[SUGGESTION] [COLLECTION] Underpopulation "Bonus"

[Brogsitter]

Regarding the situation of underpopulated nations are getting stomped, we should start thinking about some mechanics helping those nations to be competitive even against high populated nations. In this thread I want to collect suggestion made by you. The mechanincs you want to suggestions should be

 

1) reasonable and easy to understand

2) easy to implement

 

I want to start with one by myself:

 

Suggestion 1: Attack Limitations

Limit the possible attacks wich can be driven on one nation at the same time, regarding its population. This limitation should be overall, so once the limit is reached no more attacks can be launched - not even from a different nation.

 

Example:

Nation [H] as the highest populated nation can be attacked on 6 different Ports at the same time.

Nation [M] as a medium populated nation can be attacked on 3 different Ports at the same time.

Nation [L] as the lowest populated nation can be attack on 1 Port at the same time.

 

Can this mechanic be abused?

Unfortunetaly yes - but it is expensive. A small group or even a single player can "blockade" attacks against a nation by continously buying attack flags.

 

 

Suggestion 2: The carrot and the stick (from Heibges) 

Give the underpopulated Nations a bit of an economic and XP boost while the overpopulated Nations are getting a minus.

Example:

Very Overpopulated -25% to XP, Gold and BP Drops

Overpopulated -15% to XP, Gold and BP Drops

Underpopulated +15% to XP, Gold and BP Drops

Very Underpopulated +25% to XP, Gold and BP Drops

 

Can this mechanic be abused?

Unfortunetaly yes. It can be used to level up quickly and generate some wealth, with the goal to leave towards a high populated nation, once the highest rank was achieved.

 

 

Suggestion 3: Reduction of Nations (from Porpoise)

Reduce the number of nations to Britain, France, USA, Dutch, Spain. Swedes and Danes have beautiful flags and are definitely naval nations, but their presence in the Carribean was not significant. But what is the point in having 4 underpopulated nations?

 

Example:

none

 

Can this mechanic be abused?

Not really, but it does not really solve the issue. There will be always a underpopulated nation, even if we would have only 2 nations.

__________________

Just present your ideas and I put them down here.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Brogsitter

[The Spud]

I think the devs know there is alot of tweaking to do to make this game interesting for all players over a prolonged period of time, and finding that spot on balance will be a hard nut to crack.

 

Your suggestion is a very good idea, but I think at this point they still have so many features to add to the game that in the end the gameplay may change so much that the whole game will be played differently, and maybe allot slower.

But I do agree that it would be verry unfortunate to have one nation just crush all the small nations, and kill the funn in a couple of months.

[xAzDKr]

Hard part is that when you change the game to benefit smaller nations, there will be a way for them to abuse is and for bigger nations to suffer. The devs need to offer incentives to join smaller nations or offer lesser penalties to those who wish to change nations.

[Brogsitter]

No ideas?

[Heibges]

Do it like other games do and give bonuses for XP and gold etc. But you need to lock down the factions so it isn't exploited.

 

You need some carrot and some stick.

 

Very Overpopulated  -25% to XP, Gold, and BP Drops

Overpopulated - 15% to XP, Gold, and BP Drops

Underpopulated +15% to XP, Gold and BP Drops 

Very Underpopuated +25% to XP, Gold and BP Drops

Edited March 1, 2016 by Heibges

[Karnaught]

Do it like other games do and give bonuses for XP and gold etc. But you need to lock down the factions so it isn't exploited.

 

You need some carrot and some stick.

 

Very Overpopulated  -25% to XP, Gold, and BP Drops

Overpopulated - 15% to XP, Gold, and BP Drops

Underpopulated +15% to XP, Gold and BP Drops 

Very Underpopuated +25% to XP, Gold and BP Drops

 

In the current situation this kind of idea will lead to really small nations some sort of "free trade Company" with no naval/military power at all that rely on diplo/economic power.  

--

It might work between overpopulated and medium, small populated factions but with very small ones, the "end game" it’s just the economic, trader, crafter route the combat end game simply can't be balanced. With that many factions even if they start with no ports assigned outside capitals we end in the same place with really small playerbase to less popular/appealing/powerful/X/ faction. This is not a so big problem with 4/6 nations with capitals spread across the map but if on top of that smaller factions start in hot areas like Lesser Antilles.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Karnaught

[Heibges]

 

In the current situation this kind of idea will lead to really small nations some sort of "free trade Company" with no naval/military power at all that rely on diplo/economic power.  

--

It might work between overpopulated and medium, small populated factions but with very small ones, the "end game" it’s just the economic, trader, crafter route the combat end game simply can't be balanced. With that many factions even if they start with no ports assigned outside capitals we end in the same place with really small playerbase to less popular/appealing/powerful/X/ faction. This is not a so big problem with 4/6 nations with capitals spread across the map but if on top of that smaller factions start in hot areas like Lesser Antilles.

 

 

I might not be understanding, but the purpose is to provide motivation for players to switch or join underpopulated factions.

[Porpoise]

Port battles need tweaking. Now we can see how can be underpopulated nations swept outta map.

I got even more radical solution - reducing the number of nations to Britain, France, USA, Dutch, Spain.. I know that Swedes and Danes have beautiful flags and are definitely naval nations, but their presence in the Carribean was not significant. But what is the point in having 4 underpopulated nations?

[maturin]

Port battles need tweaking. Now we can see how can be underpopulated nations swept outta map.

I got even more radical solution - reducing the number of nations to Britain, France, USA, Dutch, Spain.. I know that Swedes and Danes have beautiful flags and are definitely naval nations, but their presence in the Carribean was not significant. But what is the point in having 4 underpopulated nations?

Let's just replace all the factions with Red vs. Blue.

 

 

Or we could put alliances in place.

