[TENTATIVE] Guard / Escort feature

[ChaIbaud]

truly a great suggestion, but phoenix lets add a few sentences saying why you bumped it buddy

[PhoenixKnight]

Because I can obviously. Just like you!

[Hawk]

A very realistic and interesting suggestion.

The simplest form of it is players being able to have a fleet cover a port (Guard) or fleet (Escort). Then that fleet would have a chance to intercept and engage would-be attackers. So if I attacked X's trade fleet "Trade1" at say Aiora, and if he had the fleet "War1" Guarding/Escorting, then "War1" has a chance to take the place of "Trade1" and battle my attacking fleet.

My thoughts are, if it is guarding a port, then the %chance should be very low of intercepting. If Escorting a specific fleet then a higher %chance.
(Numbers off the top of my head from a Pirate's point of view. 5% chance guarding a port, 50% Chance escorting a fleet)

Balance is important for this, cause it could hurt pirating a lot done wrong, but pointless if too weak.

+1 For sure

[PFH]

I have to agree with skyhawk. I would want to say 10% if guarding a port and 50% for specific fleet personally.

I approve

+1 From Banger, DezNutz [Approved] [Tentative] (Needs more details or to be merged with another feature)

[Captain Jack]

As this encyclopedia article reveals at the chapter of First Barbary Wars:

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In response, Thomas Jefferson sent a squadron of frigates to protect American merchant ships in the Mediterranean and to pursue peace with the Barbary States.

Later in the article, it becomes clear that the eventual choice of action was to blockade the Capital of Barbary states (Tripoli) in order to protect their merchant ships entirely.

These two events combined provide great insight in how we should proceed with the implementation of this feature. Even though the Americans sent the squadrons for protection,they knew that the only actual way to secure their ships was to blockade the port in order to sign a peace treaty. Of course, maintaining war ship squadrons there would be cost ineffective.

In my perspective, once someone picks a war fleet to act as an escort/guard, then this should be valid for the vicinity of one port. Whenever one of the player fleets are attacked at the port, then the guarding fleet will engage instead.

However, the chances of engagement should not be 100%. There should be factors that will determine whenever the war fleet will successfully defend or not.

We need to define these factors. For me, guard feature should come first. Escort, I am not sure if it is too relevant for us as we already can use escort ships in a fleet. 5 ships are already enough to contain both escorts and trade ships.

However, the guard feature is mostly relevant. In general, the idea of having war fleets that perform extra tasks based on their firepower, either guarding or blockading or assaulting ports (see influence ideas) is something we really like. Of course, their top action is attacking other fleets and by adding extra roles, we will also upgrade their primary usage importance.