Traders, city growth and management – making trading and ports matter.

[Ledinis]

     The most attractive part of this game for me is its potential to for it to incorporate all of my childhood’s sailing/pirate themed games into one online experience, as such the suggestions listed below will be heavily influenced by game titles such as Port Royal/Patrician and Anno game series, bringing a bit of strategy aspect into the game. The core of this lies in the growth and expansion of nations controlled settlements. The bigger the city, the harder it is to meet its demands, but the better the opportunities it presents and the more difficult it is for an enemy to take it over.

    

     Settlement growth/stagnation/decline should be influenced by the rate of increasing population, whose needs need to be met. This is where the trading game comes into play. Each port could be classified by its size (Small Settlement, Settlement, Village, Small Town, City, Major City, Commercial Center, Metropolis, Cosmopolitan City), opening more building opportunities, resource yields from production buildings, crew generation. In order for a city to expand, its citizen demands would need to be met by traders bringing the daily requirement of trade goods for a set amount of time (let’s say 7 days). In case the demands are not met the cities growth would stop, neglecting it even further would make it deteriorate into a smaller settlement.

     Trade goods for fulfilling the citizen’s needs would be different, than the building material needed for ships (not to make too much of a resource war between ship crafters and traders). These could include meat, bread, fish, beer, rum, animal skins, wool, wine and so forth. Each level of settlement requiring more exquisite goods to be satisfied than the previous level. Let’s say a small settlement with a population level of 500 will need 500 units of bread and some beer to keep the villagers happy and progress to the next level, while a major city having 5000 settlers, including traders and nobles, will need and assortment of 5000 bread/meat/fish, 2000 beer, 500 wine, 200 spices and so one. The mentioned trade goods could be bought from other ports producing them, or made by player productions buildings. (Produce goods should have a period of time after which they spoil and are thrown away if kept in the ships hold or warehouse, to avoid people just stocking up a warehouse full of resources to supply a city for months on end without making any trips).

 

     So now we upgraded our city to a Metropolis, what good does it give? Well other than getting static bonuses from the increased population (lower labor hour cost for crafting, increased production in buildings, more available crew for hire), we would have town buildings giving various bonuses, building different levels of these require a larger settlement and it would be dictated by the city council comprising of the Landlords (currently being developed for the upcoming patch) and members of the city’s trade guild. Some of the building could include:

• Tavern/Inn – the higher the level of the building, the more crew for hire the city generates, at certain building levels new types of sailors are unlocked. I.E level 1-3 you can hire ordinary seaman, from level 3-5 a part of the sailors that are up for hire are experienced traders, that have a negative impact in battle but increase the profits of selling goods in a port by a certain %. Finally level 5-8 we also unlock buccaneers who have a bonus at boarding ships and mercenaries who have a slight malus in working the sails and cannons, but have an advantage in boarding and fort landing battles.
• Shipyard/Dry-dock – with each higher level the city gets the ability to craft bigger draft ships (replaces player built shipyards, seriously I can almost live with 500 mines in a city but 500 shipyards just seem overkill ). Gives the players the ability to put permanent upgrades on ships (quite certain one could not simply slap on copper plating on a ship while at sea at his leisure). At a certain level allows ship refitting’s.
• City Hall – improving this building unlocks more diverse missions, allows council members of the city to post notices and at a certain level allows people to put bounties on enemy players. Allows players to donate ships to issue AI fleets in the ports area to protect against enemy ships (AI patrols that actually engage hostile ships in the area)
• Fortifications/Towers/Forts – increases the settlements defense against assaulting forces, higher levels increase the structure from a simple battery encampment all the way up to a fortress alongside increasing the cannon count, structural integrity, soldier numbers and quality.
• Barracks/Military school – trains and lets you recruit a certain amount of marines each day, the higher the level the more marines are trained (you might have gotten a hunch I believe people should be a part of the crew and not modules ). Could also provide the ability to hire officers.
• Brothel – Increases sailor morale for x amount of battles after visiting (and the captain paying a hefty sum to keep his sailors happy).
• Blacksmith/Gunsmith – Increases the defense value, musket count of the fort defending against an enemy landing.
• Traders Guild – Requires a good reputation in the city (gained by supplying the needs of the settlers) and a hefty initiation fee. Players belonging to the guild get a right to vote in the city council. Upgrading this building unlocks the ability for traders to hire escorts (either AI fleets swimming from a city and back which the trader can follow for protection, or players that get a mission to follow the trader in a close proximity till he reaches the destination)
• Marketplace – allows selling upgrades, blueprints akin to the current contract system for materials.

     All of these building would require large amounts of resources and time to upgrade, and the direction on which the city would focus would be chosen by the council via a vote system. This system would allow players that want to focus on trading to have an influence on the game, and would increase the value of developed ports that a nation spent days in upgrading, making them a prime target for the enemy, and giving incentive to protect it.

 

     Have any ideas to improve this ? Want to dismiss this as total BS ? Have some thoughts on other buildings and bonuses they could provide ? Please share

[Babble]

section 10> http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12710-the-road-map-section-9-10/

 

section 12 >http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12716-the-road-map-sections-11-12/

 

Section 13 > http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12747-the-road-map-sections-13-14/

 

 

 

all of it > http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13796-resource-distribution-the-economy-and-giving-players-a-reason-to-sail/

[Ledinis]

section 10> http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12710-the-road-map-section-9-10/

 

section 12 >http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12716-the-road-map-sections-11-12/

 

Section 13 > http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12747-the-road-map-sections-13-14/

 

 

 

all of it > http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13796-resource-distribution-the-economy-and-giving-players-a-reason-to-sail/

Jesus sweet marry, my bachelors degree thesis was shorter than that entire post ? How many days did that take you ?

 

P.S you just made my post look like a child's painting. 

Edited May 31, 2016 by Ledinis

[Babble]

Jesus sweet marry, my bachelors degree thesis was shorter than that entire post ? How many days did that take you ?

 

P.S you just made my post look like a child's painting. 

No idea how many days.  I would just work on it when i had free time at work.  Started when i first started playing and had grand ideas about the potential of this game.

 

I have posted some other extensive ideas as well. I was working on a very in depth change to make pirates more piratey, which i never finished because the devs have paid little if any attention to any of the other posts so why waste my time.

 

I'm particularly proud of the new map i made which i think is highly needed.  Redistributes resources and reduces the number of regional capitals and free ports to make regional capitals actually regional and free ports a hub for trade between nations.

 

You can download the map here > https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9mOinkVxfkQZ1B1Q1dVUWlSZEE/view

Edited June 2, 2016 by Babble