[PvP Global] Political Situation and Port Battles

[BallsOfSteel]

Flipping Ports hostility in a couple of hours needs fixing.

[Vllad]

1 hour ago, Loco Bandito said:

That's ok for a large nation but what about smaller nations who can just field 25 players. 

Smaller nations as French showed tonight just have to use different tactics. Like many aspects of NA players have everything they need to make a small team effective against a large one. They just have to start using there brains instead of relying on developers to create meta's for them. 

[Archaos]

1 hour ago, Slamz said:

Well I think France answered that question tonight: we ignored the port battle and killed the screeners. Then when the port battle was over we caught a number of Aggies headed away from the port, going home after winning the port defense (because we never went in) and we killed them outside where we could use heavier ships (and presumably some of the aggies just stayed at port so we caught the ones who didn't live there, basically splitting their fleet).

I think a lot of people hugely overemphasize port battles. It's really not about the ports. It's about killing ships.

Start a contention grind and then ambush whoever comes to counter-grind it.
Schedule a 4th rate port battle and then show up in Bellonas and just blow up everyone you can find outside of the port. Take that, screener fleet.
Go setup outposts, bring a spare warship or two using fleet perk, loaded with extra repairs and go hunt their back lanes for a couple days or until they sink your ships.

Size can be important but bringing the right force to bear in the right place at the right time and being aggressive matters more. A small team can sink a lot of ships if they're just aggressive about it and that actually hurts your enemy more than taking their ports does.

 

A lot of people are fixated over 1st rates and victory marks but the real game as I see it involves going out and sinking enemy ships every day, anywhere you can find them, in whatever you can afford to sail (...rigged for speed).

Congratulations on your OW victories and tactics used, but don't you see that this is going to become the new meta for 4th rate port battles. The screen will be 1st rates to take out the port battle fleet. Should make for some good OW battles but if you cant get into the port battles then how are you going to get VM's with the new conquest mechanics? Eventually the larger nation will be screening with L'Oceans and Santi's and the best first rates you can bring will be Victory's.

[Skully]

10 hours ago, Wraith said:

The fact is we need RAIDS NOW.  Some kind of player-generated PvP-generating content should be the hostility generating mechanism of choice.  They should be used to concentrate action on a port, not a region (regions are too large)... and perhaps they could come in different flavors (port raids vs. war supply drops, etc.). 

I think raids would be too static for something that needs elasticity. Hence I'm in favor of the thing that admin abhors most, let the game do nothing during hostility buildup.

By having more BR in a region you build up hostility in a chosen time slot. The BR difference and time slot leader board should be visible on the map. RvR commanders can then choose where to commit forces. The only way then to turn around hostility gain is through engagements (or chase the enemy out).

Current County may or may not be too large. Defenders would likely want to be close to forts, while attackers further out. Breaking the Mexican stand-off would require meeting roughly in the middle (with composition of force being a good classifier for positioning).

Anybody wanting in on the action can come in at any time. Anybody done can leave at any time.

As for the engagements themselves the winner scores 3x the enemy BR value normalized on the time spend in battle. Time in battle itself does not count towards hostility.

I haven't done the math yet, but with a fleet commander having 1 Constitution, 2 Trincomalees and 1 Renommee meeting 1 enemy Surprise. What is the best option for the fleet commander?

[Vllad]

6 hours ago, Archaos said:

Congratulations on your OW victories and tactics used, but don't you see that this is going to become the new meta for 4th rate port battles. The screen will be 1st rates to take out the port battle fleet.

Then players will adapt to that as well and come up with tactics to counter 1st rates acting as screeners. We in France are already preparing.

NA has built a counter to every meta as long as people are willing to put it into practice and don't get lazy.  

[Archaos]

30 minutes ago, Vllad said:

Then players will adapt to that as well and come up with tactics to counter 1st rates acting as screeners. We in France are already preparing.

NA has built a counter to every meta as long as people are willing to put it into practice and don't get lazy.  

