Pirate Rankings and Bonuses

[Dmanwuzhere]

With only one fleet you do not even risk losing levels on your ships. You cn run with 2 sows and attack traders all day long, or as long as the turns allows anyways. They can then keep gold on hand at a minimum to avoid losing almost anything if someone decides to attack them back. I for one would lose a lot more from attacking back and raise my danger than I could possibly gain from such an attack. That is unfair I belive. Pirates have free hits, that's the reallity.

skirmishers have 2 restrictions to do their trade: skirmish points and turns. turns can be bought or gotten by means of voodoo. Skirmish points are not to be bought or voodoo'd. with tech you can get lots more daily, but never more than 23 a day. a hard cap.

the discussion is about the possibilty that skirmish should not cost turns.
If we forget that for a moment and think how more skirmish points can be earned. (not bought, but earned)
*) Fear of the black flag makes trade fleets lower their flag; let those who sail the black earn 5 extra points a day. that's attractive for new pirates who lack the tech.
*) Fear comes from fighting; X (10?) attacks on the plunder board generates 1 skirmish point.
*) ships captured or sunk provide skirmish points based on the ships baseprice (each 100kgc = 1 point)
*) other options



by allowing more points to be earned while the turn restriction stays intact, the skirmishers have to earn the right to skirmish.

+1 the only disagreement I have with this as it is written is you have included skirmishers where I feel pirates should go. Skirmishers with a nation and not a black flag enjoy every benefit as other nationals or law abiding citizens and due to that need no extra law breaking maneuvers. But as a pirate you have limited perks or privileges and I feel that could be an awesome gap filler on that benefits scale.

[Maha]

+1 the only disagreement I have with this as it is written is you have included skirmishers where I feel pirates should go. Skirmishers with a nation and not a black flag enjoy every benefit as other nationals or law abiding citizens and due to that need no extra law breaking maneuvers. But as a pirate you have limited perks or privileges and I feel that could be an awesome gap filler on that benefits scale.

i mention a 5 skirmishs points extra for the black flag. the other bonuses should be for all who want to earn them. not all pirates (or semi pirates) fly the black.

[Haron]

In my opinion, both trading and skirmish is "too simple", and thus boring. It is very easy to set up relatively good trading route, particularly if using party cards, and just keep running the same route forever. It may be able to make slightly more by considering prices at every 3-day price renewal, but the different between the profit of a "smart" trader who maximizes everything, and an "automatic" trader, who just keeps running the same trade routes forever, is minimal. Which is why I believe more competitive elements (no, that does not have to include combat) should be set in place for merchants. "Enhanched supply and Demand" was a suggestion for this. Making resources more scarse was also suggested, although I see some problems with doing that without further change. Perhaps a good solution would have to make all goods be made by players rather than the game. That would be a rather large change in the game, though. There have been threads to discuss this, though.

Similarly, skirmish is also "too simple", and thus boring. Danik is right, there is not much skill in checking the skirmish page, find a suitable merchant and skirmishing him (it requires SOME knowledge about your targets, but it's still as easy as playing tic tac toe). In addition, skirmish is almost as profitable as plundering, sometimes more profitable. At least when considering all indirect costs as well. And skirmish requires turns, so skirmish being easy AND profitable makes pirates spend lots of turns on skirmish, leaving few left for plunders and raids. Making skirmish "turn free" would remedy this last part. Yes, it would do so at the expense of merchants, as it gives pirates more potions to attack (the loss of 23 skirmish points spent is not huge though. Even hitting fleets with a 20k profit, which is decent, you get 20k x 23 x 0.8 = 368k in losses for all the merchants in Avonmora combined per day, per pirate using 23 skirmish points each day. Note that the attacker may gain a lot more, due to piracy tech, but he may also lose due to hitting escorts or being hit back after gaining danger). Another option might have been to remove the skirmish option altogether. That would remedy the situation entirely at the cost of pirates, removing their "safe and easy" source of income. I'm sure there are other ways to help the situation, too. Increasing the maximum skirmish point storage (72 points is very little if you get 23 points each day) may help a little, but obviously not nearli as much as removing the turn cost. Reducing (halving?) the turn cost might be another option.

