RIP small nations

[Johny Reb]

2 hours ago, Intrepido said:

Dear Thomas, leave your thoughts and assumptions about the spanish nation to the national news forum.

Goodness gracious. Chill out. I didn't say anything insulting and everything I said was in line with arguments that were made about the topic under discussion and was used to argue the point Kloo was making. The US, smallest of all nations, has proven that it can still be useful in a healthy alliance. If Spain isn't able to do the same there is a reason for it. Kloo argued distance which the US has proved can't be the case. My assumptions about the alternative reasons is irrelevant and I meant no slight on the Spanish nation. What matters in the argument is that it is NOT distance.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Johny Reb said:

The alliance between the Brits, US and Dutch is not easily called a three nation alliance. At best it is a two and a half nation alliance. The Brits can field teams at most points of the day. That is their strong point but the Dutch can only field a strong team during European hours and the US can only field a strong team during NA hours. On top of that, although the Brits can field multiple teams, the Dutch can field at their prime time 2 teams and the US is lucky enough to field one at any time.

If being able to just about field 1 PB fleet at their primetime is the gauge for being half a nation, then the other 4-nation alliance counts as what - 2 or less?

10 hours ago, Johny Reb said:

It has been established in previous threads that the Dane, French, Swedish, Spanish alliance fields more active RvR players during Euro prime time and the other alliance during NA prime time. I would actually call that pretty balanced.

Established where exactly? There's been plenty of concerns about the smaller nations struggling to rally screening forces at their own primetime as well, which rebukes that train of thought. If anything, the EU timezone is fairly even on both sides while you guys are at an advantage at any other time of the day/night, so hardly even through the way you portray it (aka you dominate here, we dominate there).

10 hours ago, Johny Reb said:

As for the fights. All of the fights on the East coast of Florida against the danes ended in a 25v25 PB except for one in which we had less. The fight for Del Fuego against the Spanish was only defended by a half fleet because they didn't want it that much. This was proven when a few days later they brought a full stregnth fleet to Isamorada and successfully defended that area.

The only difference between Del Fuego and Islamorada is some proximity since neither has regional bonuses, so it doesn't prove much at all as to whether they wanted to defend Del Fuego or simply weren't able to. And to even get that full-strength fleet at Islamorada there were players present from all 4 of the allied nations just to fill the slots. That's the trend these nightflips are on - organized teams who effectively have to stay awake or be crippled (which isnt an issue now that fine woods are gone), to ragtag groups who can barely fill the slots or half fleets who dont stand a chance. How long before we're back to empty ports again with 5 of them lost in a single showing? Doesn't sound healthy.

10 hours ago, Johny Reb said:

As for the pirates and small nations. The game was introduced with nations that were very small and it was advertised that these nations would be the harder to play. There are many ways around this obstacle. The Danes have chose to hate the British and head their own alliance but now complain when they loose. The Danes start as a small country yet they seem to think they deserve to be as effective as a big one. The challenge is for them to overcome their weaknesses as the US has had to do. The pirates are the same. This game is in development and the pirates have been promised a mechanic that would make them more viable. Just wait your turn. Its coming. Smaller nations like the US could not make an alliance and were at the mercy of the Europeans. With the advent of the alliance patch the US can play with the big boys through a well organized and cooperative alliance. Pirates will have their day as well. Be patient. And choosing to go pirate is choosing to be a PIRATE not just sail around with a black flag and say ARR all day unless you are a veggie tale pirate.... " Pirates that don't actually do anything"

Overcome their weakness as the US has had to do? The US hasn't overcome jack shit, it simply tethered itself to the only nation that has the players to oppose them, and the largest one to boot. In other words - a joke.

All the smaller nations (and pirates) want is the tools to be on somewhat equal terms - we still dont have any proper alliance chat channel, instead we have, what, 9 channels or something for each nation-to-nation connection? Which is almost unusable since the UI is completely flooded if you want to keep all 3 of them open. And alliances keep dropping out - there have been plenty of times I've had ports in waters that there's about to be a PB in only to have been dropped from that alliance and 'unable to teleport to a hostile port'. And then you have the groups who are less able to interact, the multitude of languages, the multitude of TS channels and so on.

