Anolytic

I wish to point out that RDNN is not primarily a hardcore oriented clan. If you are concerned you may not be active enough for us, do not worry. We are a clan focused on coordination, cooperation and PvP. But we do not require that you log on to fight every day. We have, and we accept, members who are only able to play every other week. We have players who work at sea IRL and every now and again go away for weeks. What we require is that you are friendly, cooperative, that you use Teamspeak whenever you are able, that your main focus is PvP, and that you are brave. You do not need to be the most skilled at the game. We will teach you the skills that you need. In a Port Battle, skill comes secondary to bravery. Hesitation will get your teammates sunk. Loosing your ship is a mark of honour. It means you fought. Over the past few days RDNN has been involved in the conquest of the Lago de Maracaibo and participated in several great fights. Maracaibo: and Sinamaica: We also remain in the ongoing Naval Action Tournament, and both our teams are yet undefeated. Again, we are a clan forgiving of mistakes, and through teamwork and strategy we turn the most dire situation around. Stepping into the tournament as the RDNN Team 1 reserver I failed to time my repair and also to account for the heel of the Trinc (port battle ships are more my forte), and almost lost us the match:

Some of the spoils brought home to Christiansted from Venezuela:

I just want to say. I still have some questions about how this noob zone will work, but as I get more and more used to idea I am also more and more starting to accept and even like it. And most of the Bahamas with all the glorious shallows will still be open to normal gameplay for veterans. Sparing this little area for rookies should be alright. The only thing I'm still struggling with, is inventing some presumably uncaptureable Danish/Swedish/Spanish/Dutch holdings in that area. I'm not gonna say I will be advocating this game be entirely historical, but there's just something that feels wrong about Bimini being Danish, Mimbres being Dutch and so on... What about making those ports neutral on the map and in OW, but giving each nation's rookie player an outpost in their neutral port. And port battles in the area could be semi-randomly scheduled by game mechanics instead of having actual conquest and shifting pixels up there in the Bahamas. That would also teach noobs the valuable lesson that most veterans totally missed about ports shifting colours not mattering at all, but the fight and the fun you have from the port battle being what matters.

I only hope it will be balanced. So that it may take a long time for big nations, but isn't impossible for small nations.

First. The Pacific side isn't going to be open till release anyway. By then most free towns in the Caribbean might have been removed. Second. From what has been said, the Pacific is going to be a PvE area. So it's not going to be contested.

Does this mean September and October patches are be merged?

It doesn't actually mean there will be 10 PBs a day. Only that there will be 10 top agro zones. Presumably once a region is opened for assault, all or most of the ports can be assaulted in a day or a couple of days.

Other nations will probably be busy with doing other things in other parts of the map though.

Excellent newspaper as always. And a nice and exclusive scoop on PvP1 politics in there as well.

AFAIK this is still just a suggestion that is being considered. No confirmation that there will be seasons (hoping not) or attackable capital regions (hope so).

I really like this initiative. I would join in a heartbeat if not for the overlap with Port Battles. I will spread the word in my clan and see if some of our players maye aren't participating in port battles and would join this.

Typically I think the devs usually want us to discover for ourselves exactly how new mechanics work when they implement them. Perhaps because it allows them to also measure a bit how intuitive the new features are. Or because of the value of the exploration itself. The devs have told us what we need to know to be able to move ours ships and outposts around to prepare for the patch. I could be wrong, but I am not sure they intend to reveal all the details of the other changes that are coming. We will all find out eventually anyway, when the patch finally arrives. We will be scrutinising patch notes and also testing the mechanics ourselves to figure out how it all works. And that's part of the fun in my eyes. All this said, I too am dying to know the answers to most of these questions, mostly to confirm or deny if my expectation of how it will work is correct. However I will try to be patient.

What happened to good old National News? Is this the consequence of shifting diplomacy from meta-game to a mechanic? (no, we've had periods of trolling frenzy before)

Maybe I'll visit all 378 ports (on the new map) one day, but probably not...

There is a very real risk tho, with this idea, that players can use the false flag to sneak up on enemies unaware and gank them. While false flags were a real part of warfare at the time, it would possibly be even more of a gankers' paradise to introduce this feature.

This idea is worth considering. You would only be able to discover such a smuggler by sailing within tagging distance of them and clicking on their ship. If able to attack you know they're sailing with a false flag. You could also reveal a smuggler from a distance if you're familiar with his IG name (players active in global or on the forum) or you search for his name to check what nation he is with.

I was only in one battle for Maracaibo. It was the beginning of my Internet troubles this week. We sank more ships, but didn't manage to take the port. Dutch timing for entering battle was perfect. We also lost 2 ships to disconnects. I disconnected 9 times, having to restart my router to get back in and had 3,3k ping half the battle. For me, keeping my ship was a victory. But I heard we did terrible in some subsequent battles that I couldn't take part in. Although I believe there was a defensive battle at Cojoro where a small Danish fleet prevailed against larger numbers.

Oh, I forgot. I guess we sank those Dutch L'Oceans.

I guess I spoke too soon... I've seen many Dutch L'Oceans and Heavy Rattlesnakes. Danes have neither ship, and French and Spanish afaik don't know have the L'Ocean either. What nerfing are you talking about? You chose both your enemies and your allies yourself. And by my estimate Dutchs are handling themselves very well.

I think this happens whenever maintenance is pushed for whatever reason. Or connected to something else. At least it has happened several times that all the conquest of the previous day is listed again the following day on the map conquest screen, only now with the capturing nation listed as capturing the port from themselves.

The logic is to move freeports to the edges of regions, like with all other freeports. It is a likely possibility that a lot of free towns will be removed entirely in one of the next patches. I doubt anyway that Spain's entire survival is reliant upon a single port. Also, the game is in Alpha. They are still adding, changing and testing content.

There might well be something like this sometime in the future, but as of now there has been no mention of this being implemented with this next patch.

The plan is likely to reduce freetowns in all areas eventually. But with the rookie capitals every nation will presumably have something like a freetown in the area each. Regarding port production, as I understand it they have moved up the reset till this patch, which would be the reason all our production buildings are getting destroyed in an earthquake.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/16423-free-town-changes-important/page-1