Shaman at Sea: Bringing Back Naval Combat (Large)

[Sir Henry Morgan]

Blacklist keeps player from using any bank - if cast from a fleet, the adversary cannot use a bank. Would work well as a trade fleet card for defense/retaliation/booby trap gambit.

I thought it works well as a fleet cast card and a traditional cast card.

That changes the function of the card to create a new card, as I percieve it.

[Sir Thalius Hayle]

I've been away from the forums for a week or so, but have taken some time today to get caught up on the discussions going on concerning different strategies for shifting game play toward a focus on ships/fleets.

After reading over the discussion on this subject I just wanted to give a hearty to this general thread.

Still some details to work out, but I hope the idea continues to get the attention it certainly deserves! Eager to see how it plays out in the future.

~TH~

[Haron]

I have a hard time seeing the real implications of this suggestion. I will, however, make a defence for the voodoo cards, in these days when so many seem to want them gone :-)

Voodoo cards have some properties I find important. They are limited in number (some more than others), they have a value as they can be sold even if they have no direct use to you (some are more valuable than others), using them requires turns, and when used, they are gone (each card is single use only). These are, in my opinion, nice properties. Conducting an attack with voodoo requires lots of turns, comes at a great cost, and afterwards, the cards are gone. Stockpiling voodoo can take a long time - sometimes over a year for certain schemes. This help limit massive attacks with rare voodoo.

Ships, on the other hand, is extremely easy and cheap to repair. Even when damaged to 99%, it costs a neglectible amount of gcs to repair a level 10 SoL. Sinking ships is also hard and expensive, so ships are, to a large degree, not spent. It simply requires a minor cost to maintain them, once built and levelled up.

I think voodoo cards in the game work great. That said, I, too, would like to have more options for using ships in operations. However, I would prefer if this was done with introducion of new features where ships are used, rather than to drastically change, or, **insert deity** forbid, remove the existing voodoo. Blockades can be an example of a new feature where ships play a major role. Perhaps the introduction of ship specialties may be another (I admit I'm still undecided on that one).

[Jack Teach]

Aye - but who wants to burn a leviathan on a sloop?

I do

[Captain Jack]

I think that the concept is a good idea.

Some questions:
-Player gets to choose when the fleet will cast?
-What happens on defense?

Some imbalance:
-The defense will become far too easy. When attack needs fleets but defense does not (ie Mindbar/Purify/Serenity/Countercurse) then there is a problem.

Alternative plan:
-Creating a new set of curses to be used for such purposes would be a better course. It will help with creating more scarcity on the decks which will improve several fields: interest in creating the deck for veterans, more value to the market, more booster sales.

-If we want to use any of the existing curses, then the following parameters could be considered:
*No turns cost on cast
*Limited cost on load/unload (1 turns load/2 turns if you want to unload)

Or extra turn cost on cast (prepared though, like in treasure hunting) for added piercing (Random 1-2% per turn spent)
So if you really want your curse to pierce the enemy (Serenity that enemy Mindbar down), you simply load a serenity card on a fleet and send it against the enemy with 100 extra turns. (probably 75 will return 100% piercing at 99% of the cases, so 100 might be an overkill anyway). Then once your fleet is victorious the card is cast. The card is consumed and the stocked turns are removed.

In counterpart, the defender could load all his fleets with countercurse cards which he will be able to set the following conditions:
-Which cards to counter, per fleet
-You will supply 1 card ID or ALL
-Choose whether to cast (on fleet win or loss).

SHM, let us know if any of these can be incorporated in your idea and to what extend. I am not sure I have caught entirely the mechanism and nature after all but above all I do not want my view to play a detrimental effect to your design.

If one thing deserves to be underlined is that a complete makeover/upheaval is not a realistic thing to ask. We should either expand current system or tweak specifically, in a limited fashion

P.S: Turns prepare could work as a mechanism to trigger special abilities to ships/fleets or used for other voodoo abilities, not just piercing as my example above.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

I agree that defensive voodoo should be able to be cast from ships, but also in the traditional manner, as defensive voodoo defends against all kinds of voodoo (good and bad).

As I worked over the idea (and still work through it) the premise is not only to instill more emphasis upon ship combat, but to weaken the position of witch doctor play tactics.

Adding more cards to augment the system will work well, but still leaves the witch doctor gambit viable, at least in the short term. In time, it will weaken considerably as more voodoo cards "thin" the random selection process, especially if the new sets of cards are more in line with common and uncommon in their features.

As for when cards are cast, activation (except for delivery cards) should be on combat - with the new skirmish feature as well as plunder, it offers an opportunity to diversify strategy. The "if-then" option of if a curse will trigger i.e., counter curse, etc. can also be integrated into play.

The idea may require "remodelling" the entire library of voodoo curses, changing some existing cards, leaving others alone, and adding a new set to create the balance.

I can see this idea creating endless strategies of play, especially when augmented with ship specialization and the flag ship features. It also adds a "sleep feature" as voodoo can be placed in a defensive or retributive strategy while one has to be off line.

[sXs]

+1. I am bringing this back because of a larger proposal I am working on. This definitely deserves consideration.

CJ did have valid questions with this. The balance as far as offensive and defensive voodoo can be easily addressed.

With Sir Henry’s permission, I would like to make a few changes and additions to both address concerns and bring it up to date a bit.

[Hawk]

This pretty much has my +1, it needs discussion first though and would be a massive venture. Very nice idea in my opinion.

[Kangaroo]

+1

[PFH]

+1