I think its good that people think outside the box to come up with new strategies, it helps keep the game fresh and people on their toes. I just hope the new conquest mechanics don't end up giving you issues. You may win the battles but eventually lose the war if you don't take ports as you will be gifting the other side wins towards VM's.

But nice to see some people trying to shake up the game and create content themselves rather than expect it provided for them and just moan that there is no action.

 

21 minutes ago, Louis Garneray said:

It's not that new... I remember on PVP1 server before the wipe it was standard to have big screening fleet.
 

I was referring more to the new battle group mechanics and how a 4th rate PB fleet could be nabbed by a 1st rate screening fleet setup as a battle group. I have'nt been able to play since last patch so not sure how the Battle Group changes are working out.

[Arsilon]

7 hours ago, Archaos said:

The screen will be 1st rates to take out the port battle fleet. Should make for some good OW battles but if you cant get into the port battles then how are you going to get VM's with the new conquest mechanics? Eventually the larger nation will be screening with L'Oceans and Santi's and the best first rates you can bring will be Victory's.

I'd love to see GB bringing 1st rates to screen a 4th rate PB.  Free 1st rates for us!!!  Who cares about the port in the first place?!?   If GB is going to give us the 1st rates on the OW we don't need the VM's anyway.

 

 

[Vllad]

43 minutes ago, Archaos said:

I think its good that people think outside the box to come up with new strategies, it helps keep the game fresh and people on their toes. I just hope the new conquest mechanics don't end up giving you issues. You may win the battles but eventually lose the war if you don't take ports as you will be gifting the other side wins towards VM's.

As long as you are winning the battles you don't need the ports. Eventually you create enough attrition that you "might" win without ever taking a single port. If you are a small nation you have to think of it in terms of attrition not PB's that you have won.

Let's be honest here, Pirates, US and Brits will always be the "winners" in the context you are talking about. The rest of nations will win by trying to survive against larger nations. You only survive if you continue to sink ships of the bigger nations.

Ask the Brits on Global last night, would they have rather won the PB or the battle outside of the PB last night.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Vllad

[Archaos]

26 minutes ago, Vllad said:

As long as you are winning the battles you don't need the ports. Eventually you create enough attrition that you "might" win without ever taking a single port. If you are a small nation you have to think of it in terms of attrition not PB's that you have won.

Let's be honest here, Pirates, US and Brits will always be the "winners" in the context you are talking about. The rest of nations will win by trying to survive against larger nations. You only survive if you continue to sink ships of the bigger nations.

Ask the Brits on Global last night, would they have rather won the PB or the battle outside of the PB last night.

Actually I see now that from another thread that you not entering the PB does not give the defending side additional points towards the map win, they only get the original point for having the port. That may be a bit lopsided but lets see how it plays out before asking for changes.

[Dharus]

If you rewarded a defensive port battle win vs port ownership change, then every small nation would never attack unless they just said "screw RvR".

In fact, the new rules are going to DESTROY Spain's RvR potential.  While they may "win" early weeks, they'll probably have -40 a month into the map.

[Slamz]

8 hours ago, Archaos said:

Congratulations on your OW victories and tactics used, but don't you see that this is going to become the new meta for 4th rate port battles.

There has always been a potential "game of chicken" here.

We start a 4th rate port battle but you show up in 1st rates.

....but we show up in speed Connies spread out, you tag a few of us but can't keep us in and we enter the port battle and ignore your 1st rate fleet and win anyway.

...or we do this and try to split your 1st rate fleet. If you clump up you're safe but you won't kill anyone. If you split up and chase us around you may get some kills but you'll probably lose some first rates.

Worst case, you enter the battle with 25 tank Aggies and guard outside with 25 1st rates. In that case we might just not be able to do a port battle unless we coordinate with some other team(s) to distract you (or we have to try and win with speed connies vs tank aggies). At any rate, we'll still be sailing around aiming to kill your ships as we find them on the OW. You can't bunch up in a cluster of 25 first rates all the time.

