This is an attempt at me visualising what I see as a basic game type for this. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, they are merely meant as a guide to show what I mean. I will edit the origina post if I think of anything else

Part 1 - The Goal
The goal of the game is to capture the enemies horde, and return it to your spawn area. The opposition horde is held on the enemies Flag Ship.

Part 2 - The Map

There are 3 key parts to the map
1) Wind Direction. This is used to determine how fast, and what general direction the game will flow in. It should be a neutral direction to the 2 start points for each team. In the example shown it is a southerly wind, with teams starting in the north-east and north-west. The use of this is covered under the "Ships" section. the wind direction should shift in parts, but no more than 45' away from neutral (this could potentially be used as a game balancer, where the team doing worse are given an incremental wind favour, allowing faster attacks).

There should be a mist over the sea which restricts views to just under standard cannon range at sea level, but clearing out towards the top of masts. This allows for crows nests/balloon spotters to be of use.

The water should be fatal to swimmers after no more than 20 seconds. I suggest shark attacks.

2) Spawn Areas. Each team has 1. There are 3 ways a player can spawn. They can choose to spawn a ship from a selection, with each selection limited to a number of "types active". They can choose to spawn on a ship recently spaned by another team mate, or they can spawn on the pirate-cannon.
a) Spawning a ship
Each team has a number of ships designs available to them, and there is a set limit ot the number of each they can have. For example...
Example wrote:
There are 3 types of ship;

* Flag Ship (max 1) (available 0)
* Attack Ship (max 3) (available 2)
* Scout Ship (max 3) (available 1)

A player accesses the spawn menu and chooses to spawn an Attack Ship. The number available drops to 1, and the player spawns on a new Attack Ship in the players spawn zone

If a team does not currently have a live Flag Ship then a player MUST spawn one.

b) Spawning on a ship
While a new ship is still within the spawn zone of a team a player may choose to spawn on it. Once a ship has left the spawn area it may no longer be spawned on directly. This allows a team to fully man a new ship quickly before approaching the enemy. There should be a mechanism to stop a Flag Ship from camping in the spawn zone.

c) The pirate cannon/land spawns
A player may choose to spawn on the land part of a spawn area, and use the "pirate cannon" to get to/close to a ship that is currently out at sea. They would choose a target freindly ship, and the cannon would fire them towards it. From a visual point of view I would suggest a long runway, similar to a steam catapult on an aircraft carrier, mounted on a turntable. AI would control rotation/elevation based on the chosen target. The player would be "loaded" into a small rowing boat on the runway, and be fired high into the air. the boat would disintegrate, and a parachute mechanism used to arrive on or near the ship. This does give the option of attempting a boarding on a nearby enemy ship. The pirate should be able to fire when using the parachute, to help stop an enemy ship picking off incoming pirates.

If one-man balloons are to be used (see the bottom section - suggested extras) these should be available as an option from the land spawn.

The land spawn and the associated sea spawn area should be protected by automated cannons. This would be to stop spawn camping by the opposition. As noted above there should be a mechanism to stop a team from keeping their Flag Ship in their own spawn zone.

If a ship sails outside the map zone it is destroyed. There should be a warning (similar to that in Battlefield 1942) before this happens. This is the only way a flag ship can be destroyed (and potentially this should be punished).

3) Land Areas Land areas (other than thoe within the spawn zone) cannot be set foot on ,and should take the form of steep, rocky islets. Their primary use within the game is for cat-and-mouse ship manoevres, and blocking line of sight for cannon shots.

Part 3 - The Ships

Irrespective of the variety/tpye of ship each should be have damageable locations. Each location will have an impact on the handling/defenseability of the ship.

Engines - Damage here will adversely affect the ability of the ship to move under power. This will greatly affect its ability to move against the wind.

Sails/Masts - Damage here will adversely affect the ability of the ship to use wind power. At this is the fastest method of movement this will leave a ship very vunerable.

Cannons - these are a ships main defense, and if damaged leaves them open to further un-opposed attack (note, the cannon up front is a smaller, more rotateable cannon).

Hull - Damage here affects the ability of the ship to turn. The more the damage, the slower it can turn. For non-Flag Ships this location also ultimately determines the ships survival.

