No Orcs, Elves, Dwarfes, or Trolls

[Old Crusty]

All that most of us want that talk about Diplomacy is to make it so that a couple of players that get off on being contrary and a pain to people., can’t tag certain players from other Nations because the majority of that Nation has some intelligence and can trade for the materials we need without using ALT accounts. 

   Doesn’t that make some sense to all of you that are against any kind of National unity? Because some contrary, rude, I don’t give a $@($, kind of person will not leave traders alone from a Nation that we get White oak from, that Nation now won’t give us safe passage to trade.

   The Rude, contrary, I can do what I want player, doesn’t give a crap about trading for white oak because he uses PvP marks to make his ships out of whatever he wants. He has no use for a trade agreement and honestly doesn’t care about you and what you want or need.

with a Diplomacy system an “Enemy Player” from a Nation that your Nation has a trade agreement with would be untaggable. Simple. 

We are not hurting Mister PvP I can do whatever I want player. He can still find plenty of “Enemy Players “ to go and rage board in his Le Requin, or Stern camp in his Hercules. 

After this, I give up. To me this is very easy to do right and it will benefit all players but there are just people that cannot see their own nose and can’t find find their own rear end with both hands.

[Angus MacDuff]

I trade all the time and have an "acceptable loss rate" when I do.  Of course, I escort my traders and they are armed.  I even kept clear of some enemy traders who were very well escorted.  I know of plenty of players who sneak in and out of special goods ports and find great success in trade and building.  Instead of being arrogant and assuming that your way is the best for all, I suggest you "GIT GUD".

[Old Crusty]

3 minutes ago, Oberon74 said:

I trade all the time and have an "acceptable loss rate" when I do.  Of course, I escort my traders and they are armed.  I even kept clear of some enemy traders who were very well escorted.  I know of plenty of players who sneak in and out of special goods ports and find great success in trade and building.  Instead of being arrogant and assuming that your way is the best for all, I suggest you "GIT GUD".

You are definitely the player I refer to

[Hethwill]

Let's establish the naked raw truth.

PvP is all that involves player versus player. From trade raid, to squadron versus squadron, to open world battles getting invaded, to epic port battles.

Each NA player plays the age of sail experience the way he feels more tuned with the game. For some is pure "master&commander" encounters, the grit duel 1v1, for others is the OW chance encounters, the stealing, the robber at sea. For others the big trafalgar fleets, the conquest...

All is PvP - it involves players on both sides fighting it out, or trying to escape or whatever ships did back in the age of sail.

Trade routes will ALWAYS be a prime target. Always. And with good reason.

Diplomacy would make sure two nations would be blocked from attacking each other, but would not enforce that nations would be helping each other either.

I am trying to get my head around this but i can see so many loopholes.... Even with mandatory allies every X days, there's no guarantee of help.

 

[Old Crusty]

1 minute ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

Let's establish the naked raw truth.

PvP is all that involves player versus player. From trade raid, to squadron versus squadron, to open world battles getting invaded, to epic port battles.

Trade routes will ALWAYS be a prime target. Always. And with good reason.

Diplomacy would make sure two nations would be blocked from attacking each other, but would not enforce that nations would be helping each other either.

I am trying to get my head around this but i can see so many loopholes.... Even with mandatory allies every X days, there's no guarantee of help.

 

Because real trade agreements in our world never worked? I am baffled as to what is so hard about this.

[Hethwill]

Okay, we are getting somewhere. Makes more sense now.

Trade agreements.

So let's focus on that.

It would mean what ? That you could place contracts on "allied nation" ports ?

[Old Crusty]

7 minutes ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

Okay, we are getting somewhere. Makes more sense now.

Trade agreements.

So let's focus on that.

It would mean what ? That you could place contracts on "allied nation" ports ?

Simple, if Nation A has a trade agreement with Nation B, then players from Nation A and Nation B would have no option to tag each other’s trade ships. In that way some jerk player cannot screw it up for the rest.

   It is very realistic. Try going out on the high seas right now and attacking a British Freighter in your French Destroyer. See what happens.

[Hethwill]

I'm not getting the point as yet.

Obviously, IF diplomacy is in place, and two nations become allies, they cannot tag each other's ships.

That doesn't, however, block anyone else from attacking.

 

[Old Crusty]

12 minutes ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

I'm not getting the point as yet.

Obviously, IF diplomacy is in place, and two nations become allies, they cannot tag each other's ships.

That doesn't, however, block anyone else from attacking.

 

Diplomacy is not in place. 

[Hethwill]

Was already tested. Was popular vote system. Every captain could vote for 1 Ally and 1 War. Rear Admirals had 10 votes.

Sorry if you weren't around.

[Old Crusty]

13 minutes ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

I'm not getting the point as yet.

Obviously, IF diplomacy is in place, and two nations become allies, they cannot tag each other's ships.

That doesn't, however, block anyone else from attacking.

 

Who else are we trying to block from attacking??? Of course if A and B have an agreement it has nothing to do with C D E F G H of course players from other Nations could still attack. 

[Hethwill]

Just now, Old Crusty said:

Who else are we trying to block from attacking??? Of course if A and B have an agreement it has nothing to do with C D E F G H of course players from other Nations could still attack. 

Awesome. That I have no clue why the trade raids and hercs and xebecs are called in for. Trying to read and trace your main idea.

