Declaration of Victory and the Terms

[Archaos]

5 hours ago, Slamz said:

We need teleports that get us out of the corner.

You have literally like a dozen completely useless ports. We picked Sante Fe because it's probably the least useful area on the map, but it does give us a teleport to and from FR. Clearly nobody is using it because trade goods are stacked up like firewood around there, but you won't even give that up.

There is still talk of making a deal with the Pirates to give France a couple ports in Haiti again. I imagine "the deal" would be that we don't attack BLACK anymore, or their British trader alts, and instead just focus on raiding the Brits (that was the previous deal). I've been naysaying this plan because I want to kill Pirates but you're not really helping.

As it stands, we are killing the British because you are literally in the way. We have no practical means of getting at the Pirates but we can get at you.

You are facing a classic 3-way battle scenario. When your two enemies are both beating on you, fall back in such a way that they can get at each other and then see what happens.

I thought the Pirates in their terms were offering ports in the gulf to other nations, or was that only on the proviso that you did not attack them from those ports?

[Bach]

Interesting turn of events in this thread.

On the serious side, if pirates did go offensive right now they would likely run the map. So be glad they don't. They are giving the server a chance.

@Christiandom -  You do realize you and Slamz pretty much have the same goals? You just don't agree in methods. That said, you probably don't really want to force France into an alliance even if Tuetonic would give you one.  You really just want to set up a situation that gets your enemies to fight each other. Why? Because of the polarization effect of alliances.  If you ally with France specifically against pirates it will force the Danes and their new found AUSEZ into active opposite and  things just balance. There would be no net gains for Britain if sides simply get drawn up. Without a clear alliance it becomes harder to predict the moves on the chessboard. Which always favors the weaker sides. Besides, as long as you don't ally you can always take the French stuff back when you want it.

@Tuetonic - I don't understand why you thought Brits would give up Santa Marta. There is little value to that county other than staging against Brits and Dutch.  They literally have no choice but to say NO. Even if some said ok it's got to be a hard sell to the rest and certainly the Dutch.

Frankly, I don't understand this servers fascination and dependence on alliances. I think it's a hold over from those that played pvp2 last year under minimal population conditions.  Perhaps there such alliances were vital.  Here they are not. In fact, after the last RvR patch owning lands you can't defend are a detriment.  All the needed resources are relatively close together anyway. So there is even less need for wide spread alliances.  One situational allies should be all you want. Dividing up the map is counterproductive.

[Arsilon]

For a server population of our size, it should be a never ending game of "king of the hill" with everyone focused on whoever is #1 that week.  Last week's 'ally of convenience' is this week's 'target of necessity'

 

 

[Slamz]

44 minutes ago, Archaos said:

I thought the Pirates in their terms were offering ports in the gulf to other nations, or was that only on the proviso that you did not attack them from those ports?

No clue. I did not inquire as to what the terms may have been. I lost interest when someone said "terms". I just assume it involves some sort of NAP to which, as with the British, I say "nah". It's not even so much that I oppose the concept of letting British (or Pirate) ships pass by unmolested, I just don't want the drama of official deals and therefore confusion, random people breaking the agreements, trying to get all clans signed on, etc, etc. I want to avoid official diplomacy as much as possible and just have the freedom to play it by ear, day by day. I think for France, as an outsider, that's our wisest move -- avoid any deals unless absolutely necessary. Britain and the Pirates benefit from long term deals but smaller nations like France generally just get screwed by them.

I'm more of the mind of looking at it from a pure strategic standpoint.

Currently, the British are being pushed back RvR-wise by the Pirates. Retaking Georgetown should be a priority because that is a fantastic county for raiders. I would think Brits should be running contention up there on the regular and PvPing any pirates they spot. Like that should be their national passtime right now. I don't understand why it isn't.

Strategically, then, it makes sense for the British to focus on that while trying to back away from the French aggressors, provided they aren't taking anything too vital, in the hopes that this leads the French into the backs of the Pirates. The risk is that we will work with the Pirates but I can tell you that MOST (not all, but most) French clans DO want to fight the pirates. Some will keep raiding the Brits no matter what happens, as they have been doing for weeks now, but there is a possibility of dragging French PvPers into contact with Pirate raiders if the British play the right map strategy.

The current British map strategy seems to consist of "protect all the dots" and that's some pre-patch 10 thinking.

Give up some dots. See if one of your enemies will attack your other enemy by bringing them into contact. Worst case, it doesn't work and you retake the French ports and deal with the Pirates alone again.

