We have a clear game issue: Some players become too enticed with the trading part that lose their interest over everything else and most importantly; war.

What extra interests can we give to these players? Let's suppose that they would not be interested enough to war as war has risk and risk is not something they would like as they mostly possess big trading fleets. We need new concepts for them.

Besides these, we all want something extra when we play the game. What this is?

You can mention existing ideas. Just keep it short and to the point. If everyone could post here, it would be the best. Don't be shy!

Witch Hut - I am really looking forward to this idea coming to fruition. I love voodoo and would love to see Legendary Voodoo soon.

I proposed an idea for contract shipping,
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2786

I also suggested an idea for smuggling that needed some development, I would be happy to rework and re present this idea.
If there is interest. It had a somewhat similar structure to contract shipping, with an element of capture the flag.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2617


Port buildings - perhaps port market - people could invest in certain parts of the market to drive commodity sales.
I had been thinking about this as a Fish market for the developing of fishing, however it could be applied to all products.
The larger the market the higher the demand and the higher the value good sell for.
this could cause resource demand to shift from port to port as nations developed markets to bring in traders.

Influence.

It's a never ending struggle and should be the main gold sinker for huge traders. If by battling other players at a port or maybe missions of various sorts you could gain influence it would be a large reason for strong traders to battle. This of course would be even better if holding ports was more interesting and had more perks. Not to mention that if influence was gold based the only way to lower someone's influence significantly would be to attack his revenue. Or maybe win key missions against him if that was implemented. Like guild code wars or mini missions that award influence for port contestants. Needless to say though. This is all irrelevant with the infuence voodoo cards that currently placehold those possibilities.

Yes, I'm still on that Captain Jack

Wars and Blockades
Witch hut
External political events

Deny the ability for free trade across national borders, you give reason for traders to fight to regain the right. National wars are fought with GC and this is very limiting as that makes large amounts of gc necessary for that type of warfare.

Allow ships to attack ports and ports to defend themselves to assist on the national front for enticing more conflict.
Allow nations to deny trade for individual players as well as on a national membership level.

Guild wars have different parameters that entice war and the two types of warfare should be addressed as opposed to a common war theme. No one size fits all situations and scenario's but I think the national warfare issue should be addressed first.

War is hell on the purse : that's a given for you fight to destroy your enemy regardless of cost : wars ( national or guild level) tend to be fought over principles and pride, not profits.

Raiding is another matter : there its profit that counts : that balance has gone a bit awry, in my view ; the credit value of the necessary voodoo makes it hard to justify the risks unless one sees a totally soft target with very high value plunder : even then, the introduction of the 75% value purchase price when selling to shipwright has tipped the balance somewhat there too. So, the quick and easy realization of a captures hull value is long gone : now its put it on the player market and hope for a good and fast sale... or get less in coin now.

The changes to plunders, both current and proposed also act against matters : larger fleet owners having to carry a bigger purse does not encourage 'off-the-cuff' raids by them, quite the opposite : a low profile becomes even more desirable.

Just a few points on the subject.

scarcity; whether it be of supplies or the right to do or trade them on a larger scale doesn't matter.

at the moment traders don't really need others to play their game, and other traders don't really hurt their profit marge. live and let live.

but if maintaining your position depends on defending your supplies and your supply lines open than all other traders become true competitors.

one way to add a scarce item to the game could be "favorite guild status". every month the guilds compete for that status through battle statistics (ship plunder, plunder, patrolling, skirmishing or plain gc plunder in general) the winner gets a -1 +1 buy sell bonus on 2 products of choice.

Trade companies and company share.
Players XYZ founded a trading company by polling 10 fleets each and a common bank account to spend from.
They are offering 200 shares in 20% of their companies.
Players interested can buy shares based on the company valuation and share demand.

Dividends distributed to all on a monthly basis.

development of the nobleman class

of the three classes that the game starts with, only two classes are are clearly functional, although they are not totally exclusive. the role of the nobleman is not clear as a third class or role