Frontlines are Broken

[Anolytic]

Frontlines are a great idea, but they way they are implemented is sloppy. At first we had that from each county capital/free-port you could attack the 2 closest counties. This led to situations such as Pirates not being able to attack Pitt’s Town from Mortimer Town, even though the two regions are directly adjacent to each other. To remedy this, it was expanded to the 3 closest counties. The consequence of this, is that for large parts of the map, the actual Frontlines are eviscerated.

Case in point:

From Cartagena, you can now jump past the British frontline and attack Old Providence. But presumably it would be impossible to go the other way, because Old Providence has several Counties that are closer to it than Cartagena is.

However, Cartagena is no longer an eastern Frontline towards the freetown of Dariena. It is perfectly possible to bypass the Cartagena region and jump straight to Santa Marta. Because the 3 closest Counties are Portobello, Cartagena, and Santa Marta.

From San Augustin on the Florida coast, the 3rd closest County is Abaco (Marsh Harbour), which any way you look at it is not adjacent to each other.

Some parts of the map have still a semblance of Frontlines. If Spain was to settle the Gulf of Mexico, most of the territory would be behind a couple of frontlines, due to the relatively far-apart free-towns. If you are not already situated in the Gulf, it can only be attacked from the 3 closest Counties to El Rancho, and a single county from Tumbado. The Gulf has 10 or 11 counties depending on your definition. In either case more than half the counties are behind frontlines.

Britain also benefits from the relative safety of being able to lock down most of their territory behind narrow frontlines. Everything in the triangle between Jamaica, Bacalar on Yucatan and Portobello in Panama, as well as portions of South Cuba, and with the exception of Old Providence can be defended behind Frontlines.

Similarly, anyone possessing Bermuda and the Secret Islands will have the 2 very strong regions very safely protected behind a frontline as long as they hold Marsh Harbour.

On the other hand, if you are Danish or Swedish, you might as well forget about the concept of Frontlines, at least as far as helping you to defend the integrity of your territory. When you are looking for places to expand, it might be a different story.

From a Swedish perspective, not only has the Virgin Islands County been inexplicably expanded to protrude to ports directly on top of their capital, forcing an immediate confrontation between Denmark and Sweden that will be long-term completely destructive to the player-base of one of those nations. In addition, even if Sweden were to expand outwards from their starting position, in the 2 directions available to them, and capture every region north of Fort Royal (Martinique) to the South, and all the way to the Eastern half of Hispaniola to the West, only a meagre 2 counties (Leeward Islands and Grande-Terre) would be covered by the Frontlines Mechanic. Due to access from the Freeports of Aves, La Mona, La Tortue as well as enemy capitals, every other region they capture near their core territory will be constantly compromisable.

For Denmark this is even worse. Given that they work outward from their capital and capture the same territory as mentioned above, comprising of the ten counties of La Vega, Santo Domingo, San Juan, Ponce, Virgin Islands, Bovenwinds, Leeward Islands, Grande-Terre, Basse-Terre and Dominica, only a single one region, Grande-Terre, would be protected behind their «Frontline», since Leeward Islands is attackable from Gustavia.

I have said this before, and Hullabaloo made a good write-up of it somewhere as well: 

If we are to use frontlines, simply coding Hostility missions to be distance-based for each port is a terrible solution, whether it is the 2 closest or the 3 closest regions. 

Instead, the map has to be looked at and adjacent regions/counties identified, and for each County Capital and Freeport, it must be carefully considered what ports should be attackable from there. And most Freeports should only allow attacking 1 or 2 adjacent regions. For Aves, this number should be 1 - Basse Terre. And from La Mona, also only 1 - Santo Domingo.

[Teutonic]

#flagsystem

[Capitalism]

11 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

#flagsystem

Sure, give us raids, that's not a new request. But attack lines should be determined by voronoi distances between ports. Any port should be able to attack any neighboring port as determined by a simple half distance algorithm. Not something as ridiculously arbitrary as a hard coded number.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

Who ever asked for frontline anyway?

Since when frontlines make sense from a naval point of view ? Did the Dutch had to conquer the whole European African indian coast to colonize Indonesia ?  

Counties capital acting as lock for the counties port is enough for me, allow us to target any of them , its nearly already the case thx to freetowns anyway. 

[Socialism]

40 minutes ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

Who ever asked for frontline anyway?. 

No one.  Seems like most of the recent changes were stuff no one seemed to ask for.  

Fronts could have worked.  All it would of needed was 1 dude, the map, common sense and 30mins of time and he could of connected the dots and made things interesting.  But in typical NA fashion a promising idea was implemented with the least amount of effort and we now have what we currently have.  Majority of the issues that came up this week could of easily been resolved prior to the patch with a little bit of notice and a decent forum discussion.  Too bad a lot of the theory crafting folks that used to be active on the forums are no longer here.  

