New to game. Any advice for PvP nation?

[Cere]

Hi, all. I bought the pre-order a few days ago in preparation for launch and am excited about the prospects of this game. Ive played very little so far and have not engaged in any PvP at all yet.

Thinking that pirates would be "the PvP faction", that's what I went with, but I can easily reroll to another nation. So far, I have no complaints about the pirates, but given by limited exposure, I would expect none.

What are your recommendations for a nation that takes PvP seriously, but is not populated with a bunch of knuckleheads? Should I stick with pirates?

[AC2]

Pirates and Brits are going to be the high pop zergs with all the knuckleheads (on us servers anyways) so I would recommend either Spanish or French, if you want to avoid them.

[RaphaelSemmes]

In open beta I played about with each Nation, and Pirates.

Now granted, Launch will be different as players are not just testing differences like I was, and yet a few things still seem to hold.

Brits will almost always see the higher population. In open,and more recently they held more Moderate populations on login that the other nations, with Pirates second.

Pirates seemed to hold more knuckleheads as a general glance. While many good players simply don't open their mouths in Nation chat, to simply prove how ignorant they are. There are many more who will open their mouths and prove with out a doubt they deserve the l33t awards.

I chose France, simply due to port locations. France will have the most ports clustered into Red Circles. One look at Irish Point in Hispanola will show it covers 5 ports inside the Red. Below our Nation capitol 4 ports are covered in one red circle. and Pirates love to sack NewO, which again give up 3-4 French Ports.

Spain has some great locations, and her ports are spread further out. So battles will be much more specific, and planned. Yet she only seems to battle Brit over Belieze with regularity.

I would say your decision will come down to the solo, or find a society aspect. If you plan to stay solo then I'd strongly suggest Pirate.
If you plan on joining a society to aid in your nations competitiveness, then the society will be a better home, than any knuckleheads who also slip into your nations gene pool.

[Bas Woelfe]

Even according to the developers, France is THE PvP nation. Simply put, it can't survive without fighting hard all the way. Other nations have much larger tolerance for defeat in the conquest game. Given that France also is going to have the smallest population due to external factors, it makes it clear that if you want the greatest PvP challenge, playing for France is where you're going to find it.