Rules for thought #18

There’s definite appeal to having additional ways to gain points, especially when it promotes directly interacting with other ships instead of just racing for the most gold.

Points for capturing opposing ships a very good one, although I think some sort of fixed rate is better than basing it on the value of the ship and/or its crew.   Likewise with sinking ships or eliminating masts.  Instead of being based on what you hit, I’d rather it be a straight value, like 1-gold per mast destroyed, 2 points for a crew, and 5 or 10 for each ship sunk.  Whatever the rates are, it shouldn’t be so much that it offsets any gold picked up, because that should still be the priority.

Points for what you have remaining is already kind of addressed by having a build total for your fleet, but making that a major part of end game scoring could lead to some weird self-preservation / turtling tactics.   A player might decide to leave an expensive ship docked at home purely for the point boost.   There would of course be a break-even area where the points hoarded at home would be offset by having less to work with elsewhere, but if both/all players are doing it that point is much lower than if only one does it, and then effectively you’re just playing the game at a lower fleet total – which is maybe a better way to handle it.

Instead of getting bonus points for what you have left at the end, you get bonus points for how far you were under the fleet total at the start.   You still might end up playing games where everyone is playing at a lower total, but that’s much more clear up front, and you never have to wonder which part of the opposing fleet is actually active and what’s there just for the points.

Connection hasn’t been blocked yet, so whatever it was on this site that was throwing up security flags must have resolved itself…

My issue with the fixed rates is I’d prefer it to be more realistic.  Capturing and returning a 5 master to your home island should be worth more points than a 1 master.  Not sure I like the idea of points or gold for masts eliminated, since it feels too much like a game to me and not enough like the Age of Sail (obviously kind of a silly point to make with no wind rules, but whatever).  Part of my idea is that the fleets are trying to profit off each other, and one of the best ways to do that is to capture enemy ships for prize money or refitting them to expand the fleet.  Incentivizing capturing rather than sinking.

Fixed rates that vary based on the size of the ship is fine, but I just don’t think it should take point values into account.   Tactics, strategies, and crew setups aside, HMS Dreadnaught and the Spanish Morning Star take exactly the same amount of firepower to sink or capture, but there’s a 17-point(!) difference between them.  Granted, that’s an extreme example and it’s going to be a lot more dangerous to go after the Dreadnaught, but the relative point values don’t really reflect their actual worth because both are excellent ships for what they do (and arguably, MS is much more likely to help you win games in a “standard” setup).    Countless other examples can be found where a less expensive ship is significantly better than a more expensive one of the same size/class just because it has a better ability, has better stats in the right areas, or is just generally more efficient – and that’s before even taking crew setups into account.