Forthcoming patch information: Port Investments + map wipe

[Serk]

3 hours ago, --Privateer-- said:

Should do a ship wipe along with a map wipe, so we can all get used to seeing only DLC for the rest of forever.

Indeed, and we'd have an idea if and how DLC Ratts will swarm the map and grab every meaningfull port before the first oak oak aga is even crafted.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Serk

[Sea Archer]

I think that for building forts there should be lots of stones needed. The stone mine production is at the moment much too high for the amount that is needed for ship crafting.

A full fort shouldn't take less than 10k of stones, they could be armed like ship with guns of the own production.

I suggest to give the option of heated round shot, of cause with additional cost, to increase the fire probability on the attacking ships ( maybe 5-10%).

[Njord]

You could allow clans to let players take control of the guns on their fortifications. The less AI in PvP, the better.

[Beeekonda]

4 hours ago, Latron said:

I wish this new conquest system can be explained in more detail. A certain smelly friend of mine is basing his strategy from an idea that I'm pretty sure isn't possible, but I don't know because I don't understand this enough. After the wipe I'd imagine there's going to be a mad grab for capitals so I'm hoping my small clan can get something from this since we'll probably be forced to leave areas that we enjoy playing in.

You take hostility missions for County Capital and cap it. After that you will be able to take hostility missions for regular, non County Capital ports of that county. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Beeekonda

[Meraun]

@admin Sounds great, but we reallllllyyy need to look into the Rare Woods/Permit Situation. Its unbearable right now.

[znôrt]

16 hours ago, Socialism said:

Yea it should be reverse.  All the small dots should be captured before the big dot.  That is the essence of island hopping.

Make sure they have cannons

this way it's interesting too as it turns capitals into choke points of regions, which is the whole point of fortification i guess. capitals will need to be strong because they're the first line of defense of the region and will be very disputed. 

[SantaRoja]

Imo the problem can be the huge br in capital, so the small clans whitout help cannot even try to raise.(no more small battle?)

Anyway good news in carribean.🍻

[Guest]

Full Wipe. Now.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

23 hours ago, admin said:

• To conquer Arecibo Regional town in Puerto Rico if you are Swedish working from Gustavia
  • You first have to conquer County Capital in Virgin Islands
  • Then you can take a mission from Virgin Islands county capital for San Juan and conquer it
  • Then from San Juan you can take missions for regional towns in San Juan county
• Alternatively you can of course sink player ships or NPC ships around Arecibo and gain hostility directly.

 

 

So by camping in front of a port and sinking every ship of the port's nation around it, it is still possible to bypass the whole hostility missions stuff + frontline ? I hope so.

Is the hostility gained from ow sinking will be tweaked so this can happen for real? As right now the maintenance reduce too much of the hostility gained the previous 24h or the ow kills raise too few of the hostility levels IMO to flip in time.

Do hostility by blocading & supply cut will be a thing too ? 

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

@admin can we have a ship wipe as well? That way we can test hostility and front lines a bit more effectively. Otherwise the testing might be a bit diluted if we still have our ships all over the map still from pre-wipe.

[Preechur Blackheart]

No ship wipe. please! Not until the game is ready to be released. Otherwise many of us will just stop playing until the release...already people have stopped building ships.

[HoneyBaddger]

20 hours ago, Latron said:

I would assume that we need to own the county capital to get hostility missions from them, right? That doesn't sound good for the Bahamas which only has Shroud as a freeport. I bet the capitals near there would be taken very quickly, so would me and my buddies in Sweden even have a chance of having our own ports there again?

Yes the Brits will help you!

[Barbancourt]

1 hour ago, Preechur Blackheart said:

No ship wipe. please! Not until the game is ready to be released.

No testing until release?  LOL

Wipe everything. Cold turkey!  Let's finally START testing.

 

[Bubba Smith]

Having re-read this post, this is an awesome improvement. It answers more than one question for me.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Bubba Smith

[Farrago]

18 hours ago, Sovereign said:

You could allow clans to let players take control of the guns on their fortifications. The less AI in PvP, the better.

I've also suggested this several times in the past. It would be wonderful. I wonder if the game engine could handle 25 defender ship captains + players manning the fort guns. So cool!

[Sang Noir]

Great idea! Though shouldn‘t the capitals of a region be endgame and the smaller ports be taken first to disrupt and weaken the capital, making it ripe for the final attack? Battles for small ports first, capital taken last?

[Archaos]

On 4/15/2019 at 10:20 AM, admin said:

Every type of investment will require points and having limited points per port, clans will have to pick things they want to specialize their city in. Some cities (chokepoints or front line towns) will only have forts, some will become resource bases and some will become shipbuilding cities.

Will the points be able to be reallocated as required? i.e. will you be able to change a port from a resource port to a fortified port and vice versa?

[Rufus Swipe]

The problem with doing a ship wipe as well is that it will mean a long delay before the features of this patch can be properly tested. Surely we do not want to delay release of this game any longer than necessary?

I would suggest moving the temporary forests though. I think most RvR clans know where they all are now. So leaving them where they are may distort the strategies nations adopt and so make the testing less useful.

[Hullabaloo]

On 4/15/2019 at 10:20 AM, admin said:

Hostility mission and conquest flow changes.

