Calling Volunteers! Eslandola Vs. Mardier - Build Off

[Maxim I]

;)

My point is Sea Rats are pirates. The whole intro of their faction thread says enough and repeats multiple times that they are pirates.

So sending a warship to a pirate ship, is not an act of piracy... Maybe Dr-Spock hasn't been defined as a pirate, the royal fleet certainly is, because they are owned by faction that calls itself pirates.

[Fuzzy MacFuzz]

'My point is Sea Rats are pirates.'

I totally agree Maxim. But my point is that the current MRCA makes piracy pretty risky and poorly rewarded. I would like to hear what those who have actually attempted piracy in the game have to say on this?

[Maxim I]

'My point is Sea Rats are pirates.'

I totally agree Maxim. But my point is that the current MRCA makes piracy pretty risky and poorly rewarded. I would like to hear what those who have actually attempted piracy in the game have to say on this?

Perfect :D

I do agree there should be more benefits in being pirates.

Now, Bregir is right about the following thing: it would be too bad if all nations suddenly decides to hunt Sea Rats, there would be no fun in the game anymore for Sea Rats. So yes, it was not very fair of Eslandola attacking those Sea Rats, without any reason. Now we got a reason as we were raided, but Eslandola attacked the Sea Rats fleet, so that should be even for now.

Although, I think we have no other options at this point as everything is peace and blablabla.

It would be more interesting if every nation is in a permanent state of war with at least one NPC faction, so if the nation decides to raid, they can raid the ships of those NPC factions.

[Bregir]

Maxim: Eslandola is welcome to declare war on Mardier. After all, they did attack you unprovoked.

Or any other NPC nation, if you need someone to raid...

[CelesAurivern]

Now we got a reason as we were raided, but Eslandola attacked the Sea Rats fleet, so that should be even for now.

It would be a fair reason ESL had attacked AFTER the raid. (i.e. the next month)

Shooting at a time when there are no open hostilities sorta negates the justification.

And as Bregir has noted, it was a hostile action taken by the crown, as compared to one batshit crazy SR Captain, who shoots his own men.

He can plead insanity, but what's ESL's argument? We thought Bloody Bill was with you?

[Maxim I]

Maxim: Eslandola is welcome to declare war on Mardier. After all, they did attack you unprovoked.

Or any other NPC nation, if you need someone to raid...

As mentioned above, I have nothing to say in politic matters of Eslandola. I also have not the need to raid peoples traderoutes :p

I just suggested the permanent war stuff to make if more fun for those who want to build battles and who want to raid ships, without punishing the Sea Rats for being pirates...

[Tezclatipoca]

After reading all your reflections here, you are just suggesting that the Pirates (or Sea Rats if you want to call them like that ! ) have less interest to become pirates and have a Faction "handicap" as they are not considered like a "well established" nation and they are diplomatically not in good terms with no one.

I agree with that.

If we are looking well, historically, there were many reasons to turn pirate !

1) The pirates were freemen or flleing their country mainly for religious reasons (at least the ones on Tortuga at the begining of the pirate code, or during the leadership of François Levasseur in Basse-Terre)

2) The pirates were mainly issued from crew that were badly lead or worked in awful conditions in the official country warships. Mutiny was frequent and the pirate crews were more free on a free ship than on an english ship for example.

3) Powerty. Many men tempted a chance to survive in the Caraibean sea rather than dying of hunger on the old continent.

And I'll pass on other reasons...

But we don't have any of these reasons here to be a Pirate !

The main Nations are quite well lead and are equally rich (or nearly... Corrington a bit more but, sorry my corry friends, that's still doable... ).

There is no real religious persecutions (even Oleon is not a hard seeker of pagan to punish )

So what to do ?

Perhaps some MRCA actions specifically oriented towards some act of piracy could be good. Bounty hunting is not good enough IMO, perhaps it needs improvement.