(Personally I was not interested in Santa Marta but again I think the Brits should have just let them have it, given the state of things. When Santa Marta was first envisioned, it was as a base to raid Britain with. But then the Pirates came in and now any French raiders coming out of Santa Marta and going around the coast would run past the Pirate holdings and into potential conflict with Pirate raiders. To my eye, that looks like something the British might have wanted to try. By keeping clans like BORK out of Santa Marta, you gave them no route to clash with the Pirates and may have simply pushed them closer to turning to the Pirates for a deal instead.)

Edited July 25, 2017 by Slamz

[Teutonic]

31 minutes ago, Bach said:

@Tuetonic - I don't understand why you thought Brits would give up Santa Marta. There is little value to that county other than staging against Brits and Dutch.  They literally have no choice but to say NO. Even if some said ok it's got to be a hard sell to the rest and certainly the Dutch.

Originally it was stated to me that a portion of the brits wouldn't show up, leaving an "easier" battle. Later i was told the brits came to an understanding and all decided to show up, things are always changing.

It was talked about for further staging to fight brits, dutch, and sailing north. Primarily I and a few others wanted it so that we wouldn't have to deal with not being able to teleport.

So yes and no on the importance of the port. I would like it so i and others can teleport and not sail 2 hours every day back and forth. Anyway the brits showed up and france didn't have the numbers this time to contest properly. You win some and you lose some. 

[Arsilon]

I think what people still confuse is there is a point to PVP for PVP's sake, regardless of what color the map dots are.  For some reason people get hung up on whether or not the dot changes color and forget that the PVP is supposed to be part of the fun.  Making dots the color you need them to be to encourage PVP, especially as it pertains to having other nations fighting the people you want them to be fighting might be part of your strategic thinking.

 

 

[Bach]

7 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

I would like it so i and others can teleport and not sail 2 hours every day back and forth. 

If you pre-plan ahead you can take the pain out of the 2hr sail to do Econ.  While doing recon during the Dane war I came across some USA players trading with ICS players.  They simply used the land masses and the protractor function to AFK the majority of the trip.  Coming into Dane waters they just nose planted into the back of one of the out of the way islands. I imagine they did the same going to the USA. Just point the nose at the upper map edge USA port and goto bed. 

You can apply the same to your activities. At the end of the play day just hop in a basic cutter and point it at FR and goto bed. In the morning before work do your Econ clicks. Hop in basic cutter, point it at your operating area and goto work. If some sinks it while it's nose planted in the beach your just going to appear where you wanted to be anyway.

With a little planning ahead it's not to hard to effectively live out of a Free Town port.  You can harvest all the repairs you will need in low level missions. Every few days you just need to sail some replacement ships out to stockpile or just build them on site. If you discover the only thing you are sailing back for is Econ then maybe rethink how you have it set up to get more hands off days out of it. 

[Christendom]

3 hours ago, Slamz said:

We're open world PvPers.

We are going to open world PvP someone.

I'm tired of "deals", except on an ad hoc basis.

We (well, PURGE anyway) would prefer to kill Pirates but as long as you keep putting yourself between us and them, I guess we'll be fighting you due to lack of alternatives. The counter-offers we've seen have not met the needed criteria: must give us a reasonable position to attack the pirates from; cannot be a port the pirates will have any fun attacking; preferably serves as a jumping off point for other ports so we can't simply lose 1 port battle and be thrown back to FR again.

The Tampa area fails the second two checks, for example: Pirates would gladly just go take it and then we're done. My original idea was to start at New Orleans and sweep east (Pirates could kick us out but at least it's a long sail) but we were told Britain said "no" to that, because I guess territory up in Louisiana that 3 of you use is super critical to your strategy right now.

Of course Pirates might take Santa Fe from us too but I'd be amused watching BLACK sail around Cuba in 25 6th rates.

We didn't defend PaP or Les Cayes because your Aussies took them at literally 8am US east coast time / 5am west coast. Not much we can do about that. (I actually got up for Les Cayes and we did defend it but only so much you can do 12 vs 25 at 8am.) We were probably killing more British pirate trader alts up there than actual Brits, too. (This was actually a point of contention with BLACK. They thought their agreement with us should include safety for their alts. We disagreed. Clan tag or death!)

PaP and Les Cayes were flipped at Aussie times because we were not fighting just 1 nation, but 2 when trying to grind those up.  Your ever so convenient deal with the pirates prevented us from doing that during primetime.  

