Nation Ports: Fort (Medium)

[DezNutz]

A fort is a defensive structure owned by the port. Ports do not automatically have a fort and they must be constructed. Once built the fort does not move with the nation that constructed it. The construction and its funds (Resources and Gold Coin) are provided by the ports host nation and it's members. The fort is managed by the Governor (although a member of the Nation's Council can step in to perform actions). The primary purpose of the fort is the protection of national interests (the port) from hostile players and foreign invasion (War/Influence).

A fort is a fortification on land made of earth, wood, stone, and iron. A fort should be able to withstand several attacks. A good reference is the US War of 1812 - Fort McHenry


Baseline
- 25,000 HP
- 120 Cannons
- 600 Crew (5 Crew per Cannon)
- Warehouse (Explained further down)

Levels
- Max Level is 5.
- Each level adds 2,500 HP
- Each level adds 20 Cannons
- Each level adds 100 Crew (5 Crew per Cannon)

Direct Player Benefits
- Each Level adds 1% offensive bonus to nation fleets that skirmish or plunder from the port.
- Each Level adds 1% defensive bonus to nation fleets that are skirmished or plundered from the port.

Port Warehouse
- No construction cost, Warehouse exists at deployment of feature in game.
- Stores Resources needed for construction, upgrades, repairs, and moral
- Holds unlimited amounts of each resource
- Does not store gold bars.
- Nation’s Treasury cannot buy or sell the resources.
- Supplied by Nation’s players through resource transfer
- Resources cannot be re-allocated back to players

Port Warehouse: Resource Supply/Transfer
- Ability to directly transfer resources from a nation player’s ship(s)/warehouse to Port Warehouse
- Action can only be performed from Fort Management
- Action can be performed by any Nation player

Port Treasury (Just a thought, I think this could open up a lot of possibilities within Port Development down the road)
- A Nation’s sub-treasury for Port Management
- Prevents Nation’s Treasury from being depleted by Port Management Costs
- Provides additional management responsibilities for Governors
- No Direct Tie to the Nation’s Treasury
- Nation’s Treasury Funds can only be allocated to the Port by a Parliament Vote
- Funds can only be used for Port Management Costs
- Port Treasury Funds can be re-allocated to the Nation’s Treasury by Parliament Vote
- Citizens can contribute Funds to the Port Treasury through Gold Bars
- Logs all expenditures and transactions

Construction/Upgrade Costs (Constructing a fort should not be an easy task, if resource amounts are too easy to gather, amounts need to increase.)
- Initiated at Port Management
- Must be initiated by Governor or Nation Council Member
- Requires 250,000 of each resource type (excludes gold bars)
- Resources are provided from the Port Warehouse
- 100,000,000 gc paid by the Port’s Treasury.

Daily Upkeep
- Upkeep for cannons and personnel are the same as a ship.
- Paid by Port’s Treasury

Fort Skirmish
- Hostility Point triggered action
- Does not affect player gc (purse)
- Does not affect player fame
- Lost cargo value gc is deposited into the Nation’s Port Treasury and reduces hostility points.
- Not protected by Skirmish laws
- Upon entering the port, skirmishes any fleet belonging to a player that has hostility points with the port nation that exceeds the Hostility Point Threshold
- Hostility Threshold must be set for Fort Skirmish to function (except warring nations)
- Fleets belonging to nations that are under an official declaration of war are skirmished by the fort with no exceptions (Threshold does not need to be set).
- Does not prevent access to port or it’s functions
- 10% chance that fleet will not lose any cargo
- 25% chance that fleet will only lose half its cargo

Fort Skirmish: Hostility Threshold
- Requires Parliament Vote
- Can be any value greater than or equal to 75 (75 Hostility Points with own nation is the point at which you become a Pirate)
- Each fort has it's own Threshold Value. (If a nation controls 2 forts, each fort has it's own hostility threshold)

Fort Skirmish: Hostility Points
- Each Fort Skirmish reduces Hostility Points with port nation by 2
- The GC Value of Cargo lost reduces Hostility Points if the value lost is greater than 1000 gc.
- Hostility Point reduction for cargo is based on following formula: (Lost Cargo GC Value) / 1000
- Hostility Point reduction for cargo is rounded to the nearest whole number (5.6 is rounded to 6; 5.4 is rounded to 5)
- Hostility Points are not reduced for nations that have official declarations of war.