Pirates could have the right to hide some treasures and seek for them by a special action on land (BTW, this is the main activity of the LEGO Pirates in the official sets !) instead of using trading ships on trading runs and in addition, could have a cargo value on their Armed vessels (or use some Well Rounded ships full of crewmen !)

And to solve the problem with Eslandola attacking them, Sea Rats could be able to deal some immunity with the concerned authorities (at a price to be debate... ). In the conter part, the nations could hire some Pirates hunters to seek and destroy every black ship at view. Historically, Spain (just one example) paid some warships to track down every threat against its Silver Convoys. They were pittyless towards Pirates !

Just my two cents and I really think we should debate on that later.

[Sir Stig]

The OOC Eslandolan excuse is that there is no way to choose between merchant fleets and raiders.

IC: They should have sailed without the Jolly Roger. I can only guess that they feared this was a raiding fleet out to get our merchant flotillas.

I agree the mechanism with half cost for properties have not worked as I believe it was intended, because of the amounts of money being generated. It weakens the Sea Rats initial strenght, since everyone can afford to build and licence their maximum (2/3 properties a month) within a few months. It is simply to much to quickly. My experience is that too much money in a game can break it, so this is an important point.

We need more rewards based on titles, rights and FIP, not throwing DBs as a bait for everything. I also think the NPC factions should work as a way to weed out ships, and/or making capture much harder. ATM it is crazy to invest in a ship, when we could send get them "for free" on a heavily escorted trade run. NPC factions working as ship feeders for this is not ideal. I hope the MRCA 2.0 lowers the chance of capture, and includes damage taken after encounters, that have to be paid before the ships can be used again. The money for this should go straight out of the game.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Sir Stig

[Bregir]

I am still going to maintain that just being a sea eat is not the same as sailing under the Jolly Roger.

You cannot hang a man for an act he didn't commit. Or is that only a principle in civilised societies? I.e. Corrington...

(Do you hang people in Eslandola because you can make a profit, and in Oleon for believing in the wrong gods? :P :D ;) )

[Garmadon]

Alright! After reading/skimming the comments here there are a few things which decidedly need to be clarified!

1. Eslandola attacked and took two Sea Rats vessels - both of whose captain's/owners were previously engaged in piratical activity! Whether they happened to be on a trade run when we attacked them makes absolutely no difference - they were clearly pirates, and clearly justice may be given them for their previous actions regardless of what they were up to this time. Moreover, in the selfsame action they took the King of Mardier from us and sailed away with it. A case of Eslandolan aggression against some "friendly neighboring pirates?" I believe the Sea Rats have no case at all here, and that the probability of the court case going their way is (and ought to be) pretty much nil.

2. I have a sinking feeling that the reason the Sea Rats want their 5HA back is to raid a nation's settlement with it. Not! - Not, note, that I have anything OOC against the Sea Rats raiding other nation's settlements. By all means, I would be quite happy to see more predator runs from the Sea Rats! (Also note that, as mentioned, we had no way to know that the Sea Rats had all turned into peaceful () traders - we simply sent out a couple of warships to attack nations which had proven by their actions that they were hostile to Eslandola).

3. Why aren't the Sea Rats going on predator runs!?!?! I really don't get it! You do not want to know how much profit our captain's who captured ship during the last MRCA made!

4. No one is trying to treat the Sea Rats as a nation. It is the Sea Rats who are trying to take another nation to the courts, and, really, that makes no sense to me (especially given the captains'/owners' of the ships very doubtful credentials...)

...4) I know there are no rules in the Sea Rats faction, but please take your time to read the rules. You had 3 Royal fleet warships, you lost one so now you may have a new third warship for free (even a class 5 HA if I am correct)! As a faction is always allowed to have the minimum of three warships!

They can't get another free ship because in the same action those lovable Sea Rats took our King of Mardier and sailed off with it...

Nonetheless my suggestion would be to except the standard three faction ships from capturing. If every faction always gets a new faction ship if one is lost, it doesn't matter to them if they lose it. But on the other hand it would be an infinite ship generator for other factions/NPC. even if it is unlikely, it could happen that a faction loses one or all faction ships, gets new ones, loses them again and so on. And somebody else would get a bunch of free licenses for class 5 ships.

