Bach

Your making the assumption I go into the missions. The 20 degree line was about the halfway mark in the travel path. An open world chase is far more controllable than a random mission jump in. The point being, last years mission runners no matter how we sunk them had very little wort anything on them. The gold rewards just go straight to bank accounts. This years cargo prizes are worth something.

No, I was a solo hunter from last year. It was easy. Especially with the battle exit screen teleports. Didn't have to think ahead, plan an outpost logistically or set up any money making side projects. Just sail off KPR, hunt the 20 degree line on the handy provided map grid and sink players doing mostly missions. At some times it was even boring. You didn't make much money off the player kills because most of them were not hauling cargo. They were grinding out missions. This year its got challenge. Especially with the battle screen teleport get out of jail free card removed. Its not impossible but the days of sailing off a national capital taking prizes the old way and teleporting home when it gets tough are essentially gone.

Your statements above have defined your problem for me. You are thinking to narrow minded and to be honest not even trying. If I tell you I make 6 million at week doing 45min total of cargo runs you are going to tell me it cant be done. If I tell you I sail what ever ship I want and can build them all you will tell me it cant be done. If I tell you I PVP everyday you will tell me I must be a ganker or otherwise must sail some tiny ship to make that possible. For some, if they really want to find out what is causing them trouble in this game, they need a mirror. Some just seem to have some pathological need for the game to be broken.

Solo and small group hunting has probably had the greatest changes in the game. But that is because last year was easy mode for them. So it is a big change. The Red Duke and the Sea Rovers (PVP Global) is probably one of the most successful small unit hunter clans in the game. For very detailed explanation of how to solo or small group hunt I would recommend you seek them out. Since this seems to be a recurring thing in the forums we might get them to post a guide. Revenge fleets: First off they are generally predictable based on distance to teleport able ports. Mostly national capitals. Last year we hunted these capitals a lot. This year that is mostly suicide. I could go on for pages on this but I'm going to try to condense. The trick is to understand the new flow of the targets. Last year most targets were really just guys doing missions. They run from the capital to mission and back. So we hunted the approaches to the capitals and found PvP. This year targets are mostly moving cargo. Though after the recent hot fix opened up missions again to bigger ships were seeing mission running comeback. But the cargo ships are the bigger win. Now cargo ships travel further than just the approaches of the capital and back. They have destinations. The in game Trader Tool is one of the best ways to decifer likely cargo routes and get yourself positioned in the route. This makes a capital based teleporting revenge fleet nearly impossible to intercept you. Again, I could go into a lot of detail but I'm trying to be brief. The Suprise frigate is the fastest upwind (45) warship of size. It will bring down an Insiamen. This is the easiest weapon of choice to set up and the ports sell them cheap. Pick a free port and base from it for a week and then move on to a new one. Stay moving so they can't make intercept plans on you. Scout the cargo route in a basic cutter. If you spot a ship heading to the free port with likely cargo, grab an NPC and surrender. You will appear at the free port ahead of your target and ready. Whenever you suspect a revenge fleet if possible leave a scout on the open sea as a look out. If it ever appears they have you camped in you CAN still log out in battle. Im not sure if this is working as intended or not but you can avoid sequential battles if you get into a position to log out inside the instance. It will not pop you out to sea. You stay in the instance untill you log back in. When you do log back in you are pushed to OW immediately but given 30sec invis. When combined with a spotter this makes it almost impossible for revenge fleets to get you in battle over and over and over. Anyway, like I said, a true guide on this would be pages long. You can be very successful and rich just being a pirate or privateer. But you can't do it exactly the same way we did it last year.

I've had more fun and PvP in the past few weeks than I did all last fall. This new patch iteration of the game is far better. It's put more ships on the sea and more relevant RvR. What it did not fix and what it can not fix are player hang ups and attitudes. Its a PVE game because you chose it to be. Making huge alliances with same size neighbors with players in your same time zone makes it a PVE game Choosing to grind out NPCs to get enough marks to buy a mod that gives +.03 speed on your ship makes it a PVE game. Refusing to fight unless you have a PvP ship tricked out with the best of everything first makes it a PVE game. Purposely grinding and then fighting empty port battle after empty port battle to get huge amounts of CM marks because you won't RvR with anything less than x25 First Rates makes it a PVE game. Assembling armies of Alts so you can use your neighbors resources without having to conquer the land makes it a PVE game. Refusing to change tactics so you can deal with revenge fleets and choosing not to PvP until the Devs give you a way to not have to plan strategies makes it a PVE game. You make this a PVE game by your own attitudes and choices. You restrict yourselves to PVE because of old ideas you just won't let go or change.

