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Caravans: How often (frequency) can you find and engage one?
Ravicus
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
" The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location. As far as mass guilds securing trade routes, there is always a bigger fish in the pond. Also caravans will have limitations on carrying capacity and launch windows that will segment mulitiple caravans by several minutes, which would space out the caravans, making it difficult to "zerg" a defense.[12] – Steven Sharif"
So my question is how often do you think there will be caravans in transit? As stated in the quote above they might be difficult to detect if not ready for them. Will there be major downtime between caravans?
So my question is how often do you think there will be caravans in transit? As stated in the quote above they might be difficult to detect if not ready for them. Will there be major downtime between caravans?
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During this time it is incumbent upon the owning guild, its allies, and citizens of the nodes to escort these caravans to the castle node.[27]
The enemies of the guild have incentive to attack these caravans to reap the rewards from the caravan and to sabotage the tax collection, which will reduce the defensive capability of the castle nodes and hence the castle itself.[27][20]
Citizens of nodes that fall under the purview of the castle are automatically registered as defenders of these caravans and may not participate in attacks against them.[27]"
---https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges
Yep, that is one type of caravan. So that will be once a week for that one.
You may need to do personal caravans not only for optional quests but also for advancements in certain organizations (like the Merchants' Society) or to obtain your subclass. Nodes may have to do caravans to complete advanced buildings. Guilds may have to do quests to advance in rank or obtain certain skills or to have a guild hall. Crafters, gatherers and others may need to complete caravans (or quests including caravans) to learn advanced skills for weapon or armor crafting.
I suspect we will be given many motivations, and strong motivations, to complete caravans successfully. Some of these we may find out about in A2 and Betas, many others might be revealed only after release. So, I expect there will be lots of caravans running. However, given the world size and geography, finding the caravans is an entirely different challenge. I remember there was a thread about that back in April 2021.
So this I ask: Will we be able to find most caravans? Do we need spies in opposing guilds to tell us the routes? As stated if we do not know when a caravan is launched it is likely we will not be able to intercept it. Maybe some people will just lay in wait in perpetuality for one to come down the trade route. Who knows.
I like it the way it is described. It is up to you to figure out routes or just stumble upon a caravan by chance, and then alert people if you plan on intercepting. Sounds fun!
yes, I like the system as well. I'm just wondering if there will be much downtime between for pvp. Trying to figure out the workings of things in a broad sense
How frequent caravans run is too dependent on where things are. If there is a smelter and blacksmith in the same node as an iron mine, then players can make finished products without needing a caravan for that iron.
If those three things are all in different nodes, you now need two caravans just for the iron.
The thing there is, it is entirely possible that any of those three things (mine, smelter, smith) could cease to exist in that node. Perhaps the mine has been exhausted, maybe a node war destroyed the Smith, or you purchased the freehold with a smelter in order to force people to get the iron out via caravan.
In an attempt to as best answer your question as I can though, I wouldn't go expecting to be able to defeat a caravan a day. You may come across several per day, but most are likely to be so heavily protected that they arent worth attacking unless you happen to have your whole guild with you.
If everybody does that, there'll be nobody to defend against.
That's a big "if" considering the target audience. Technically possible, but quite unlikely.
Ya, that is kind of the exact opposite of what I am asking in this thread :P I am kind of wanting to evaluate if there is a long wait between caravans and if there is downtime to finding and attacking them. If there is downtime it gives a chance for OWPVP. Layng in wait for a caravan that might not even happen seems like it could end up kind of boring. There might be multiple caravans all day but with no fast travel you most likely will not be able to intercept them. I wonder how many people will be flagged in the world for OWPVP or will they all be on the sea?
Keep in mind, a caravan represents dozens of hours of player effort - expect it to be exponentially longer than that between caravans you successfully defeat.
Yep, I agree.
I say to limit the number of defenders, that way people who miss out or are booted can jump onto the attacking side if they feel slighted
Nah, that's what spys are for.
Hehe that would be fun but can you imagine the PVE playerbase would go nuts. They want to get their resources home and safe
---Steven
https://discord.com/channels/256164085366915072/257283936756039680/258668016349347840
Of course...
Everything is subject to change.
I think it will be more often than just the weekends. People will need to move gathered supplies all the time. What I am wondering is if it will be worth it to be a pvp guild trying to attack caravans. The frequency, the ability to intercept, and so forth. I think A2 will provide many answers for this.
I would assume a guild could still function on that manner. As each node will likely have caravans running at different times. So Node A- may do a run Monday at 1:00. Node B- Tues 2:00. Node C- Weds 3:00. I doubt all nodes would have caravans going same day and time. So because there are so many nodes, I would assume there would be 3 or 4 you could realistically create drama for in disrupting their caravans as a guild.
This is just opinion, but I do think this will be viable.
The thing is, you won't just be waiting around for them.
In order to do this, information is key. Bribes, spys and scouts will be your actual bread and butter activities, the PvP will likely be secondary to that.
Cicada survival tactic, but weekly instead of a 17 years cycle.
Just touching on this real quick.
PvE players won't be the only ones interested in caravans getting home safe. Supplies need to move regardless of playstyle. A PvP guild will still want their caravan of potion ingredients to make it to their alchemist, or iron to their blacksmith, so they can gear up and continue warring with other players. I fully expect caravans to be carefully guarded by interested parties and you may find yourself defending your own guild's caravans just as often as you may be hunting down rival caravans.
There will likely be a lot of potential opportunities for caravan battles, but your relationships with other guilds will influence your own approach.
There will also be caravans from "the frontier", vassal nodes at the edges of the capitols ZOI. These will probably be mostly raw materials but depending on the location (a "safe" edge of the ZOI for example) it might also be a place where high quality processing materials come from, produced by a guild of players who prefer a less PvP heavy game style.
To conclude: The primary factors in my opinion will be the area we are talking about, the "phase" the server is in (there is strong evidence that there will be periods of more and less PvP) and the general activity of players on the server.