• Mission availability
  • Hostility missions will only be available from National Capitals and County Capitals and Free towns. 
  • Hostility missions will only be available for the 2 nearest Enemy or Neutral County Capitals.
  • Hostility missions for regional towns will only be available from the County Capital of that region (example below). County capital of the region will allow taking hostility missions for ANY regional port of that county.
• Conquest flow
  • To capture a regional town you first will have to capture a County Capital of that region
  • To do so you need to own a County capital near to that region. (as hostility missions will be distance based)
  • Then you will be able to capture other regional towns in that County, building resource infrastructure or ship building bases in the region, and defenses in the county capital.

I like this idea.

I'm hoping I have understood this idea correctly but it seems to me that "2 Nearest" (assuming you mean nearest by distance) is going to lead to to some very odd and illogical connections and mechanics.

Leaving aside PvP hostility for the moment and assuming Nation capitals are not included:

PROBLEM: Some County capitals are isolated whereas others have many others in close proximity.
Some ports are close in actual distance but a long sail away around land masses. 
This will mean having to attack Ports that were not even 'in your way' but in completely different directions (that you might not really want) just to be able to raise hostility in the one you do actually want. Also, there are many Ports that will be able to raise hostility on another but NOT the other way around!

Eg 1. The Spanish take Marsh Harbour (cos they want the copper at Little Harbour) and The Pirates have taken Kidds. But the Pirates want Copper too. The Pirates can open hostility missions whenever they like for Marsh Harbour from Kidds as it is the closest county capital. But NOT the other way round! In fact, if the Spanish want to attack Kidds from Marsh Harbour, they would first have to capture ALL BUT ONE of West End, Ays, Islamorada, Morgan's Bluff, Nassau, George's Town, San Augustin AND Pitt's Town. That's SEVEN Capitals before they could even get a hostility mission for Kidds!

Eg 2. To Attack Pitt's Town from Nuevitas (a short sail away) would require taking FOUR of either Trinidad!!!, Remdios, Sant Lago, George's Town and Baracoa first. 

Eg 3. To Attack Ays from Islamorada (the very next capital up the Florida coast) you would need to knock down two of West End, Morgans Bluff and Gasparilla, that are all in completely different directions to where you actually want to expand. 

Eg. 4 To attack Les Cayes from Santo Domingo (again the next capital along the coast) you would have to have taken at least two of Puerto Plata, Ponce and Cap-Francais (all in the opposite direction)

There are numerous examples where to expand one way it will be necessary to first take a Port that is the complete opposite direction in order to make the Port you want become available for hostility missions. San Augustin is closer to San Marco (40 min sail) than it is to Ays (10 minute sail). Trinidad/Remdios, Salamanca/Campeche, Ays/Gasparilla all similar. It would be impossible to raise hostility missions for Bermuda. It just won't make any sense.

SOLUTION:

Rather than "2 nearest" a 'Hostility Route Map' needs to be drawn up with Ports linked according to the sailing routes. (kinda like London Tube map but with more cross links). It would be possible to take hostility missions for ANY capital that is one 'station' along on the route map.

 
This way :
1.'neighbouring'capitals are able to attack each other not just one way
2. Distant Ports can be better incorporated into the RvR
3. Ports separated by vast sailing distances (but closer over land) can be distanced accordingly
4. You can keep moving in one direction without having to double back and take a port you don't want

Also, whilst I like the idea of choke points, I can envisage plausible situations where several nations could be blocked in without any real hope of possible expansion. The route map could be designed in such a way as to allow more possible routes to take so that nations are less likely to find themselves in that situation. 

eg. Links from Willemstead to Santo Domingo, Pedro Cay to Santa Marta, Kidds to Wilmington, New Orleans to Selam etc.

[Teutonic]

As odd as it may be from a "historical accuracy" standpoint. I agree with @Hullabaloo. 

a lattice system would probably be better manually touched on instead of lazy distance based numbers.

although I still think the bahamas should be under a different set of rules...

[Ligatorswe]

8 minutes ago, Hullabaloo said:

 

Rather than "2 nearest" a 'Hostility Route Map' needs to be drawn up with Ports linked according to the sailing routes. (kinda like London Tube map but with more cross links). It would be possible to take hostility missions for ANY capital that is one 'station' along on the route map.

 

You are a genius! I support this!

[Hullabaloo]

4 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

although I still think the bahamas should be under a different set of rules...

I agree. Bahamas could be same mechanic but Port to Port (ignoring capitals) which would open up a huge shallow draft RvR game

[Ligatorswe]

10 minutes ago, Hullabaloo said:

I agree. Bahamas could be same mechanic but Port to Port (ignoring capitals) which would open up a huge shallow draft RvR game

Agree!

[Tom Farseer]

One question:

If you need to own the county capital to flip the regional neutral ports and a clan can make do with, let's say three ports in the new system (one for trading, one for resources one for shipbuilding):
Why would anyone want to flip the remaining regional ports from neutral and rid himself of easy AI grinding spots? A ton of ports would be of no use again unless we get a very large influx of new players and clans who want their own living space.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Tom Farseer

[GVT]

Is this the last wipe before the game's release?