Port Blockades (Large)

[Most Lee Harmless]

Indeed, a series of rolling blockades across a nations ports would throw up all sorts of issues to be dealt with. And it doesnt have to be necessarily targetted at any one nation : the 'prize' is the toll and plunder on trade if you win : for the popular trade ports, that could be substantial gains over the blockade period.
I also think we should not over-state the 'spam howker fleet' tactic : an easy and effective counter, and not that much more expensive, would be a swarm of cutter fleets : which gives the main problem for both attacker and defender : how far can you escalate the power of the fleets before it all becomes far too expensive to contemplate?
For the bystander, not involved in the fight, as Haron notes, rich pickings in plundering lit-up fleets of both sides are a most tempting prospect once the initial battles are over. Its win-win for them

[Most Lee Harmless]

here si another thought : if the health bonus acts as planned, some fleets may end the blockade at anything up to 300% status : currently, in battle, as each round progresses, the ship effectiveness drops as damage is sustained : from 100% (zero damage) to 1% (99% damage) : so, until such a ship is reduced down to 100%, the usual diminishment will not occur : it will fight at full power in every round. Thats a powerful boost to even a small warship as their opponent will be taking full-on damage in each round but weakening in their own firepower each round.

So, maybe all those lit up fleets may not be such an easy plunder. But which ones? Ah.. could be interesting...

[Vane]

Prologue

A)BLOCKADE SUCCESS

-All fleets on the attackers side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.
An active blockade is established for a total of 72hours (Version 1.0 Metric)

B)BLOCKADE FAIL

-The blockade initiator may not initiate any other blockade for a total of 14 days.
-The initiation fleet gets an extra penalty of 180 danger points.
-All fleets on the defenders side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.

I think this is a bit unrealistic. I believe someone mentioned this already, might have been Dez, but I have not the time to re-read the entire thread.

Attackers should receive 18 Danger whether they win or lose the blockade, the price for hostile actions if you will in another nations port. The defenders (nation controlling the port and its allies) should not be penalized for successfully fending off a hostile action. If they lose though, they should incur the danger as the threat was not turned away and remains outside their harbor. I would see it as such,

A)BLOCKADE SUCCESS

-All fleets on the attackers side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.
An active blockade is established for a total of 72hours (Version 1.0 Metric)
-All fleets on the defenders side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.

B)BLOCKADE FAIL

-All fleets on the attackers side, get a penalty of 36 danger points.
-The blockade initiator may not initiate any other blockade for a total of 14 days.
-The initiation fleet gets an extra penalty of 180 danger points.

[Shadowood]

here si another thought : if the health bonus acts as planned, some fleets may end the blockade at anything up to 300% status : currently, in battle, as each round progresses, the ship effectiveness drops as damage is sustained : from 100% (zero damage) to 1% (99% damage) : so, until such a ship is reduced down to 100%, the usual diminishment will not occur : it will fight at full power in every round. Thats a powerful boost to even a small warship as their opponent will be taking full-on damage in each round but weakening in their own firepower each round.

So, maybe all those lit up fleets may not be such an easy plunder. But which ones? Ah.. could be interesting...

Once blockade is over I am assuming any health buff would go away. Right?

[Most Lee Harmless]

Its not stated anywhere I can see : I would think it should be removed and all the fleets revert to 'normal' damage regime: otherwise the fleets coming out of the blockade with it still on are going to be serious beasts to deal with until its run down in fights. Then again, wouldnt it be a nice bonus for the winning side as part of the prize gained? Might encourage participation with big ships, if they ended up as temporary monsters as a result.

[Haron]

Prologue

A)BLOCKADE SUCCESS

-All fleets on the attackers side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.
An active blockade is established for a total of 72hours (Version 1.0 Metric)

B)BLOCKADE FAIL

-The blockade initiator may not initiate any other blockade for a total of 14 days.
-The initiation fleet gets an extra penalty of 180 danger points.
-All fleets on the defenders side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.

I think this is a bit unrealistic. I believe someone mentioned this already, might have been Dez, but I have not the time to re-read the entire thread.

