No Treasure for Pirates -- Bug-Thread

[Lanzelot]

Let's use this thread to collect all "glitches" we will find while playing "No Treasure for Pirates". Please report them here and I will add them to the list.

Also we can discuss some of the modifications that are not exactly "bug fixes", whether we actually want to implement them for the next game or not.

 

[Lanzelot]

The following fixes will be implemented in the scenario .bic file in addition to those that we already did before the start of the game:

• Ship of the Line 2nd rate and 1st rate don't have lethal land bombardment, while their predecessor (SotL 3rd rate) does.
• Ship of the Line 1st rate has bombardment range 50. Should be reduced to 2...
• The Pirate is not amphibious, while his predecessor (Buccaneer) is.
• City Defenders are buildable, even though they shouldn't be.
• Two glitches with the War Galleon 3rd rate: a) it is marked as "Tactical Missile", which doesn't make any sense, and b) it upgrades to Ship of the Line 2nd rate instead of War Galleon 2nd rate...
• A number of land units have the "Unload" flag activated. This probably does not do any harm, though.
• For some unknown reason, the Drydock cannot be built, even if all prerequisites (Tech = Sea Trade, one Wharf in town, must be near water) are full-filled. (Note that the Civilopedia is incorrect here as it claims that a Port is required for a Drydock. This would probably make more sense anyway, as then the requirement chain would be Wharf -> Port -> Drydock. Can it be that the reason for the Drydock not being buildable is that at the moment both Port and Drydock depend on the Wharf and the game can't handle that?) -- Edit: the solution to the Drydock problem is (thanks to Civinator and Laurana Kanan for finding it): the Drydock requires fresh water (river or lake) in its city radius, instead of requiring coast access, as it should be...
• The Mortar unit does not have the "Load" button activated.
• There are several immobile units that have the "Load" button activated. The game crashes, when an AI loads an immobile unit into a ship and tries to move it.

 

[Lanzelot]

Here we list all modifications we think would improve the game.

• Place a City Defender unit (defense 1000) into each of the pirate islands. That will make the pirate bases invulnerable to attack and ensure they won't be kicked out of the game...
• ...

 

[Lanzelot]

The following modifications may or may not be a good idea...

• At the moment the Slave Market isn't really worth it except for in the Capital (where the 25% production bonus really makes a difference). Should we modify it like the Civilopedia says, i.e. make it auto-produce workers? And then remove the Slave Fort from the game?
• The ships available to the pirates are a bit weaker than the European warships. In order to counter-balance this, should we make the pirate ships a little bit faster (mimicking their "better knowledge of the area" and their ability to run away and hide after an attack)?
• Just a "general" idea at the moment: I would also like to simplify the huge number of different ship types a bit; at the moment it is still very confusing.
• At the moment it looks like some civs can trade tech and some can't. We should unify this. So what would fit better to this scenario, allow tech trading for everyone or disable it?

 

[Lanzelot]

Reserved

 

[Eclipse4449]

Slave Market should auto-produce workers and boost production 25%. It just sounds right

I agree with a City Defender in each of the Pirate cities, I also think they should be a bit more productive, at the start the Swashbucklers can train a Buccaneer in 10 but anything else is 100 turns, they may become more productive as they grow in population but they just aren't capable of any early diversity in the buildings they can build, just a few Buccaneers.

Speed is the best option for the Pirates' fleet, currently I believe it is 12 which is equal to many medium ships. I have a number in mind but let me first describe a situation or example.
A Pirate ship is fast which also makes it more maneuverable. The main strength of the ship (55) should remain, this is like boarding and enemy ship hand to hand, that is pirates(Buccaneers) vs well trained soldiers, alternatively because it is more maneuverable it should be able to "bombard" with its current strength but more often (I think there is an option to allow multiple bombardments at a cost of a movement point, Blitz perhaps) and if it could carry anything the Pirates would need, they would only need to build one type of ship. So from the example above the movement points should be at least 20, this number is only useful on offense, if this ship is caught by a strong ship on their tun it would be sunk! Also it should have a great ability to capture a ship and receive an equal ship type rather than for example receive a Caravel.

Reducing how many ships are available.
I can vaguely remember the conversation on this subject with The Guardian he basically said that they are the strength of the game, I take his meaning to be from mid-game on. I also remember the subject of how only certain types of cargo like canon, line units and regular units had to be transported on specific ships but can't remember in detail, I can add that his naval vision of this was not altered because of the comments. Having said that maybe after a point in this scenario while at war and ship battles are frequent we will see why. I do remember that he did not want players to feel like they were playing the original Age of Sails.
So in my opinion some work can be done with ships but if is a great length it should be "A less ships version"

 

[Takhisis]

Shouldn't the Slave Market give negative culture and/or unhappy faces?

Also, the ‘unbuildable’ City Defenders should actually be unbuildable.