Unlimited PBs against a neutral faction was a mistake.  Most of these port BRs are unrealistic.  Bahamas should definitely not be part of the front lines system.  

Edited April 26, 2019 by Socialism

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Socialism said:

No one.  Seems like most of the recent changes were stuff no one seemed to ask for. 

so true

[--Privateer--]

3 hours ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

Counties capital acting as lock for the counties port is enough for me, allow us to target any of them

This would be fine with me.

A flag system could improve it though. Flags active for 30min, maybe they cost 300 combat metals, just so that there are no decoys.

[Ligatorswe]

4 hours ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

Counties capital acting as lock for the counties port is enough for me, allow us to target any of them , its nearly already the case thx to freetowns anyway. 

I agree

[huliotkd]

frontlines should allow to attack only the 1st port you find if you start from a capital: imagine it as a ring, 1st target is a ring made of all ports you will find if you go north, east, south, west ecc ecc. from this port, you can attak the next one, regional port, and once you have conquered all regional port you can attack county capital to unlock regional bonus. yes it will be longer, but equal

- you cannot attak another county if you first haven't finished the 1st county's ports.

- freetowns cannot give hostility mission

- russia,prussia,poland must be a 2nd nation choice...every player must start in a regular nation and then, after 30 days, change nation to ''immpossible nation''.   if freetowns give hostility, it is too easy capping important port being a russian/prussian/poland player (from la mona - santo domingo and san juan , from tortue - puerto plata and cap francis, shroud - nassau , dariena - cartagena...no way, freetowns can't give missions)

- BR of all port must be lowered down using the mechanic  before last patch. it worked well, mixed fleet and small clan action also.  thinking to the future player base, this will give the possibility to take a port and defend it by own small clan

[van der Clam]

I hope this thread has the eyes of the devs. Great ideas. I don't want Frontlines and Port Investments to be deleted, we just need to tweak this....and give us raids.

[Georg Fromm]

Sea war with front lines, a contradiction in itself. And what it looks like not even well thought out and implemented. You can also bring a game to death through development.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, huliotkd said:

frontlines should allow to attack only the 1st port you find if you start from a capital: imagine it as a ring, 1st target is a ring made of all ports you will find if you go north, east, south, west ecc ecc. from this port, you can attak the next one, regional port, and once you have conquered all regional port you can attack county capital to unlock regional bonus. yes it will be longer, but equal

- you cannot attak another county if you first haven't finished the 1st county's ports.

- freetowns cannot give hostility mission

- russia,prussia,poland must be a 2nd nation choice...every player must start in a regular nation and then, after 30 days, change nation to ''immpossible nation''.   if freetowns give hostility, it is too easy capping important port being a russian/prussian/poland player (from la mona - santo domingo and san juan , from tortue - puerto plata and cap francis, shroud - nassau , dariena - cartagena...no way, freetowns can't give missions)

- BR of all port must be lowered down using the mechanic  before last patch. it worked well, mixed fleet and small clan action also.  thinking to the future player base, this will give the possibility to take a port and defend it by own small clan

How is it possible for the Russians ,Prussia and Polish to cap ports if they can not take missions in Freeport?

[huliotkd]

2 hours ago, El Patron said:

How is it possible for the Russians ,Prussia and Polish to cap ports if they can not take missions in Freeport?

they will start in a random freetown, and they have already 3 hostility missions randomly set.   so maybe you can start at Aves and your random Hostility is at Morgan's Bluff. 

an Impossible Nation means Hardcore.  and it must 2nd choice cause that means you have already a good fleet to use.  otherwise, stay national

[HachiRoku]

What do Frontlines add to the game anyway? A Frontline is a natural part of a war where the defender decides to hold position. This can be any port. The tactical thing about wars is ofter drawning the enemy out of their stronghold by attacking ports that matter. With Frontlines you leave the attackers less room to be creative. 

[Guest]

i have a good idea for a lot of action with the frontline.

 

example:

you can attack only the next 2 county from a freeport or capitol.

you have to take a county hosti mission

you have to take all ports of the county bevor you can go for the next. 

when the county is for example british and the spanish will attack the county they have the cap first the small ports in the county bevor they can cap the capitol.

the spanish have to take a county mission. with that county mission they can make hosti for all ports. 

when the county have 6 port and the hosti mission was done at 18 servertime then you have the next 6 days at 18 servertime the pbs.

when the spanish are lost the first pb they have to make a new hosti mission

 

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by Guest

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

I think that stuff have no sens.