[KrakkenSmacken]

Some ideas related to flags. Yes eventually money will be all but unlimited, but there are other options.

 

Flags can only be purchased at a capital. (More time to prepare and tackle incoming fleets)

 

Flag cost is based on distance to capital.  The further out you are, the more it costs to conquer.

 

Flag cost raised by number of ports held by nation.  The bigger the reach, the more expensive the empire is to grow/maintain.

 

Nations are allowed to capture one port every 6 hours max. Flags go on cool down with successful capture. If your in a country with too many people to get into captures, maybe you should jump to a less populated one.

 

The above is waved on ports that have flipped in the last 24 hours. These are in dispute and can be re-taken without triggering the capture cool down.

 

Ports have morale.  Every capture event loss reduces moral by 25%.  Morale replaces at 1% per hour.  Attack cool down timers are set on ports 6 hours after capture win/loss.  This would mean that the most aggressive nation would take 5 capture successes in a row over 30 hours to flip a port.

Edited March 2, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[KrakkenSmacken]

Ports have morale.  Every capture event loss reduces moral by 25%.  Morale replaces at 1% per hour.  Attack cool down timers are set on ports 6 hours after capture win/loss.  This would mean that the most aggressive nation would take 5 capture successes in a row over 30 hours to flip a port.

 

I'm going to expand on the above, because there is far more possible with that kind of mechanic, and that "Idea" bullet point doesn't quite do the whole concept justice.

 

Full disclosure, the core of the idea is already in use by games like Travian and Valor, both of which have an insanely compelling and team comradery quality to them.  I would not want to port over the degree of compulsion they have built (24/7 game aware or you fall behind and die), but there are some good mechanics mixed in with the bad.

 

So for our case take the base idea that ports have morale, and morale drops more with every successful attack, and raises with time and other items. Do not think of morale as a percentage, although my initial example seems to indicate that. Think of it as town hit points, and morale hits as damage, with a base value of 100, that gets adjusted up the more active and defended a town is.

 

Here are some other in game possible modifiers to morale.

 

Every outpost built adds +1 morale.

Every warehouse expansion adds +.5 morale.

Every 1k of ship BR in the dock adds 1 morale.

 

With the above a single player fully dedicated could influence the towns morale by +6, with a fully expanded warehouse and 5 Victories in the dock.

 

To reduce setting up morale mule accounts, after 10 days of inactivity, a players morale influence is reduced by 5% per day until 30 days when their influence is zero.  A single login activity restores their influence in 24 hours time.

 

Fortifications: Add 1 morale for every (5000 * fortifications) paid into a fund by any player with an outpost at the port (max 1 fortification per outpost). So adding +1 fortification to a town with 15 fortification would cost 80,000 and require that 16 players at least have outposts.  Any damage done to morale has a chance to destroy a fortification = to (1 * fortification count) /remaining morale. 

 

[EDIT: EG. A town with 16 fortification and 16 morale would be 100% guaranteed to lose a fortification, while a town with 16 fortification and 160 morale would only have a 10% chance of losing a fortification if morale was dropped by 1)]

 

Now with the above, my initial numbers would probably have to change. I would reduce the cool down on timers to 4 hours, and raise the damage that a single raid can do up to 30 (10 per tower destroyed in the defense) + 1 per ship remaining in the fight when the battle ends.  I would add in the inverse value to morale on a failed attack. +10 for each tower still standing, +1 for each ship still remaining.  In this way a single battle could swing morale +/- 55, but any contested battle would see a much lower change in values, including the possibility that a failed attack actually improves town morale.

 

[EDIT: The above should probably be reversed mathematically to +1 for every ship that enters, -2 for every ship lost, and no morale boost for remaining towers, so that a single traitor ship starting a fight can't just give up +55 morale to a town]

 

Meta game play would start to show up with this.  

 

Players seeing a port under siege would start to park fleet ships in dock to boost total morale. The natural restrictions caused by the size of the map and difficulty in moving fleets of ships around would make distant region defense a serious effort. (Get to threatened town, set up outpost, return to fleet. Cap/teleport fleet to new outpost).

 

They would also have to divert resources to build outposts, upgrade fortifications, and maintain enough presence in the area to fight off days worth of attacks.

 

To the OP's main point, smaller nations as their territory contracted would find it easier to move fleets into ports, focus outpost numbers and easier to concentrate resources to build new fortifications and increase morale in less area, making it increasingly expensive and difficult to take the ports of nations with reduced territory. For example a small team could replace the morale of fallen fortifications almost instantly after the fight, making it literally impossible for an enemy to take a town that was being reinforced by 55 dedicated players except by long drawn out attrition.

 

Large nations would be naturally more stretched out as players would be financially limited to the number of outposts they could maintain and create in the efforts of expansion.  Fronts would open up in areas other than the stale mate zones of reduced nations, forcing the withdrawal of nations to protect multiple fronts.  Wealthy individual players would have an increasingly more expensive and hard time supporting outpost and fortification efforts in ports that are in dispute. This would cause internal tension within the factions as keeping the team focused and together becomes harder the more players are reliant on each other for success.

 

Deciding to place outposts in neutral towns would cost more than gold as it would also make setting up future useful morale boosting outposts more expensive.

 

That is my more complete suggestion.

Edited March 2, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[Brogsitter]

Port battles need tweaking. Now we can see how can be underpopulated nations swept outta map.

I got even more radical solution - reducing the number of nations to Britain, France, USA, Dutch, Spain.. I know that Swedes and Danes have beautiful flags and are definitely naval nations, but their presence in the Carribean was not significant. But what is the point in having 4 underpopulated nations?

 

It will consolidate some strugglers, but i will not solve the issue itself. You will always have a underpopulated nation, except you only would have only 1 nation left