Hearts of Oak: Conquest of the Seas Windows game

Thanks for your support! :)

We're currently brainstorming a totally new combat system for boarding and land battles, which would remove the typical 'health bar' and make swordfighting much more engaging. Hopefully this will balance things out more so that enemies can't ever be ten times stronger than you, for instance.

Boarding itself will no doubt end up radically different to the Storm games; for starters, it will take place directly on the ships involved, instead of loading different locations. This means you could access any part of either ship at any time. The AI will also be more intelligent, so you shouldn't need to do all the fighting for them (though the enemy captain might still choose to cower in their cabin, depending on the scenario).

We've briefly talked about surrendering, more in the form of a ruse to fool the enemy and draw them into a trap. In the case that all hope is lost though, I reckon some options for surrendering, fleeing etc will be available to the player.

If you have any other suggestions, feel free to post them on our forum for the other guys to see: Piratesahoy.net

oh cheese nips! I really dont want to wait for this >w<

THe new combat system sounds interesting : o I havent played many games involving combat without hp bars, how will this work? :o

The ships being loaded all at once is very nice, but how will the crew count be effected during the boarding process? Will it be handled the same way as AoP and PotC? Or will we be looking at respawning crew with a crew reserve?

And yesh! I didnt even think of surrender traps, but thats a very nice idea >w< Will there be a chance that the enemy will fire upon you even after your 'surrender'?

The health system will probably involve having wounds of different severities, some of which can be quickly bandaged up, and others that will need a surgeon to deal with. Some will heal naturally, but if you leave the more severe ones untreated, you're days will be numbered. We'll have more specifics figured out at a later date.

The crew taking part in boarding will probably have to be in limited numbers, respawning from a reserve. We haven't actually discussed this yet, but I reckon that's the most likely option.

For surrendering, I suppose there could be a chance that the enemy is not fooled by your ruse and fires at you, perhaps based on a number of factors determining how effective the ruse was. More for us to think about, I guess.

So is there a chance youll lose a limb in combat?

If you do go with the respawn from reserve, will there be a chance that the enemy crew (or your own) will surrender in mid combat? Or will it always be a fight to the death so to speak?

xD and sorry about all the random questions xD The combat aspects were always something i wanted overhauled in the other games, especially in AoP2 where they confused reality with overpowering the enemy xD

Loss of limbs is something we've talked about, and it will almost certainly be included. Whether it should happen to the player, we're not sure. Some people might not like that idea, so we'll probably have an ON/OFF toggle.

I reckon we could make the crew surrender if enough men are killed/wounded, unless the captain orders them to fight to the death. We'll probably also have people deserting in some cases; apparently it was fairly common, given the awful scenes during battles.

We're quite happy to answer questions like these. I would still recommend visiting our forums, where you can follow our discussions on most of what I've mentioned, and more.

Absolutely. We have much more freedom to animate objects in the game world, and cannon recoil is just one of many great advantages of this. On a related note, we should even be able to have multiple calibres installed on each ship, offering greater customisation. :)

Finally, i would love to have custom guns on my ship! Long guns i the bow and stern for pursuits and heavy hitters on my broadsides to decimate those French!

Custom character creation is definitely something we're looking to include, along with deeper customisation options for ships. :)