Attackers should receive 18 Danger whether they win or lose the blockade, the price for hostile actions if you will in another nations port. The defenders (nation controlling the port and its allies) should not be penalized for successfully fending off a hostile action. If they lose though, they should incur the danger as the threat was not turned away and remains outside their harbor. I would see it as such,

A)BLOCKADE SUCCESS

-All fleets on the attackers side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.
An active blockade is established for a total of 72hours (Version 1.0 Metric)
-All fleets on the defenders side, get a penalty of 18 danger points.

B)BLOCKADE FAIL

-All fleets on the attackers side, get a penalty of 36 danger points.
-The blockade initiator may not initiate any other blockade for a total of 14 days.
-The initiation fleet gets an extra penalty of 180 danger points.

I disagree. As I see it, the danger for participating fleets is a very important aspect of this suggestion. There SHOULD be a price to pay to enter fleets in the blockades, at either side. This is not a "passive" action. You are actively sending your fleets out to fight. This is a "counterattack", more than "being plundered/skirmished". In fact, in my opinion, ALL fleets, attackers and defenders, should end the blockade with 18 danger, no matter who won.

[Astragek]

And it's not like there's no voodoo cards available to get rid of that danger anyway.

[Haron]

I also think we should not over-state the 'spam howker fleet' tactic : an easy and effective counter, and not that much more expensive, would be a swarm of cutter fleets : which gives the main problem for both attacker and defender : how far can you escalate the power of the fleets before it all becomes far too expensive to contemplate?

Well, the point is that this is NOT an effective counter. Let's say that before the last four turns, the defenders have 20 strong fleets and 200 howker fleets. The attackers have 20 even stronger fleets, and decide to add 200 cutter fleets to defeat the howkers. So: First round. All howkers are defeated, and 1/11 of the defenders strong fleets are defeated, too - around 2. Problem solved, then? Not quite. Look at round 2: 20 strong fleets and 188 cutter fleets face 18 strong fleets. The problem is: It is randomly selected which fleets the attacker will fight with! So only around 2 of the attackers "strong fleets" will actually fight and defeat a defender "strong fleet" - the rest will be cutter fleets! This is the problem with "random selection" coupled with the victory condition of "defender eliminated" (well, not ENTIRELY eliminated, as he needs more than 5 fleets, but as opposed to, say, "the side losing the most ships lose" or something like that).

There may be strategies for this, but they are elaborate, and probably include initiating lots of more or less simultaneous blockades to take advantage of the attacker's ability to wait with dedicating the attacking fleets until after the defender has dedicated his defence.

[Most Lee Harmless]

Then, obviously, part of the final push element must be more strong fleets to improve the odds of strong/strong clashes : you would still need to add the cutters to eliminate too many strong/weak clashes : the question is how many, as each subsequent round leaves more attacking fleets than defenders and increases the odds of more weak/strong battles : try the math again with the attackers adding 10 strong (to make 30) and 70 cutter fleets. The art would be to have enough to winnow out the howker spam over the four rounds left, exposing the strong fleets to more attacks from your strong fleets in each round. Tricky, as the random match-up could work both for or against you in any one round. But thats part of the suspense.

PS:

-Attackers may still add new fleets up to the last minute while defenders may not add new fleets in the last 4 hours of the battle.

The attacker doesnt need to finalise their 'last stand' fleets at the four hour mark : they can still feed in more fleets right up until just before the last round.

[Haron]

The attacker doesnt need to finalise their 'last stand' fleets at the four hour mark : they can still feed in more fleets right up until just before the last round.

Indeed. However, if they could also REMOVE fleets, that is, make certain fleets "forfeit", it would be a bit easier. Then you could add a lot of cutter fleets to defeat the howkers, and later remove those weak fleets, making sure only strong fleets will fight in the final rounds. Or perhaps the "Blockade Initiator" could give each fleet a priority at any time, and if the attacker has more fleets than the defender, only the highest priority fleets would participate. Not sure who would have similar power for the defenders, though, but then again, this is mainly an attacker problem.

Even so, a smart defender will wait until this point with his Krakens, making sure there will still be several weak fleets among the attackers.

I'm also curious as to what the "prize" will actually be worth. Hardly as much as the cost. Does anyone have a qualitied opinion as to how many gc it might be worth winning a blockade?