So I think it'll be interesting to see what shakes out of this.

For sure, 25 tanked out Aggies run a risk going to or from a port battle but that's always been true. We hit them with mainly Bellonas but it's not hard to imagine someone trying it with 25 1st rates.

The irony is that port battle fleets are very vulnerable because it's dangerous to be on the OW without speed mods.

There's a good argument here that this really comes down to a broken speed meta. Tank aggies stand no chance against speed Bellonas.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Portabelo  Lineship Port battle - 11 GB vs 22 Pirates

Good fight for those that still showed and tried to defend even against the odds you had.  We had a hard time getting fleets to flip it and wasn't wanting such a late port battle either.  Been noticing trouble with some of the regions having very few fleets even though they are line ship regions.

GB controlled A from the start and set up between it and B. Pirates took B and headed for A.  Small group broke off to kill the towers while the rest of the fleet that wasn't left in B Headed to fight with the GB defenders.  They gave a slight running fight.   C was captured and than points gain form captured/kills and battle was over.  Last moment one of the Aggy's gave up his ship to recapture one of the Brits Ingermanlands and was able to get it out.  Good play there on the last moment guys.

Again thanks for trying and until next time. 

 

 

[Bach]

8 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Portabelo  Lineship Port battle - 11 GB vs 22 Pirates

Good fight for those that still showed and tried to defend even against the odds you had.  We had a hard time getting fleets to flip it and wasn't wanting such a late port battle either.  Been noticing trouble with some of the regions having very few fleets even though they are line ship regions.

GB controlled A from the start and set up between it and B. Pirates took B and headed for A.  Small group broke off to kill the towers while the rest of the fleet that wasn't left in B Headed to fight with the GB defenders.  They gave a slight running fight.   C was captured and than points gain form captured/kills and battle was over.  Last moment one of the Aggy's gave up his ship to recapture one of the Brits Ingermanlands and was able to get it out.  Good play there on the last moment guys.

Again thanks for trying and until next time. 

 

 

Only BLACK participating and you only had 22 men?   Is that a chink in the armor there? Or everyone just counting on the Brits not showing up?

[Mike the Mongel]

6 hours ago, Bach said:

Only BLACK participating and you only had 22 men?   Is that a chink in the armor there? Or everyone just counting on the Brits not showing up?

No chink in armor brother...just dam late LOL!!!  it got flipped late and dam that PB timer .  But seriously though the gents that made it as with many and or most who didn't make it , seriously want the BRITs to show up more for a fight.....Salute to those who did.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Mike the Mongel

[Sir Texas Sir]

7 hours ago, Bach said:

Only BLACK participating and you only had 22 men?   Is that a chink in the armor there? Or everyone just counting on the Brits not showing up?

As I explained above we had a hard time getting ships to kill in  that region and didn' t want that prot battle that late.  We where shooting for about 2 hours early, but the biggest fleets we founds was a 512 and a 700 fleet.  The rest where small little 1/2 ships.   It seems the none importatn regions have little fleets.  We saw tons of French and Spainish fleets that was pretty big but hardly any Brits.   We had folks spread out 2-3 per port and it still took 5 hours to flip it and only after we just said screw it and cycled the fleets we found.   It's honestly getting to a point we might have to start war bombing to get proper times on these. I F11 it ever time we do these flips listing the BR of the fleets we find and letting the devs know.  They should put one or two more BIG Fleets in these linships regions.   Though it's funny you move over to Cart there are some big fleets in that region.  I think they only put the big ones in capital and important regions only.

47 minutes ago, Mike the Mongel said:

No chink in armor brother...just dam late LOL!!!  it got flipped late and dam that PB timer .  But seriously though the gents that made it as with many and or most who didn't make it , seriously want the BRITs to show up more for a fight.....Salute to those who did.

