Less Ports + Buildable Ports + Decaying Ports

[Slamz]

The economy needs to scale with player population, which can happen now through resource buildings.

 

The number of ports also needs to scale with player population. This might be my new #2 problem with the game ("port battle mechanics" still being #1).

 

PVP2, for example, has seen a lot of people leave. Due to the number of ports, I believe this can cause a cascade effect:

1. People leave because they are not getting good fights (presumably).
2. Getting good fights involves opening up a new front line war.
3. Opening up a new front line war involves getting there by pushing up your front line until you hit resistance.
4. Pushing up your front line involves dozens of very boring, very expensive, sometimes very poorly timed (12-14) PvT attacks that tends to bore people and then see item #1.
5. The game is full of needless ports nobody cares about and just forces a lot of PvT.

I think the game should work more like this:

• Each nation starts with one capital. That's it. There are no other ports on the map.
• Players expand out and build ports (maybe they can put them anywhere or maybe ports exist but as empty, neutral, useless husks until someone "switches it on" somehow).
• Ports decay naturally if nobody uses them -- probably measured by ship repairs done, items traded and labor hours uses.
• Maybe ports can be actively destroyed, but that may be unnecessary if we just let unused ones decay.
• Decayed ports are either destroyed or effectively "switched off" and can be ignored.
• There may be some degree of build-up time before a new port can generate capture flags or offer reinforcements.

The goal here is to help allow conflict to occur faster by letting new fronts open quicker. Having to PvT dozens of empty ports that nobody cares about is a real drag on the game and I think contributes significantly to player dropoff.

 

[_Masterviolin]

Confining an entire nation to one port at the start of the game isn't a very good idea, and how would we set up this port building infrastructure?

 

Would players pay to open ports already existing on the map? Would they have control in them, therefore giving the richer players a lot of power in the economy?

Historical accuracy would be thrown badly. We also have the more active nations being able to build out much faster than anyone else. In addition, players could be unable to get any resources until enough ports were open, which is a major point here. 

 

Overall, the build-able port and one port start seems like it would do lots of damage to smaller nations, confine the economy greatly and even remove the contesting of ports. If I can build a giant empire just by buying the ports at the beginning of the session, then why do we need to conquer any?

 

Having ports pre-determined helps PVP. It means that instead of being able to colonize the ports around you, you need to fight other nations for ports you want. I don't think that having ports being bought would actually help PVP; it would do the same thing, but create solid "bubbles" of owned ports around capitals.

[Capt. Rice]

I proposed a system where in conquest the ports are linked, so that adjacent ports had to be captured to progress. that would make battle lines in conquest be known and it would funnel pvp to the front lines due to the size of the world.

The port decay system just makes more work and discourages people to even expanding far. Decaying ports would hurt even smaller nation as they would not be able to keep port beyond their population .  To have more battles you need to funnel your players to the front lines.  You look at planetside and you can clearly see where major battle are. The Flag thing could add a slower over all conquest and would actually help. 

[Slamz]

We also have the more active nations being able to build out much faster than anyone else

 

That is a key part of the point.

 

Really, nobody needs all the ports this map offers. Even the most populated team, after sacking 90 ports, has a lot of ports that absolutely nobody ever goes to for any reason. Yet to pick a fight with them, invaders are going to have to spend a load of time and money pushing back these useless ports. If they don't, it's a back-line flag grab opportunity for that team, so there is no choice but to take every port along the way to find a fight.

 

On PVP2, for example, France is facing a ton of British ports on Hispaniola. The British never use the majority of those ports. They use some of the ones in Haiti but you can sail up and down the Dominican half of the island and never see another soul. In order to get ourselves into a real fight, we're going to have to spend a lot of time and several million gold taking ports that the British literally do not care about. Some guild ate them up over a month ago and then left (and set the port timers to 12-14 when nobody is on either side) so it's just a huge hassle. We ended up doing basically the same thing with Haiti and basically the same thing with our own homeland when the pirates left -- we had to capture something like 15 ports that were empty and we didn't even really have a use for a lot of them.

 

Those ports simply should never have existed. If we only built ports we needed, we would have half as many (or less).

 

Maybe there's an argument that nations should start with 5 ports or so, but nobody needs to start with, or be able to run around grabbing up, 90+ ports. At that point it's actually detracting from PvP rather than supporting it.

[ulysse77]

well it was mentionned at some point that after a wipe, we could start we only capital the rest neutral... I k now it was suggested long time ago by Dev...

 

Personnally i like the idea

[Captain Red]

Having ports pre-determined helps PVP. It means that instead of being able to colonize the ports around you, you need to fight other nations for ports you want. I don't think that having ports being bought would actually help PVP; it would do the same thing, but create solid "bubbles" of owned ports around capitals.

 

Hm but pvp is where people are. And yet there are many PB with no defenders. Current towns are for the most just empty NPC placeholders. Towers smashing is no fun/pvp.

 

I wish all factions would start with a few colonies, and others current towns are just empty spots players/clans can to colonize and develop, it would make sense to defend and maintain what we create rather than capturing static NPC towns located on the other side of the map. Of course if people like sailing for hours they still could colonize very distant lands

Or, regional capitals could be neutral towns one needs to capture in order to build/access towns of that region. Not something you buy, but something you develop through resources gathering. We need those traders ships sailing, around main hubs, that's some more pvp.

It would be difficult for one large faction to colonize all the towns, for they would have to invest a lot of time and resources, and the larger the empire is the harder it is to defend. It could also be capped at some point: when x amount of towns/regions a faction owns is reached, each additional region it takes adds a national production penalty/tax to all current towns and buildings, let's say, for the upkeep of such a large empire. This way nobody can own it all, and development will be limited to what a faction can afford to lose.