The gulf is a vital area for our traders to ferry down live oak, we'd prefer to not have the french up there attacking more noobs in our backyard without agreements.  We have a long way to move oak and if even part of the way can be done by solo players rather than having to convoy up it is just that much easier.  Again, it's inviting foxes into the hen house.  

You want a staging point and some of our territory, well it's going to cost you.  Either win it by force or give up something so we're willing to accept.  You want a piece of our territory so you can attack other nations and OUR nation at the same time and you offer nothing in return.  Why would we do that?  The only real threat we see is from King of Crowns and his merry band of seal clubbers and the clubber-in-chief will never move on to more difficult targets (aka BLACK clan).  Why would we give him a base to operate out of without something in return.  Negotiating 101.  Prove you/your nation is actually willing to go fight the pirates and not sink British noobs and maybe we can talk.  Or just keep grinding up hostility in Santa Fe and losing ships.  

It's easy to talk tough when your nation has deals with it's 2 neighbors right next door and another deal with the biggest threat on the server.  

[Bach]

2 hours ago, Christendom said:

PaP and Les Cayes were flipped at Aussie times because we were not fighting just 1 nation, but 2 when trying to grind those up.  Your ever so convenient deal with the pirates prevented us from doing that during primetime.  

The gulf is a vital area for our traders to ferry down live oak, we'd prefer to not have the french up there attacking more noobs in our backyard without agreements.  We have a long way to move oak and if even part of the way can be done by solo players rather than having to convoy up it is just that much easier.  Again, it's inviting foxes into the hen house.  

You want a staging point and some of our territory, well it's going to cost you.  Either win it by force or give up something so we're willing to accept.  You want a piece of our territory so you can attack other nations and OUR nation at the same time and you offer nothing in return.  Why would we do that?  The only real threat we see is from King of Crowns and his merry band of seal clubbers and the clubber-in-chief will never move on to more difficult targets (aka BLACK clan).  Why would we give him a base to operate out of without something in return.  Negotiating 101.  Prove you/your nation is actually willing to go fight the pirates and not sink British noobs and maybe we can talk.  Or just keep grinding up hostility in Santa Fe and losing ships.  

It's easy to talk tough when your nation has deals with it's 2 neighbors right next door and another deal with the biggest threat on the server.  

I understand where you are coming from and can see your concerns.  But there are a few facts you have out of order.  Not greatly but still not accurate.

The reason we ever had an agreement with BLACK regarding Les Cayes and PaP is because WO actually WAS sinking BLACK ships on a regular basis right off Mort.  BLACK is generally a pretty well run operation. Instead of fighting us on their seas they made a deal that put us into GB seas by keeping us in Les Cayes as much as possible. That deal has since ended.

Its no great difference whether France fights Brits or Pirates. Its just preference.  This week PURGE has sunk several Brit Indefats and other Frigs while sailing 6th rates. Last night they finally lost x2 Niagaras while sinking yet another Indefat with them.  So its not like Purge are losing ships in mass. To be honest, trading frigs for 6ths is not even losing.

No one is talking tough because we have a NAP with Danes. We have no deals with the Swedes or the Dutch. It makes no sense to take Dutch ports. They offer PVP and are very good opponents. Talking their land would be detrimental and we don't need a treaty to see it.

Lastly, no clan in France is actually trying to hurt the GB nation. You just happen to be there. Its a by product of having grabbed to much land before VSC joined the Brits.

 

 

[Slamz]

6 hours ago, Christendom said:

Why would we do that?

Priorities.

[Lord Amplify of Key West]

On 24-7-2017 at 0:08 AM, Rebrall said:

To late for you to early for us in aus/Nz to be there it will be 5pm Nz and 3pm aus, unfortunately this is we're having restriction on PB is adventagious. But hey we play the global server and we could do the same thing also 

agreed but then they shouldn't say they want fights

 

[Raekur]

I love how someone is appearing to convince us that French and Pirate forces are not working together...sounds like the Danes and Pirates from PVP2 again. It is rather difficult convincing people that 2 groups are fighting when you personally have watched them sailing side by side attacking your friends.

[Hethwill]

Sir, not all France corsairs side with such villainy.

Despite the differences and exchange of gallantry at the length of shot some of us rather side with proper civilized nations to bring a end to the scourge of false pyracy based on children books and egotistic manners.

Like water unto stone... one drop at a time.