Bombardment
- Direct attack on the fort/port
- Does not attack fleet supplemented blockades
- Bombarding Fleet must contain at least one Military Class Ship.
- Available from Plunder Screen
- Deals both damage to the fort and losses to stored resources in Port Warehouse
- Adds standard 6 danger points per bombardment
- Adds 15 hostility points per bombardment
- Fleets and players that are under an official declaration of war with the port nation are excluded from any hostility point increases.
- If a blockade is in effect and nation fleets are supplementing the blockade, depending on the strength of the blockade, the chance of losing a single ship level can be up to 90%, the chance of losing two ship levels can be up to 50%, and the chance of a ship being sunk outright can be up to 20%. (You are attacking the fort, leaving you open to be attacked by the blockade fleet)

Bombardment: Population Loss
- Population loss is equal to X times the normal rate of damage from the ship.
- Not to exceed 50,000 per bombardment.

Bombardment: Damage & Resource Loss
- Damage inflicted on the fort is done at 25% of the normal damage rate of the ship (A cannon ball can land in the ground of the fort and cause no damage)
- Total Resource Loss is 4.5 times the damage inflicted by the ship, but not greater than 50% of all available resources.
- Total Resource Loss is proportionally distributed to all resources in the fort based on the percentage of each resource to total resources prior to the bombardment.
Example: Port warehouse has 3 resources (A, B, C);
Total Resources = 10000 (A + B + C);
A=5000 Resources or 50% of Total
B=3000 Resources or 30% of Total
C=2000 Resources or 20% of Total
Total Resources Lost = 500
Resource A would take 50% of the total loss or 250 Resources
Resource B would take 30% of the total loss or 150 Resources
Resource A would take 20% of the total loss or 100 Resources

Fort Repairs
- Performed from Fort Management
- Can only be performed by Governor or Nation Council Member
- Wood, Iron, Tools, and GC are needed for repairs
- Resources can only come from the Port Warehouse
- GC can only come from the Port’s Treasury.
- Repair cost of 200 gc and 100 of each Resource per 1% damage
- Repairs can be done by percentage sets: Repair ALL or X% (Allows partial repairs if insufficient resources/gc to repair All; cost calculations should be provided)
- Can be set for automation if applicable resources and gc are available.
- Automation can only repair 90% of damage inflicted per bombardment.

Level Loss (In Progress)
- Forts can be destroyed (If lvl 1 fort) (Complete Loss, Must Build from scratch).
- Forts can lose levels

Blockades (In Progress; can be tied into Haron's War and Blockades Suggestion http://www.piratesglory.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2151)
- A blockade prevents a player/fleet/ship from a specific nation or set of nation from selling cargo from ships or resources stored in the warehouse.
- A blockade does not prevent a player from buying resources or transferring cargo to/from the warehouse.
- Blockades are completely defensive, unless supplemented by nation fleets.
- Unless supplemented by Nation Fleets, a blockades defensive abilities are based on the Fort’s stats.
- Requires resources to maintain blockade (Amount of resource to Blockade Time TBD)
- Pirates are pre-included in all blockades due to the heightened nature of the blockade. (Pirates were hunted by all nations)
- Pirates, if they have no hostility with the nation port, can bypass the blockade by paying a bribe per fleet. (Bribe amount TBD)
- Two types of blockades are managed from Port Management: War Blockade and Defensive Blockade

Blockades: War
- Instituted upon an official declaration of war and does not require an additional vote.
- Only blocks nations that are at war (officially declared) with the host port nation.

Blockades: Defensive
- Can be initiated against any, multiple, or all nations.
- Requires a Parliament Vote

Blockades: Nation Fleets
- Citizens of the port nation can supplement the blockade with their own fleets
- Can only be supplemented by X number of fleets.
- Supplemented blockades can conduct offensive actions
- Supplementing the blockade can only be made from Port Management
- Costs of supplementing a blockade are TBD
- Repair costs for nation fleets supplementing a blockade are TBD

Blockades: Offensive Action
- Tasked from Port Management
- Regardless of danger rating, supplemented Blockades can see all blockaded fleets physically in port (Excludes Fleets that are travelling to and from port)

Blockades: Battles (In Progress)
- Applies only if Nation Fleets are supplementing Blockades
- Blockades can be attacked from the Plunder Screen
- All Fleets/Ships have a greater chance of losing level(s) (Applies to Fleets supplementing the blockade, attacking the blockade, or attacked by the blockade)
- The Fort's HP points and cannons are excluded in offensive/defensive calculations for blockades that are supplemented by nation fleets.
- Fort's Offensive and Defensive bonus is added to the offensive/defensive calculations for blockades that are supplemented by nation fleets.
- Offensive and Defensive statistics are TDB
- Battle Calculations are TBD

Moral (In Progress)
- Newly constructed forts start with 75% Moral
- Decreases 1% ever daily update
- Recalculated after each bombardment for damage effects
- Affects accuracy (probability of hit)
- Can be improved by expenditure of rum, tobacco, and food from the Fort Warehouse. Takes time to increase moral, not instantaneous.
- Fort damage has a negative effect on Moral
- Blockades have a negative effect on Moral, the longer the blockade the fast moral decreases. For every 3 days a blockade is in effect, moral decreases an additional 5% at each daily update.

