Kpt Lautenschlaeger

And the OP suggestion is going entirely in the wrong direction from where I am sitting. While there are boatloads of balancing issues around the Port Battles at the moment, they still constitute (for me at least) the biggest and most diverse PvP content in the game. And I like PvP. I have yet to get into a port battle proper, but even the scouting, screening and deployment battles I have taken part in were oodles of fun.

Arrrgh, so much feedback. Thanks guys. I am integrating the ideas of Hethwil and randomtaskkk into my opening post, to keep this tracked in one place. I agree that we have two other factors which affect this discussion: an imbalance in (1) player numbers and (2) time zone coverage between the two alliances. I don’t know how to fix that. My point being: given this imbalance, would my proposal (or any of the others mentioned) improve the situation compared to our status quo? To relate this to JonSnowLetsGo`s and redii`s comments: I believe spreading the decisive mechanic around the clock for a couple of days, rather than pinning it to a discrete point in time, would give the off-timezone alliance more chance to react. I think it may alleviate the nightflip problem, it certainly cannot cure it entirely. As for a reversion to the flag system, I admit I have insufficient experience of it to evaluate these comments and relate them to the initial idea. Before my time as a ship-of-the-line captain, really. Anyhoo, as evidenced by the bring-back-the-flags advocates and Wraith’s posts, there is a fair number of alternative suggestions floating around and morphing as they do. I would like to ask for a favour (kindly, politely and in a very squeaky-mouse-don't-stomp-on-me voice ): let’s keep this thread for criticising (and maybe developing or killing) the original idea. I’m happy to open and maintain another thread - maybe with a poll - for collecting links to the different suggestions and debating the merits/flaws of one versus the other. Does that make sense to the community?

Für wenn Du wieder flüssiger bist: bei den Tommies in Kingston/Port Royal gibt es goldene Spieler-gecraftete Le Gros Ventres in Fir Wood zu akzeptablen Preisen. Mit ein paar Mods wie Kupferbeschlag und Speed Trim gehen die ab wie Schmidts Katze.

Thanks for the link, Hethwill. I definitely like the idea of Smuggling into the Target Region raising Superiority for the attacker.

So, here's an odd idea I had. Premise: the gripe with port battles vis-a-vis nightflips and so on does not look like it will be resolved in the near future (for reasons that have been discussed in boatloads of other threads, so let's not rehash this here). It appears to me that the root causes people get so emotionally worked up are that, currently, the culmination and decisive point for conquering a region is happening at one point in time, in a very narrow time-frame (two hours for the battle, more like two minutes for the join window). Thus individual captains are upset when they themselves cannot take part in the decisive engagement, and nations as a whole are aggrieved as ports can change hands because of awkward timing rather than combat success (whether with malice aforethought or not, that’s not my point here). The hostility generation on the other hand, is less problematic: for one thing, it happens around the clock, so everyone can have a go; and its separate engagements are not individually decisive, so adrenaline levels are lower. So – thought experiment – what if we turn this on its head? The port battle opens conquest, rather than closing it: there is no pre-requisite for declaring a Target Region, merely an advance warning window (48 hrs or so); a limit to the number of Target Regions a nation can declare in parallel; and the requirement to declare an Attacking Region. Then the opening PB happens after 48ish hours. Defender wins PB: nothing happens. Attacker wins PB: the region is now open for conquest. Think: the port defences have been broken, and a beach-head has been established. Now we have different kinds of missions to generate Superiority (rather than Hostility). These missions run parallel, for a period of time. PvP engagements in Target Region: to gain/refute control of the sea-lanes. (Superiority accrues like the scores in the Admirality Events) Player convoys: running trader ships with War Supplies from Attacking Region to Target Region. Similar to War Supplies now. AI convoys: both Attackers and Defenders are notified in Missions tab that: Fleet of [trading vessels] will leave Attacking Region Capital for Defending Region Capital on [date and time]. If those AI ships make it to the Attacking Region’s capital, attacker scores Superiority, if they are taken or sunk, Defender scores. Nail mission: both Attackers and Defenders are notified in Missions tab that: [AI Fighting Vessel] carrying important personage will leave Attacking Region for Defending Region on [date and time]. If this AI ship makes it to the Attacking Region’s capital, attacker scores Superiority, if it is taken, Defender scores. Minor Port battles: open the non-capital ports for port battles, the outcome of which will contribute Superiority [randomtaskkk's idea] Smugglers: smuggling contraband into or out of the Target Region contributes Superiority for the attacker [Wraith's idea] After a period of time (2 days maybe?), conquest operations cease, and Superiority scores are tallied. If the Attacker wins, the region changes hands. So, in a nutshell we go from “distributed Hostility opens decisive single port battle” to “single port battle enables distributed Superiority engagements, which will decide conquest”. Worth thinking about, or utter balderdash? Discuss (in a civilised manner, please )!

