Thagarr
Pining for the Fjords!
Creative Support
Storm Modder
Public Relations
Hearts of Oak Donator
Pirate Legend
Taking into account all the above, I propose we develop this change in stages and see what effect our changes have.
First Stage:
When recognized you auto-hoist your Personal Flag, unless you are a professional navy character in which case you hoist your Served Nation Flag
Second Stage:
Figure out how to treat non-navy characters. For example, make privateers fly their Served Nation Flag instead of Personal Flag as well.
Perhaps some sort of extra toggle between both behaviours would be required. This could be related to:
- Separate toggle for "Patriot": Agh! I like to avoid those if I can.
- Linked to Realism Mode: Eg. on Arcade your Personal Flag is used and on any other mode it is not
- Linked to Player Ability: Perk-related (see below)
- Linked to Player Action or Event: Fame-related or after special event (see below)
I think perk related makes the most sense to me.
Third Stage:
Figure out how to bring some extra realism to the use of your Personal Flag. Couple of options:
- No Personal Flag at all: This does not sound like a good idea to me....
- Personal Flag only available on Arcade Game Mode
- Personal Flag "unlocked" after getting a to-be-added "Personal Nation" perk
- Personal Flag "unlocked" after reaching a certain fame level (would finally give players some incentive to actually BE famous)
- Personal Flag "unlocked" after capturing a town for yourself and therefore establishing your own nation as being a political faction
In my opinion, #4 works best. Certainly flying your own flag would give you a reputation, in some cases, not necessarily a good one!
Fourth Stage:
Think of what other things should be affected by all the above. Such as:
- Should getting multiple LoMs at the same time be allowed or not? This may call for another player ability to unlock multiple LoMs.
- Should Personal Nation remain a starting game option?
At the moment that is a bit of an easy choice, because it starts you out as being friendly with everyone except the pirates.
I also really like the idea of perks for multiple letters of marque, as well as being ridiculously expensive to obtain. I do think personal nation should still be an option, just my two doubloons worth.