[Development priorities 2]

You will alienate a large playerbase without the ability/need to use end game SOLs.  Especially if the only reason they can't is because they can't afford them.

 

From what I understand, many people enjoy playing as pirates, so many in fact that it is becoming unbalanced. It is hard for me to imagine a player base who wants to play in SOLs being alienated when there are so many other nations to choose from. I am not against pirates in SOLs. I don't think it would be too difficult for pirates to obtain SOLs. I just don't think it should be practical, except in the case of raiding. Also the more ports a nation has the better the booty, to discourage picking on small nations.

 

Voted for number two. Simple because this need be done first - pirates role (nerf as a nation) and a clear alliance system.

 

I agree with this mostly, but saying "nerf" just has a bad ring to it. No matter what course the Devs take, I hope pirates evolve into more of a high risk, high reward system that can keep larger nations looking over their shoulders, and smaller nations have room to grow instead of just disappearing from the map.

[Development priorities 2]

I'd like to see the pirate role changed, and I play pirate. I wouldn't mind being restricted to free towns, and have to eek out a living but have the freedom to be anywhere. Pirate outposts could be less expensive to counteract the lack of ports and pirate raids could take the place of capturing ports.