As of right now, capturing Silverhold, or Shieldguard, gives pretty flimsy rewards. If I’m not mistaken, it will give a one-time 80 infamy payout before 20 minutes during which Grand Navy influence irreversably increases until Silverhold is unclaimed. This is neither interesting, nor very rewarding for the amount of time players spend taking down influence to 20%.
With this change, capturing Navy bases will have a much greater meaning to all players in the clan. These features are just some ideas of what capturing a Grand Navy base could mean to gameplay of these players, and even if they were to be added, it would not be anytime soon.
General changes
When a player in a clan captures a Navy base, it will now affect all players in that clan. For as long as the base is captured, all players in that clan will have a 5-star notoriety. However, most of the time, this won’t have a direct impact on them. Even players with fame will gain notoriety, and as long as they are in the clan and Silverhold is captured by that clan, they will have the ability to fight and kill Grand Navy members. However, this won’t have an effect on their fame.
Further on, while the Grand Navy base is in the clan’s ownership, each member will be able to take two islands instead of one. This will persist even if a member claims two islands and then unclaims one, they will be able to claim another regardless. However, if the Grand Navy succesfully raids the island, the member who claimed that island will no longer be able to claim two islands. If both islands the member claimed are succesfully defeated, they will no longer be able to claim islands until the Grand Navy base is retaken by the Grand Navy.
If the clan owns the Grand Navy base, any islands that were protected by the Grand Navy (such as Palo Town) will become neutral grounds that cannot be claimed by clans, such as Gloam ruins, Forest of masts or Blasted rock.
Units and ships
If the clan owns the Navy base, they will get the ability to recruit units and buy ships to carry out attacks and raids on towns and possibly the bases of enemy clans. This would allow them to stop the advances of their enemies, as well to gain more galleons and other loot.
Units are recruited and upgraded through a special UI. There are multiple types of units that the clan can recruit, and recruitment will use up the money from clan’s treasury. Each upgrade will increase the level of units, and every few tiers, the units will get a visual armor change. Units will start at level 20, and through the Upgrades menu can be upgraded by a tier permanently until the Navy base is no longer in the clan’s posession.
Types of units:
Sharpshooter - uses bows, flintlocks and muskets, the player can choose which one they want.
Warrior - uses cutlasses, swords and greatswords, the player can choose which one they want.
Spearman - uses staves, spears and tridents, the player can choose which one they want.
Maceman - uses maces, clubs and hammers, the player can choose which one they want.
Upgrades:
Tier 2 - Allows the players to recruit level 40 units, costs 1,000 galleons, unit cost x1.5
Tier 3 - Allows the player to recruit level 60 units, they can now use magics and fighting styles, costs 2,000 galleons, unit cost x2.0
Tier 4 - Allows the player to recruit level 80 units, they can now use all basic weapon, magic and fighting style skills, costs 5,000 galleons, unit cost x2.5
Tier 5 - Allows the player to recruit level 100 units, they can now use awakenings and imbuements, costs 10,000 galleons, unit cost x3.0
Tier 6 - Allows the player to recruit level 120 units, costs 25,000 galleons, unit cost x3.5
Tier 7 - Allows the player to recruit level 140 units, they can now use all rare weapon, magic and fighting style skills, costs 50,000 galleons, unit cost x4.0
Tier 8 - Allows the player to recruit level 160 units, they can now use second awakenings, costs 125,000 galleons, unit cost x4.5
Units will normally not appear visually, however, the players in the clan can choose to dispatch them. The captured Grand Navy base can be fortified normally, but if the players want to send the units to defend an island they captured, to attack an enemy clan’s island or to raid a town, they will need to use ships. The cost of ships, just like the cost of units, is calculated through the “value” of ship parts the player wants, and also has an upgrade system. Once a ship is sunk, it is lost forever, and for that reason, the total value is halved when determining the price.
Unlike with units, ships are custom-built by players. The players are able to equip any ship part on the ship, as long as they have it, or the blueprints for it in their inventory. This will not use the player’s ship part, but it won’t allow them to place it otherwise. Ship parts cannot be enchanted. Players can equip any level 10 ship part by default (only the light cannons currently), but past that, they need to buy upgrades.
Upgrades:
Tier 2 - Unlocks all ship parts up to level 30, costs 1,000 galleons
Tier 3 - Unlocks all ship parts up to level 50, costs 2,000 galleons
Tier 4 - Unlocks all ship parts up to level 70, costs 5,000 galleons
Tier 5 - Unlocks all ship parts up to level 90, costs 10,000 galleons
Tier 6 - Unlocks all ship parts up to level 110, costs 25,000 galleons
Tier 7 - Unlocks all ship parts up to level 130, costs 50,000 galleons
From the Grand Navy base, clan members are able to dispatch a force. They can choose to reinforce their claimed islands, to raid towns and to attack enemy bases. When they pick what they want to do, they have to choose which ships they will dispatch and put units of them. When that’s done, the next time infamy is rewarded, messages will be sent in chat saying what is going to happen. If multiple islands are having the same action preformed on them, they will all be mentioned in one message. For example, the chat message will say “[clan name] has sent a raid force onto Rubica, Rasna, Palo Town and Redwake!” or [clan name] has launched an attack on Thrylos crossing and Ierochos!".
