Allow Map Victories -> solve player attrition

['Sharpe]

This game suffers from player attrition. New content usually accomplishes a playerbase boost, as did the Steam public release, but players drop off at a high rate following these events - higher than most other games I've seen.

One of the biggest contributing factors is a lack of purpose ingame, a lack of anything tangible for which to strive.

• Right now we have ForeverWar. If the goal of OW is to have nations naturally rise and fall over time, there needs to be an endgame to this. There needs to be some moment of glory, something to aspire to. There also needs to be a bottom: something to avoid. Currently, an RvR player who goes inactive for 4 weeks comes back to find that, essentially, nothing has changed. Some dot colors may have moved, their nation maybe even was reduced to one region, but now it's back. Essentially there was nothing they missed, and also no impetus to stay active; the state of the war will be just about the same if they take another month off, so why stay active?
   
• For players who favor privateering, economic disruption, and OW PvP, the ForeverWar also takes a brutal toll on player motivation. Since the campaign is endless, both sides have the nearly infinite ability to gather resources and inflate their own economies with wealth. Since the campaign is endless, access to ports and resources will, over time, be roughly equal between alliances. So does it truly make a difference towards the war if that enemy Indiaman is captured? Of course not - such a contribution of even capturing 25 Indiamen on a single day is so infinitesimally small in impact towards the overall war, since resources have been hoarded over such a long period.
   
• For players who have no interest in the larger conflict and just want to sink enemy players in any way, shape or form -- well quite honestly many of these players end up playing an arena based game like WoW anyway, because matchmaking is so much easier. However for those that stick around because they love the Age of Sail, the lower player count from aforementioned player attrition of ForeverWar is also driving them away from game, as matchmaking on OW is made even more inefficient by a low player population.
   
• The alliance system, which is supposed to have provided a rich layer of diplomacy and inter-faction relations, has devolved into two permanent and stale factions. Many players once found purpose in fighting for their nation - now they are essentially captains for a flavorless alliance of convenience which has no chance of ever evolving.
   

Here is a very simple solution that I believe solves all of the above.

• The map needs to be able to be won.
• At the beginning of a new campaign, two factions are randomly designated as Enemies. The remaining factions can choose to ally with either one or the other. Alliance is permanent throughout the campaign.
  • All ports start as neutral except for starting regions. Free towns remain.
  • At the beginning of each campaign, players keep all their ships (available as redeemables), buildings, and wealth. However all resources start from scratch.
• For your nation to win the campaign, there are two simple conditions:
  • Your alliance must control 75% of ports on the map.
  • Your nation must have the most PvP kills of any other nation in your alliance.

That's it. 3 bullet points, 4 sub-bullet points, and this game would see a large increase in player involvement.

[The Spud]

I think we should have something like victory points where nations (not alliances) get points based on PB victories, succesfull raids, PvP kills, etc...

This way PvP kills are included in the RvR mechanic, so the focus is no longer on PB's only. We could do something like first nation to reach X amount of points gets a victory star and maybe like a small gift like a treasure chest or something for all who helped collecting points (you don't need much to motivate people). This way nations who lack numbers for succesfull PB's can focus on PvP and even the score that way. This might also put some stress on the alliances if 1st and 2nd place are two allied nations.

We could also do something like "elimination" where after the first week the nation with the lowest victory points gets absorbed by a nation of choice (with a voting mechanic) and do this every week until it ends up in a 1vs1 or so. There are many possibilities.

[Guest sruPL]

That's one of the sollutions, but then comes another that should be implemented long time ago. Advanced Diplomacy & Wars.

• War Goals - Nation x goes to war with Nation y, war goal is to capture e.g. Castries and control if for a week.
• Truce after war is over
• Treaties & Demands (once nation x gets the war goal, it can demand something to end the war, call for peace)
• Coalitions 

I would try to implement most of the EU4 game diplomacy & wars mechanics into this game.