Search the Community

I am not one to argue for the nerfing of pirates, nor to demand that they are made “no longer a nation”. I don’t argue against either of these positions either. I don’t have an opinion either way, and I’m not particularly invested in the outcome. I am sure that whatever the developers come up with for the pirates, with input and correctives from the testing community, will eventually serve its purpose. However, I have been contemplating a lot on the implementation and the implications of the regional conquest system, and I got to thinking about how the pirate faction will fit into this, both strategically and in terms of gameplay. And I wish to offer my thoughts and suggestions. So, I think there have been multiple posts by devs, arguing that historical pirates did own ports, and that the devs want them to be able to do this in the game. I have no objections to this. Regardless I think it will be interesting to have pirates be able to own ports, and should they be limited, basically, to open waters only, that would be a significant drawback to the faction. They should be able to attack ports at least, be it in the future only to raid ports or to capture them. Yet now that the regional conquest system is beginning to take form, I wonder how the pirates should fit into this. Did pirates ever really conquer an entire map area with infrastructure and a capital city - i.e a region? (I haven’t read enough about it to say either way, feel free to enlighten me) Suggestion for Pirate conquest So how about if pirates were not able to conquer regions the same way as every other nation will be able to? How about if pirates were left the only faction that would still be able, after the new system, to conquer individual ports (quite similar to the current conquest system) - rather than regions? What if pirates were able to raise hostility/conquest meter in a region just like any other nation, but where other nations then have to attempt to capture every port of that region, or lose it in its entirety, pirates would have to choose one port of that region and assault that one (the owning nation could be left to guess until the last minute which specific port would actually be assaulted)? If pirates won the assault, that individual port would then be owned by the pirates, despite being part of a region held by another faction. The pirate port would be immune from reconquest by the owner of the region for the same length of time that regions will be immune (if even) from reconquest by nations after changing hands, or possibly twice as long. After that the owner of the region would have to raise hostility outside that particular port to open it up for reconquest. Pirates would be able to hold more than one port of a region, but only by raising hostility once - and taking a port - and then raising hostility again to take another port (and so on). Pirates holding a port in your region would mean extensive raiding of trade and resources in the region, and result in a percentage loss to trade income and resource production in the entire region for the nation that owns it. Pirates conquering a port of a region, would make a good base for them to raid the resources and raze the infrastructure of that region, probably also weakening it severely in case a neighbouring faction then decided to invade that region. Pirate conquest would be completely unrestricted by proximity and distance. Pirates, from Mortimer Town, could raid Tampico in the Gulf of Mexico, Tulum in the Yucatan, or Lagunillas in the Lago de Maracaibo, and own ports in each of the four corners of the map. Pirates could conquer deep into national territories. No economic zone or PvE-area of a nation would be safe from invasion and conquest by pirates. ----------------------------------- I believe this proposal could work to make pirates something distinct and different from nations, while maintaining them as an interesting faction. It could make pirates truly the joker of the map, while avoiding that they would be just another nation competing for dominance of the map and with an advantage in both strategy and numbers over many of the nations.