I follow the series avidly, and Ep. 47 takes the biscuit so far. Jeheil, could you please do these essence-of-a-battle reports with animations regularly? I think they are tremendously educating for people (like me) who don't have that much experience with large fleet actions.

Clan: Deutschorden, deutschsprachige Gruppe im spanischen Clan 'Santa Hermandad' (SH) Location: PVP1 EU Nation: Spanien Clanleitung: PRIAMO (für die SH); Maverick (für den Deutschorden) Ansprechpartner: Maverick, Don Cristobal Sotavento, TheDarkPhoenix (Schickt uns einfach eine private Nachricht im Spiel.) Homepage: - Teamspeak: wird nachgetragen Sonstiges: Wir sind eine knappe Handvoll deutschsprachiger Kapitäne, die im spanischen Clan der Santa Hermandad segeln, und unseren Unterclan vergrößern möchten. Die Santa Hermandad hat (aus unserer Sicht) den Vorteil, dass sie zwar mit den großen spanischen Clans (wie zur Zeit VLTRA) gut zusammenarbeitet, aber nicht so sehr unter deren Fuchtel steht, dass wir nicht auch mal eigene Projekte angehen können. Gegen die Sprachbarriere haben wir einen eigenen Channel im spanischen TS, und einen Spieler, der fließend Deutsch und Spanisch spricht und unseren Verbindungsoffizier gibt. Ansonsten sind die Hermanos tolerant gegenüber nicht Spanisch sprechenden Ordensbrüdern, so daß man immer zurecht kommt. Von den Spielern her sind wir sicher keine Hardcore WAACs, sondern eher ambitionierte Casuals. Im Zweifelsfall geht Real Life vor Port Battle. Ein Träumchen ist es, genügend deutschsprachige Spieler zu versammeln, dass man Segelmanöver und Schlachtformationen üben und zukünftig als schlagkräftiger, verlässlicher Verband in der spanischen Flotte auftreten kann. Wer interessiert ist, schreibt uns gerne eine Mail im Spiel.

Still listening to the recording. First off, I doff my cocked hat to whoever organised the conference and to all who contributed to make this a constructive conversation. Those sort of people keep a community going. A somewhat unreflected thought on the timezone/server conundrum: might it make sense to merge servers and offer a physical separation of timezones? I.e. there is but one server, where the Caribbean is the playground for Old Worlders, whereas the Pacific seaboard (which would need to be coded, admittedly) is for our American fellow captains. Players would still have the option to open ports in either theatre. However, the Devs could hardcode incentives such as port battle time windows to make the Caribbean Europe-friendly, and the Pacific more of a Trans-Atlantic thang.

To add a (slightly) upbeat note: I tend to sail solo into the PvP arenas to join up with friendly squadrons. I have been ganked a fair number of times in the approach, so that is certainly a problem. Not sure whether it can be entirely contained by mechanics, or if payer maturity will eventually remediate ths. But there are other fights: just yesterday I sailed solo past a group of 7 or so Pirates. I had three courteous offers of a 1-on-1 fight, one of which I accepted. Got pwned in boardig . But that's as it may be: there are sporting gentlemen (and ladies, I presume) out there which provide most enjoyable combats. And that's not just the Pirate who went for me in the 1-on-1, but also his mates who had the good manners to stand off.

Estimados Capitanes, in my opinion (speaking as an over-organized German ), one thing would be a tremendous help: a restricted message board. I.e. a forum/blog/whatever only accessible to accredited players of the Spanish nation, where High Command posts anouncements, and players can respond. That way, High Command could say (for example): we will attack/defend This Port on This Date. Ships should be there by That Time. Clans, please report how many ships you can bring, and who the contact is. Solo players, please announce if you want to take part. The rest will organise itself, I daresay. This would alleviate my main problem: I don't know when and where the Spanish want to turn up in force. This I was late for the Bermuda battle last week, for example.

That would be true if we did it for every 'tonto' out there, certainly. The thing is: Don Sancho went to great lengths to ascertain that the Ingles wasn't a 'tonto', but rather a 'novato'. who hopefully learnt a valuable lesson both in terms of gentlemanly conduct as well as seamanship. With that provision, I stick to saying: "Well done indeed".

