Surrender without losing your ship

[MasterBurte]

Hi captains,

recently i was in a battle, where i was unable to run away/leave battle and i had no chance to fight the superior enemy forces. In this situation i would have loved to be able to surrender to the enemy. But as long as the only benefit from surrendering is to skip an otherwise impossible battle i see no resean to ever use this option. When you look films about pirates and naval battles, surrendering is often the last option to save your own life.

If a pirate attacks a trader that has no chance to win the fight, i can imagen that usually the trader would surrender. He might lose most or all of his cargo, but he would be alive and still have his ship with enough rations to make it to another port before starving to death.

If we look at big battles between two enemy forces, i could imagine that a surrendering party could get to some agreement with the winner. Maybe the winner would take a hostage to ensure that the agreement would be complite with.

 

I suggest that we can surrender without immediatly losing everything. Instead the surrending party can't fight anymore (to prevent fake surrendering) unless the enemy continius fighting. Then the winner can board the ship, where an interface allows the partys to chat and come to an agreement. The best outcome for the loser would be that he could leave the battlefield unharmed (but unable to fight and can't rejoin the battle), where the worst outcome would be, that the loser has to sail to the next habour with rescue boats (crew still alive). Some rules would be following:

1. If the winner breaks the agreement (fighting the loser), the loser can immediatly fight back. Between the point of surrender till fight has to be aborded can be a time from 5 to 10 seconds.

2. The enemy don't has to accept surrendering and can continue fight (see point 1).

3. The enemy has a timer 30 seconds to decide if he accepts the surrendering. If he negates it or the timer runs out the surrending party can continue fighting.

4. To encourage gentelman behavior the winner get's a bonus money and xp if he doesn't harm the losers ship etc.

- regular fight with sinking the enemy = 100% money and 100% xp

- surrender/enemy crew unharmed (ship get's sinked or taken) = 125% money and 125% xp

- surrender/enemy keeps ship = 150% money and 150% xp

[Pada]

If you surrender you save your crew. It's not just a fast way to skip the battle.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

Striking your colours and surrendering your sword was seen as an act of honour, the only reason it was considered acceptable is because it saved lives in an hopeless situation. Captains had a duty not only to their Nations but to their ship and their crews. That said a Captain who surrendered his ship would still have to justify his actions before a Board of Inquiry under the Articles of War, to their credit the Admiralty were sympathetic to Captains who surrendered their ships as long as it was the last resort to save life and/or the ship was in imminent danger of sinking.

By all means use surrender, save the remnants of the crew, but to the  victor goes the spoils, ship, cargo, everything else.  Then as now where ever possible, after a battle saving life became the priority, it is why Captains would slow, or sometimes even stop their ships to recover survivors friend and foe alike. It is one of the few values that has withstood the test of time in Naval warfare. 

[victor]

Just now, Sir Lancelot Holland said:

Striking your colours and surrendering your sword was seen as an act of honour, the only reason it was considered acceptable is because it saved lives in an hopeless situation. Captains had a duty not only to their Nations but to their ship and their crews. That said a Captain who surrendered his ship would still have to justify his actions before a Board of Inquiry under the Articles of War, to their credit the Admiralty were sympathetic to Captains who surrendered their ships as long as it was the last resort to save life and/or the ship was in imminent danger of sinking.

By all means use surrender, save the remnants of the crew, but to the  victor goes the spoils, ship, cargo, everything else.  Then as now where ever possible, after a battle saving life became the priority, it is why Captains would slow, or sometimes even stop their ships to recover survivors friend and foe alike. It is one of the few values that has withstood the test of time in Naval warfare. 

Except the fact that if the winner wanted the spoils, they should  tow the captured ship to a friendly port.

While now, in the game, the PVP mark hunger means that (with the exception maybe of boarded 1st and 2nd rates) each and every combat ends with a sunk ship.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

6 minutes ago, victor said:

Except the fact that if the winner wanted the spoils, they should  tow the captured ship to a friendly port.

While now, in the game, the PVP mark hunger means that (with the exception maybe of boarded 1st and 2nd rates) each and every combat ends with a sunk ship.

Unfortunately that is  so, many of the values of 18th/19th century naval warfare have gone, like the gentlemen's agreement regarding SOL's attacking 4ths and below unless fired upon, or the practice of firing a broadside for the pavilion and withdrawing to satisfy honour. It was a different time, different values, sadly I think the game loses some of its flavour by their absence but that happens when 21st century values are transposed onto an earlier era's value system.

[Yngvarr]

2 hours ago, Sir Lancelot Holland said:

Unfortunately that is  so, many of the values of 18th/19th century naval warfare have gone, like the gentlemen's agreement regarding SOL's attacking 4ths and below unless fired upon, or the practice of firing a broadside for the pavilion and withdrawing to satisfy honour. It was a different time, different values, sadly I think the game loses some of its flavour by their absence but that happens when 21st century values are transposed onto an earlier era's value system.

It was a time in which it not only mattered if the war was won or lost, but also in which manner it had been fought.

Being a gentleman and matters of honor and such.

Officers were often from wealthy families and educated as gentlemen, and were supposed to keep the enlisted men in line.

[Hodo]

There were instances though of pirates, capturing ships and only taking the cargo and leaving the ship and crew alone. 

It was not uncommon to be honest.  

So it should be an option for pirates at the very least.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

1 hour ago, Yngvarr said:

It was a time in which it not only mattered if the war was won or lost, but also in which manner it had been fought.

Being a gentleman and matters of honor and such.

Officers were often from wealthy families and educated as gentlemen, and were supposed to keep the enlisted men in line.

Most were, many officers served under patronage of Captains or Admirals from a very early age, Nelson was a son of an Norfolk Preacher, served under patronage of a relative.  The standards of all officers were those of 'polite society' their code of honour was often in the form of custom or gentlemen's agreements, even extended to their enemies, an officers word was accepted as both an officer and a gentleman. Even among the Brethren of the Coast there was a code of honour, lines that were drawn and not crossed without consequence, no one could ever accuse them of being 'gentlemen' but none the less they were men of honour in their own society.

It may be that such a 'code of honour' could add to the immersion in game, there was back then no real way of enforcing such a code except by mutual consent and the threat of exclusion from 'polite society' but with the Brethren  of the coast exclusion was not an option, though an early dinner date with Davey Jones in his locker very likely was

 

Edited November 24, 2017 by Sir Lancelot Holland

[Lz3]

You completely lost me at point 4. This would encourage surrendering in a game about fighting each other. I would put a penalty on surrendering for the person who does it, and then it's up to the winner to decide what he does with the others ship. Will the penalty be worth it for a chance to keep your ship? Will the enemy sink your ship and you still get a penalty? Did you agree in chat before that if you surrender the enemy keeps your ship but suddenly he breaks the agreement and burns it? This would be interesting, not encouraging people to surrender or putting any negative effect on the winner no matter what he does. This allows a way for players to get a reputation of dread or chivalry to his prey without a penalty.