World map balance

[TxFire4305]

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so stop me if it has been.


How about an open world map (or at least a series of region maps) where the parent countries control the appropriate major ports (perhaps based on nationwide conflicts) and individual societies can conquer and control smaller ports and regions.

Each nation would have an unconquerable capitol port and several lesser, but conquerable ports.  The fight for these lesser ports would be open to all players of each nation.  This would faciltate single player PvE and campaign style play.

Beyond these, would be local ports that could be captured, and controlled by societys/guilds.  Ports of friendly socs/guilds could be taken by investing in and gaining a majority of the ports economy (perhaps even unfriendly ports as long as the nations were not at war?).

Pirate held regions would be PvP by default, national held regions would only be PvP if the parent nation was at war.  Attacking ships of a nuetral flag would go against your own reputation and against your soc/guild.  Perhaps socs/guilds could even be stripped of thier land by the parent nation for attacking too many nuetrals.

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As far as the size of the world map, you would need several smaller maps.  Say, for instance, Northern Europe.  You want to sail from London to the Americas.  You leave London and head south, when you get to the edge of the map, you enter a larger scale Atlantic map where travel speed is increased.  You still get the chance of random encounters in open ocean, but you don't make players take a week to get from London to Barbados.

 

[Ned Loe]

Devs have to give us more info on how they plan world domination.