Cannonade!
Battle for the Bloodstone Isles
The Story
It's war on the high seas! After suffering years of attacks on its galleon tradeships carrying the collected wealth of the New World back to the Old, Spain has lost all patience with the predations of pirate vessels... as well as their close cousins, the licensed mercenary privateers of the British crown. Letters of Marque and Reprisal have been issued by agents of the Habsburg throne to any who would seek to claim their fortunes hunting those who would dare prey on the royal property of King Phillip. A torrent of fortune-seeking Spanish expeditions has descended upon the Caribbean isles, led by fiery loyalists and cold-hearted mercenaries - and funded in no small part from the Habsburg lines' own coffers of silver and gold in an attempt to force out the budding British Empire and reestablish its former tight-fisted hold over the resources of the region. To the king's strategists, it would take only the capture of a few ports and settlements by the "licensed representatives of the fleet" to pave the way for Spain to reclaim its place as the unquestioned master of the western colonies - and all such a coup requires is an open bounty on those things that were already taken from their rightful place in the royal treasury!
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, however, in no way wants to relinquish the gains in global stature that it has fought so hard to obtain in the decades since its infamous defeat of the grand Spanish Armada. King Charles II, having restored the throne following Oliver Cromwell's bloody takeover of power from his own father, furthermore refuses categorically to display any sign of weakness in his rule. The privateer fleet of the Crown has thus been expanded to meet this challenge - and its ships have been authorized to attack Spain's ports and colonies in a bid to prevent them from harboring those who would oppose Britain's rule over the waves. Scores of sailors loyal to the Union Jack have rallied to the cause, seeing fame and fortune to match the likes of Sir Francis Drake or Captain Henry Morgan dancing just over the western horizon.
As the largest fleet of privateering soldiers of fortune the Caribbean has ever seen descends upon its ports and prepares for open battle, not every individual making the long Atlantic crossing comes with honorable intentions. Many see the well-stocked, well-funded expeditions of the European powers as an opportunity - an opportunity to seize the privateers' vessels and armament, and find easy prey among inexperienced seamen driven by national loyalty into alien waters. With the privateers come pirates, and they bow to no crown. Their only allegiance is to the Brethren of the Coast, a loose anarchistic association of outlaws and renegades who see the West Indies as their homeland and all others who sail its waters as treasures waiting to be claimed. These buccaneers see much to be gained in the coming conflict, and they have readied themselves to seize the prizes sailing heedlessly into pirate seas.
The Brethren are no fools in their anticipation over the coming conflict, for the true might of the Old World powers remains anchored steadfastly in the Old World. Neither the British nor the Spanish wish to commit their naval forces to open war over colonial matters - not with conflicts and simmering rivalries among the European nations themselves brewing a more-immediate threat to the two thrones' homelands - and so the numbers of actual "royal ships of the line" armed and capable of immediately ending pirate or privateer threats remain countable on a single hand. This renders every colonial settlement on the Caribbean islands exceedingly vulnerable to incursion by hostile forces... and leaves the leaders of those fledgling colonies at a loss on how to protect themselves and their charges from the fallout of the battles yet to come. Even their own nation's mercenary navy is bad for the business of the islands, unapologetically seizing those properties a captain needs or desires with royal license to excuse such behavior. The buccaneers know that with the right "applied leverage" over the local citizenry, and enough secured territory to make reclamation militarily infeasible, the Brethren could easily drive a colony to rebellion against its European masters. This would make the ports and waters open to any arrivals, and provide a safe landing ground from which to strike at the shipping of the Caribbean trade routes. With a protected haven for the pirates, they could easily make a fortune off the treasure galleons and merchant vessels running through the rich waters of the New World.
The fuse of this carefully-crafted powderkeg was lit when the governor of a small chain of British-claimed islands in the Bahamas passed away from malaria mere days after the two mainland nations made their declarations of open conflict - too soon for the news of the coming trouble to even reach Caribbean shores, and far too soon for troops to be mustered and the sturdy forts of the area manned for defense. With no strong successor declared to lead the tiny Bloodstone Isles in resistance against potential invasion, and no British naval support to keep it firmly claimed by the Empire, all privateers and pirates sailing into the aquamarine waters of the West Indies are quickly introduced to the greatest of all potential prizes awaiting them: command of a land of their own, full of riches and opportunity, and secure from the encroaching aims of others. The British privateers see a chance to earn knighthood or a governorship protecting His Majesty's holdings. The Spanish mercenary fleets see a lynchpin territory to secure all the colonies of the New World for the grand Habsburg dynasty. And the Brethren of the Coast see an independent buccaneer nation, a land free of the laws of the European kings... from which pirates could sail to take the looted treasures of the Caribbean shores for themselves.