[huliotkd]

11 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

What do Frontlines add to the game anyway? A Frontline is a natural part of a war where the defender decides to hold position. This can be any port. The tactical thing about wars is ofter drawning the enemy out of their stronghold by attacking ports that matter. With Frontlines you leave the attackers less room to be creative. 

you are talking about Raid, not frontlines...frontlines is slow and definitive, raid is fast but doesn't change owners of ports

 

14 minutes ago, El Patron said:

you can attack only the next 2 county from a freeport or capitol.

not from freetowns and not 2...it's too easy.  i know that Nassau drops Live Oak? good, i start Russian and i choose shroud cay as starting port so i can take nassau immediatly....no sorry, impossible nation must be impossible, not easy nation

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

you are talking about Raid, not frontlines...frontlines is slow and definitive, raid is fast but doesn't change owners of ports

 

not from freetowns and not 2...it's too easy.  i know that Nassau drops Live Oak? good, i start Russian and i choose shroud cay as starting port so i can take nassau immediatly....no sorry, impossible nation must be impossible, not easy nation

you are a little bit angry dude. 

you can cap all ports of russians. thats not an easy nation

 

[huliotkd]

2 minutes ago, El Patron said:

you are a little bit angry dude. 

you can cap all ports of russians. thats not an easy nation

 

no not angry but i see now with the wipe. imagine when we have to restart after release and we are all back to our capital, brits Kpr, rats Mortimer, spanish Habana and so on...

if someone has the chance to choose a freetown as starting ports and can take missions for the 2 nearest capital, it's too easy.  no one can figth this one, while he will conquer all the area before the nearest regular nation can reach those ports.

Nassau again. nearest regular nation should be Pirates and Spanish. but all rats and spaniards must start from mortimer and habana and the first 2 capitals are Baracoa and Islamorada but a Russian,Prussian,Polish player can choose shroud cay as starting position and go for nassau faster than 2 regular nation, so new palyer base will think ''what is the 'impossible' of those 'impossible nations' players? '' .  and they can go in 2 day to the Hidden Island that are a too unbalanced advantage for everyone in this game.

Kidd's should not be capturable, maybe it can become a Freeport again as in the past and the other 2 ports too or got removed

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

no not angry but i see now with the wipe. imagine when we have to restart after release and we are all back to our capital, brits Kpr, rats Mortimer, spanish Habana and so on...

if someone has the chance to choose a freetown as starting ports and can take missions for the 2 nearest capital, it's too easy.  no one can figth this one, while he will conquer all the area before the nearest regular nation can reach those ports.

Nassau again. nearest regular nation should be Pirates and Spanish. but all rats and spaniards must start from mortimer and habana and the first 2 capitals are Baracoa and Islamorada but a Russian,Prussian,Polish player can choose shroud cay as starting position and go for nassau faster than 2 regular nation, so new palyer base will think ''what is the 'impossible' of those 'impossible nations' players? '' .  and they can go in 2 day to the Hidden Island that are a too unbalanced advantage for everyone in this game.

Kidd's should not be capturable, maybe it can become a Freeport again as in the past and the other 2 ports too or got removed

you can go faster for all other ports. 

[Barbarosa]

Frontlines worked very well in the past by concentrating players base at certain areas. French, Dutch, Swedish wars around Macanao was great example. You know where the action is, you bring your ships there, you sail from there, you find allies and enemies there. It is immersive and reduces the vasteness of empty sea.

Without frontlines you have to be everywhere while actually you are nowhere, mostly sitting in ports TPin between them, checking for patrol zone event and looking to radio combat news. This is more broken. RvR was more based on multi-flipping and zerging the enemy. You need to be present everywhere ready with proper ship and repairs.

Frontlines were tested before and it was great. It was way to intense to keep it up but almost everyone loved flags era.  

Always the same story,

You ask for DLC ships to fight more, but almost all the DLC ships sailors run!

You ask for teleport between ports to fight more, but what you do is to sit in ports for hours waiting for ganking opportunity.

You ask for easier crafting and access to 1st rates, but never show up to proper challenges.

You ask for diplomacy, only to avoid to be attacked by half of the population.

Frontlines are not perfect now, but this can be corrected and make work. Anolytic suggestions are good first step. Time zone differences will create some problems for sure, but everything can be solved.

Frontlines should work.

[Vizzini]

I like the ideas but perhaps a few tweaks here and there are needed.

The whiners will whine regardless , cannot please everybody so it's pointless to try

 

what would it have looked like with 2k players  and no resources stuffed in our warehouses

[toblerone]

yWhat breaks the system is in my opinion the possibility for "normal" nations to start conquest also from free towns. This gives a huge advantage to the most populated normal nation, which - being already the most populated - should not have another advantage.

If this feature has been included to allow "impossible" nations to start conquest, then Devs could :

1) forbid to "normal" nations the possibility to start conquest also from free ports

and/or

2) give each "impossible" nation one or two free ports where they can start from, in the sense that once Prussia, in example, started their conquest from, let's say la mona and la navasse and took the capital of the near regions, they cannot use any other other free ports to start new conquests.

Edited April 27, 2019 by toblerone

[huliotkd]

.

Edited April 27, 2019 by huliotkd

[huliotkd]

1 hour ago, El Patron said:

you can go faster for all other ports. 

but other ports are less valuable than 25kBR ones