[Arsilon]

1 hour ago, Raekur said:

I love how someone is appearing to convince us that French and Pirate forces are not working together...sounds like the Danes and Pirates from PVP2 again. It is rather difficult convincing people that 2 groups are fighting when you personally have watched them sailing side by side attacking your friends.

People need to stop being so short sighted and narrow focused.

New Victory mechanics make any long term cooperation completely inappropriate.  Especially as it pertains to the French nation, being anything other then 3rd party spoiler given current population distribution will never work.  France formally allied with the Pirates, means that GB attacks France and not Pirates as the "softer target".  France formally allied with the Brits means that the Pirates (and probably the Danes too) attacks France both to "punish the impudence" (since that seems to be how they operate) and as the "softer target" (although given recent GB implosion that may or may not actually be the case).

Teleport and Free Port mechanics mean that any attempt to flip a British port isn't necessarily because the French are picking on the Brits.  It just means there are more Red dots in helpful locations than there are Black ones at this point.  The ports themselves are meaningless.  But getting access to TP to a part of the map that puts other PVP opportunities into play has meaning.  That PVP isn't necessarily targeted solely at the Brits.

Taking any port than can not in turn be defended doesn't accomplish anything.  Everyone wonders why the French aren't trying to take Haiti back?  How about that it will take all of 3 days for it to be taken back in a TZ that France has no ability to defend currently?  Whether its the Pirates themselves or even better yet the Danish on their behalf?  So what's the point and why not try an alternate avenue of advancement to get back closer to the middle of the map that doesn't hit a brick wall at step #1?

Any perceived seal clubbing on the part of France against the Brits is just point of view.  Watch the kill board and you see plenty of French killed [insert other nation here - except Denmark] messages.  You have certain individuals and certain clans that are operating in different parts of the map so while someone like KoC may be focused in Belize or Great Corn, you have others in Dutch waters, Pirate Waters,  or elsewhere on the map.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vernon Merrill]

God I love NOT having to deal with RvR...  Bonne Chance, mes Amis!!!!!!!!

[Sid the Infected]

France has sided with the pirates for so long and it is believed that many Pirate alts are in fact France so I think you can understand why Brits and even the US would not be quick to allow you New Orleans. Alliances are not necessary but no nation can handle being attacked by all others. BLACK would be hard pressed to defend if, simply, the Brits and the US attacked two ports at the same time.

[Arsilon]

36 minutes ago, Sid the Infected said:

France has sided with the pirates for so long and it is believed that many Pirate alts are in fact France so I think you can understand why Brits and even the US would not be quick to allow you New Orleans. Alliances are not necessary but no nation can handle being attacked by all others. BLACK would be hard pressed to defend if, simply, the Brits and the US attacked two ports at the same time.

People need to let go of pre wipe preconceptions.   I can't speak for other nations but France is a collection of server transfers nation transfers and very old school French from way back that have no ties to the political and diplomatic situation if pre wipe France.

[Rebrall]

12 hours ago, amplify said:

agreed but then they shouldn't say they want fights

 

Oh I agree I actually think they struggled flipping this particular port as there was a lack of players and ai around now. Which is exactly the problem that AUSEZ & ARMED had with a port we tried flipping a while ago. The other way to look at it now is they have to regions that in the heart of our Econ so they brought the fight to us so maybe it's time we pulled our socks up and stop polishing our ships and use the bloody things they are war ships not show ships. TBH I love fighting and loosing a ship or sinking a ship it's all part of the fun 

[Raekur]

So I am curious, say that BLACK decrees that Louisiane goes to France and Nuevo Leon goes to the Spanish. What exactly does BLACK expect them to do with the ports? Technically they are surrounded by hostile fleets regardless of what direction they sail including being hostile towards each other. I do not expect either to permit British or US traders into the areas to gather wood and other building supplies. So that will in turn prompt hostile actions against France and Spain as a reaction. The ONLY way this will work without those ports coming under attack is that a non aggression pact be placed upon all nations sailing in the gulf region. That will in turn evolve into the very complaints that were fielded when there was a discussion of turning the gulf into a large PVE region just prior to the wipe. The non aggression would also ban any pirate activity in the region as well, it either includes everyone or it will devolve into nothing very quickly.

[Raekur]

1 hour ago, Arsilon said:

People need to let go of pre wipe preconceptions.   I can't speak for other nations but France is a collection of server transfers nation transfers and very old school French from way back that have no ties to the political and diplomatic situation if pre wipe France.