Editing skirmish insurance and increasing the limit each target can be hit would be a way to make skirmish (or the threat of it) become a part of more elaborate pirate strategies, and may also force traders to run with larger purses. I keep hearing a lot that "pirates need phat merchants", yet most merchants run with a rather low, minimum purse, no matter how rich they are, as they can do so relatively safely. This is another reason why skirmish today is as good as plunder; few merchants have any reason to run with large purses to protect themselves. Skirmishing or plundering a target with 1M gc on hand and a howker tail is relatively comparable to skirmishing.

Anyway. As I see it, the idea should be to make both trading and attacking require some more skill. Party trading and skirmishing is both very easy and quite profitable compared to alternatives, which is not a good thing, in my opinion.

[ChaIbaud]

Party trading and skirmishing is both very easy and quite profitable compared to alternatives, which is not a good thing, in my opinion.

[Captain Jack]

There needs to be a distinction between the pirate "role" and to the player with the black flag.
We also need to be respectful to how every player anticipates what a Pirate really is.

For example, in our perspective, a player carrying the pirate flag and running 500 ships is not a pirate. So, in our perspective, the Flag does not make the pirate.

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10% bonus influence

I assume this refers to build up port?
If yes, then we need to take exploitation in mind. Gifting a 10% bonus on Pirate Flag sounds like a bad idea as it can be exploited. Who could stop someone, when switching nations, to pass by Pirate Flag for a few moments, only to use the bonus? No one. So, I am afraid that Black Flag pinched on a port will continue to be hard to see.

Unless we find some more perks for Pirate Controlled ports, for which we are positive and we are open to ideas.

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Skirmishes -> no turns for Black Flag

Regarding skirmishes and no turn costs for Black Flag players, there is reason to give this perk.
The top reason is that a handful of players currently earn either through Stipends or directly through nation coffers, some income. It takes little effort to become a marquess or even a Duke to a handful of nations which in turn will earn you some decent daily payment.

This is however the only real reason as the rest of the perks are balanced or unneeded (ie, 10% sales on Duke). In fact, if you exclude this perk, Pirate perks are better for a pirate.

Is this "stipend/payment" perk so strong though? To give a concrete answer, we need to take in mind more factors.
A player under a flag, who also gets a daily payments from this flag, is less likely to attack players of the same nation. This, in the way we see it, can act as an indirect ransom to the player using the nation flag. So the player with the nation flag, also has a small handicap where the player with the black flag does not have it.

There are more things to consider though. Development wise, the gold generated from Skirmish is produced at its most part due to the Piracy Tech. 23 points per day @Level 20 Piracy, is equal to 1.61M

Stipends gold in the other hand is circulated gold. Already produced Gold that changes pocket. So, you can't really compare it.

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I think the base problem is not flag specific. I accept that nation flag creates less pirate flag players. This can change in the future with specific laws that will abolish players from their own nation (it will be a more sophisticated system than pure hostility or voting).

I also accept that the Pirate playstyle may have more needs. I will create a topic right after this one, addressing their problems.

For the near future, we should not make any distinctions based on the Flag. For example, right now, a nation can invite a renown pirate to receive a daily stipend only to avoid having him as an enemy. This might not happened yet but it may happen in the near future where countries will decide hostility penalties for various... crimes.

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This suggestion also includes ideas for Pirate titles which we like. It also addresses the current issue on the table and even if the two key suggestions are not acceptable at this point, we can continue the discussion. This is why it will be moved to General Discussion instead.

Regarding Skismish, this needs to be discussed at its own topic (there is one) as there should be no special rules for Skirmish based on player flag.

[Captain Jack]

If we forget that for a moment and think how more skirmish points can be earned. (not bought, but earned)
*) Fear of the black flag makes trade fleets lower their flag; let those who sail the black earn 5 extra points a day. that's attractive for new pirates who lack the tech.
*) Fear comes from fighting; X (10?) attacks on the plunder board generates 1 skirmish point.
*) ships captured or sunk provide skirmish points based on the ships baseprice (each 100kgc = 1 point)
*) other options

by allowing more points to be earned while the turn restriction stays intact, the skirmishers have to earn the right to skirmish.

I like this perspective.

[Sanji]

Unless we find some more perks for Pirate Controlled ports, for which we are positive and we are open to ideas.

i have a few

> port NPC pay a ransom each day/ month (like tax for nation)
> every trader doing business in this port should pay a protection fee to the council/king. but they get 10% discount of every product.
> skirmish ONLY in THESE ports are free for everyone (or pirates, this can be discussed further)