New Guy
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Go Free To Play or Buy To Play at a very low buy in.
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Midnight

Bob
We definitely intend for it to be possible to take down even the most established settlement, and it shouldn't generally require anything on the order of 27 weeks to do so. It might take that long to do so very methodically, or if there's a lot of back-and-forth taking of territory along the way, or if the settlement is buried deep inside an established alliance, but it should be possible to do so more quickly with a powerful enough force of attackers. We don't expect it to happen often, but we expect it to be possible, and we do expect lone settlements and settlements on the outer borders of alliances to change hands more often.

In terms of being able to build for 4 days and be attacked for 3, that does give the defenders some opportunity to rebuild, but inside of smaller territory. If they lose territory each week, they'll still eventually fall, though they may eventually be able to concentrate their forces enough to prevent further losses, while the attackers are now more spread out and vulnerable during their own PvP windows. If the attackers do get to the point of actually surrounding the settlement with siege equipment, we'll also restrict the settlement's ability to repair damage during their 4 non-PvP days. With the rules I'm currently writing up, I simply won't count any new structures or bulk resources as part of the defenses if they're added after the siege begins. When we eventually automate the sieges, we'll have mechanics that restrict new buildings, or upkeep deposits, or whatever is appropriate to restrict during that time.

All that said, I'll agree that we do want a certain amount of stability, particularly deep within established alliances. We expect more PvP-averse players to feel relatively safe in those areas. We want the borders and less populated areas to be more dynamic, with holdings changing hands reasonably often, and settlements changing hands occasionally. More PvP-interested players would spend their time in those areas. Pushing back the borders of a successful, established alliance and taking it completely down will be a big deal, and very difficult to pull off, but at the very least technically possible.

I question whether there even exists today "established alliances" deserving of such protection. What I see are hollow shells of previous organizations that would crumble the minute you kick unsubscribed characters out of companies.

Under today's rules I can feud folks and see if they actually have the numbers to keep their holdings when their PvP window occurs.

Under the EE12 rules there are going to be holdings completely immune from attack. The company owning that holding might not even have any subscribed players. And all the holdings around it may also be owned by companies without subscribed players.

If you want to reward "established alliances" with stability, at least make sure the established alliances you are coddling are subscribed to the game. I would strongly urge you to expunge all unsubscribed players from companies before instituting any rules granting holdings immunity from attack. Under the current rules, the hollow shells can, at least, be fairly challenged.

Bob

Bringslite of Staalgard
Perhaps with "raiding" being added to still having to move Bulk from the field to the "City" there are enough content potential conflict opportunities available. Throw in trading and the chance to interdict, I see specializing Holdings being more efficient and trading more necessary, the numbers could be adjusted so that Holdings can be made self sufficient at all levels?

A compromise to lessen PITA chores?

I might be able to adjust the numbers so that most hexes have at least one holding/outpost combo that's self-sufficient at all upgrade levels. Not sure how complicated that would be, and I'd probably want there to often be a more productive option available to those willing to put in the work stocking the proper bulk resources. I don't think there's a problem with there generally being a less-productive-but-minimal-oversight option.

Edam

Azure_Zero
Yes, I got PFO to run on Linux Again, and it is somewhat a pain to do, as it'll require a windows machine to get the updates.

Could you just throw the free version of Vmware on your linux box and run the patcher in a generic windows VM ?

Paddy Fitzpatrick
@Azure - Yes it definitely did. Got killed at least once because of it.