If the attacking army is victorious, the clan members will get a message saying so. This will yield a large amount of galleons for the clan treasury, and the ship will return with that sea’s sealed chests in a random amount. For each victory, they will also gain 20 infamy. However, if the attacking army is defeated, the clan members will get a message saying the attacking group was defeated and the ships were sunk. After that, those units and ships are permanently lost.
Base upgrades
Upon capturing a Navy base, the players won’t get the ability to build on it freely. However, they do get access to certain upgrades that they unlock through paying galleons in a special UI. These purchases will save for as long as the base is captured, but they will not save in-between captures, meaning that, if the base is lost and the clan reclaims it, they will have to redo everything they did.
First off, the players will be able to upgrade the cannons and mortars at the base. Cannons and mortars are upgraded separately and start at normal (or, alternatively, higher tier for each sea). They can be upgraded to bronze, iron, silver, gold, steel, titanium and finally platinum tiers for an increasing price. Each upgrade will decrease reload time and increase damage and range of the weaponry. Cannons and mortars will also help the players defend their base from the Navy. The prices are:
Bronze tier - 1,000 galleons
Iron tier - 2,000 galleons
Silver tier - 5,000 galleons
Gold tier - 10,000 galleons
Steel tier - 25,000 galleons
Titanium tier - 50,000 galleons
Platinum tier - 125,000 galleons
Further on, the players will be able to upgrade capacity of the base and all their claimed islands. This allows the members to station and hold more units and ships at each island, allowing them to pull off more successful raids and operations. If the base doesn’t have enough capacity and the players attempt to recruit more soldiers and build more ships, they will get an error message saying so. Starting off, islands will have 10 unit capacity and 1 ship capacity, and the base will have 30 unit capacity and 3 ship capacity. The tiers are:
Tier 2 - x1.5 capacity, rounded down, costs 1,000 galleons
Tier 3 - x2 capacity, costs 2,000 galleons
Tier 4 - x2.5 capacity, rounded down, costs 5,000 galleons
Tier 5 - x3 capacity, costs 10,000 galleons
Tier 6 - x3.5 capacity, rounded up, costs 25,000 galleons
Tier 7 - x4 capacity, costs 50,000 galleons
Tier 8 - x4.5 capacity, rounded up, costs 125,000 galleons
Grand Navy raids
If a Grand Navy base in the server is captured, Grand Navy ships will no longer spawn randomly. Instead, a raid group will randomly spawn consisting out of 3-5 ships. Each time infamy is collected, a raid group has a 25% chance to spawn near one of the islands captured by that clan, then start attacking it to take down the defenses, or immediately leave the ships.
The groups will generally have the same composition. They will consist of one stronger ship, while the rest will be one tier lower. For example, if the group is lead by a ketch, the rest of ships will be caravels. However, all of these ships will have the same title. If the lead ship is heavy, other ships will also be heavy.
When a raid group spawns and attacks an island, a message will be sent in chat saying “The Grand Navy is attacking [clan name]'s base at [island name]!”. These raids serve mainly a destructive purpose, to destroy player’s structures. If at least 33% of Navy force manage to stay on island until the next time infamy is collected and there are no players present, the island will be unclaimed. The member that claimed it originally will also lose one island from his claiming ability, meaning if both their islands fall, they won’t be able to claim islands anymore.
Every 20 minutes, a message in chat will pop up saying “The Grand Navy has launched a siege to reclaim [Grand Navy base name]!”. This functions as a far larger Navy raid. In this case, 3 different waves of ships will attack the Navy base. First wave will have 3 ships, second 4 and last one 5 ships. Ship tiers can upgrade with each wave, but they cannot go down. This means that during the first wave, the base may be attacked by a Fortified caravel and Fortified sailboats. After the first wave is defeated, second wave may just have another Fortified sailboat, but it can also have a Fortified ketch leading Fortified caravels or Heavy caravel leading Heavy sailboats.
For every raid they succesfully defend against, the clan will gain some infamy. Rewarded infamy increases with ship type and is multiplied by ship title.
Ship type infamy rewards are as follows:
Rowboat (won’t spawn) - 1 infamy
Sailboat - 2 infamy
Caravel - 3 infamy
Ketch - 4 infamy
Brig - 5 infamy
Ship title infamy multipliers are as follows:
Normal - x1
Reinforced - x1.25, rounded down
Fortified - x1.5, rounded down
Heavy - x1.75, rounded down
Armored - x2
Heavily armored - x2.25, rounded up
Greatly armored - x2.5, rounded up
Majorly armored - x2.75, rounded up
After all ships in a wave are sunk, the next wave will spawn. However, this does not account for enemies, meaning you may have to fight both enemies and ships. If all the players are killed and at least 33% of the Navy’s attack force persists, the Navy will start their claim. If the players do not defeat the remaining enemies on time, Navy base will be reclaimed.
There, I finally wrote down everything that was in my mind and I am completely dry of ideas.