Too many ports to make them meaningfull

[Bommel]

Hi there,

I think ports are at the moment totally meaningless because there are way too much of them. There is countless portswapping (of mostly undefended ports) going on.

In my opinion 1/3 of them should be removed or converted into neutral towns that only consume goods and create/spawn NPC traders and we shouldn´t be able to build anything in them.

I also think the balancing of the capital positions on the map could be better. Right now the gulf of mexico is so far away from any capital that it should be abandoned or removed. 

 

I made a really rough layout:

 

And even in this rough layout the space between the capitals is kinda too empty but the capitals are more evenly spread out.

I just want to share my thoughts and discuss with the rest of the community.

 

I´m aware of the fact that this might not be historically correct but it is a game and I´d rather have a ahistorical map then an unbalanced one.

Maybe it would be even better if Britain would be placed at Quintana Roo and Spain at Costa Rica. Port Royal could then be given to the pirates.

 

So what do you think, did I lost my mind and should shut up, or does my idea make any sense to you?

[mirror452]

As said in previous threads to this topic, I think an even spread of capitals is a bad idea. Right now each nation has different struggles and a different flair due to their very different position on the map. So for example, no matter how many players Sweden actually has, it will always struggle because it is so close to 2 other capitals. And I think I speak on the behalf of many Sweden players (at least the ones who are here for longer already) when I say that we chose this struggle and that we want to keep this struggle.

 

Thinning out ports might be an idea, however it would make sailing even more... uninteresting. Let's first see how devs address war mechanics and diplomacy
I have big hopes for a complete war mechanics and Port Battle overhaul (with war score like in Europa Universalis 4 for example).

Edited May 28, 2016 by mirror452

[Talbaron]

with small player base yes it may seem to be too many ports, But I think that when game is out of testing and more people  join,  the map could become much to small.

[Rebel Witch]

NO! we need more ports, more places to discover, more places to travel, we need a GREAT BIG OPEN WORLD not a BOX

[Anne Wildcat]

I think the map is fine. One idea some may like is

If a port is not visited by anyone in a week, it is removed.

Empty land without any ports nearby can be formed, somehow, into pirate havens.

Discovered pirate havens can be captured and turned into ports by nats.

This way the map is more dynamic.

Not my idea, saw it posted somewhere.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

I like the number of ports. Each are meaningful. However, I believe Capitals should have either all resources needed to sustain itself, or at least be able to be rebuilt if wiped out, or each Capital should actually consist of 2 neighboring ports that also cannot be capture, so that nations can sustain or rebuild.

[Bommel]

Well after looking again at my map I came to the conclusion that it might give the wrong impression.

What I want to achieve is to have a more dense action packed playing field, I chose Sverige for exactly that reason too.

My problem is that players voted for Carribean Sea at some point and this map doesn´t give me the option to place the Nations capitals closer together without creating a lot of unused/dead space.

There is a reason why so many players are happy to have no cooldown for the teleport from outpost to outpost now,

 

The exploration part is important too but it will be over pretty soon since there will be third party maps that show all the "hidden" places/islands in no time.

 

The Gulf of Mexico has no meaning apart of being a huge resource pool and space for PVE (for the western nations like Spain/US/Pirates and Brits). None of the eastern nations will ever capture a port there, since they would have to conquer lots of ports in between their capital/homewaters and the gulf because of the 1 hour duration limit of the flags.

 

PS: Combine this with a Port Battle Overhauling where ports aren´t flipped left and right all the time.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Bommel

[HarryButpain]

I liked two suggestions of two different people which I recently read here on the forum. One suggested that it should become more and more expensive to buy conquest flags the more your empire grows while small empires pay significantly less than usual. The other guy suggested that production of resources should depend on how many players already produce a certain resource...

 

For example, the Brits produce coal in Port Royal, let's say every single member of the British empire would produce coal exclusively in port royal what results in exhaustion of port royal's coal mines and only very small amounts of coal for everyone who has coal production in Port Royal. Because of that, a nation and its players had a reason to go and conquer more coal producing ports to open opportunities for British captains and move with their coal production to such newly conquered harbors and increase output of the desired resource.

 

I find both suggestions work very well together. You might wanna tweak something here and there, though..

Edited May 28, 2016 by BACk ALLEY ShENANiGANS

[mirror452]

I like the number of ports. Each are meaningful. However, I believe Capitals should have either all resources needed to sustain itself, or at least be able to be rebuilt if wiped out, or each Capital should actually consist of 2 neighboring ports that also cannot be capture, so that nations can sustain or rebuild.

 

That would make port capture, trading and economy utterly meaningless.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

I liked two suggestions of two different people which I recently read here on the forum. One suggested that it should become more and more expensive to buy conquest flags the more your empire grows while small empires pay significantly less than usual. The other guy suggested that production of resources should depend on how many players already produce a certain resource...