Nation Changes (In Progress)
- Each fort level adds 1 day (update) that a foreign nation must hold the port with influence consecutively before a nation change occurs
- 90% of resources in Fort Warehouse are lost upon nation change, if the port has a Lvl 1 Fort or greater
- 50% of resources in Fort Warehouse are lost upon nation change, if no fort is constructed.
- 90% of all gc in Port Treasury is transferred to the previous port Nation’s Treasury
- Fort is set to 30% HP/Damage (Unless remaining HP is less than 30%)
- Moral is set to 25% (Unless moral is below this level)
- Hostility Point Threshold is reset
- Any initiated blockades are lifted (exception of war blockades)

Warring Nations: Hostility Points
- It is assumed that Nations, that have official declarations of war with each other, have infinite hostility points with each other.

Parliament Votes
- Requirement for certain fort features
- Fort Related Votes can only be initiated from the feature within Port Management
- Fort Related Votes can only be initiated by the Governor or a Nation Council Member

Port Management
- New link under Court
- All nation members can access link.
- Link shows all relevant data
- Transfer of resources to fort warehouse done from here.
- Certain actions within require Nation Council Level Access


+1 with a few changes and additions. Another suggestion essential to my proposal. Feniks


https://www.piratesglory.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2433 - Link to port bombardment suggestion

[ChaIbaud]

Why would fort skirmishes not be paid by the state? I believe this idea should only apply (if at all) to the warring states or a P.O.I./enemy of the state. If you are with your country in a battle, it would make sense that they would cover some of the cost for basically causing the damage to be inflicted.

I like the idea in Fort Management of a certain level of access being required. I would like to see more legitimate interaction choices with council and governor instead of messaging and voting. Before this idea is implemented, I also believe that other forms of government should be instituted. This would affect how the fort acquires money, how much the players are getting back, and who rules over the fort.

[DezNutz]

Why would fort skirmishes not be paid by the state? I believe this idea should only apply (if at all) to the warring states or a P.O.I./enemy of the state. If you are with your country in a battle, it would make sense that they would cover some of the cost for basically causing the damage to be inflicted.

I like the idea in Fort Management of a certain level of access being required. I would like to see more legitimate interaction choices with council and governor instead of messaging and voting. Before this idea is implemented, I also believe that other forms of government should be instituted. This would affect how the fort acquires money, how much the players are getting back, and who rules over the fort.

Basically paying to reduce hostility. If they get there money back, I wouldn't want their hostility points to be reduced as it would be pointless. For example, if player X plunders/skirmished player Z, player Z's nation covers the plunder/skirmish cost and Player X receives hostility points. Player X goes into Port owned by Nation of Player Z. Player Z's nation skirmishes Player X's ship, thus getting some form of payment back and Player X has a reduction of hostility points. Makes players think about what they are doing instead of just randomly attacking players for gold/fame. Gives added reason for hostility points and gives added risk to skirmishing players and creating hostility.

Rule over the fort, is done by the Governor, with the Nation's Council having authority to initiate tasks. I agree though that some implementations within governments need to be made first.

[Haron]

First: Forts, in some forms, my be a good idea (wait - I actually suggested forts in some form in a post of my own; it must be a GREAT idea, then!).

Looking at your suggestion, I have some comments:

It seems the purpose of your forts are twofold:
1) Increase offensive and defensive capabilities of nation owned ships in port
2) Prevent unwanted elements from entering ports (achieved through a) auto skirmish and b) blockade)

To the first point, I simply want to say that I do not like the idea. I think port control should primarily be related to trade, not boost ship strength. However, I think it would have relatively little consequense.

To the second point: Well, the basic concept of this is about the same as my suggested "defensive blockades". "Auto Skirmish" strikes me as a bad idea, though - as would ANY automated attack. ANY attacks in ANY form should be player initiated ONLY, in my opinion. Ports should only be allowed to DEFEND, not attack. Also, preventing anyone with hostility towards port nation from entering it is EXTREMELY strict. In my suggestion, the only way to stop people from entering a port would be to declare war on their nation; a major step with potentially huge consequenses.