None shall surrender in this battle for the Bloodstone Isles, and no quarter shall be given to those who fight. Take the wheel and ride the tradewinds into this war on the open sea! To the victor go the spoils...
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The Concept
Cannonade! is a low-tech, graphically-minimal, turn-based MMOG of ocean combat and piracy between three factions warring for dominance. It is team-focused, with coordinated "crews" of shipmates sailing in single vessels and sharing turns to maximize the effectiveness of their vehicles and weaponry. While there are multiple styles of play available, and different strategies a player can utilize to advance themselves within the game, there is a unified goal held by each overall side - to capture the myriad island forts scattered across the semirandom map and hold them against all attacks of the opposition long enough to secure the loyalty of the citizenry and claim the whole of the Bloodstone Isles. When victory is achieved, the victors and player superlatives are recorded and the game resets to begin anew. Players achieve this victory through finding, purchasing, or stealing personal and ship-based items to boost their power and learning new skills and abilities that allow them to make better use of that power.
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Central Game Principals
No One is Invincible, No One is Omnipotent
All the skills, items, and weapons a player can posess will not in sum total make that character fundamentally-immune to attacks from less-advanced opponents. Properly prepared, anyone can take down anyone else. Similarly, no abilities or posessions allow a player to instantly defeat another. Being hit with gunfire will always do you harm, but you will never on your own be able to carry around, load, and fire a cannon at another player. The items and skills players obtain over the course of their play primarily give them more options, not more physical strength.
Safety in Numbers
While no one can be a one-man army, an army can indeed be an army. Masses of similarly-aligned players can potentially provide better defenses than a fort's walls - if they're inclined and equipped to protect you, that is. In addition, the larger and more-coordinated your ship's crew is the more effective it will be in combat and the more you can get done with a day's alloted time.
You Can't Lose Everything
Even if you are defeated, the only times anyone is set back to square one is when everyone is upon completion of the primary victory goals by one side or another. Otherwise, you are only set back significantly enough that you cannot immediately return to the battle you were defeated in. In short, there is no true death ingame - your unconscious body will be found by one of the monks who have Abbeys scattered across the game islands, and while being deprived of your obvious weapons by the pacifist order there is no further automatic loss to you upon succumbing to damage. Certain skills that other players may obtain could result in losing money to them upon defeat, but you cannot lose it all and other items are inviolate.
You Needn't Fight to Advance
While physical force is almost a necessity to truly achieve a factional win within the game mechanics, a player does not have to participate in battles to gain levels or financial advances. The heart of the conflict is centered around trade, after all, which means participation in the mercantile system is a perfectly acceptable alternate avenue to pursue. Different market goods can be harvested or created using trade-oriented skills, and by returning these to a faction's homeland (or using them to secure greater loyalty from the local populace, in the case of the Brethren) less combat-focused players can gain experience and money to spend on bettering their ships and skills.
Risk Equals Reward
While you need not fight to gain money or experience, those players who choose to do so are more likely to earn significant rewards. This is because their risk of being defeated repeatedly before obtaining that reward is far greater than those who choose to ferry trade goods back and forth from some abandoned isle. Similarly, those traders sailing on a larger vessel have more risk of being captured or sunk due to its low speed and maneuvering capabilities - but each haul is larger, meaning more money is gained for the time spent conducting trade. In all game functions, those individuals willing to face greater risks will receive greater rewards... and there are few rewards that come with absolutely no commensurate risk.
No Upkeep - Ever
No thirst, no hunger, no item "wear and tear." There will never be anything written into the game to punish you simply for playing. Eating or drinking may give you things, you'll need bullets and powder for your firearms should you choose to use them, and you may wish to repair damage done to your vessel by another player's weaponry - but no player is ever going to be mandated to consume things just because the mechanics force it to happen. Using consumables or spending time on actions is purely up to a player's personal choice regarding the circumstances at hand.
Mechanics and Brainstorming
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