Isn't that why pirates get a higher percentage of prize sale value? Though it's at least as annoying if the rule is imposed on you that, in order to get maximum value, you need to join some sort of mythical pirate nation rather than operate as a free, independent pirate.
Higher percentage of sale value on the bare hull, which is but a small fraction of the total value and therefore that doesn't seem to make a significant difference either way.
Why is it annoying to be able to officially join the pirates? That way the players get the choice of whether they
want to be a true pirate or not.
And you can gain ranks. I know that happen to be an oft-requested feature.
That's basically what you're doing if you have multiple LoM's - using them as flags of convenience rather than patriotically serving your nation. The risk there is that, since your relations don't follow those of any specific nation, you need to watch for changes of relations so you don't attack something inappropriate.
I was thinking of a fine line between "pirate" and "privateer". You're describing a fine line between "privateer for nation A" and "privateer for nation B".
Of course that IS also a "fine line" and may even be considered somewhat piratical behaviour. But I'd still consider them two different things.
In theory that shouldn't happen; the whole point of getting a LoM was to be treated as a naval officer in the service of a nation rather than an outright pirate. Spain, at least in the earlier two periods, didn't respect LoM's and sometimes a captured privateer would end his life with two things round his neck - a noose and his LoM.
I was thinking of "Sir Francis Drake. The Spanish all despise him. But to the British here's a hero and they idolise him".
Of course your nation of Spain not respecting LoMs probably had a role to play in that....
Or, turning it around, if we don't find the game fun any more then we always have the option of re-installing an older version which is fun. Yet again it comes down to trying to make people play the game the way we want, or letting people play the game the way they want.
Forcing people to revert to old version = the very opposite of progress
Not developing new stuff to avoid this from happening = no progress either
Different ways of playing not having their distinct advantages/disadvantages = potential gameplay not realised
Players being free to do whatever they want to do without true consequences one way or another = does not even make sense
If that is what you guys seem to want, then fine; I might as well throw my hat in the ring and stop trying to move forward altogether.
But
I'll never find out if it even CAN work well that way. And
YOU'll never know if it could actually
add to the gameplay, rather than to detract from it.
Why give relation points when selling ships? I'd prefer to give the points at the time of capture or sinking, and indeed to all nations with whom you have a LoM and which are hostile to the ship's nation. (Maybe give additional points to the nation where you sell the ship - that's the nation which is getting a share of the prize money.)
It is easier to give a reward for selling your captured ships as a prize than to
force you to do so and put all sorts of limitations in place to avoid resulting exploits.
I figure you guys might also prefer that because you do get all the freedom; you just get an added choice: money and/or ship vs. extra relation points (and maybe money going into your personal wealth?).
Giving additional points actually has my preference. That is easier to do and I think makes more sense as well.
The obvious counter to that is that you still lose relation points with the ship's nation (and its allies), you don't gain relation points because you have no LoM, and for good measure apply a similar price modifier to selling the goods and ship as if it were a prize or even pirated ship (though as this is a private sale rather than a LoM prize, commerce skill and perks apply). So you get some profit for capturing and selling an enemy ship but not as much as if you have a LoM. You're not splitting the proceeds with the government, but as you didn't get the ship by an approved method, the shipyard and store take a big chunk of the profit in exchange for handling the ship and cargo.
So do away with the concept of "no LoMs = disrespectable/piracy" altogether then?
Which means that your EITC merchants never would have needed those LoMs anyway, since they can capture ships just fine.
Seems to go against what you've been advocating a few months back.
Or, depending on why they put up the pirate flag, it could help them. The effect of making it a major act of piracy would be to speed up their joining of Pirates, which may be what they want. Especially if that's the only way they're going to get full price for pirated ships and cargo.
Joining the pirates is really very easy anyway since we decided that you need to be friendly with them OR not be a Privateer.
Linking cargo to specific ships is very hard because the game just doesn't work that way.
There are two ways of doing that:
1. Actively prevent players from touching their pirated cargo outside pirate towns/smuggling runs
2. Do something similar to the proposal for privateers: Give additional points based on the sale value of ships (or at least for the pirates, don't give any PLUS points with them at all from just sinking/capturing other ships)
If we do what I think is being proposed here, then "gradually sliding into piracy from your actions" will again not exist as a gameplay feature.
Shame; I was quite intrigued by that concept...
Looking in more detail at the article about 
.