I tip my hat to you, Sir. For displaying this spirit of gentlemanly sportsmanship which the English are so fond of claiming for themselves. And also for keeping your patience and contenance explaining your actions to the Spanish captains, who understandably will have been irritated by the situation. I do not envy you the acrimonious language to which you seem to have been subjected. Congratulations again for bearing it with dignity and writing such a balanced report. I will consider myself honoured should I ever have the chance of sailing with you. Don Cristobal Sotavento, WTCOM

Muy buenos dias, senores capitanes, and that's where my Castellano ends, pretty much. I'm German, with good English and poor Spanish skills, playing in an alemanohablante clan for the Spanish Crown. I'd like to point out that essentially, we have two communication scenarios that we need to sort out as a nation if we want to kick some perfidous Albion (or whatever) backside. (1) One is the strategic level, where port attacks are planned, attack responses are organised etc. Let's call this: open-world communications. As far as I can see, this is based largely on the 'Nation' chat and the Spanish TS. I think this is where we can improve a lot by establishing some sort of clan delegate system, where officers who speak Spanish and another language act as representatives (bottom-up) of their clans and relay decisions/commands (top-down). I'm saying this because my clan has two Spanish-and-German speakers who fill this role and it works quite well. More of this = more controlled Spanish power projection where it hurts. (2) On the other hand: we need tactical 3C (command, control, communication) in battles. Let me submit an approach for discussion: TS will be the method of coordination for Spanish speakers (obviously). I woud ask the Spanish speakers to be aware that there may be non-Spanish-speakers in the battle, and to address them in the chat in English. For us non-Spanish speakers, if we have a bi-lingual in the battle, he should be on the Spanish TS, to relay communications. And really? By now there is a lot of experience in the game, so I think we should be able to get over any critical situations with improvisation and an atittude of "He's not stupid just because he doesn't speak my language". At the end of the day, my perceptions are: Yes, there is a language barrier. And: with a bit of good will, grown-up behaviour and some volunteers stepping forward, I'm quite sure we'll be able to handle both levels, For the good of El Rey Nuestro Senor. Hasta el proximo, Don Cristobal Sotavento

That sounds like fun. Do let us know when, and I'll join if time permits.

I agree with Mrdoomed: speaking from my strategy board game experience, what usually happens is that 2nd-biggest-dude and 3rd-biggest-dude gang up on biggest-dude, to prevent biggest-dude from owning the game. Gamer nature, or so it seems. And just because we have a hard-wired voting system does not mean that player diplomacy dies: I would venture that "internal diplomacy", i.e. getting all clans and indies of a nation to subscribe to a common agenda and cast their votes accordingly, will step up and take some limelight from international diplomacy.

Captain Barmluijken, With the Three Admirals Treaty... let's say: looking more likely to be ratified by all parties now ... I suggest we include a link to that thread's first page on your overview post. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15548-the-three-admirals-treaty-pvp1/page-1

I stand corrected. What Leku referenced: http://forum.game-la...vily-moderated/ actually sounds like a fun half-way solution between algorithm and player vote. Let's see.

Could you elaborate on how an alternative to clan-based politics could work? Would you like war/peace/alliance to be game parameters that have to be set and changed by something? If so, the methods I can think of off the top of my head are... (1) declarations of war/peace by vote of all players of that nation (2) war/peace deciced by a logical algorithm based on events in game (3) war/peace decided by some impartial gremium For me personally, all these options would be a change for the worse compared to what we have. As it stands, I am part of a newly hatched clan struggling to make its mark on national policy, and slightly frustrated with the direction politics are (not) taking. But that does not stop me from playing pew-pew, and chatting with the clanmates on how we can impact on clan politics. To me, that is more (perceived) influence than any option I can think of where international relations are determined as absolute. Ultimately, I seem to have more fun with "The Spain clans generally lean towards war with Britain" than "the game paramter says there is a war between Spain and Britain". Of course, feel free to bring on other ideas and prove me wrong.

With his posts, it's somewhat like cute furry animals run over by a truck: you know you should just scroll on by, but you keep looking out of horrified fascination.

Well, it certainly seems like this has sparked some interest. I will keep myself updated from the Spanish forum, and relay to this thread.

Thank you for the feedback, I'll try to clarify where I can: Sweden change edited in. Pirate relations - I am reporting what I was told in the Spanish-speaking forum, so this is second-hand information. That being said: Hostile pirate clans - there are supposed to be 3 of them, one being 'BF'. Friendly pirate clans: "the pirate council" (consejo pirata) was mentioned, including 'SORRY' and 'AUSEZ'. That's as far as my current information goes, but I am happy to follow up with my fellow Spanish commanders.

[friendly banter mode] Ah so? By that same reasoning, Spain could lay claim to Cayo de Sal and La Anguilla, as they threaten the north coast of Hispaniola.

I will certainly do that. Here is what I collected in the Spanish-speaking forum section: As of July 26th, Spain... ... is formally allied to France, and the clans of the Pirate Council ... is in a declared state of war with Britain, the United Provinces and the United States ... has hostile relations to three other pirate clans ... is neutral with respect to Denmark-Norway ... has hostile relations to Sweden (largely because they are friendly with the British) Let me know if you need to know more.

Muchas gracias, Pablo Frias. Me voy esperando a la noche, y luego voy a escribirlo en el thread indicado.

Eso es la verdad. Gracias, he actualizado el primer post.