Suggestions Compiled

**SMZ** · 06-02-2009, 03:32

ahh - thnx for explaining Didz - good diplomatic suggestions Obadiah & Monsieur Alphonse

**gellis23** · 06-02-2009, 09:15

Hi peeps.

Some great ideas here. Just like to expand on one and make a clarification to another.

The news idea is great. A simple screen showing who is at war with who would be great. A list of activity would also be nice. Even during this period there was "news". So perhaps a list of events, nothing fancy, something like "Spain defeated Dutch fleet in Ivory Coast" or similar for land battles. You can see this on the map but it would be nice to have and would take a very small amount of code to achieve.

On the privateers front. Just to clarify, the difference between a pirate and a privateer is subtle but existed (officially). A privateer held a Letter of Marque commissioning him to wage war on the enemies of the crown or republic or some guy in a cave. They were supposed to give their government a cut etc. If caught they were supposed to have protection but were usually hung anyway. For this reason you wouldn't commission privateers unless you were at war.

**Didz** · 06-02-2009, 10:32

Originally Posted by gellis23

For this reason you wouldn't commission privateers unless you were at war.

I wouldn't be too sure of that, as I recall Drake had Royal approval to raid Spanish ships before England went to war with Spain. The real advantage being 'plauisible deniability' on the part of the sponsor if their agent was caught, or identified.

The advantage of privateers in times of open warfare was that they were a cheap and virtually self-sustaining means of conducting commerce raiding on an enemy without having to commission and maintain formal naval units.

The problem was that the men and ships employed in this role found the freedom and lifestyle suited them so much they didn't want to give it up when the war ended and their former employers removed their license.

Thus, in terms of ETW game mechanic's I would see the link as quite tangible. Factions should be able to hire 'Privateers' much like they hire any other agent, but once hired that privateer will operate independant of the control of the faction that hired it to prey on an enemy factions ships and trade lanes. As long as the 'privateer' remains under letters of marque from the hiring faction it will continue to function as instructed. However, if those letters are withdrawn, or if it ceases to find any source of legitimate revenue for a certain period of time it will revert to piracy and begin preying on any commerce in the area inlcuding that of its former employer.

This would result in a level of piracy directly related to the level of conflict over trade in the area, which is historically sound. Ideally, each pirate fleet would be considered a seperate faction within the game allowing non-pirate factions the ability to negotiate and deal with them as seperate entities, but that may be asking too much.

Once free of their obligations pirates will survive by earning revenue raiding trade lanes and trade ships and they will pay any faction willing to allow them access to their ports for repairs and to unload their cargo. They will even bribe local governors in remote locations to allow them to use their ports and islands as a safe haven.

So, what the player might get is a diplomatic message offering him 2,000 gold for 2 turns access to Port Royal from Captain Kidd. Another possibility would be to allow pirates to use any undeveloped port locations as though they were ports for repair purposes, this would produce a gradually dimishing number of safe havens for pirates as civilisation spread. Finally, of course any coastal province which rebels and has a pirate fleet in residence ought to have a chance of becoming a pirate haven. The pirate fleet effectively becoming a ready made navy to boost its revenues.

**SMZ** · 06-02-2009, 10:37

good idea with the news gellis23

while it is true that privateers usually only operated in wartime (especially as time went on and international attention became focused on the subject), at times they operated during peacetime as well - letters of marque were viewed as a step below a full declaration of war - however war would surely be imminent with any nation that found out its shipping lanes were being raided with the consent, knowledge and favor of another state

**al Roumi** · 06-02-2009, 11:59

Absolutely, that's why the notion of having "pirates" as an independant faction is somewhat spurious anyway. Privateering was often as much a legitimate business venture (to the comssioning nation) as merchant trade.

Privateers or "Pirates" also mostly used sloops, so their use of galleons & Fluyts is wholely anachronistic.

Anyway, completely off-topic.

**SMZ** · 06-02-2009, 14:54

updated and added a 'surrender' concept to make it more useful

**SMZ** · 06-08-2009, 16:13

added 'shrine' concept and an abridged version of Daveybaby's trade node suggestions

**al Roumi** · 06-10-2009, 15:08

In the vein of developing Joint/allied offensives, I'd like to suggest and extra couple of diplomatic options:

1. Declare war on [someone]
2. Target [x] region/city
3. Target [x] trade route/port

2 & 3 could be assigned on a "per theatre" basis -so each theatre has a different focus of operations.

The list could be extended to defensive operations too, e.g.: "Defend region/trade port".

These should help coordinate genuinely joint efforts between allies rather than the current "you cover my back, I'll cover your's" agreements and "oh! fancy meeting you here chaps" type military campaigns.