Challenge - Biggest Bounty (Special)

dhankskunk · Swabbie Posts: 108 **350 Gold** -

You are absolutely right, Zem. I am finding it hard enough to keep all 3 enemy nations pissed off at me simultaneously. Having a preset endpoint would be doubly frustrating! Twisted Evil

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Airsaw · Rigger Posts: 1840 **3281 Gold** -

You can't help but have that feature. Pounding one makes the other one love you. But, if you don't go in and receive the favors, it's not YOUR fault you have a fan base - fickle as it may be.

Though, your rise in favor with one power can show with what mendacity you're assaulting another country - maybe it's time for a democratic approach. Attack everyone equally over the long run, maybe it'll sort itself out. More than likely we'll come across a mean set of averages. If we all play the game similarly like this, we'll find a FEW (very few) gold mines, and a lot of duds (a LOT of duds).

SO, it seems the strength in this way of play lies in your very survival, and in still possessing a crew after a long period of time. This is where the skill will lie, but is there an accounting method for this skill? Maybe there's a set of stats we've overlooked that can more accurately give credit for "pure pirating", or not taking advantage of the existence of state organization precisely WHERE we're trying to avoid such authority.

How the countries evaluate you seems rather arbitrary, and too interlinked for a true opinion of just what kind of scourge of the seas we beeez. See? Having (0) nothing as a score is inevitable in most of the scoreboard categories. Nation's regard for you hinges on you doing something to someone OTHER than them, so how does their opinion of you count?

If there's a time limit and an accounting, that would involve different manipulations than would successfully surviving a fairly profitable piratin' career, without subsidization by a state. That's what we're trying to get around, right? Using the resources of a state to further our own ends? We're trying to rack up a "positive" score on flat-out piratin' (as a base criminal activity) and not as an extension of some nation's military presence in the region. Thing is, in what numbers generated in the form of results, or scores, do we find what accurately scores what we're trying to do? Having zeroes in categories only says what we DIDN'T do.

What leaps to mind is the results on the top ten pirate list, how many ships, how many towns ... etc. Those numbers require actual pirating activity, rather than just staying alive, and score more accurately what we DO do out there on the briney blue.

Just a thought? Muhahahaha
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Airsaw · Rigger Posts: 1840 **3281 Gold** -

I just recalled a "bug" in the game that might HELP someone WIN. Dig: You can sail with a FULL crew and NO food, forever. They'll flash the mutinous coin, and you'll get the irritation screen and obnoxious grumbling, but after a full year of riding a crew around aimlessly with NO food, I stopped and left again (pirate haven) and only ONE GUY failed to make roll call, out of a 300-man ship?

It is conceivable someone could fully load a completely upgraded vessel and use this method from target to target until the crew is too depleted to go on. You'd have to stop eventually, accumulated damage on the ship and all, and you'd likely be reduced to too few to fight, anyway. But, you'd never lose the ship, and at the Pirate Haven hangout section of the map, you can get up a crew of 100 very fast, the other hundred or two quickly enough, then do it again that way.

Statistically speaking, how would a crash and burn strategy like that generate numbers, and how would these numbers compare to those of someone else's more subtly thought-out approaches? If there's a time limit to the game, how would that nasty way of playin' stack up to more braniac approaches? Does it matter? If you set up rules governing the style of play, you're a government, right? Maybe I'm too obsessed with detail.
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dhankskunk · Swabbie Posts: 108 **350 Gold** -

I'd like to hear some progress reports from anyone who is trying this. I've been at it for about 8 game years now & have yet to get all 3 enemy nations to have a bounty on me at the same time. This is starting to seem impossible unless there is some way to maintain a constant state of war between my chosen nation (Dutch) & the other 3...

Mad

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Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but its free.

Howie · Helmsman Posts: 4301 **45890 Gold** -

Howie · Helmsman Posts: 4301 **45890 Gold** -

Zem · Gunner Posts: 675 **3281 Gold** -

Thanks, Howie!

Concerning the contest: if there's another contest - to make it easier - we will create a savegame (with a trainer) setting the war/peace relations. Of course nations can make war/peace....
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I don't have a drinking problem, 'cept when I can't get a drink. Tom Waits

watson42467 · Cutthroat Posts: 350 **573 Gold** -

Now that wouldn't be much fun. I like how two nations that are at peace with each other and go directly to being at war. It's not like they go through the intermediate step of not a treaty. This happened in my tournament, real pain in the ass.

By the way, what nationality are most people playing? I'm playing spanish, They always have someone that hates them.
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rupertlittlebear · Helmsman Posts: 4545 **10381 Gold** -

Zem · Gunner Posts: 675 **3281 Gold** -

No bump.
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Bump
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I don't have a drinking problem, 'cept when I can't get a drink. Tom Waits

Howie · Helmsman Posts: 4301 **45890 Gold** -

Zem · Gunner Posts: 675 **3281 Gold** -

The dealine is 14 March.
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I don't have a drinking problem, 'cept when I can't get a drink. Tom Waits