 

For example, the Brits produce coal in Port Royal, let's say every single member of the British empire would produce coal exclusively in port royal what results in exhaustion of port royal's coal mines and only very small amounts of coal for everyone who has coal production in Port Royal. Because of that, a nation and its players had a reason to go and conquer more coal producing ports to open opportunities for British captains and move with their coal production to such newly conquered harbors and increase output of the desired resource.

 

I find both suggestions work very well together. You might wanna tweak something here and there, though..

I love this idea, so long as certain resources would have a finite amount, such as coal, gold, other non-renewable resources. The renewable resources, such as trees and cotton should be as such, a renewable percentage each day or week or even on a seasonal basis...?

 

That would make port capture, trading and economy utterly meaningless.

Perhaps, or perhaps not if a limited non-renewable / unlimited renewable resource system was implemented.

[HarryButpain]

I love this idea, so long as certain resources would have a finite amount, such as coal, gold, other non-renewable resources. The renewable resources, such as trees and cotton should be as such, a renewable percentage each day or week or even on a seasonal basis...?

 

Perhaps, or perhaps not if a limited non-renewable / unlimited renewable resource system was implemented.

 

here are the posts of the two guys which came up with it:

 

A couple thoughts I have had, spring-boarding off what has been written here:

 

1.  Capture flags are increased in price both by the large number of ports the buyer has AND by the small number of ports the defender has (and vice versa).  So, a nation of 100 ports attacking a nation of 10 ports might have to come up with 1 billion gold (or some similarly large number) to buy a flag, while the nation of 10 ports might only have to spend 10,000 for a flag against a nation of 100 ports.

 

2.  Territory should have meaning.  If crafters essentially have a "protected zone," that zone should cost more hours to use.  Conversely, a nation with fewer players might have a larger pool of labor hours to draw from (or get some bonus).  This would encourage people to capture lands beyond their "safe" zones, but also not penalize small player-base nations.  (Player base might be established every week from the past week's log-ins).

 

 

source:http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14244-hegemony/?p=263009

 

 

I can relay news about this game faster than whats happening in the outside world, so trust me im on the forums often enough to know that you are already working on politics and pirate rework 

As for the meaning for controlling ports, after the diplomacy and pirate mechanics it still needs an economy and crafting rework before it can be addressed. But there are multiple ways to encourage players to control more ports once all of the more important parts of the game are developed. On the top of my mind once you get rid of the European traders, you could make it so productions buildings get a % based malus depending on how many players have production set up in the given city, witch would make an expansion a desirable thing resource wise.

Another thing would be conquerable nations. Yeah i know this seems like a total taboo, but there's nothing more  disappointing than winning a war and having to step down at the last stretch because of game mechanics, witch makes it into an endless tug-of-war witch gets tedious after some time. You could make a nation totally conquerable, and absorbed into the conquering nation, witch would also have a huge part on an over expanding nations stability I.E having conquered 2 nations that have negative perception towards you would make quite an instability amongst the said nations players. Also you could use the game mechanic you discussed about implementing a while ago where a clan could proclaim independence, only in this case it could proclaim independence from the conquering nation, to restore his own.

And ofc though i abuse this myself make Free Towns not accept warships of any nation in them. this would make it so that a nation would at least have territorial integrity. the war zone would be at the borders and pubbies and new players would have a relative safe zone.

 

These are just a few ideas of the top of my head, that im sure have a lot of illogical parts to it and need a lot of discussion. But no ideas are born without brainstorming and you should really consider on how to encourage more players going on the forums to express their ideas, concerns and give you inspiration 

 

source: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14289-state-of-the-game-250-online-at-10pm-cst/?p=264213

Edited May 29, 2016 by BACk ALLEY ShENANiGANS

[Musuko42]

However, I believe Capitals should have either all resources needed to sustain itself, or at least be able to be rebuilt if wiped out

 

The smuggling mechanic means that every capital can always be supplied with all required resources.

[Cmdr RideZ]

I do not think the issue is the map size, but...

 

Everything and everyone is centralized to the capital.  All the resources you need, are right next to the capital as well.  So the rest of the map, is rather useless.

 

Maybe we should pay for the workers at our shipyards.  More ships are built in the same town, more you have to pay.  Salaries are increased as there are so high production values.  The same could go with other buildings as well.  Then most probably, everything would not be in the capital, or right next to it.

[Jean Ribault]

...

Everything and everyone is centralized to the capital.  All the resources you need, are right next to the capital as well.  So the rest of the map, is rather useless.

 

...

