Bring back assault fleets

[Diodo]

Assault flags were obviously removed because they were exploited in many ways; but this topic is not about the flag itself, it is about the concept of assault fleet.

As of now port battles are staged by the server following the hostility mechanic; great system, at least in theory, that allows everyone to take part in the war effort.

The problem comes when the port battle finally starts and players literally flush into it by logging right in front of the port denying the defender the ability to intercept the attack.

This could be partially solved, or at least mitigated, by bringing back the concept of assault fleet: to join the port battle you must be part of the assault fleet which must be assembled in an appropriately selected national port. You would join the fleet like you join the port battles now: generated hostility gives you precedence, but then everyone is free to join. Bear in mind that this fleet is to have limited capacity exceeding not by much the port battle limit (like 30 for 25 pb).

The assault fleet has now to sail from their safe (and theoretically hidden) assemble location towards the port battle position. An appropriate message might now be broadcasted to the server announcing the departure of such fleet and could even contain the region or the county of origin.

Now the defenders are given the chance of intercepting the attacker and defeating the invasion attempt, bewaring of counter-screening attempts.

Assuming that part of the fleet managed to start the port battle, a timer is started at the end of which additional reinforcements are allowed to join even if they don't belong to the assault fleet.

 

This system will again increase OW activity related to port battles, requiring long journeys to attack ports far from national territories giving more importance to geographical positions and ownership while also giving some degrees of safety to central national territories that would require the assault fleet to sail trough hostile territory in order to attempt an invasion.

At the same time it cannot be exploited like flags were because timing is still determined by hostility generation.

['Sharpe]

Hopefully there are changes to the PB initiation mechanic in the new patch.

I like your idea, and I also like the very simple idea that has been posted of simply having the PB occur at a random city within the contested region. The PB swords do not appear until the time of battle, and their location is not announced ahead of time.

This seems to have so many benefits:

1- The assaulting ships will need to time their ingress carefully. For each region, the geography and wind will be critical in determining where they amass ahead of the battle, and when they begin to move in.

2- Defenders will need to be nimble as well, flowing as one to the correct city in real time.

3- Since battle location can occur at any city within the region, we won't have the problem of essentially uncaptureable regions once terrain is brought into PBs. Certainly some harbors will have an easier layout than others, and it adds nice variability to the outcomes.

[Diodo]

5 hours ago, 'Sharpe said:

And every port has different ship class requirements; this might work out fine too, bringing in more diversity in fleet composition.