Copied from WIP - Pirates and Privateers | PiratesAhoy!:
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Also, paying by dividing plunder means some of the plunder goes into your personal wealth, which increases your fame, which could perhaps do with getting some positive consequences to balance out the negative of having your false flag being easier to recognise (even more significant now that forts can join in).
Indeed the chance increasing with fame was originally my idea, mainly because I figured it would make logical sense.
But of course it is no so nice from a gameplay point of view. You can decrease that chance again with Luck and some abilities though.
My hope always was that in the later game, when you're more famous, the gameplay would shift so you end up focusing on different things and using false flags won't be so important anymore.
For example because you took over all the towns in the Caribbean and are busy with managing them instead.
But of course the game isn't like that and probably won't be for quite some time to come.
I do agree that there should be more positive benefits to being famous in addition to the adverse effect on false flag detection.
At the moment the only thing I can think of is that eventually that allows you to marry a governor's daughter/niece.
But then.... that serves very little purpose right now, other than to further increase your Fame.
Definitely room for improvement there!
Originally "Fame" was mainly added to the game as a way of "keeping score", but I don't think much of anyone actually uses it like that.
Perhaps we should have a forum "Wall of Fame" at some point where players can post screenshots/saves showing their "high scores".
Fame plus reputation could factor into the enemy's chance of surrendering early in boarding. If you're Hero then you're likely to treat prisoners well; if you're Horror of the High Seas then you're liable to slaughter the lot if they annoy you; none of which matters if the enemy captain has never heard of you. Fame in a hostile port increases your chances of being recognised and the shopkeepers refusing to deal with you; perhaps allow fame to influence your prices in a friendly port as the shopkeepers want to do business with you, then they get to put "Captain Famous buys his stuff here" on their windows as an advertisement.
All good ideas. Maybe we can factor that in when we get to my intended Reputation Rewrite some time.
Most relevant parts above marked in bold.