Insurrection

[Lord_Smily]

Having played over 200 hours in this game playing as the pirates then the dutch on PVP2 and witnessing the French then the pirates being reduced to 2 ports while US and to a smaller extent GB zerg the map has got me thinking on how to address this situation.  Its only a matter of time till one nation manages to paint the entire map one colour and everyone else will be stuck using free ports and there home town.  Reading some of the forums on the topic has some suggestions like increased rewards for the under populated nations or increased expenses for the dominating nation.  The problem with these ideas is that the former would not entice people to faction switch especially if they either are out for global domination or have invested in said nation and have no inclination to switch while the latter only makes the progress slower, not halting it.  Another alternative is to reset the map after a nation takes over the world but this will get dull very fast very quick for everyone as both winners and losers get nothing for there time and effort.  For me I wanted a solution that would allow a decimated nation reduced to there home port while not overly gimping the zerg nations 

 

I propose an insurrection mechanic

 

How this works is that as soon as a port is captured a timer would start.  This timer will count down then when it expires the insurrection begins. This timer would be based on distance from capital so ports right next to your capitol would have 3 weeks till an insurrection and a port being on the other side of the world would be say 3 days.  When the count down expires the port now rebels against the occupation and forms an npc defensive fleet its strength based on the economic value of said port.  This then would form a port battle where players of the occupying force would attack and npc insurrectionists would defend.  Players then have 2 hours to respond and dispatch the insurrection in order to keep the port for their nation.  Should a nation fail to both respond and dispatch the enemy fleet then the port will then revert to the allegiance it had when the map was new.

 

The idea of this mechanic is to create so many "fires" that a zerg nation would have to make a choice as to invest in ships to quell unrest and not claim more territory or claim new territory and loose what they already have or more likely a mixture of the 2.  If a nation extends itself too much then they will be devoting all there time to maintaining there empire and be vulnerable to attack from someone else.  Global domination would be difficult but not impossible, more impossible to keep, and small nations will have a chance to break out and rebuild.

 

I know the devs already have a lot on there plate and I don't expect this idea to be in the game any time soon, but I do hope to give them something to work with when and if the devs need a solution to the problem.  If you guys have any better ideas, fine tuning or concerns it would be good to hear them in the comments.