Or even worse, Bloody Bill captures faction ships, can use them immediately because he doesn't have to moc them, uses those ships to capture more ships and so on. Soon you would have an invincible NPC bot.

This is the rule and it is not going to change. No faction may have more than 5 unMOCed ships, and players may have non, so capturing a faction's ship is only another incentive to build more! NPC pirates do not work like that! (However, I will not go into all the hidden game mechanics, as they are, well, hidden)

2) Eslandola should be able to predict the consequences of their actions. I call piracy - you attacked a neutral faction. And it wasn't just a rogue TC who did this. It was the Crown. Casus belli, anyone?

3) Well, I suggest you bring that raid up with the Sea Rats courts. If they are anything as efficient as the Eslandian courts, it is very likely you will get a reply early next year!

About 2, there was absolutely no way that Eslandola could even know that the Sea Rats were going on a single trade run last month. They plan their runs in secret. They had previously chased our shipping (that they didn't actually catch them was hardly their intention!), and, as Kai said, off course we want to avoid war at all costs with our pirate friends

About 3, we are not going to take the Sea Rats to court! It makes no sense whatsoever. Period.

...One other point; I think the current system (as I understand it anyway) is unfair on the Sea Rats. It assumes they are a nation whereas in reality they are more like an anti-nation. Effectively they are in a permanent state of war with the other nations, but it seems they aren't allowed to break 'the rules of war' which they haven't agreed to anyway. How can a team whose raison d'etre is piracy then be taken to court for piracy? Or take another nation to court? Piracy is, by defintion, illegal, but we need to allow/encourage pirates to do it anyway, even if that's painful for the rest of us and upsets our plans - that's kind of the point. I hope the new MRCA will make piracy (including land raids) a much more lucrative option vis-a-vis trade or I think the Sea Rats will struggle for a while and then sputter out. Currently much the most successful pirate is an NPC, that can't be right? And we need a mechanism whereby the nations can't just use their power to crush the Sea Rats as Eslandola seems to have done (yes, their action was totally understandable, but...).

Currently in a straight fight any nation will always crush the sea Rats, so the Sea Rats will simply stop these kinds of raids, and indeed all piracy, to the detriment of the game.

As I've pointed out, it is the Sea Rats who are trying to take us to court, and not the other way about. I completely agree that they ought really not to act or be treated as a nation - I would be happy to see it decided that the Sea Rat faction can neither take another faction to court or be taken to court. Individual Sea Rats with good credentials obviously could though!

About the predator runs and raids - yes, raids are extremely hard to pull off - however, predator runs are very lucrative and not at all as risky as some seem to think! And in such confrontations the Sea Rats (contrary to the ideas of some here!) almost always will have the advantage. We sent out three ships against the Sea Rats, all of a relatively smaller size - they had (and have) practically the whole faction to go around crushing other nations ships with!

...If the sea rats make enemies of us all, they will be crushed. End of story...

I am almost positive that the Sea Rats sent out their ships on a predator run the first MRCA with the intent of attacking ships from any and every nation passing their way. The simple fact is, no other nation has the time/supplies to crush the Sea Rats! We simply cannot send out all our warships against them, as we need to protect our convoys from other NPC pirates attacking us. They have the huge advantage of being able to attack everyone without having to run the huge risk any other nation would have. Those who set up this game (looking at you Ska! ) did an excellent job!

Well, Jacob - If the sea rats attack the Eslandian National ships, bounty or not, I think you will find the Eslandian King will respond. I mean, a bounty is not a carte blanche - you will still need to consider the consequences.

This is precisely what has happened here! The King of Eslandola sent out a few ships in response to those nations which have been known to prey on our shipping. No problem here!

If there is still any discussion on this topic could we please take it somewhere else or wait for the case in June? This topic is about Eslandola vs. Mardier and has nothing to do with the Sea Rats!