I'm not sure paper tiger is fair. But the CCCP Danes do have a way of looking at the game that is counter to PvP health. I'm not saying the game should be all about PvP and nothing else. But PvP shouldn't be prevented. Consider this: CCCP Danes have a 9 months no combat, ports or PvP, treaty with the Pirates. In 2017 post patch CCCP Danes try to force peace on both Sweden and France. The terms of the treaty were essentially we both get to keep our ports if France and Sweden agree to no PvP with Danes, Sweden and France. So not only were the Danes not pvping but they were forcing two other nation to give up fighting two other nations. Then the Danes entered a non-aggression pact with the Dutch. Then they entered a no PvP border agreement treaty with GB. So, had France went along with all this we would only be allowed to PvP the Dutch in the Eastern half of the map. Meanwhile the CCCP Danes have cancelled PvP for anyone in the Danish nation with 6 out of seven other nations. Leaving only the USA for any would be non-CCCP Danish players to attack way way way over there. CCCP excell in eliminating PvP. They were turning the a Eastern Antilles into one big Hug Fest and then not understanding why France Pvp players didn't enjoy all that peace in our PvP game. The Devs are not the problem killing this game.?

I like your idea. The only reason I didn't propose it is because it runs counter to the player fleet concept. It may well be a necessary evil and we just need to make it so npcs can't generate hostility. But it does sort or screw over those players that run NPC combat fleets as their style of play.

The way it works is that the basic cutter drives around following a friendly NPC fleet. As soon as it crosses another NPC fleet of any other nation, counter grind is non-specific of nation attacked, the BCutter attacks the non-friendly NPC. The friendly fleet BR adds to the cutter and the tag is made. Inside the new battle the cutter just sails around holding the battle open as the only player in it. As the NPCs fight the port hostility is lowered as the friendly NPC ships score kills and assists. Essentially generating the same counter hostility on average as a x4 player group in frigates. Yes, the mechanic would work the same. But at least the player has to buy the Lynx and if you chase him down in your own Lynx and sink him you get hostility and marks generated. Plus the Lynx will not repair for free and doesn't come with free guns.

1 porting a nation in 2017 is nothing like 2016. First in 2017, all the home ports are nearly self sufficient. What you don't have are accessible from smugglers. No OW ships require CMs. Ships skills make market purchased ships playable. The current game system stocks battle consumable at free ports. Every port battle can be attended by almost all ships. The only thing one porting restricts is teleportation style movement. Second in 2017, most all players have redeemable forged papers. Once players get one ported they have all their stuff in one spot and all around them are the ports they are used to using but under a different flag. I suspect a common occurrence is a mass of players just switching to the conquering nation but with no loyalty to it. This mass of players will likely destabilize old nation leadership and treaties as they essentially change it from within. One porting a nation could just doom the conquering nation. Making less extreme wars a better play in the game for maintaining control of your own nation. Third in 2017, there is a prevalence of Alts in the game already and the game just went on sale again. It's entirely possible that there are so many Alts or just the potential to make them that one porting has very few in game effects anymore. As the game Devs have already proven, even an SOL can be built out of free ports. If you have the Alts to get the CMs for you then there really isn't much holding an organized clan back. The old style concept of one porting may have been killed off successfully by the Devs. All in all this may be a good thing as the old play to crush tendencies had been one of the things that probably killed the previous 2016 beta.

War Journal day 3 Can't say I'm too impressed with the Danish Fleet. We've had a number of open sea fights that were fairly decisive French victories. However, the Danes rarely fight anymore. The majority of the Danes utilize tactics specifically to avoid fighting. Basic Cutters abound. They now use them to force npc to fight npc to lower contention for them so they don't have to fight or even risk a Pickle or Frigate to do the same job. When they aren't gaming the basic cutter mechanic they are dock humping until the 24 hour clock rolls around and they come out. I just don't get all the Dane hype from 2016. Sure they can grind up a port when no one is shooting at them. But this past weekend they even avoided us like the plague after we stomped them a in few battles. What the heck? Did you guys come to NA to have ship to ship fights or not? Actually you don't have to answer that. In the other thread you are applauding a peace treaty with the AUSZ brits, whom could actually give you a match skill level set of ship to ship fights, so I'm guessing you just want to take land from npcs.

The basic cutter is a hard mechanic to get right. We want new players to use them to learn the game but we don't want veteran players using them to game the game. Recently it was discovered the basic cutter can tag an npc fleet with any other allied fleet inside the same circle. BR's add up. This generates an npc vs. npc battle with a basic cutter sailing around in it. When the npcs kill the other npcs it drops the hostility on the any nearby port in partial contention. Now consider the effort. x4 players in basic cutters never have to worry about repairs. They each fan out and grab they own npc fights. It would take x4 or more players is real ships to grind up that hostility for each battle. So the x4 basic cutters have a similar effect to x16 real player trying to grind hostility upwards. Further the x16 players in real ships are risking those ships and potentially providing pvp. The basic cutter can continue to cycle npc battles even under recently killed flag. There is essentially very little you can do to fight it against this as the basic cutter is always a zero loss zero risk scenario. So the basic cutter essentially becomes a zero risk zero cost defensive force multiplier in the hands of a veteran player. What I think would be the easiest solution, that still allows for basic cutters to be used as planned in the game, is if ANY BATTLE started by a basic cutter can NOT gain any hostility. Simple change. Now this wont stop basic cutters from running around performing npc fleet denial by dragging them all into battle. But its a step in the right direction. Another possibility is if kills by NPCs simple do not gain hostility but that conflicts with the goals of fleets. It is a difficult to achieve balance with the basic cutter in many ways.

