[MOD] Privateers, Pirates, and Buccaneers

Sounds good!

It does seem, tho, that since the Spanish were the most despicable colonizers, and pirate are despicable, the Spanish should have a big mean pirate-in-chief. It seems to be true historically, tho, that piracy was kinda fostered by government-sponsored privateering, and the English were the worst. Any serious historians able to set me straight on this? (Once, decades ago, I was a grad student in Medieval History--This is not my period.)

I believe that the Spanish were the ones fighting piracy, because they had a lot of captured treasure and goods flowing from Mesoamerica and South America to Spain. It was everyone else (like the English) who were raiding them. So a Pirate Hunter captain would make sense.

I'm not a historian either though.
 
I believe that the Spanish were the ones fighting piracy, because they had a lot of captured treasure and goods flowing from Mesoamerica and South America to Spain. It was everyone else (like the English) who were raiding them. So a Pirate Hunter captain would make sense.

I'm not a historian either though.

I am not a historian either but I have read a lot of books for this mod. In my reading I never really came across any big name Spanish Pirate Captains, not any worthy of being a Leader in Colonization anyway. Its like TC01 says they was mostly English. I am working on some code for the westward Ho mod when that gets done I plan on getting back on this mod and adding such things as the above mentioned.
 
I think there's a little bug in the 0.5h update. In the root, a folder is called assests instead of assets.
 
Don't know if you intended this--I don't think so--but when another player's privateer is in my port, his nationality flag is shown.

I think the game is better balanced now. It's possible to kill a flotilla. (Though John Paul Jones is driving me crazy--I've defeated him five times and each time he escapes.)

Right now I'm trying to use the smuggler system. First, it seems that Pirate's Coves don't have anything to do with smuggling. Smuggler's Inns do. I don't seem to be able to get ships in there. I had trouble figuring this out before. Maybe I have to convert the ships to pirates first or something.
 
Don't know if you intended this--I don't think so--but when another player's privateer is in my port, his nationality flag is shown.

I think the game is better balanced now. It's possible to kill a flotilla. (Though John Paul Jones is driving me crazy--I've defeated him five times and each time he escapes.)

Right now I'm trying to use the smuggler system. First, it seems that Pirate's Coves don't have anything to do with smuggling. Smuggler's Inns do. I don't seem to be able to get ships in there. I had trouble figuring this out before. Maybe I have to convert the ships to pirates first or something.

I just tested it and privateers revealing themselves while in port is a bug in Vanilla Colonization. Not sure why that is though.

Yeah, John Paul Jones can be a slippery bastard. Captains get a better chance at Evasion but they can be defeated.

Pirate's Coves are used as a safe haven for your units. You can also unload captured goods there and they will be auto transported to that ships home city.

To quote my tutorial:

- Smuggle Mission: a colony must have a Smugglers Inn in order to start a Smuggle Mission. Only performed by Pirates. Best used for goods that can not be sold in Europe. The ship will attempt to smuggle to Europe goods on board the ship and sell them for a percentage. Goods sold this way do not effect the cost of Europe goods on the market. Percentages are based on what level of PA(Pirate Affiliation) your colony has and are noted in the smuggle mission help text. Ships with Captains aboard have a better chance to avoid Pirate Hunter's while on mission.

Also:

-Smuggler's Port: Your Pirate units can be put to work in these Smuggler's Ports. Just send the unit to the City and choose the Change Profession command when on the World Map. You can not be in the City Management Screen to do this.
-Also, each city with a Buccaneer's Den or Smuggler's port gives your Privateers/Pirates one extra chance to Evade death when defeated.
-Smugglers working in your city need to consume Rum each turn but when kept well Intoxicated your Pirates can smuggle Contraband goods and sell the excess in your colony each turn instead of it being waisted or lost. As a added benefit from all that extra trade, Trade Goods are generated each turn based on the level of the Smuggler.
-Buccaneer's Den: Putting your Colonists in here and Intoxicating them now turns them into Criminals and then Criminals can be turned into full fleged Freebooters!

Smuggler's port works like a Warehouse Expansion in that it sales the overflow of goods stored but only sales the goods that are banded by your King.
 
Dear Kailric:

Oooooh. I see.

