on their performance during those battles (and following orders). Regional Governors: For each regional capital controlled by a nation, a regional governor (or council) could run for local elections at the time of a national election, again by paying gold to enter, and briefly stating a platform. They would set a local tax rate, and could set regional objectives such as ports to capture, defend, or even for building ships in the regional capital (would create regional hubs of commerce away from the national capital). There could be a requirement that the regional governor and voters in regional elections have an outpost in the regional capital. Most importantly, they can set regional specific objectives, important to the players that operate out of that region, and provide organization of captain efforts based on geography. Regional, lesser, admirals: Appointed by the regional governor (or possible the national admirals), the admiral would have similar powers to the national admiral in that they could distribute XP and gold for performance during battles. The crux of this structure is that it gives the national and regional level decision makers not only the power to negotiate war and peace, but also to incentivize captains to carry out national objectives and regional objectives. Currently, port battles and PVP are lots of fun, but not very rewarding versus solo trade and PVE. Imagine the national leaders want to dent enemy shipping, they could set prizes for captures and sinking of enemy player ships. Or regional leaders need a port defended at all costs. They could set a reward for defending that port, incentivizing nearby captains to rally (on their own, or under a regional admiral), to race to the defense of the port. Thanks for your time and consideration of my thoughts!