This is something I have been contemplating for a little bit now. It comes as an idea for some feedback and to get other players views on.

Personally, I would quite like to see "large" navy's sailing which would (in some aspects) change and increase seafaring battles when blockades and many other great suggestions are considered or implemented. The problem always comes down to risk and loss, those sailing massive ship numbers avoid costly vessels as it becomes far to easy to "Defleet" a player entirely when they do this. The reason, we have "one" treasury to cover every fleet. Fleet plundering should not be overly difficult, but taking all of one players ships in 2-4 hours should be. So I would like to bring forward the thought of...



"Individual Fleet Treasuries"

Specifics


• Each fleet would have its own treasury, one that is pre-loaded and managed by the fleets owner.


• Each fleet has a maximum treasury size based on fleet value, 10% comes to mind (negotiable)
- A fleet of 4x sotl's and a cutter tail would value near 70.6m, therefore its treasury cap would be about 7.06m.
- A fleet of 5 howkers values about 1.175m, its treasury cap would be 117,500.


• Plunder ransom calculated would be a bit different than it is now. Instead of random 1-5% of single player treasury, it would now be 8-10% of the defending fleets treasury + 10% of the base value of the last ship. Plunder cap remains at 250k max per battle.

Plunder Examples


Spoiler: show

Fleet A: 5 x level 10 sotl's, Value = (roughly) 88m. Max treasury size is 8.8m, current treasury is at 4m
PLUNDER = (Randomized 8-10% of treasury) + (10% of base value last ship)
(Assuming 10% was rolled) 400k + 75k = 475k, max is 250k so the plundered amount is 250k.
NEW TREASURY: 4,000,000 - 250,000 = 3,750,000gc

Fleet B: 5 x level 1 LMM's, Value = 312,500. Max Treasury size is 31,250, current treasury is 31,250
PLUNDER = (Randomized 8-10% of treasury) + (10% of base value last ship)
(Assuming 10% was rolled) 3,125 + 6,250 = 9,375gc.
NEW TREASURY: 31,250 - 9,375 = 21,875gc




• Fleet treasuries are managed by the owner of the fleets. It is their responsibility to upkeep these. An overview page would be created to view treasury size and max allowed for each fleet for simplicity, along with a buttons to either "add" or "remove" gc from individual fleets as well as a button to "max" all at once if desired. (Must have adequate funds in personal treasury.)

Example of Overview Page Concept


Spoiler: show






• Fleet taxes, crew, and cannon upkeep come out of each fleet based on their individual upkeep costs for constant small amounts of drain.


• Reduces risk of losing multiple fleets in a short period of time, each fleet has its own level of protection


• When a fleet is lit, it's "individual purse" is shown on the plunder board next to the fleet.


• Players can select up to "5" fleets they want monitored. If any of these fleets treasuries fall to or below 20% an indication is offered to the players guild.


Voodoo Cards


• Booty Master - works on fleets now not player.


• Forced Labor & Military Service - would work as they do now with the sum going to personal treasury not any fleet treasury.


• Generosity Card - Targets Fleets now; A generosity card cast would be divided among "monitored" fleets that have reached the threshold of 20% up to 500k. Should the fleets treasuries be maxed, any extra from the generosity cast would go to the players treasury. example: 2 of the 5 fleets at 20%, geno would be divided by 2 = 250k added to each fleet, if all 5 were low, 100k added to each fleet.


• Taxation - As taxes come out of each fleets treasury, taxation would quadruple this amount from each fleets treasury.

Additional Concepts

Spoiler: show

Fame: It was once mentioned that fame should be granted based on the type of fleet and its strength that one beats. With this, you earn more gc for beating a larger war fleet than a defenseless merchant fleet, tie fame earning into the amount of gc looted as it currently is with skirmishing and you have a working system rewarding more fame and coin for beating the tougher foe, while less of both for beating the easy prey.

Many possibilities with this and I'll leave it now for some constructive feedback. This concept would limit the use and need for tails, increase expensive vessels sailing, increase potential for blockade fleets, reduce risk of losing "everything" a player worked for while still leaving fleets open to plunder.