What's the incentive for anyone to ever join a small nation? Currently it's only to be in a more compact community, or for the underdog challenge. And while it's probably true that the players who are around in those smaller nations are more RvR-focused and active, that's being completely undermined - hostility generation PvE making the carebear crowd worth its weight in gold, and screening where it's more important to have the BR, large numbers and hit sails than actually being good at fighting.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Guest

[Angus McGregor]

On 12/23/2016 at 6:44 AM, monk33y said:

The argument for pirate allies is the same as why are any nation allowed allies. It's not very historic is it

(that was tongue in cheak before I'm attacked- you know who I'm on about)

This is my view/opinion and in no way the views of my nation** this is getting boring saying this with each post!!

I actually don't know who is on your case about this this, happy to keep it that way. But they need to mind their own damn business. If its one of your faction leaders, either toss them or leave that faction. If it's some random jerk with a feeling of inflated national self-importance, tell them where to go and what to do on the way. There is NO excuse for anyone trying to muzzle another player's gameplay feedback in an early-access game. I'd be rather disappointed if the devs didn't take an interest in setting them straight on the matter.

A more practical short term suggestion, put the disclaimer in your signature.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Angus McGregor

[monk33y]

Your clearly not of the mighty British censorship, I'm sorry empire!

**edit only my views and not the view of the British empire or playerbase.

Merry Christmas all 

 

Edited December 25, 2016 by monk33y

[Chimera]

10 minutes ago, monk33y said:

Your clearly not of the mighty British censorship, I'm sorry empire!

**edit only my views and not the view of the British empire or playerbase.

 

your getting a bit annoying. if you have nothing to say dont

 

on topic:

non of the nations is as small as you want to appear. as somebody said earlier 25 people can control the map. there is no such thing as a small nation.

all your doomsaying has not come true too this point. most battles in and out of ports are pretty even and with conquering a port being harder then defending it there hasnt been much ground lost either. both alliances are at a stalemate as it seems, with nobody being able to make up a lot of ground.

both sides have a live oak region and strong hull regions. the map is large for everybody not only for spain. I have outposts from wilmington to the bermudas to the windwards and panama so thats pretty much spanning the whole map... everybody can do that and be a part of the action where ever it is. 

Edited December 25, 2016 by Chimera

[Johny Reb]

19 hours ago, Intrepido said:

I can assure you that distance is one of the reasons, among others.

Let me say that the US have all the key resources and the most demanded bonus near its own region capital. Also please look at the map and see the number of regions which have Spain and compare with US.

I cant say more, I think you are intelligent enough to understand what Im saying.

 

I've thought about Spain and I realized that distance is not a problem. The problem may be the number of outposts you need to effectively control your territory, much less defend your allies. In this you are challenged more than any other save, maybe Britain. The US has it relatively easy when it comes to outposts but the Danes, French and Swedes are in an even better position. Oh and the Dutch. The US needs 2 east coast outposts, and one Bahamas outpost to defend its current position. All the rest but you and Britain have essentially two flanks so therefore only need two outposts.

Off the top of my head I would say the Spanish need 4 or 5. One to guard against the US, one on the south side of Cuba, one on the Yucatan, one by the dutch and maybe one to guard your strong hull port in the gulf but I would say that would be more of a floating outpost depending on which part of the gulf you are having to defend at the time.

The US has its three and still has room for La Navasse, La Tortue, Carricou, and Hat Island. That only accounts for 7 outposts. So I acknowledge that Spain is in a more difficult position but hardly a position that is not overcome-able. Don't you think.

I'm talking one gamer to another here. I'm not trying to throw stones at anyone. I'm just trying to discuss the reasons for Kloo's stress. I say this toward the next quotes as well,

13 hours ago, Aegir said:

If being able to just about field 1 PB fleet at their primetime is the gauge for being half a nation, then the other 4-nation alliance counts as what - 2 or less?