The comment is NOT a pre wipe conception, it has to do with the French being present not more than a month ago attacking British ships at Port au Prince and screening for the pirates. Now if this is due to a split within the French nation where some do support the pirates and others do not, than France has some house cleaning to do before they start saying that No french are supporting the pirates.

Oh and Arsilon, when has France allied with Britain post wipe? I have not seen once instance of any such mutual operations. So are you referring to pre wipe conceptions now?

Edited July 27, 2017 by Raekur

[Iroquois Confederacy]

4 minutes ago, Raekur said:

So I am curious, say that BLACK decrees that Louisiane goes to France and Nuevo Leon goes to the Spanish. What exactly does BLACK expect them to do with the ports?

Huh?  BLACK has a very rough relationship with the Free Tribes.  I cannot see them giving any territory over.  Even if they did, I cannot see the Free Tribes being willy to participate in PvE for the sake of flipping a port.

The Free Tribes are far more interested in capturing or sinking wannabe pirates.

[Pelennor]

On 7/26/2017 at 6:59 AM, Hodo said:

I would be interested to see BLACK sail anything other than Ships of the Line.  

Trust me, you don't want to see my Renommée

[Koltes]

5 hours ago, Raekur said:

So I am curious, say that BLACK decrees that Louisiane goes to France and Nuevo Leon goes to the Spanish. What exactly does BLACK expect them to do with the ports? Technically they are surrounded by hostile fleets regardless of what direction they sail including being hostile towards each other. I do not expect either to permit British or US traders into the areas to gather wood and other building supplies. So that will in turn prompt hostile actions against France and Spain as a reaction. The ONLY way this will work without those ports coming under attack is that a non aggression pact be placed upon all nations sailing in the gulf region. That will in turn evolve into the very complaints that were fielded when there was a discussion of turning the gulf into a large PVE region just prior to the wipe. The non aggression would also ban any pirate activity in the region as well, it either includes everyone or it will devolve into nothing very quickly.

I have never seen you trolling so am taking your question seriously and respectfully.

Is this is a direct question to BLACK clan? Sorry if it isn't or rhetorical. I will try to answer genuinely thinking that it meant to be answered, otherwise please just ignore this answer.

We believe that GB should share some ports with the US out in the Gulf or other nations for that matter . It is not in our interest if they keep those territories, however we don't really care which nations they will go to exactly. Before US attacked West End we thought that they wold be the primary recipient of these lands. It seemed that they are more interested continuing poking pirates. We have no interest in the Gulf, but if things wont work out and we will be pressured for leadership position on the Conquest Leaderboard we will look at all x3 points Regions.
When it comes to Central America we would like GB to keep Cartagena de Indias which should help them recover in no time.
The above is RvR conquests related only.

In terms of OW PVP pirates will stay pirates. We will hunt everywhere in Caribbean and there are only handful of clans that have a deal with us. We will release this info once its ready on our Website so you all can see our standings properly. Banning pirates from piracy is something I personally believe is not achievable and will never be on the table of discussion with pirates as its directly denying us the gameplay which is the sole reason why we play in the first place..
As for non-aggression pacts between nations - those are not our affairs and we dont like poking nose to someone else business. We might bitch about it, but that is really nothing more than that.

Cheers

Edited July 27, 2017 by koltes

[Sid the Infected]

10 hours ago, Arsilon said:

People need to let go of pre wipe preconceptions.   I can't speak for other nations but France is a collection of server transfers nation transfers and very old school French from way back that have no ties to the political and diplomatic situation if pre wipe France.

I for one have no pre-wipe preconceptions. I never played on pvp2. I was a Pvp1 guy and other than knowing that at least two of the largest factions and maybe even three were allied, I know very little about pre-wipe politics and history. That being said, not all of my concerns were developed through personal experience. Some of my "understandings" came from the talk of others that play longer hours than me so their preconceptions may have contributed to my current ones. Still, seeing the French go after the pirates would open my heart to them quicker than promises to do so.

[Raekur]

Koltes, my point was that BLACK wants to take ports from Britain and hand them over to other nations. My question is that what pressure does BLACK plan on putting on Britain to ensure that those ports remain in the hands of the nations they chose? Unless BLACK plans on becoming NATO and starts trying to dictate who does what where, I don't see the end game to BLACK's terms. In a nutshell, this is the first time I have seen BLACK attempt to control who gets what ports in regards to several regions and I think it is a mistake to attempt it for several reasons.