I think there's a bug somewhere, relative to John Paul Jones. I played a long, long game, I defeated Jones about 50 times and he escaped every time. His overall record was 4 successes, 50 failures. The documentation says that he has a 75% chance of escape. He can also have a one-time escape that guarantees survival. But the stats from my long test don't show the game working that way. He should have sunk forever after way less than half his 50 defeats. At the end, he was wandering around like a ghost ship, at 0.1 combat strength, never recovering, still trying to attack ships and being ignominiously defeated. Is this what you wanted?

After my long playtest, I think the mod is "there" and should be made ready for prime time and a 1.0 version. Game balance is workable now.

See, personally I have kind of a problem with Colonization: On the one hand, it’s a truly great game. Certainly as good as Civ IV, maybe better, though more limited in scope. However, what interests me personally is creating and running a successful colony, not doing what you have to do to win the game.

Seems to me that to win in Colonization, you have to start to build up a successful colony, based on an export economy. Then, about halfway there, you have to abruptly change course. You start buying every weapon, horse and politician you can afford. You have no soldiers, but you have a ton of guys you can turn into dragoons on Big Night 2. You let your economy and your colonies go to seed, while you prepare for revolution. You build newspapers and bring people into the towns, where the politicians can go to work on them. Then, on Big Night 1, you start building revolutionary sentiment, (and start alarming the king.) You build sentiment as fast as you can.

When you’re able to declare independence, you hold Big Night 2. You turn everyone into a soldier overnight, and abandon the cities unless they can be one of your few strongholds. You don’t even need to farm much any more, except to support weapon, horse and soldier production.

I personally don’t like this about base Colonization. More often than not, I forget about revolution entirely and just build my peacetime economy, feud with my neighbors, etc. I just enjoy the game, and set my own standard for what a win constitutes.

The Privateer mod allows me to play Colonization the way I like. I mostly forget about revolution and work on developing The Pirate Republic. This takes longer than the revolution would allow you to spend, but it can be done now. Doing this, I can defeat every local player in the game. I turn islands with lots of adjacent sea tiles into “breeder colonies”, stock them with fishermen, and start turning out colonists or pirates like crazy. I foster privateers until I can turn them into flotillas, and prepare to completely dominate the sea. The mod will let me stop trading with the King entirely when taxes rise to 50%, and support myself from smuggling.

So, I know you have ambitious plans for the mod, but I suggest you get ready for a 1.0 version with just the Caribbean map, document everything, and release the 1.0 version. I will help by writing doco and helping to polish the game, if you would like.
 
Dear Kailric:
The Privateer mod allows me to play Colonization the way I like. I mostly forget about revolution and work on developing The Pirate Republic. This takes longer than the revolution would allow you to spend, but it can be done now. Doing this, I can defeat every local player in the game. I turn islands with lots of adjacent sea tiles into “breeder colonies”, stock them with fishermen, and start turning out colonists or pirates like crazy. I foster privateers until I can turn them into flotillas, and prepare to completely dominate the sea. The mod will let me stop trading with the King entirely when taxes rise to 50%, and support myself from smuggling.

So, I know you have ambitious plans for the mod, but I suggest you get ready for a 1.0 version with just the Caribbean map, document everything, and release the 1.0 version. I will help by writing doco and helping to polish the game, if you would like.

Hey, thanks for playtesting and your comments. Glad you enjoy the mod. It has definately come a long way. I checked on John Paul Jones before when you mentioned him and I didn't see that he was invicible but I must have missed something cause in 50 dealths he should have died :D I will check again and make sure he can die for next patch. Anything else you can possibly think of that needs tweek, fixed, etc.?

Thanks for the offer to help. I have a few projects going atm and other "real life" stuff but if you want to add in more xml documentations and descriptiongs by all means do so. Just post me what you come up with and I'll add it to the next update.

K, thanks again.
 
Hey, thanks for playtesting and your comments. Glad you enjoy the mod. It has definately come a long way. I checked on John Paul Jones before when you mentioned him and I didn't see that he was invicible but I must have missed something cause in 50 dealths he should have died :D I will check again and make sure he can die for next patch. Anything else you can possibly think of that needs tweek, fixed, etc.?

Thanks for the offer to help. I have a few projects going atm and other "real life" stuff but if you want to add in more xml documentations and descriptiongs by all means do so. Just post me what you come up with and I'll add it to the next update.

K, thanks again.

OK, sure! What about my idea that you issue a version 1.0 now? Think it's ready?
 
