Here is a list of the near-future general objectives we currently have in the dev team, in no particular order:

• More Gold Coin Sinkers
• More Gold Bars Sinkers
• More player 2 player trade options
• Some low-cost non-competitive credit sinkers
• Guild-wide common objectives
• More nation-wide common objectives
• More diversification in battles strategy
• Bigger importance for bigger ships
• More investment buildings like Goldsmith

These are roughly the objectives we are trying to meet with the various proposed suggestions. This list should display that we follow a slightly different approach than most when taking in mind what to develop next.

Now, this list is open for everyone so you can now contribute in a better way for forthcoming features.

All these General Objectives look fine and dandy to help people like me (Merchants)

But none of these seem to help the pirate side?.. ( Just saw battle strategy, but if your adding more strategy it may detect pirates from playng as the 600 turn cap, was a added strategy to adapt, no? )

Which leads me to say, where is the Pirate Flagship?

It's always nice to see a list of what the admins want to see happen in the game and it can help tweak the way that people think of stuff and can help the admins to an extent with idea's about what is needed.

For gold bar sinkers, I maintain the view that requiring gold bars for influence will aid this goal. Today it is a gold coin sinker. Note that it will NOT require less gold coins on a global basis even if we change this to require gold bars, since gold bars are made from gold coins, and this will increase the use of gold bars, and thus gold coins. Actually, ANYTHING that is a gold bar sink, is consequently also a gold coin sink.

For some REAL sinkers, though, what's needed is more battle. Battle where the losing side loses more than the winning side gains. Like ship stealing raids. In such raids, the total resources are reduced, since the profit for the attackers is always less than the loss for the defenders. In contrast to almost any other way to turn a coin. Trade generates more resources without any loss, and even plunder and skirmish will generate a higher profit for the attacker than the loss to the defender, thanks to piracy tech and salvaging part of lost ship levels.

In general, I think it's too easy to hide away valuables safely. If this was harder, which is to say everyone had more vulnerable resources, then there would be more stealing of resources by one player from another - with a net loss of resources from the game in the process. As long as making gold is easy, and securing gold is easy, then everyone will accumulate lots of gold all the time.

Yes, a gold smith is expensive. But those that build it, end up making a lot of gold - eventually. Which is why they build it, of course, with the prospect of making more gold. So while it is a "gold sink" in the short term, it generates more gold in the long term. That goes for most techs too (though not all). It would also apply to new "gold sinks", I assume. So more combat and less safe valuables is a more "permanent" gold sink.

You could increase the maximum level of ships, I guess. I'm not sure I like that idea, but it WOULD be a gold sink. If the maximum level was changed to 20, then most combat ships would be increased to level 20 to be able to defeat other combat ships. I'm not sure I think this is a good idea, though.

Also, traders should have a reason for leveling up trade ships, to make that a gold sink, too. Perhaps an attribute to increase the cargo capacity of ships could be a way to achieve this. Or simply increase the cargo capacity directly as a function of the level of trade ships.

Big ships already have some use, but I agree that more use could be nice. Wars and Blockades could be an idea for this, but I realise that this would be a major new feature, if implemented.

More diversification in battle strategies sounds good. Not sure really how you seek to achieve that, though. "More voodoo cards" seem to have been voted down by the community (more or less). Certain ideas, like actually performing the combat as a "mini game", is hard because only the attacker will usually be online during an attack. Also I don't think it would fit in this game. And battles are usually pretty clearly decided before they are fought, anyway. The attacker usually knows that he is stronger than the defender, or he will use voodoo to weaken the defender until he is.

Using Gold Bars for influence is not a good way forward. It will favor the Goldsmiths by a lot. For example, if we implement this now, all goldsmiths get more than 25% better price to influence purchase power. That's a free Political Science Technology lvl 13.

Make goldbars unavailable for use until they are moved to another port. With a high demand for influence, there will be a high demand for gold bars. And whether the gold smiths then sell their gold bars, or use them for influence, that should give them approximately the same "profit".

And who knows - maybe a gold bar or two will get lost during transport... ;-)

Captain Jack wrote:Using Gold Bars for influence is not a good way forward. It will favor the Goldsmiths by a lot. For example, if we implement this now, all goldsmiths get more than 25% better price to influence purchase power. That's a free Political Science Technology lvl 13.

I disagree (mostly). Goldbars for influence is a great way forward, but I do think it can't be a simple replacement. It needs to be discussed how GB will relate to Influence (how much influence do you get from a GB), how political science tech will be effected, how to ensure that it is fair across the board. This is something that needs to be discussed further; however, I think that the end result should be the replacement of GC with GBs for influence .

Captain Jack wrote:

• More Gold Coin Sinkers
- I think any new game feature (Port buildings, Fort, Wars/Blockades, etc.) will help with Coin Sinkers. There are lots of options now for Coin.

• More Gold Bars Sinkers
- Ship building, Port Buildings, Forts, any new possible techs for hideout

• More player 2 player trade options
- Contract Shipping???

• Some low-cost non-competitive credit sinkers
- More frequency of Turn Purchases. 8 hours instead of 12?
- What about "instant upgrades" or "Finish Now" button, in Hideout if you use credits. Although those would not be low cost...

• Guild-wide common objectives
- Some sort of Guild Based NPC Raid system. Get those big guns out.
- Guild based quest system

• More nation-wide common objectives
- Less nations = More competition
- Wars and Blockades
- Foot/Land Battles

• More diversification in battles strategy
- Flagship
- New Battle Structure/Mechanics to include multiple fleets
- Foot/Land Battles
- Different style of cannon shot - See Foundry Idea link below. New market

• Bigger importance for bigger ships
- Some sort of Guild Based Raid system that would require larger ships. Need to rethink idea that was proposed earlier

• More investment buildings like Goldsmith
- Port Buildings (Inn Keeper, Blacksmith, Armory, Foundry, Forts, Etc)

Foundry - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3073&hilit=foundry
Forts - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2165&hilit=forts
Inn Keeper - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2933&hilit=inn+keeper
Guild Based Raids - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2997&p=39566&hilit=guild+based+raid#p39566 (Re-work this idea)

-1 to less nations.