Established where exactly? There's been plenty of concerns about the smaller nations struggling to rally screening forces at their own primetime as well, which rebukes that train of thought. If anything, the EU timezone is fairly even on both sides while you guys are at an advantage at any other time of the day/night, so hardly even through the way you portray it (aka you dominate here, we dominate there).

I take my information from a thread that was posted at the height of the battles over the live oak ports. In that thread a player calculated an estimate of the "active rvr" player base by using the voting system participation. It obviously is not a scientific approach but I imagine the proportions are relatively accurate even if the numbers are not perfect. In that "study" which was confirmed by another who did something similar came up with these numbers roughly. Britain 120, Danes 95, Spanish/Dutch/Swedes/Spain 70, US 40. One of these players than looked at each nation and figured out the proportion of Euros vs Americans and the conclusion was that during Euro time the Danish alliance had 200+ active players on while the Brit alliance had only 150ish(I don't remember the exact numbers) At night the Brit alliance had the advantage at 100+

Now we all know there has been a decrease in player participation but I think its reasonable to say that we have all lost players equally and therefore the proportions are likely to be the same.

13 hours ago, Aegir said:

The only difference between Del Fuego and Islamorada is some proximity since neither has regional bonuses, so it doesn't prove much at all as to whether they wanted to defend Del Fuego or simply weren't able to. And to even get that full-strength fleet at Islamorada there were players present from all 4 of the allied nations just to fill the slots. That's the trend these nightflips are on - organized teams who effectively have to stay awake or be crippled (which isnt an issue now that fine woods are gone), to ragtag groups who can barely fill the slots or half fleets who dont stand a chance. How long before we're back to empty ports again with 5 of them lost in a single showing? Doesn't sound healthy.
 

I guess I don't really understand this argument. Islamorada and Ays is not that far away from each other. If you could field a full fleet for one than it is at least possible that you could field it for another. Maybe on that day you couldn't but I can't imagine its because its farther away. If you were to try to argue your point, I would have went with the fact that Islamorada was the first real chance for many in the nation to experience  a land in PB match and therefore it was easier to raise the support for that fight.

What was unfortunate about Ays is that I was about to offer them a "tap out" fight so that we all could have had some fun. They logged out to soon.

13 hours ago, Aegir said:

Overcome their weakness as the US has had to do? The US hasn't overcome jack shit, it simply tethered itself to the only nation that has the players to oppose them, and the largest one to boot. In other words - a joke.

How little you know about the US then or the history of the game. The US has had many challenges beyond how many ports it owns. We haven't had a strong PB caller in a long time, we have the smallest nation base in the game, we have had struggles between the clans, and we have been knocked back to a few ports more than once. Many of these things we have been fighting to overcome and we have made progress in many of them. We have quite a ways to go but your wrong to say we haven't overcome jack shit.

Our friendship with the Brits came at the EXACT same time that we started a friendship with the Spanish. The Brit relationship matured into a full alliance way before we had every nation on our coast fighting for Live Oak and the player base had dropped so much. The Spanish relationship was also moving in the same direction until the spanish chose to turn their backs on us and break the friendship pact. Our alliance with the Brits came from mutual self interest well before we actually needed their help and could actually use their help in PBs. Once alliance members could fight each others battles we made that relationship work. Same goes for the Dutch which the US has ALWAYS been allied with regardless of strength.

13 hours ago, Aegir said:

All the smaller nations (and pirates) want is the tools to be on somewhat equal terms - we still dont have any proper alliance chat channel, instead we have, what, 9 channels or something for each nation-to-nation connection? Which is almost unusable since the UI is completely flooded if you want to keep all 3 of them open. And alliances keep dropping out - there have been plenty of times I've had ports in waters that there's about to be a PB in only to have been dropped from that alliance and 'unable to teleport to a hostile port'. And then you have the groups who are less able to interact, the multitude of languages, the multitude of TS channels and so on.

