As part of the preparations for the Shipping Market, the following change was announced earlier today
Captains Check change
Announced on 19 Oct 2015, this change will take place after November 2 2015 and before November 19, 2015.
Captains check will from now on take place when you try to put a ship in a fleet. If you do not have the required amount, the ship will remain outside.
Once this change takes place, existing sailing fleets will not be affected.
As an example:
Player with 50 ships and 30 captains. All 10 fleets will continue running normally. However, if he for example tries to re-organize 2 fleets, while he will be able to remove ships from fleets he will not be able to add ships to fleets till the number drops below the captain number.
While this change may not seem of much significance, it is predicted that it will have a major impact on many merchants.
Under the new rules it will will not be possible to change the composition of one's fleets (a pretty basic action for any player) unless one has a full compliment of captains. In the example give by admin, the player would have to buy 20 captains before re organisation. This would cost an estimated 12-15 Million gold coins!
And what of the mega-fleets? Many so-called power-players operate fleets in the hundreds, with up to a third without captains. At this level captains can cost 1.5-2.0 Million gold coins each.
The Somers Isles Observer says: The sooner Academies that can train officers are established the better! Avonmora is going to face a severe manpower shortage until that is done!