@Jacob, alright, I'll transfer you to the other team then!

In other, and more on topic news, it is highly likely that if this case goes against Eslandola they will declare war on Mardier. That is the point of this court case! We aren't going to say, "Oh yeah, go ahead and prey on our shipping and we'll leave you alone!"

[Fuzzy MacFuzz]

Garmadon, I am fine with all you say, indeed it is very sensible. I don't know the rules so if you say pirates have a good chance to succeed I believe you, I was just giving my impression. And as the pirates themselves have not responded here, I am happy to consider the matter closed for now.

However I do take objection to this:

If there is still any discussion on this topic could we please take it somewhere else or wait for the case in June? This topic is about Eslandola vs. Mardier and has nothing to do with the Sea Rats

Well that's just how a conversation works, it evolves and moves on as people make new points. The issue was raised here about the pirates suing Eslandola. I responded to those comments, I can't see any problem with such an evolving discussion.

[Kwatchi]

I'll have to delve into this discussion properly this evening after I get home from work, but I'll quickly type up a few salient facts since I seem to be a point of discussion.

1. Sea Rats are not what we thought they'd be! Within the first month of play they morphed into a faction of free traders, as the EGS had pirate actions at a poor risk/reward. I for one joined BoBS late and balked at being a trader; it wasn't what I had in mind when I joined. Internally, our faction is split on the subject. And if I am not mistaken, no SR captain has sailed on a pred cruise since I joined in February. So rather than SR=pirates, it should be more SR= independent traders/smugglers/contractors.

2. At present, Eslandia has an INDIFERENT reaction towards Sea Rats in the political system. So I am curious who ok'ed the predatory cruise with a royal ship contrary to the crown's position? Seems treasonous to me.

3. My actions last month were my own and reflect an in-character negotiation I had with the ESL leadership (Kai) regarding establishing a free port on Ferro Azure. Negotiations took a sour turn unfortunately and I sent my latest counteroffer via the MCRA. So at this time you can safely assume I personally am Hostile to ESL, and I'll presume vice versa. I'm a mini-faction of sorts.

4. I don't make berth anywhere at present, but I will establish a colony this month (once the challenge islands are handed out) so ESL can 'seek revenge for my cowardly attack' and keep the storyline going. Because that is my focus atm; the Db rat race is secondary.

Hope to see you on the seas. MUAHAHAHAHA!

Edited April 15, 2016 by Kwatchi

[Elostirion]

So... instead of discussing, how is the status on those Mardier MOCs? Really looking forward towards them! :-)

[Kai NRG]

Garmadon has made several good points and essentially wrapped up the situation. I believe we (Eslandola) have been very clear on how we are going to handle this case. The question basically is whether or not Eslandola is guilty of piracy in attacking pirates. That question should not be discussed now. The two sides will be given an opportunity to present their cases at the trial. Until then, speculation is useless.

If the Sea Rats are not happy with this, they always have the option to declare war, or just start covertly attacking us.

For the record, if the case goes against Eslandola, Eslandola will in justice have to make some reparation for having kept the ships three months.

---

I am officially volunteering for Eslandola in this build off. The teams are full - and you're on!

[MKJoshA]

1. Eslandola attacked and took two Sea Rats vessels - both of whose captain's/owners were previously engaged in piratical activity! Whether they happened to be on a trade run when we attacked them makes absolutely no difference - they were clearly pirates, and clearly justice may be given them for their previous actions regardless of what they were up to this time. Moreover, in the selfsame action they took the King of Mardier from us and sailed away with it. A case of Eslandolan aggression against some "friendly neighboring pirates?" I believe the Sea Rats have no case at all here, and that the probability of the court case going their way is (and ought to be) pretty much nil.

...

This is precisely what has happened here! The King of Eslandola sent out a few ships in response to those nations which have been known to prey on our shipping. No problem here!

