It is attractive, for those who don't plan on accumulating lots of spare cash with a view to buying a big ship from Vanderdecken, or whatever else they plan to do with the money. You get better morale if you pay by dividing plunder. You get a share of the plunder yourself, adding to your personal wealth and thereby your fame (though that may be considered either a positive or negative factor).
True. Though of course it very much IS possible to use Divide the Plunder and save up your personal wealth to buy a Vanderdecken ship.
Would fit in well with a pirate playstyle. Works especially well once you get LOTS of money for selling pirated ships if you actually join the pirates.
I'm hoping to set that up this weekend.
Again, what we might consider cool might not be what someone else considers cool. For that matter, what you consider cool may not be what I consider cool and vice versa.
But to me, the big strength of PoTC is (or at least, was) that people can play it the way they want, rather than being coerced into playing the way we want.
You know I want it to
stay that way!
The only thing I want to see changed is that EACH game feature actually serves an actual purpose, so that by ignoring one or the other, you ignore something that could be cool.
Not like now, where you can ignore certain things and it doesn't make a difference.
And I want each way of playing the game to have advantages and disadvantages so that there won't be any "best" way.
Then it'll depend on what the players themselves like best or they can try different ways on separate playthroughs or try to "mix and match" during the game.
It isn't about forcing anything on anyone; it is about choices having consequences, both good and bad. So you have to balance those consequences in whichever way you see fit.
Double rum rations would be a celebration, so what are you likely to do to merit such a celebration? It's basically another way of rewarding the crew for a particular job that they've done well. Winning a battle would qualify. Possibly completing a routine quest (cargo, fetch, treasure - not necessarily side quest). Give them double rum at the right time and morale should increase sharply, possibly add a point or two to your "Leadership" as well. Do it at the wrong time and you increase the risk of drunken disorder. Maybe also allow the option for grog, which is watered down rum, to give a lesser morale boost and reduced risk of drunkenness.
I mentioned that because it is a feature that is already there. When you enable it, morale goes up, but occasionally will plummet again as well due to a drunken brawl.
As far as I'm aware, absolutely nobody ever uses it. Which seems rather a shame for a feature that is actually in the game.
My thinking was to require the player to deal with the aftermath of such a drunken brawl by talking to the boatswain to prevent morale from deteriorating further.
But that doesn't actually give players an incentive to
use that feature.
The obvious one is to accumulate lots of cash, possibly to then visit Vanderdecken. Or to rise in the ranks via that LoM and then be able to buy a big warship from a regular shipyard. 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 marr 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".
So my guess was correct then.
Yup.
You can't get a fleet of ships until your "Leadership" is high enough anyway. That, however, does include the effect of officers - if you have a first officer or boatswain with high enough "Leadership" then you can command a fleet even if your own "Leadership" is 1, and if you then try to assign that officer to command a ship then you get a warning that you won't have high enough "Leadership" to command the fleet. (It sometimes gets that wrong. I can't remember for certain, but it may have been because I had more than one officer with high "Leadership", so I could put one of them onto a prize ship and still get enough of a boost from the other.)
Indeed I'm not sure how that all works together.
@Levis added those warnings in the interface at some point in the past.
Is that using "Leadership" to increase your personal share of the loot? If so, it makes sense for that to use CalcCharacterSkill - you're on your own here because, loyal or not, if the first officer can use "Leadership" to get a higher share of the loot then he'll be putting it in his pocket, not yours.
It very well may do. I'd need to check....
It's his job to make the crew see things your way. If he's loyal, that is.
The old line of "You didn't think of that, he did, which is why he's captain and you're not" comes to mind...
True. I've got to admit I am looking forward to the time where Beta 4 is released and we'll be able to put such things actually in the game.
Should be interesting!