 

 

You should qualify this statement, because it is not necessarily true.  From a crafter's standpoint, perhaps this is true.  You can gain all the resources you need to craft if you have just a few ports adjacent to your capital.  However, as any trader in this game will tell you, your statement is false.  From a trader's standpoint, you need to travel to the correct ports in order to make the max profit, or any profit, on buying and selling goods.  These are not necessarily in those same ports mentioned for the crafter.  In fact, they are likely different for every faction, and traveling is required.  You can do that now - travel to foreign ports - by ticking the trader's option in port, but then you are at much more risk.  So if you want to be a trader in today's game, and have min risk, then yes you do need more ports for your faction.  That is what I mean by you need to qualify your statement, because it is only true in certain circumstances, it is not a sweepingly true statement as you make it.

 

Flipside, I do agree with you that mapsize is not an issue.  And the large open world with all its potential is great for a lot of players.

[Hethwill]

Too much and too many resources everywhere.

 

That is my take on it.

[Cmdr RideZ]

You should qualify this statement, because it is not necessarily true...

 

I assumed that everyone understood this.

 

...

 

But the idea, that would make towns to be even more important, and a lot.  Also the capital might not be the best place to build ships anymore, because the most expensive workers.

 

This would effectively make people to spread out from the capitals.

 

 

edit.

 

Then everyone will build their shipyards in free towns.  The worker salaries would get higher in free towns as well.

Eventually, someone builds a shipyard in to a national town.  He may lose his shipyard, but he has the cheapest possible place to build his ships.  But indeed, some other nation actually may capture the port.  The port will turn to be very important for this person/clan, and not just some other port that you do not care about.

 

I believe that with this small change, the game, the PvP, will get far more interesting as well.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Jean Ribault]

But your statement is that the rest of the map is useless.  That's the misleading part, in light of the title of this thread.  They are not useless by any means.

 

But I do like ideas that cause or encourage players to spread out from capitals and create activity that crosses close-to-home boundaries and even into enemy territories on a regular basis, such as the contraband trader option.

[Bommel]

I want more interaction between different nations and by this I mean all nations.

The eastern and western part of the map feel very seperated to me. If there would be a map/port reset now, the western part would only be populated by the same nations again, and as long as they don´t fight each other those ports will never have any meaning to the eastern nations.

They will remain uncontested and offer lots of resources to the western nations, while the eastern nations are "sitting" on each other and fight over the "few" ports there.

[The Spud]

The problem with port flipping is that all ports can be attacked every day. So in theory a nation can lose ALL his ports every single day. Three good suggestions would be.

 

A - Announce port battles in advance, lets say 2 days in advance, so you don't get caught "off guard" and lose half your ports because half the clans are offline. Limit it maybe to 3 ports a day or make it depend on the number of ports the enemy has (devide by 10 or something).

 

B - And my favourite, can't attack ports that are not next to a friendly port. So no more port capping across the map, taking a port in the middle of friendly territory. This is historicaly inaccurate, why would you take one port on an island that is surrounded by enemy ports, and your friendly port is 20 minutes of sailing away. Islands could have a "trade route" towards the next island. For example from Saint Ann to Portillo and from Port Morant to Tiburon. So you would need to take Tiburon before you could attack morant, and would need to take portillo before you could take Saint Ann (and the other way around). After Tiburon you could attak Jeremie and les cayes. Nippes after jeremie is conquered, and Saint Louis after les Cayes is taken. This might be a hard nut to implement. But this way there is always a "frontline" and a sort of "safe zone". This will make PB more rare as you can cap only a limited amount of ports, some ports will be more important to keep compared to others.

 

C- You can't attack ports until you control the regional capital. Devide the map in sections, with the regional capitals being the center. Must take that port before any other ports can be taken. So if your regional capital is attacked and you lost two ports under that capital. You must first take the regional capital back, and then you can take back the smaller ports.

[Dick Brave]

What if a clan / player can choose for a home base instead of the default capital. I believe with the current teleport policy (teleport to capital with empty hold) this would not break the game but it would probably spread the community all over the map. Home ports would get more important for some people and they would be more willing to defend them. Just a rough idea - but maybe worth thinking about to find a way how it could work. 

[admin]

Too much and too many resources everywhere.

 

That is my take on it.

it can only be changed on the port reset

but we plan to address port importance and desire to defend them.

[B15hop]

Think I agree. Ports seem kind of meaningless and lots of undefended port swapping going on.. Needs to feel like you did something and there needs to be a notable bonus for it.

[Macjimm]

I like the idea of less ports and more free towns in an area. For me it would be more interesting if the distance between them was greater.

Perhaps one day the developers will add more area to the world. Then there could be an area like the Caribbean and other areas with less ports. That way those that like the current set up can have it. Others that want a more sparsely populated area can enjoy that also.

The only really bad idea would be to force all of us into a smaller area and take away the content that we currently have and many prefer. It's about choice and options. Restrictions and forcing gameplay styles won't help improve the game.