What's the incentive for anyone to ever join a small nation? Currently it's only to be in a more compact community, or for the underdog challenge. And while it's probably true that the players who are around in those smaller nations are more RvR-focused and active, that's being completely undermined - hostility generation PvE making the carebear crowd worth its weight in gold, and screening where it's more important to have the BR, large numbers and hit sails than actually being good at fighting.

I agree with much of what you say. Alliance channel is a must. Eventually we need a color messages so that all preferred channels can be seen in one box. The alliance mechanic needs work as well. We shouldn't ever loose an alliance for a full voting period unless we have to many allies. The languages are just a part of being on the Euro server dont you think? I think thats what makes the Brit/Dutch/US alliance relatively strong more than anything else. We all speak the same language.

Why is the highlighted reasons so bad?

[Snoopy]

It is a bit of a moot point unfortunately, because even if nation X wanted to switch alliances to balance things (assuming it needed balancing), there is no way they can:

With key resources and regions so scarce and shared among each alliance, there is no way to break out of the interlocked economies without massively screwing people who are not participating in RvR over and locking them out of their production facilities.

It was well intended to generate PvP but all it really did was to set alliances in stone.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Snoopy

[Leku]

On 24/12/2016 at 10:37 PM, Otto Kohl said:

Pirates can't attack each other ;).

 

On 24/12/2016 at 11:09 PM, tonyxyx said:

Pirates can't attck each other,your arguments/provocations are weak,you know nothing about me/the game,that s all.

I just read what i wrote ... and well. For my defend i can say i was writing it when i was very sleepy and sick. So sorry.

What i meant is that before pirates had privilages like possibility that i wrote before. They of course dont have it now for some time, but what i understands you want to make pirates again just another nation with black flag. And that i dont like. Pirates needs unique treatment from devs and unique role in game.

And if you want to take part in actual RvR instead of allowing pirates to be part of it, switch to nation.

Besides tonyxyx you are very rude.

[monk33y]

I personally think (not the view of the British empire I know) that saying that a nation's active rvr playerbase is hoe you measure a nations size is utter rubbish.

A nation's sizes is its size, the total amount of accounts made in that nation. 

Whatever internal politics a nation has which is turning players off rvr is that nations problem.

Britain has the ability to field for example 100players for a battle, the Danes field say 25, the sweeds field 25, Spanish 25, French 25. How the hell cam that be called a balanced flare system???! As the brits have the ability to call on 5 usa players and 5 Dutch!!!

I'm not attacking the British leaders etc on pvp1, what I'm saying is that a nation of the size of Britain should not get allies. 

Smaller player populations should get multiple allies instead 

 

You know what I'm going to say it I think I'm wrong. A nation's size should not be determined by player population but instead by the number of ports owned. That's right not regions but indervidual ports.

These numbers are only to express my view; 

Any nation has access to two allies until the total number of ports owned over above 39 ports.

Once nation captures it's 40th port that nation (due to its size on game) drops down to one allie.

Once any nation captures it's 75 port that nation drops out of the alliance system for 4weeks. Etc etc. Rolling on. Any nation that can capture that many ports has no need for allies. If' Any nations conquers another's capital the conquered nation gets added to the winners ranks (forced allie)

Any nation that drops down to anything less than 6ports gets the ability to call pirates to launch a last ditch defence.(let's be honest is a nation's getting beat that bad, it'll even take pirates as allies- giving pirates new ports to build in etc)

This way the size of a nation is related only to its actually in game size!

What do u think?

Edited December 26, 2016 by monk33y

[Kloothommel]

11 minutes ago, monk33y said:

You know what I'm going to say it I think I'm wrong. A nation's size should not be determined by player population but instead by the number of ports owned. That's right not regions but indervidual ports.

These numbers are only to express my view; 

Any nation has access to two allies until the total number of ports owned over above 39 ports.

Once nation captures it's 40th port that nation (due to its size on game) drops down to one allie.