It should make a statement but nothing to gawdy. Maybe like opening with a nice gut kick or a solid piratical pistol butt to the bridge of the nose. But nothing too foo foo like that kung fu crap. You know something that says YARRRRR!

Obviously you can apply the Art f Wars concepts to a game. The problem is that from the very first chapter it states that the height of the teachings on war is to win without fighting the opponent. This is the base mantra of the teachings. From the first chapter is goals are in minimizing risk and battle expenditures whenever possible. Its good for real war but not so good for a game where the goal is actually the fight and not the win. Its in this aspect the book becomes problematic to recreational or fantasy wars. It still works for the win but it can definitely suck for the game value of the contest if taken too far.

I know. So far the French v Dane contest has had two major sea battles and almost constant small unit surface action all over. SOLs have been risked and lost. This Brit v USA thing is looking like a snooze fest. There must be some confusion too. So far the only thing they did was take a French port. If you need to know where the USA is I could provide a chart? Cmon guys mix it up!

France is fighting a two front war with Danes and Dutch with just 2/3rd of the nation. We have 1/3 that are actually sitting everything out because they already surrendered without the rest of us. Two front wars are not impossible. Many have been waged in the real world successfully. It essentially just comes down to your combined opponents capabilities vs. yours and strategy. Having to focus everything you have on one point is more of a Zerg mentality tactics actually. It works but its still zerg tactics. Its would be like the USA making an alliance with Germany in WW2 because they felt they had to throw everything at the Japanese and let Europe go. Sometimes the multi-front war is the right answer.

Now one thing does need to be said here. No player on the list above should ever post a complaint in the forums that NA is a game of all PVE, grind grind grind, Naval in-action or otherwise boring PVE game. If you do I am going to link threads like this with a little smiley imogee. Just so we all know whose choices it really is that make it a PVE game. You shouldn't be striving to ally with an opponent in your weight class and time zone. That's the guy you should want to challenge.

I'm not faulting anyone's role play but you AUSZ and Danes do realized you are pretty much the only two Oceanic time zone contestants that could actually give each other a challenge? The game won't ever be as good of a war game as it can be if same time powerhouses continue to ally with each other. <face palm> Perhaps they do need to bring back the alliance system. Only this time make it one that forces war instead of enforces peace. ?

Wait wait hold it right there matey! Are you inferring that the free Pirate Republic needs some special permissions to war on the world or even just the tea sipping British?!! Whose permission ye be lookin fer? Some High born king? Some fat rich parliament leader? Maybe it's your dear ol mum? If ye canna belt out a YARRRR! like ya mean it turn your parrot in at the door. Don't make me burn a forged paper to come back and show ya how it's done. Thars pirating to be done. If some English bloke is deserving you go right ahead an spit in his eye... (The Curse Allister Bach...retired)

This is one of the best pieces of mmo logic I have read on these forums. Ofcourse, you know pirates can't just sit back while the rest of us war and have all the fun. I for one am looking forward to BLACK's grand entrance. Keep the powder dry and the keel wet! o7

This is Danish proposal. It is 100% Danish side. All France did not agree to this. France counter with exception to holding both Basse-Terre and Grande-Terre when we discovered you intended to hold them until the Devs reinstate alliance system. That has no end date. We cannot and did not agree to that. Even if Bridgetown early flip was an accident that was still your fault and Dane's did not offer corrections. You want peace then give back Basse and Grande-Terre. We will accept Bridgetown as it is. Until then man your cannons!

That was a captured Danish Trader brig I still had in tow. No guns on it but it I kept sending it across the Danish battle line to bump into them. LOL Was a good fight!

Gen hostility or not the mistake was still yours. You offered not remedy for lost CMs. We want Grand Terre and Basse-Terre back without waiting for Dev rules change. You stay north of Saint John we have peace.

Danes can one port all they want. They are a 10min sail to the North. We only need one port to fight them forever!

Who attacked the Allies first? The French attacked allies first, and we never attacked the French tread By flipping Bridgetown in early time to deny CM marks to North American French, by secret deal, CCCP attacked first.

Following CCCP clan violating the spirit and intent of the French and Danish trade alliance The Purge clan French have engaged in defensive fighting to recover the lost regions of Basse Terre and Grande Terre. Danish ships will be attacked in open waters until hostilities cease.