Read my previous post BTW.

We already had that system for a while under test.

It did not work, apparently, as intended.

Blame us, the players.

[Old Crusty]

3 minutes ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

Awesome. That I have no clue why the trade raids and hercs and xebecs are called in for. Trying to read and trace your main idea.

Read my previous post BTW.

We already had that system for a while under test.

It did not work, apparently, as intended.

Blame us, the players.

It did not work because there was no limit on the number of allies or treaties. Everyone says the same thing. The world divided into two alliances. LIMIT the amount of treaties to one or two and that problem is gone.

[Vernon Merrill]

21 minutes ago, Old Crusty said:

Simple, if Nation A has a trade agreement with Nation B, then players from Nation A and Nation B would have no option to tag each other’s trade ships. In that way some jerk player cannot screw it up for the rest.

   It is very realistic. Try going out on the high seas right now and attacking a British Freighter in your French Destroyer. See what happens.

New England Privateers really Really REALLY didn’t like it when the southern colonies regularly traded with the Brits early in the Revolution.  

Min fact, their clashes nearly prevented the south from joining at all...

The only way I can actually see this, or a form of this, working is if it’s randomly-generated and adequately timed. 

[Angus MacDuff]

And New England and the Canadian Maritime colonies just kinda stayed out of the war of 1812.  There was Naval warfare but they kept their soldiers home.

[Vernon Merrill]

Not to mention I don’t want Lucky L or Tuck determining national policy with their 50+ alt votes. 

[Hethwill]

1 minute ago, Old Crusty said:

It did not work because there was no limit on the number of allies or treaties. Everyone says the same thing. The world divided into two alliances. LIMIT the amount of treaties to one or two and that problem is gone.

There was. Highest voted Ally and highest voted War.

We talking exactly the same here.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

3 hours ago, Le Raf Boom said:

you want to step in and fill their shoes?

I have no such aspiration. Now you start fantasizing too? I do not personally profit from my suggestions. France does (or any other nation which wants to see members pull on one string together).

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

3 hours ago, Zorion said:

I used play a online game where i would sail from Europe to India and Japan and back. the journey took 3 to 6 hours and i had to consider how much food, water, amunition and even the cost of the payment to the crew.

Interesting. May I ask what game that was, Sir? Out of curiosity?

[Fenris]

8 hours ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

That is actually part of the problem, because clans beaming themselves into other nations can torpedo what is believed there to be the national stance (as it is now), thus sabotaging relations to other nations (and clans who are serious about their position in the game world, if you like that better). It is a chaos factor at the present, without disciplinating measures in sight.

Yep. Well said. A "chaos factor".

And not a "content" like some might believe.

[Fenris]

3 hours ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

There was. Highest voted Ally and highest voted War.

We talking exactly the same here.

No we don`t. That is the whole problem. That simple button clicking choosing an ally was a bad idea.

 

[Hethwill]

25 minutes ago, Fenris said:

No we don`t. That is the whole problem. That simple button clicking choosing an ally was a bad idea.

 

Totaly agree.

[Farrago]

6 hours ago, Old Crusty said:

All that most of us want that talk about Diplomacy is to make it so that a couple of players that get off on being contrary and a pain to people., can’t tag certain players from other Nations because the majority of that Nation has some intelligence and can trade for the materials we need without using ALT accounts. 

   Doesn’t that make some sense to all of you that are against any kind of National unity? Because some contrary, rude, I don’t give a $@($, kind of person will not leave traders alone from a Nation that we get White oak from, that Nation now won’t give us safe passage to trade.

   The Rude, contrary, I can do what I want player, doesn’t give a crap about trading for white oak because he uses PvP marks to make his ships out of whatever he wants. He has no use for a trade agreement and honestly doesn’t care about you and what you want or need.

There is nothing that prevents alliances and trade agreements now with the one exception that you can not join another nation’s port battle fleet.

If such an informal (non game rules enforced) alliance works for the parties involved, it’s very difficult for a rogue player or clan to sabotage it. (But if they try, it makes for some intetesting game play.) In the past, we’ve seen numerous instances where the nation of the offending rogue reimburses the loss. But, because of the lack of green-on-green or clan wars mechanic, a nation cannot police its own waters or enforce agreements.

Every nation has/does/will experience rogues within their ranks who attack their ally’s shipping. And yet if they want to maintain an alliance that is beneficial to them, they don’t instantly declare war.

Devs have proven in the past that they neither have the time nor inclination to play ruler god and run a storyline of war and alliances. And player voting? I can currently cast up to 5 votes to sway alliances the way I want. And I haven’t bought another game copy in a while.

I think you mistake those against mechanic enforced alliances with those just wanting chaos. I don’t. Chaos doesnt benefit my play style. But I’ve seen that it doesn’t work to set alliances in stone because no matter whether it’s only one ally or three, random resets or not, players are going to follow or not follow the alliances that work for them.

HOWEVER, Implement a genuine pirate mechanic and/or letters of marque and we can consider game enforced alliances but be forewarned. At least on the global server, back when we had alliances but Pirates could not, Pirates tended to be the most popular and most powerful nation because they were the only ones who could still find a battle every day. Most players ultimately get bored when their only game choice is to make a almost 100% safe trade run.