Roland Johansen
Deity
Going over the patch notes again, I just noticed this one:
I do know why a change to the patrolling ships attacking was needed. There were some problems with it so that the patrolling ships would attack would-be pillagers in cases where the patrolling ships had virtually no chance of victory and there were further problems with ships repeatedly pillaging and thus repeatedly causing the patrolling ships to intercept.
This change in the patch seems to want to fix the issue where patrolling ships intercept in cases where there is a low chance of victory. However, it will make the patrol order not something that you can rely on: if the pillager arrives with a slightly stronger ship (2+ frigates patrolling some seafood resources while the pillager is a combat 1 frigate), then the patrolling ships will just allow the pillager to pillage the area.
So while this makes the patrolling ships less suicidal, it does result in a patrol function that doesn't protect the resources securely. Note that it is hard to come up with a perfect solution for the patrol function because when you give this order, then you're essentially ordering the units to do something in unknown future circumstances.
I think I would have preferred a chance to intercept for combat-odds lower than 50%, maybe something like odds to intercept = 2 * odds to win. Not perfect, but at least it would make it a chancy business to pillage an area where slightly weaker ships are patrolling.
Sea patrolling ships no longer attack if they have less than 50% chance of winning the battle
I do know why a change to the patrolling ships attacking was needed. There were some problems with it so that the patrolling ships would attack would-be pillagers in cases where the patrolling ships had virtually no chance of victory and there were further problems with ships repeatedly pillaging and thus repeatedly causing the patrolling ships to intercept.
This change in the patch seems to want to fix the issue where patrolling ships intercept in cases where there is a low chance of victory. However, it will make the patrol order not something that you can rely on: if the pillager arrives with a slightly stronger ship (2+ frigates patrolling some seafood resources while the pillager is a combat 1 frigate), then the patrolling ships will just allow the pillager to pillage the area.
So while this makes the patrolling ships less suicidal, it does result in a patrol function that doesn't protect the resources securely. Note that it is hard to come up with a perfect solution for the patrol function because when you give this order, then you're essentially ordering the units to do something in unknown future circumstances.
I think I would have preferred a chance to intercept for combat-odds lower than 50%, maybe something like odds to intercept = 2 * odds to win. Not perfect, but at least it would make it a chancy business to pillage an area where slightly weaker ships are patrolling.