Once any nation captures it's 75 port that nation drops out of the alliance system for 4weeks. After that four weeks it gets one neutral allie for another 4 weeks. Etc etc. Rolling on. Any nation that can capture that many ports has no need for allies. If' Any nations conquers another's capital the conquered nation gets added to the winners ranks (forced allie)

Any nation that drops down to anything less than 6ports gets the ability to call pirates to launch s last ditch defence.

This way the size of a nation is related only to its actually in game size!

What do u think?

I like it!

(And quoted so the man can't take you down, monk33y!)

Edited December 26, 2016 by Kloothommel

[monk33y]

If your nation is smaller you get more help. Bigger less. It would also male it important for large superpowers to conquer smaller nations once it looses any allies due to size. 

If you want to conquer a smaller nation you need to beat that nations allies.. 

I hope this would bring ballance back etc

[Kloothommel]

1 minute ago, monk33y said:

If your nation is smaller you get more help. Bigger less. It would also male it important for large superpowers to conquer smaller nations once it looses any allies due to size. 

If you want to conquer a smaller nation you need to beat that nations allies.. 

I hope this would bring ballance back etc

Amen!!

[Johny Reb]

1 hour ago, monk33y said:

I personally think (not the view of the British empire I know) that saying that a nation's active rvr playerbase is hoe you measure a nations size is utter rubbish.

A nation's sizes is its size, the total amount of accounts made in that nation. 

Whatever internal politics a nation has which is turning players off rvr is that nations problem.

Britain has the ability to field for example 100players for a battle, the Danes field say 25, the sweeds field 25, Spanish 25, French 25. How the hell cam that be called a balanced flare system???! As the brits have the ability to call on 5 usa players and 5 Dutch!!!

I'm not attacking the British leaders etc on pvp1, what I'm saying is that a nation of the size of Britain should not get allies. 

Smaller player populations should get multiple allies instead 

I guess I just disagree with you on these points. We all know that carebears don't count for much other than easy kills. What makes a nation is its active rvr group. They are the only ones that hold and take ports. Its the only way to reasonably compare two different groups. Your right to say that it is a nation's problem to convince the carebears to rvr or pvp but until they do so their strength is only found in its active rvr members.

Your numbers comparison kinda made me chuckle since all the nations you list as having 25 members equal the number you claim the Brits have so, so far the numbers are equal and their needs to be no complaint. The 5 from Dutch and US doesn't even field one team so at best is a screening force in your scenario. Now I would argue that the Danes can field more than one PB unless they have taken a devastating hit of late and I would also say that both the US and Dutch can field more than 5.

1 hour ago, monk33y said:

You know what I'm going to say it I think I'm wrong. A nation's size should not be determined by player population but instead by the number of ports owned. That's right not regions but indervidual ports.

Any nation has access to two allies until the total number of ports owned over above 39 ports.

Once nation captures it's 40th port that nation (due to its size on game) drops down to one allie.

Once any nation captures it's 75 port that nation drops out of the alliance system for 4weeks. Etc etc. Rolling on. Any nation that can capture that many ports has no need for allies. If' Any nations conquers another's capital the conquered nation gets added to the winners ranks (forced allie)

Any nation that drops down to anything less than 6ports gets the ability to call pirates to launch a last ditch defence.(let's be honest is a nation's getting beat that bad, it'll even take pirates as allies- giving pirates new ports to build in etc)

This way the size of a nation is related only to its actually in game size!

What do u think?

Just playing "devil's advocate" here....   Variations of this idea has been posted before. The unintended consequences is that it pigeon holes nations into predetermined sizes. There is a punishment for being successful. It also hurts smaller nations. Consider Spain again. They start with a plethora of ports but are a small nation, fielding only one 25 man fleet at a time. With this proposal, Spain would not be allowed to take on allies because of their size but they would be in desperate need of allies if they were to protect their territory. They sure can't be at war with everyone. I think this would arbitrarily force the reduction of Spain through a mechanic rather than through the loss of war through over extension.