I would ask what proof you have of the previous piratical activity you mention? Any person with a black banner can sail the seas calling themselves a pirate, but unless an actual act of piracy happens, are they really pirates?

I also want to clarify that the only reason we took The King of Mardier was because we were being attacked! We would never have captured it if it hadn't been attacking us first.

My question is why is ESL labeling the Sea Rats as a "nation preying on their ships" when this has never happened?

I am almost positive that the Sea Rats sent out their ships on a predator run the first MRCA with the intent of attacking ships from any and every nation passing their way.

Unlike ESL, the Sea Rats will be honest. We did send some ships on a Predator run the first month. Remember, that month when all of us were new and lines had not been drawn yet? Yeah, that was the month we went on a Predator run. We captured nothing and harmed no one which is one reason why we haven't gone on a predator run since. Our decision was based on only 1 month's worth of data so maybe it wasn't the best informed decision; but the truth of the matter is the Sea Rats have not been the aggressor but ESL has! That is why we are taking ESL to court over the two ships they took especially since the Crown was involved. Had it been the act of a single individual I would expect we as Sea Rats would have brought the matter to the attention of the ESL leadership and asked for an account. If an ESL members have an issue with the 2 Sea Rats who went on a raid, I would recommend the same recourse. However, it is the government of ESL who is at fault and to top it off, they won't even admit their guilt! That's why a case is being started.

[Legostone]

Well, the Wringe I and Fallen Angel have been captured in the March MRCA by NPC Sea Rats.

[CelesAurivern]

Well, the Wringe I and Fallen Angel have been captured in the March MRCA by NPC Sea Rats.

Your ire is misplaced, sir. Van Wreck is an NPC but not a Sea Rat.

Fallen Angel and Wringe I (Both ESL) by pirate Zublious Van Wreck in the Ghost Harvester

Edited April 15, 2016 by CelesAurivern

[Legostone]

Your ire is misplaced, sir. Van Wreck is an NPC but not a Sea Rat.

Fallen Angel and Wringe I (Both ESL) by pirate Zublious Van Wreck in the Ghost Harvester

Well, I guess thats a mistake in the ship index then, thats where I checked.

[CelesAurivern]

Well, I guess thats a mistake in the ship index then, thats where I checked.

Yes, I believe the notary is aware of that as it has been brought up in the SR main thread.

[Maxim I]

I am indeed aware of it. Didn't found the time yet to edit it all (as I have to be on my pc for that) and I am mostly posting on my phone

[halixon]

I'm kind of not paying attention to all these posts...

[MiloNelsiano]

I really don't understand the need for this challenge whatsoever. As its been said, the one ship can be sister shipped (at any time) and the faction ship gets replaced assuming Eslandola now had less than three faction ships. If the owner of the first ship sister ships it now, he had his free license filled. Then if Esl wins this challenge, he gets the first one back, and now has two ships. The same goes for the faction ship. It gets replaced automatically, unless Esl got a fourth faction ship. Can anyone make a challenge just because they lose a ship on an MRCA run? Whats the point of the outcome then? I just don't understand this whatsoever. If the owner of the one ship wants the first one back, he can MOC a scene of him getting it back from Mardier--something several Sea Rats did after the first month. As for the faction ship, if Esl had less than three ships they get a replacement anyway. If they had more, that's just the way the cookie crumbles--I don't get why we need to make up ways to reverse the MRCA outcomes.

[SkaForHire]

Ok, I can't keep up today after 4 hours of reading and responding to much more of this, but some huge corrections here:

NOWHERE does it say what level a ship will be replaced at. Also, the Sea Rat faction IS NOT under 3 vessels (they have a 4A), and should actually NOT get a new vessel. If a new vessel was awarded, then it would have to be determined what size vessel by leadership.

Second, Tarlo is in Mardier -- the Sea Rats hit Mardier, not Eslandola.

[Kai NRG]

I'm kind of not paying attention to all these posts...

Not a bad solution. Spend the time building instead!

[halixon]

My Eslandola Entry! http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=130601