Question on alliances

[Ratline]

I like two as it may lead to '3 blocks' as opposed to '2 super blocks'.

 

3 alliances is the best way to prolong conflict.

 

And...I don't think you should be able to attack folks you aren't at war with. Unless you are a pirate dog of course.

 

So it should be either War / Ally or Neutral.

 

What he says

 

Would like to see the 'neutral' idea given a run for testing.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Ratline

[Loco Bandito]

I had a US guy tell me the pvp is boring now he cant fight Brits. lol

[Skully]

I had a US guy tell me the pvp is boring now he cant fight Brits. lol

And timezones will aggravate the problem even more.

As an example, suppose a Batavian clan and a French clan want to duke it out in the Trinidad conflict zone at 4-6. But the National "edict" says Batavia and French are allied (as it was historically before Verenigde Provinciën got their independence ), the clans would issue an edict declaring hostilities towards one-another and start duking it out.

At that point either the Nations approve and ignore the situation or one might issue an edict (remember the voting in Parliament) to evict a clan from their Nation. (Effectively creating the Verenigde Provinciën. )

(Or Provinces Unies, depending on which Nation did the booting. ) Edited August 25, 2016 by Skully

[admin]

I had a US guy tell me the pvp is boring now he cant fight Brits. lol

 

Well thats a negative of alliances. But he can join pirates and fight everyone?

[BungeeLemming]

Well thats a negative of alliances. But he can join pirates and fight everyone?

letters of marque anybody?

 

a clan could somehow acquire such a letter and wage war against a nation they are at peace with.

 

 

But honestly I dont see this "issue" as a problem.

Next vote you have to push some other ideas in the nation

[Hethwill]

That is true. Pirates have that unique advantage and work their own "personal" alliances and hire themselves given they can attack anyone and side with anyone.

[LeBoiteux]

letters of marque anybody?

 

a clan could somehow acquire such a letter and wage war against a nation they are at peace with.

 

which could lead to a clan of a nation attacking another clan of the same nation to protect the nation they are at peace with...

 

The question remains : is it a nation vs nation, a clan vs nation (if possible ?) or a clan vs clan game ? To me, nation vs nation is a good level for Politics. Clans can interfere in Politics by lobbying their members and other captains, in chat and forums. But their main goal is organizing combat/trade.

[Ned Loe]

Well thats a negative of alliances. But he can join pirates and fight everyone?

I think it's time for an Outlaw Perk or class. Such perk would change Player Flag and Nationality and won't lock ability to attack allied nations.   (If there is no Flag then no one knows who attacked them). Players with this perk won't be able to participate in Voting or any other national politic efforts or simply, he doesn't effect National interests while sinking all players except his original nation. 

[Ours Barbu]

I stand for 3 alliances.

 

In fact, this is already the case. And it will still be the case if alliances are limited to 2.

[admin]

I stand for 3 alliances.

 

In fact, this is already the case. And it will still be the case if alliances are limited to 2.

 

there is no point to fight the tide we believe.. 

It seems that national players want 2 factions

• alliance a
• alliance b

 

if design forces people into 3 major alliances instead of 2 like right now. 2 of them will have it unofficially anyway  - don't you think?

[PIerrick de Badas]

The idea would be to let people make their own alliance withtou regarding the number. Let the players decide and in an other patch (next one) make a victory system to force the alliances to change (for example to "win", a nation has to have capture 90% the port of the map or something that will force old allies to fight eachothers

[Ours Barbu]

there is no point to fight the tide we believe.. 

It seems that national players want 2 factions

• alliance a
• alliance b

 

if design forces people into 3 major alliances instead of 2 like right now. 2 of them will have it unofficially anyway  - don't you think?

 

So we back to 2 alliances : a vs b + b1.

 

Why not make things clearer directly ? And let the players choose through voting ?

[Eishen]

The idea would be to let people make their own alliance withtou regarding the number. Let the players decide and in an other patch (next one) make a victory system to force the alliances to change (for example to "win", a nation has to have capture 90% the port of the map or something that will force old allies to fight eachothers

 

The problem with allowing unlimited allies is that encourages "bandwagoning" , and that is nefarious to play balance..... and a victory system who does not reward alliance could be imposible to reach, specially to less populated nations

[Elric]

no less than once per week for voting to allow weekend only players to participate.  3 alliances max.  Once an alliance is set, I think it should be set for at least 3-4 weeks.

[Skully]

The problem with allowing unlimited allies is that encourages "bandwagoning" , and that is nefarious to play balance..... and a victory system who does not reward alliance could be imposible to reach, specially to less populated nations

You will not lose anything if you lose your Capital.

Everybody will lose everything if one Nation / Alliance wins the season...

(Hehe, so what should we prevent at all cost?)

A total victory is an option, but will players losing everything provide a natural drive to play balance?

The counter being that a forced safe heaven will not bring out true effort, but hiding behind mechanics.

[Duncan McFail]

I'm thinking an alliance for 2-3 weeks is way too long and anything more than 2 alliances would kill too much pvp. Currently on pvp2 US has allied with GB and already a good chunk of US is regretting it as they have GB ports they wanted to take. With an alliance lasting to long those regrets might turn into people swapping nations or taking a break from the game. Although if there was some kind of mechanic to let people vote out of an alliance then I could see longer alliances. On the other side of the map France, Dutch, Swedes, and GB want to gang up on the Danes. With 3 alliances that would be 4 nations that could enter port battles together which would be way over powered.

 

I'd say 3 days voting and 9 days alliance with only 2 alliances allowed.

 

PS-Give the pirates some love. Feeling pretty bummed since we were left out of this whole mechanic. Let us enter port battles if a nation allows it. Maybe for gold or something. Also make the votes tied to the account instead of a server. Last thing we need is cross server voting manipulation.