Another thing. What happens to treasure in a town with a smuggler's port? It just seems to sit there. It could get smuggled, it would seem.
 
... and another little thing. A slave can get bugged so that when you try to free him, the game crashes. A given slave is bugged or not; if he is, he can never be freed. If he's not, no prob.
 
... and another little thing. A slave can get bugged so that when you try to free him, the game crashes. A given slave is bugged or not; if he is, he can never be freed. If he's not, no prob.

You have a saved game where this happens? Also, what type of slave is he, like was he a Tobacconist, Hardy Pioneer, etc?

1.0 sounds fine, just need to work out these couple bugs.

What type of treasure you refering too? The Pirate Booty or the Vanilla game treasure unit? I am guess the Vanilla game Treasure unit, for like when you can't trade with Europe. Yeah, thats a good idea to allow it to be smuggled. I'll add that in.
 
What type of treasure you refering too? The Pirate Booty or the Vanilla game treasure unit? I am guess the Vanilla game Treasure unit, for like when you can't trade with Europe. Yeah, thats a good idea to allow it to be smuggled. I'll add that in.

Didn't save a bugged slave unit, unfortunately.
 
I played two quite long games on marathon during the past days and did not encounter any problems with slaves. However, there was one case of a slave that turned into a slave once freed which was pretty odd. Never encountered a wagon train being turned into a slave. I did capture quite a few cannons from the REF in one game and all worked nicely.

Anyway, the reason I actually wanted to post is: congrats on this mod. I have played many mods for CIV and COL, but I have never enjoyed a mod like this one. Playing as a pirate is just a blast. Please, please, keep up the good work :)
 
I played two quite long games on marathon during the past days and did not encounter any problems with slaves. However, there was one case of a slave that turned into a slave once freed which was pretty odd. Never encountered a wagon train being turned into a slave. I did capture quite a few cannons from the REF in one game and all worked nicely.

Anyway, the reason I actually wanted to post is: congrats on this mod. I have played many mods for CIV and COL, but I have never enjoyed a mod like this one. Playing as a pirate is just a blast. Please, please, keep up the good work :)

Thanks for the feedback. Really glad you liked the mod. I'll have to look into the slavery code as it does seem to have some glitches as soon as I can. If you liked this mod stay tuned for the Middle Ages mod I have planned.

I just bought me a laptop the other day so hopefully that will allow me to work on my projects faster. I have been working out of town a whole lot lately and have not been able to work on anything, but hopefully that will change.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback.
 
Fun Game! Got my own Dreaded Pirate with a 3 Ship Fleet, REALLY FUN!

However, there are units for an Early Civ Version, for something like Civ Colonization from Holy Roman Empire
Proof is:
At the Bottom of World Builder, there are units different from our current ones.

There is ALSO a Bireme-o-War, which looks like some 2k Yrs ago death Ship, which has same stats as Man-O-War, and it Belongs to the Holy Roman Empire

Any Insite?
 
Fun Game! Got my own Dreaded Pirate with a 3 Ship Fleet, REALLY FUN!

However, there are units for an Early Civ Version, for something like Civ Colonization from Holy Roman Empire
Proof is:
At the Bottom of World Builder, there are units different from our current ones.

There is ALSO a Bireme-o-War, which looks like some 2k Yrs ago death Ship, which has same stats as Man-O-War, and it Belongs to the Holy Roman Empire

Any Insite?

Yeah, the "insite" is I never got around to finishing up this mod. I planned on adding the Knights of Malta and Ottomans and maybe some others like the Vikings so that people could use them in other mods. So, those units are just there at the moment and not used. I basicly decided to work on my Middle Ages mod and add Ottomans and Vikings to that mod instead.

So, look for the release of my Middle Ages mod. Glad you had fun with this mod though, thats what its here for :)
 
You remember maybe, I've talked before about how much I liked this mod, and I was just defining my own idea of what "winning" was. I was enjoying establishing the "Pirate Republic" in the Caribbean, forgetting about a political revolution, and having my own criminal revolution instead. I figured out how to crush all opponents by setting up pirate colonies to breed more criminals and others. When I had enough guys, I took over, even if it took until 1965. :)

I've been playing Civ 5 and I like it. But it's different enough from Civ 4 that I think there will be a role for it for years. The long and short of it is, I'm suggesting you might want to put out your version 1.0 now. There's an audience for it.
 
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