You have some interesting ideas about how forts should be built up and maintained, though. However, I think the PURPOSE of the fort is the most important aspect. I prefer other ways to conduct blockades (with ships, as already described - will explain more why later in that post), and consequently other uses for the fort (as something that can be attacked to reduce controlling nations influence, to be able to fight over ports with ships too, not ONLY gold and voodoo).

Also, an important thing to think about is what should happen to a fort when the port changes ownership? Does it "disappear", does it return to level 1, or does it stay the way it was? Remember, the easiest way to take a port is still by propaganda and gold. Could be done over night, as has been thoroughly demonstrated.

I'm intrigued to learn more about your thoughts about "morale" though. Sounds interesting, I think. I think Danik and LT knows a thing or two about reducing PLAYERS morale; perhaps ask them for ideas?

Anyway, that's my two cents (well, maybe this post is long enough to count as even three...)

[DezNutz]

To the second point: Well, the basic concept of this is about the same as my suggested "defensive blockades". "Auto Skirmish" strikes me as a bad idea, though - as would ANY automated attack. ANY attacks in ANY form should be player initiated ONLY, in my opinion. Ports should only be allowed to DEFEND, not attack. Also, preventing anyone with hostility towards port nation from entering it is EXTREMELY strict. In my suggestion, the only way to stop people from entering a port would be to declare war on their nation; a major step with potentially huge consequenses.

You have some interesting ideas about how forts should be built up and maintained, though. However, I think the PURPOSE of the fort is the most important aspect. I prefer other ways to conduct blockades (with ships, as already described - will explain more why later in that post), and consequently other uses for the fort (as something that can be attacked to reduce controlling nations influence, to be able to fight over ports with ships too, not ONLY gold and voodoo).

First, I will discuss Hostility Actions (Auto-Skirmish). Hostility Action (Auto-Skirmish) does not say it prevents a fleet from entering port. Any fleet may enter the port, but those with hostility towards the port nation have a significant chance that any cargo they are carrying to the port will be lost. Once skirmished, the fleet continues on it's route, whether it be selling (if it has any cargo left to sell) or buying goods from the port. I will update the section to include the possibilities that not all cargo could be lost and that no cargo could be lost. I will also update to include that GC is not directly lost (only GC Value of Cargo) and fame is not lost. As well, hostility action is a defensive action for the nation, the fort doesn't attack players. A hostile fleet (hostility points) is coming to the port.

Secondly, Blockades. Blockades are the only way to prevent a fleet from buying or selling resources. As I stated in the initial posting, your setup of blockades can be incorporated within this (with some very minor differences and changes). I have an update for blockades that allows for the incorporation of a bulk of your ideas on blockades. I will post the update later today.

Also, an important thing to think about is what should happen to a fort when the port changes ownership? Does it "disappear", does it return to level 1, or does it stay the way it was? Remember, the easiest way to take a port is still by propaganda and gold. Could be done over night, as has been thoroughly demonstrated.

Sorry, thought I posted something on this. Still in progress, but general thought is fort would drop to a level 1 with 75% damage, but port changes should be significantly harder with a fort built. I'll edit the main post with the updates.

[DezNutz]

Updated. Still working on some items.

[Bmw]

i think there should be something like nation x owns the port and set the hostility auto attack feature to 20 so that people with less than or equal to 20 hostility wont be skirmished but anyone with more will be .

[DezNutz]

i think there should be something like nation x owns the port and set the hostility auto attack feature to 20 so that people with less than or equal to 20 hostility wont be skirmished but anyone with more will be .

I like that, will update.

Updated
- Auto-Skirmish hostility trigger is configureable by Governor or Council Member
- Max Value is 74 (Allows the hostility voodoo card to cause skirmish at least once as it adds 75 Hostility to target player)

[Bmw]

i do think this is a good idea it would keep people more secluded and more willing to be at peace

[Haron]

I'll reiterate my objections to "auto-skirmishes", for three reasons:

1) Any kind of auto-attack seems wrong. Attacks should be active actions. Forts should be defensive only.
2) Although you may not see it, auto-skirmish IS a blockade. No-one can trade with such a port, because they would always lose more than they gain.
3) The idea of blocking someone solely because of their hostility rating, is likely to ruin the game. It will, as you say, "keep people more secluded and more willing to be at peace". A recipe for making everyone traders, becoming bored, and finding another game. I think it should be only possible to blockade players of A WARRING NATION - not any single player (unless he is a pirate, and even then, only after a national vote).

I like the thought of forts, and I can see them playing a role in blockades, and you have some nice ideas about building and maintaining. However, as long as they include any kind of auto-attack, or will affect people solely based on their hostility to the host nation, I would much prefer to do without them.