[Chijohnaok]

Thomas Pain's post about # of ports and Spain has much validity.

Spain would have started at map wipe with NO allies.

How many ports does Spain currently hold? (If over 75 then they would still be unable to have even one ally).

 

[tonyxyx]

3 hours ago, Leku said:

 

I just read what i wrote ... and well. For my defend i can say i was writing it when i was very sleepy and sick. So sorry.

What i meant is that before pirates had privilages like possibility that i wrote before. They of course dont have it now for some time, but what i understands you want to make pirates again just another nation with black flag. And that i dont like. Pirates needs unique treatment from devs and unique role in game.

And if you want to take part in actual RvR instead of allowing pirates to be part of it, switch to nation.

Besides tonyxyx you are very rude.

Dude if you only read what i wrote......i don't want a nation with black flag.I was talkin about  goals(port battles)and tools to achive it(alliances).Pirates simply don't have the same tools of any other nation.I'm not telling you pirates should or should not be allowed to conquest/lose ports but atm they are allowed into this mechanic and,as a player,i should have same possiblity as you have to do it.Also you start replying my posts with your non-sense arguments,calling me a selfish guy then you don't even know what you re talking about.Now you play the sleepy-sick card....you know what.....i think you well deserved my rudeness.

[monk33y]

Spain having no allies would force conquest from day one. The smaller nations that r pigeon holled could enjoy some rapid expansion. The aim is to allow balance 

[monk33y]

My idea was more aimed at Britain or any big other nation. 

Any large nation (ports or players) should not get access to allies or they get allies but suffer 2week of allies access with a 4week Cooldown etc

[Neverdead Ned]

Some things to improve the game,

 

1. You should never be able to have more than one alliance at a time.

2.  Make a longer cooling off period after an alliance expires.

3.  Every 2 months do a port reset.

4.  Offer nation specific incentives to attract people to the smaller nations (ie. a nation specific ship BP that can only be sailed by people of that faction or an awesome nation specific perk)

5.  Scale the hostility needed to generate a PB proportional to the faction population doing the grind.

[Ser_Slack]

5 hours ago, Hodo said:

Balance isnt always good when it is forced like that.  

While I agree something should be done, but not necessarily this.   

Perhaps make forming alliances harder with larger nations, or base it off of player population in that nation.  

Just because Spain is big on the map doesnt mean they are big in game.  

 

Maybe having the economies of large nations gimped if they want to become allied. Only way I can think of is having pve and pvp payouts reduced for captains in those nations. It has to sting alittle or it's not worth doing.

[Chimera]

punishes players that dont even play the RVR game.

make it attractive for players to join smaller nations by giving them something (XP Boost, rare starter ships like the yacht).

Any mechanism that takes something away from others or restricts the open world will fail.

 

getting to the suggestion about ports and alliances being linked:

so if one nation has 75 ports it cant ally with anybody. but 2 nations with 74 ports each can? how is that fair in a wolrd where number of ports are presumably a sign of strength (which they arent). we (and i mean all nations with this) have proven in the past, will use everey loophole there is to get an edge. every mechanism like this will just lead to port swapping till you reach an optimum within an alliance. 

none of the so called "balancing"  approaches has come up with anything that actually measures the strenght of a nation and therfore even calls for a balancing.

number of active players? - nothing to do with RVR strenght or even number of captians that can be fielded in RVR on a regular basis.

number of ports? - see Spain

Edited December 26, 2016 by Chimera

[monk33y]

Bloody hell people are against population effecting the access to allies (the old agreement that internal politics turning the masses away from rvr) then you say do it on ports,and people say l. It's not fair on nations like Spain!!

Unless I'm mistaken we are playing a game in a era when everyone was at each others throats.

Spain controls the map on launch (wipe) Spain is ment to loose ports via conquest!  (otherwise no nation would grow)

Screw it Devs on launch stop any nation from allieing! Foe the first 2 weeks and then every 2months thereafter make it that all nation's fall out of the alliance system for 1week (then repeat).

