We, the devs decided to stop waiting, giving excuses, and just do it.

So,

each town on open water now has two additional marine building squares (it was obvious that land squares were not pertinent), each town on river or inland water has one new marine building square (inland = less space).  landlocked settlements have none - more on that later - we cant do everything at once. (canal building)

All settlements within one square of a wet tile have dock capacity.  This allows trading units

New buildings

Shipyard - builds boats and ships (go figure)

Port - allows unlimited maritime behaviour (phoah)

Fishery - extra fishy benefit

Naval dockyard (navy bonuses).

We have assigned a behaviour character to land and sea tiles and to land and sea units.  One will not be able to use the other.  All towns with docks will be able to send and receive ships.  Towns with ports will be able to act as conduits for external trade and set taxes accordingly - when players send trades or troops and a shorter route is via water, via an allied or neutral town with a port,  then the player will have an option to send via the port. This option will include the tax rate set by the port owner.  This will set up options on all shorter routes for all related ports, related to time and port tax rate.  settlements with ports will set tax rates for alliance, friends, neutral etc.

new Units

We'll start gently in order to get this thing out of the door, finally.

Frigate; Basic naval unit, attacks other wet units, and blockades

Fishing boat; provides food bonus depending on the lvl of fishery, linked to sov of wet tiles

cargo ship; carries troops and caravans (must be a ro-ro?).

warship - can bombard settlements within one square of a wet tile

We already have a caravan and blockade code so we will use that for the basics - players will be able to use frigates to blockade and warships to attack ships and settlements.

Simples?

its far from perfect, but its better than this interminable waiting for the most exciting game element since........

NB, I love this game, and I think the devs are fantastic, but we need this, and we need this now. Please.

Bow

New magic schools, trade v2 and new chat functionality are what they are currently working on for sooner(tm) release.  I hear there's a bottle of fine champagne at stake between the magic schools and trade v2 portions of the dev team.

Meanwhile, they have also said that there will be another tournament, similar to Tournament I: Hold the Flags! coming in mid-February.  That's in just two weeks!

Bow

Just to clarify, the next tournament (with specific dates) has not been officially announced. It is in discussion right now, as SC mentioned in GC. 

Luna

In lieu of ship building we'll have, what... fleets of kayaks? 

I'm going to consider this thread under the banner of "parody" seeing as how it is not actually posted by anyone using a name of one of the dev team or anything of the sort. Nothing wrong with a little wishful thinking, I guess. ;)

Thank you for recognising the parody.

dear Kumo,

it wasnt exactly  a prank, it was a desperate plea, couched in a parody, similar to an impersonation.

dear Invictusa,

Dont worry, one of our members sent something as well.

What the response shows is how desperately we all want this - and that was the sole intention.

You should send the 'frabjous day' mail to the devs.

As ever my message is;

Great game, great devs; we want more!!!!!!!!

The slobbering hordes,

Bow

(If ye takes a weather eye at the location of me cities ye'll understand why. Yaarrrr! )

Hard core, just hard core