[Snoopy]

After testing is done:

1 week ballot

4 week alliance

2 alliances

[Snoopy]

Thinking ahead: The alliance system is perfect for balancing between high/low pop factions.

Smaller factions could have their alliance cap raised incrementally according to total XP gain/week gap to the biggest faction or a similar metric.

This would allow to introduce historically accurate "flavour" factions like say the Kingdom of Sicily which likely won't attract many players but could still be viable as contributors in a large alliance and there would be no drawback in playing them.

[Skully]

I'm thinking an alliance for 2-3 weeks is way too long and anything more than 2 alliances would kill too much pvp. Currently on pvp2 US has allied with GB and already a good chunk of US is regretting it as they have GB ports they wanted to take. With an alliance lasting to long those regrets might turn into people swapping nations or taking a break from the game. Although if there was some kind of mechanic to let people vote out of an alliance then I could see longer alliances. On the other side of the map France, Dutch, Swedes, and GB want to gang up on the Danes. With 3 alliances that would be 4 nations that could enter port battles together which would be way over powered.

 

I'd say 3 days voting and 9 days alliance with only 2 alliances allowed.

 

PS-Give the pirates some love. Feeling pretty bummed since we were left out of this whole mechanic. Let us enter port battles if a nation allows it. Maybe for gold or something. Also make the votes tied to the account instead of a server. Last thing we need is cross server voting manipulation.

All on PvP1 have seen what happens if you have too many treaties, the Three Admiral Treaty, the Treaty of the Antilles (Dolphin, Unicorn and Kittens), the Macao Stand-off against Lord Vicious and the retreat of the Free Empire. It brings PvP to a halt, ship builders soon followed, sub-crafters and traders followed suite.

(Yes, we saw some big weird fun action in the triangle of Cayman Brac, La Tortue, Ile-A-Vache, but it was very local and more or less arranged fighting.)

Now don't get me wrong, this was by majority of the player action. Else we would have seen more PvP on the sides.

We subsequently cancelled all treaties overnight as the Diplomatics patch came life. And voila PvP across the map again.

My point is that the timing of alliances dictated by the game may or may never be comfortably aligned with our needs.

The moment we start debating how long should an alliance be and we have no clear arguments, it must be a subjective call.

And I hate to say this, but in all my personal experience, coding a subjective call has never lead to something good.

Combine this with the (now proven) fact that players do not PvP on demand.

Thus even when the Alliance mechanic says we are Allied or at War, we don't abandon friends or help enemies.

So I think that we could really use a Clan-Clan Alliance mechanic as well besides the Nation-Nation Alliance mechanic.

It would give us options to continue playing the story without being blocked by barriers of Nation-Nation Alliances.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/16030-question-on-alliances/?p=303002

Edited August 25, 2016 by Skully

[Snoggy]

As it stands, nations have their alliances set up codedly to protect their borders from their neighbors.... but have many more 'unofficial' alliances with those that are technically further away.....

 

 

The conquest map on PvP1 hasn't budged an inch in weeks since everyone is allied and no one wants to be the one to stir the pot. 1 Pirate clan even tried and EVERY nation allied up to blockade them, happy fun carebear alliance server.

[angriff]

Up to max time now..  and allow 3 Allies. 

[Jean Pual Vilvenue]

It should be 1 Ally max !!! 9 day ally timer before another decision is to be made on which ally to choose next.

You can't be friends with everyone lol 

[Æthlstan]

I vote 3 alliances, simply because as it stands one nation will always be left out

 

What needs to happen is the establishment of Portugal as a nation, and 1 other nation, so that we can have "even" blocks.

 

Perhaps Portugal as one, and maybe the Maltese as the other? Maltese may be a bad choice.

 

I could see perhaps a Spanish Rebellion faction that would hold just a few ports on mexico as well as central and south america, IDK what to call it as this movement didnt really have a name for itself, but it did exist during our time frame even if the movement didnt own ships, and only marginally had control of ports. Perhaps they could be called "Independents" or maybe "Juntas"

 

this IS alternate history after all

 

The difficult thing is that other than the 7 nations we have in the game, (and the portuguese) no other European nations successfully colonized enough territory, or if they did, like the maltese, their colonial efforts were relatively short lived. Im trying here tho.

 

if we get 2  other nations in the game then I vote 2 alliances

 

More nations may have to wait for a larger population, however. 
 

Edited August 26, 2016 by Æthlstan

[Æthlstan]

As it stands, nations have their alliances set up codedly to protect their borders from their neighbors.... but have many more 'unofficial' alliances with those that are technically further away.....

 

 

The conquest map on PvP1 hasn't budged an inch in weeks since everyone is allied and no one wants to be the one to stir the pot. 1 Pirate clan even tried and EVERY nation allied up to blockade them, happy fun carebear alliance server.

You havent been paying attention lately have you

 

the lines were not moving due to 1 side of the fight purposely making it hell on the real life of their enemy if that enemy wanted to take ports. It had nothing to do with any alliances.

 

You might be able to call those nations a bunch of carebears if you wish, but since the alliance patch combat is revving up and the lines are shifting. Good day.

[angriff]

Not too happy that you can lapse with an Ally .. Apparently you have to vote each time for the Ally and cannot enter a second one without getting out of sequence and lose an Ally during the next cycle.   This happened to French.  We voted Dutch, then Swedes just lost Dutch prior to next vote.   

 

So adding a second Ally means you will break with the first before you get to vote again.  This just happened to the French and now we will no longer be at war with the Danes.  

 

 

This means you lose anything you set up with the Allies.