Yah it was late for both, but we did find out at George Town that there is no more lock out from the maintance timer so they fixed that so we can flip at any time. We where actually going to wait and flip it after maintance and put it in AUS/SEA time but it flipped when we hit 100%.   Now we know that it's not broken any more it's more if your that close you might as well push it over and flip it instead of letting all that run back down.   If we can get a decent numbers it's fine.   Not that we haven't won a few of our last couple of port battles short a few players any way.  

We did win PnP 23 vs 25 after all.

[Sir Texas Sir]

West End Shallow Water Port Battle  - 25 Pirates vs 25 US

I didn't make it in so was part of the fighting out side.  I'm sure it turned it into a big old brawling fight or something in side.  I know two fights I was in out side we killed all (4 ships total) out of the 5 letting a low level privateer J Lt go.  "Run Little Guy Run."  Good fight over all and I hope the PARF guys had fun.  We got an message yesterday they flipped the port to let them see a port battle and have fun.  Would of been nice if it was better planned if they wanted to do that.  It looks like they had a large turnout so maybe they will be a good big clan to face in the future.   For sure they need to get leveled up and more experience.  And no we didn't have screeners.  The guys that fought the screeners are the ones that didn't make it into the port battle so they wanted to have fun.  We even took a Frigate after the port battle.   Bringing 5th rates to screen a shallow water port battle doesn't' exactly work to much when your attacking.

Keep up the fight.

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

St George's Town Lineship Port Battle - 5 US Defenders vs 25 Pirates Attackers with a fleet out side screening.

Not much of a fight but give the few guys that showed did tag circles and fight.   We saw over half a dozen first rates pulled out early in the day and tons of other ships.   It's time they loose there safe place to grind fleets and bring there 1st rates back to US coast lines.  This is a PvP server and the game is called Naval Action.  You want a safe place you can go to PvE server or the Gulf of Mexico.

[SeagullPokeYourCoconut]

West end PB pirates side:

 

Bermuda PB Pirate side:

 

Edited July 28, 2017 by Solas

[Norfolk nChance]

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1093827615

Sav La Mar Port Battle earlier today. [BLACK] Won, Norfolk had a ton of fun with the chase to Carlisle afterwards. Apparently one should never Board a Santi in a Surprise... who knew..?

Small Steps in the right direction. Way too much angst on the forum, and we need to bring the fun back...

 

Norfolk

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 hours ago, Norfolk nChance said:

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1093827615

Sav La Mar Port Battle earlier today. [BLACK] Won, Norfolk had a ton of fun with the chase to Carlisle afterwards. Apparently one should never Board a Santi in a Surprise... who knew..?

Small Steps in the right direction. Way too much angst on the forum, and we need to bring the fun back...

 

Norfolk

 

That was not the end of battles screen shot. I heard you lost your mortar brig too.  It was like they where doing a mortar duel or something lol  

Oh and we had some one that hated them and never liked them coming now have new found respect and want us to BRING TWO EVER TIME NOW.  Getting hit by a Mortar does funny things to folks.

[Hethwill]

Can't recall ever seeing a battle using 25 mortar brigs raining random cakes on top of a line. Did see a dozen but never a full fleet.

( and if everything else fails, just fireship into them )

Could be a goofy "team building" event for some.

[Sir Texas Sir]

7 minutes ago, The Red Duke said:

Can't recall ever seeing a battle using 25 mortar brigs raining random cakes on top of a line. Did see a dozen but never a full fleet.

( and if everything else fails, just fireship into them )

Could be a goofy "team building" event for some.

shhhhhhh we actually talked about something like this last night....lol

[Hethwill]

[Norfolk nChance]

56 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

That was not the end of battles screen shot. I heard you lost your mortar brig too.  It was like they where doing a mortar duel or something lol  

Oh and we had some one that hated them and never liked them coming now have new found respect and want us to BRING TWO EVER TIME NOW.  Getting hit by a Mortar does funny things to folks.

That is quite correct. I assumed someone would have done a write up at least but no unfortunately. This is what I took at the start. I believe you are correct we did lose a Mortar Brig so we'll call it a draw then...?

 

Norfolk.

 

[Teutonic]

diplomacy updated