A ships ability to move will be based on a number of things. If it has an engine, sails, and type of sails.

the Flag Ship would be square-rigged, meaning it would be slow everywhere but running with the wind. Most other ships should be Lateen rigged, giving greater manoevreability and speed when quartering. 1-man balloons, if used, should have a similar profile to square-rigged ships. A vehicle under no form of power should have a slow drift in the wind direction,

Engine-powered movement is not impacted by the wind, but is slower. Engine and sails may be used in conjunction, but this should not be able to take a ship above its maximum speed (so no quartering and running the engine to go faster...if the wind-movement factor is faster than the engine-factor then you go at the wind-speed). The speed "x" is used as the overall scale has yet to be determined (I would have thought that a standard ship should be able to cover the map from end to end in under 4 minutes, and cannon distance, wind speeds etc etc would need to be balanced from this).

A Flag Ship cannot be sunk, but can be forced to sail off-map.

The 2 primary jobs on a ship are Captain and Gunner. The captain drives the ship, controlling direction, sail and engine use. Engines are on/off, and sails can be deployed/reefed by mast (so if a ship has 3 masts, it has 4 sailing speeds...0 masts deployed, 1, 2 or 3 masts deployed). The deployment/reefing of sails is done automatically, but can be sped up by players interacting with hotspots throughout the ship.

A Gunner controls the aim of the cannon, and the firing. reloading is automatic, but can be sped up by players interacting with hotspots (an idea blatantly stolen from Air Buccanneers). The Gunner chooses the type of ammo the cannon is loaded with
1) Ball - standard shot. Long range, reasonable accuracy. Good at damaging hull, cannon and engine.
2) Grape - short range anti-personnel shot. Low accuracy.
3) Chain - medium range anti-rigging shot. Medium accuracy, good at taking out Masts.

Other players on a ship can support these 2 main roles by speeding up loading, or reefing/deploying sails. A ship should carry infinite ball ammo, but limited supplies of the other 2 (perhaps pickups around the map in the form of small, anchored rowboats with additional shot in them?)

A ship carrying a horde should be immedaitely visually obvious.

If a ships hull takes enough damage to sink all players currently on board should be killed (magazine explosion?)

Part 4 - The Players
The players will be a single load-out design, allowing flexibility in play. They should have the following equipment
a) Cutlass - anti-personnel weapon. melee only, 2 hits to kill a person
b) Flintlock Pistol - Medium range anti-personnel weapon. 1 shot in a magazine, insultingly long reload time. Causes about 30% damage. Good at taking down ballooners
c) Blunderbuss (aka the shotgun) - Short range weapon. Can do some damage to boats, and some to people (about 20% on a good hit). Should be balanced for anti-boarding action. Again slow fire/reload time.
d) Grenades - old style black ball/fuse type thing, used for boarding actions to damage particular points on a ship (typically cannon). If using ballooners they should be able to drop these
e) Grapple - Used to swing around. I'm thinking of something like Tribes:Vengeance (though a bit slower to re-deploy). Used for swinging from rigging to opposing ships. It would be quite funny to see ballooners being towed behind small, fast ships as well.
f) Anti-balloon parrot - a one shot weapon designed to take out a ballooner. It flies up, and tears a small hole in the balloon, causing it to slowly drop lower and lower (remember the sharks in the water). Its basically a cheesy AVRIL.
g) Tar Brush - Repair tool. A ship should carry some repair items, which can be carried in a similar way to a flag, and taken to a damaged section. In conjunction with the tar brush repairs can be actioned. A Flag Ship should have umlimited repair items.

A player carrying the horde (flag) should be unable to use other weapons, and be slower moving. Only ships of a certain size should be capable of carrying a horde, not small ships.

Part 5 - Other Stuff
Attack-Balloons
These are new vehicles available from either the land spawn, or in limited supply from large ships. They allow a single player to fly around the map at slow speed (½ x at most). The player has a steam-powered fan to control direction, giving a similar movement profile to a square-rigged ship with a small engine. Damage to the balloon causes a drop in height based on the amount of damage. Balloons can be used to assist in boarding actions, as spotters/scouts (as they can move above the low level mist) or as shock troops. One idea we had over pie was a flock of them attached to a small, fast ship being used to over-run a larger ship.

Balloons should be
1) Easily visible (bright colours)
2) Have a distinctive noise. These are not stealth items.

Waves
The ocean should have a semi-regular swell to it. This will make long range cannon fights just a little bit trickier, and give the Captains a bit more to think about. It would also look awesome.

PowerUps
Pickups should be scattered around the map to be picked up by ships. These should include repair items, adidtional shot, special items (jump pads for ships to help boarding actions, diving gear to survive longer in water etc etc).