Enable times in the game where the players generate content and also generate times of bloody war! (call it the passing of a royal family member or Republic/faction leader)

This would still allow for player driven non aggression to take play but more importantly would give windows of aggressive expansion (again molding future allies)

It can't be that hard to set up a server wide event based loosey on a historic event (death or disagreement) that suspens the allie feature for 1 or 2 weeks.

This system/idea doesn't have to be serverwide it could be between allies only. example;

1) Dutch and British suspend alliance due to the suspicious death of a British diplomat ((cousin of the king)) while he's in Denmark enjoying a banquet (2 week non access to allieing)

2) Danes and Spanish suspend all official ties due to Spanish treasure ship (insert name here) Is captured by privateers sailing under a Danes flag! On capturing the ship the Danes take the daughter of a high ranking Spanish general with the intention to random her (both nations go to war for 1week, until the daughter is returned)

3) the French Republic leader gives all pirates a letter or Marc for 72hrs with the intention of filling Frances ranks, to deal with the British aggression at a certain port (insert here) (the French are neutral with the pirates for 3 server resets)

Or do it to everyone! 

Let's at least test war on a local or serverwide scale. What's the worse that happens?! We loose a few ports But generate content!!!  I can't wait to see how people will shoot this down 

[Kloothommel]

I really like your proposals, @monk33y!

[Johny Reb]

1 hour ago, monk33y said:

1)Dutch and British suspend alliance due to the suspicious death of a British diplomat ((cousin of the king)) while he's in Denmark enjoying a banquet (2 week non access to allieing)

2) Danes and Spanish suspend all official ties due to Spanish treasure ship (insert name here) Is captured by privateers sailing under a Danes flag! On capturing the ship the Danes take the daughter of a high ranking Spanish general with the intention to random her (both nations go to war for 1week, until the daughter is returned)

3) the French Republic leader gives all pirates a letter or Marc for 72hrs with the intention of filling Frances ranks, to deal with the British aggression at a certain port (insert here) (the French are neutral with the pirates for 3 server resets)

Or do it to everyone! 

Let's at least test war on a local or serverwide scale. What's the worse that happens?! We loose a few ports But generate content!!!  I can't wait to see how people will shoot this down 

Well we tested for quite awhile war between all entities. The players created their own alliances.

You idea above sounds like Sid Meyer's pirates in a multiplayer environment. It is definitely an option and worked well for that single player game. What I can't seem to decide is if it would be fun in this environment. Alot of the alliances in the game were months in the making. I imagine that as people come into the game and leave the game you will see changes in alliances from time to time but on a scale of a year or so between major shifts. I think I like that timeline better than every few weeks or every other month I'm forced to ally with a group of players I may not like or break up an alliance that was working very well.

I appreciate your attempt to brainstorm an alternative but as someone said above, I think offering incentives to smaller nations in order to build their population would be a better starting point I think.

Im still open minded toward your ideas so keep them coming if you have more.

[monk33y]

The aim is to not rip up age old ties but to generate some in game lore that enables ties to be broken for a short period. I'm sure that if my British/Dutch example was used no ports would change hands and I'm sure that both nations would still screen for eachother but they wouldn't be able to pb on each others behalf. 

[PIerrick de Badas]

To speak about number, france is offering 10 slots per battle for his allies
.

Not just because we love them.
Because France can't rally one PB fleet atm.

About swedish, who knows... They are not enough to pub a port in conquest so a pb fleet ? lol!

About the danish, the last time they wanted to make a port battle they needed 10 allies captains (8 fr 2 spanish) to complete their fleet.

To finish, the spanish ask french to help them defend the last port they were under attack because tehy could'nt be enough to be 25.

 

And we are not speaking about screening or more... Just on people ready to risk one first rate in pb.

Before assuming equal number or same bullshit, move on ennemy ts, ours is open, you will be able to count us if you got 2 hands.