A couple math runs on a few other fleet compositions have shown me perhaps a 5% treasury cap size is a bit too small, this is easily up for debate and I would think 10% at this point is a lot more realistic so I have changed it in the first post.

I know I've not been in the game long compared to many, but I have been reading over a lot of the suggestions in the forums, past and present.

This is one of the best ideas I've seen yet, in my humble opinion. Some details to be fleshed out, such as whether cap size is sufficient as mentioned, but once that is done it would be the top of my list of features I'd wish were implemented asap.

I could not +1 this post enough.

Intriguing notion : I would quibble on one aspect : if the ambush limit is reached with disfavor cast, (20 hits) then no fleet would be safe if it has an expensive ship on tail : so, I personally would not move from using a cutter tail for that reason.

I assume the player would require a purse held sufficient to cover all fleets capped amounts in full : what would happen if that amount was not maintained? Would all fleets purses be salami-sliced accordingly, or would any one particular, or random, fleet suffer less coverage?

Would casts of Generosity, Buried Treasure, Forced Labor and Military Service also become fleet specific?

Danik wrote:Intriguing notion : I would quibble on one aspect : if the ambush limit is reached with disfavor cast, (20 hits) then no fleet would be safe if it has an expensive ship on tail : so, I personally would not move from using a cutter tail for that reason.

I assume the player would require a purse held sufficient to cover all fleets capped amounts in full : what would happen if that amount was not maintained? Would all fleets purses be salami-sliced accordingly, or would any one particular, or random, fleet suffer less coverage?

Correct, any one fleet would could be susceptible, which is why the purse size should be discussed. No fleet should be cleanly taken with max ambush and disfavor when purse is full, however it should be in reach when Booty Master is added to the mix.

No, "each" fleet holds their own purse. The player needs to "load" the coin and it is then essentially carried by the fleet. Once loaded a player can also take that coin back if they want to reduce the protection for any reason, or feel it is safe without full treasury.

Danik wrote:Would casts of Generosity, Buried Treasure, Forced Labor and Military Service also become fleet specific?

I would see Generosity and buried treasure being fleet specific now, Military service and Forced Labor would be player cast and work as normal since they cover the full scope of hired crew and guns. All are up for debate however.

I like the notion - the flaw I percieve (I may be totally wrong) be that this may actually make Trophy Ship hunting easier to accomplish. The simple fact that each ship has its own treasuries will create surgically targetted fleets with the SotL or MoW in the lineup. The use of the fleet-targetted Booty Master, Disfavor and Ambush curse can make short work of the entire fleet. By adding fireship and call the kraken, it can be done with lighter warships, too.

The use of one treasury for all ships reduces that capability unless one's treasury is simply allowed to get too low.

As I say, that is my perception, and I may simply not be seeing it all properly.

I find it much easier with one treasury as it is, you can use many less Booty Master cards on a player with 100 fleets, light him, hit em all to reduce treasury, use BM cards sink tail and voila.. even less ambush required most times. Then the target finds his fleet gone and many more to follow if he keeps lighting up.

Again we can discuss the percentage of max treasury but even so, the attacker needs to use more of the expensive cards and the defenders remaining fleets are not so easily rendered vulnerable.

Your point SHM is valid, however it applies in the current system while also making every other fleet susceptible.

Is plunder ransom based on overall purse, fleet purse, or both.

DezNutz wrote:Is plunder ransom based on overall purse, fleet purse, or both.

The way I read it Dez is it would be Fleet Purse specific. This is an intriguing idea and one that deserves some more discussion.

By doing this it protects all other fleets. One would not have to be so overly concerned about losing mass amounts of ships each raid. Take someone like Grimrock or Lodswe, when they get lit up their purse now drops fairly fast and they have the potential to lose ships quickly.

I see this currently as a benefit to large merchants but also some protection to those who run multiple large war fleets like Banger.

I will ponder on this more but so far a +1

Nice job Hornigold

I get it now - very petceptive concept! This change is subtle, but will definitely provide more detailed "defensive" options in strategy both for plunder and skirmish.

I like the idea....

+1