Dealing with the issue of pirate port battles.

[IrNinjaBob]

This is already floating around in the Ask an FLS Developer forum, but I wanted to bring it here too so it is more likely to get the attention of the Devs.

The general idea deals with the issue of the port going back to the defenders after the pirates succesfully win a port battle.

The way the system works now, regardless of what the circumstances are a port that was taken over by pirates returns to the previous owner after three days. one of the major issues this causes is that nationals don't see any point in defending these ports, and generally just let them get taken. Also, this system lacks the depth this idea could add.

The idea that is expressed in the other thread is to open up the option of allowing the port to be returned to the original owner of the port after being sacked by pirates, instead of just going back to the previous owner.

The idea I had for this works as follows:

Members of the nation who originally owned the port make donations until it reaches a total of X amount of doubloons. In this example, I will make that number 94k. Once this number is reached, the port in question is highlighted on all pirate's maps as being able to be captured for a reward. These pirates then have a reason to flip this port. So the pirate nation as a whole goes about flipping this port the same way they always have. Everything will be the same until after the port battle. After the port battle, if the pirates win then the port goes back to the original owner and each of the 24 people in the battle get a reward of 4k (which comes from the 96k the nation payed in the first place). If the pirates lose, then the port goes back to the defending nation and the 96k is removed from the game altogether.

So that way, if the pirates win they get more of a reward than they used to, and the original nation would get their town back, but only because they worked for it by paying the pirates. You can kind of think of these pirates as temporary privateers for the nation.

But on the other hand, if the original nation didn't pay the 96k to have it flipped, then everything will work as normal. The pirates don't get the 4k reward for flipping the port, and after the three days it would go back to the defending nation, not the original one, because they did nothing for it.

And obviously, if pirates attack a port that is still being held by its original owner, things will work as they do now also.

Also, a price other than 96k may be used. I was using it for simplicity's sake. It should probably be either double or triple that for a nation to be able to win back their port without getting it themselves, with either double or triple the reward for pirates depending on the price used.

Also, though, the 96k may be a good goal for two reasons.

1) This strategy would mostly help the lower populated nations, and the lower populated nations may not be able to raise 300k easily, which would make this whole strategy pretty useless and would end up just helping the larger nations.

and

2) Even once the 96k is payed, it isn't guaranteed that they will win their port back. The pirates very well may lose. Then thats a wasted 96k. It would be a lot worse of that was a wasted 300k over and over again.

Here is a link to the original thread I got the idea from: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13667

I think this idea deserves a lot of attention, and think it could do a lot for the game.