 

[Lanzelot]

@Eclipse: yep, very good ideas on the pirate ships. However, we need to be careful not to make them "too strong" either. They should be superior to any merchant ship, but if they encounter a strong Spanish/English/French warship, they would rather set every piece of sail they have (including the captain's underwear) and turn tail and run, rather than engaging in a battle, right?
But if we give increase their speed and give them blitz, not even the mightiest Ship of the Line would be a match for them. Example: let's say a pirate ship runs into a warship while still having 10 movement points left. It could then bombard 9 times (which will surely be enough to redline any ship!) and then sink or capture the ship on their 10th movement point...

I think a scenario like this needs to be avoided, that would make it unbalanced. Instead of giving them blitz, we could perhaps increase their "rate of fire" to like 3 or 4? (Or even higher?! At the moment, the ordinary warships have RoF 1 and the better ones (Heavy Frigate, Ship of the Line 1st rate, Royal Galleon) have RoF 2.)

We can certainly add "enslavement" to the pirate ships. That this is not the case at the moment, looks like an oversight anyway... BTW: I was looking for a way to increase the enslavement probability, but didn't find anything? Does anyone know, whether this can be changed? In the standard game chance for enslaving a defeated enemy unit is 33.3%, which would indeed be a bit low for this scenario.

@Takhisis: "unbuildable" Defenders added to the bug list...
But Slave Markets already produce one unhappy face, so that should be ok, not?!

 

[Takhisis]

Today I've been playing as the Dutch against the AI. The stupidity of the AI cannot be undone… the French had three Marines, instead of sending them against undefended cities (they could have taken almost all my Caribbean possessions) they decided to attack a city I'd just conquered because I'd taken some treasure off them. I'll simply have to attack Tortuga, since it's the only remaining non-Spanish city on the island. So, happening there…

Pirate Ships: Increased Rate of Fire for the Pirates is a good solution. Blitz would mean a massacre.

City Defenders: Please do. It's awful, the AI capital cities keep building them so they think they are stronger than I am; the pirates keep sinking their shipping and my troops keep taking their colonies -and they refuse to make peace!

Batteries: they have four movement points, so, even though they cannot normally move, they retreat when defeated, instead of dying. Not that I cannot chase them, but it's a weird bug.

Civilopædia: How do we fix it? Half my expectations are unfulfilled simply because I expect the game to follow what the 'pædia offers. And there's all those broken links, including the building upgrade trees! I'm just lugging my Line infantry first.

Wealth: The variable taxation thing is broken.

 

[Lanzelot]

The AI is not a factor in this game and can be ignored. I have already pretty much taken out the Netherlands, and I guess someone is soon taking care of Portugal... And if we start a game with 4 players, we will probably combine Netherlands + Portugal (+ a bit of Spain?) into a fourth human-controlled nation and play completely without AI.

Interesting point about the batteries, didn't notice so far.
Edit: well, I just remember, I did notice so far: I already used that feature against the Dutch! Coastal batteries have blitz, so the "movement 4" was added to the unit, so they can shoot 4 times per turn. (I used it to damage the attacking Dutch ships at Plymouth quite badly... ) So I guess we should not remove the movement, even though the unit is "immobile"!

Regarding the Civilopædia: no of us is capable to modify it, so we pretty much agreed on using the biq file as our source of information. (I should have done that before building the Slave Markets... )

Regarding the broken taxation: what do you mean by this? In the biq file it looks ok:
Very Low Taxes: 2 happy faces, 2 maintenance
Low Taxes: 1 happy face, 1 maintenance
Medium Taxes: no effect (so same effect as not building any of these "buildings")
High Taxes: 1 unhappy face, +50% gold
Very High Taxes: 2 unhappy faces, +50% gold, +1 shield in every water tile

By the way: an idea that I just had: some of the things we decide here, can be turned into a "house rule" for our currently running game. E.g. as we don't have City Defenders in the Pirate Islands, we could make it a house rule that the pirate bases (the two towns they start with) must not be attacked by anyone? (Towns captured later can of course be taken back.) Of course only for Peglegs and Swashbucklers -- the job we started with the Undead, I would like to finish...

 

[Eclipse4449]

I maybe alone on this subject but I think for good reason;

Pirate ship blitz. I do agree with both of you that having blitz is very strong but I think you both are thinking of it as these 2 opposing ships appearing side by side beginning to fight. But realistically this opportunity will be rare. First comment "turn tail and run, rather than engaging in a battle, right?" with or without this ability this is very true, I think if anyone (Spain, France or England) sees a lurking Pirate ship the odds of loosing that Pirate ship is great, so therefore a Pirate ship is going to spend many movement points to arrive and many movement points to escape and have barely any for blitz. If there was ever a case where for example the Swashbuckler's ship sank a English Warship and it was discovered then it would no longer matter if they have blitz because they would do anything and everything to immediately sink every Swashbuckler ship on the map. Therefore to use blitz effectively it would take extreme luck and a very good strategy.
Controversially increasing the rate of fire is saying Pirates can fire canons faster than say a Ship of the Line 1st Rate, I think Pirates in their smaller ships should be able to out maneuver a big ship, get to its broad side and take a shot and get out of those big gun's sights.

So does the F3 screen show that a ship was sunk by a Pirate? It does show who sank a Pirate ship.

We must remember above all that the Pirates were included in this scenario to be an additional hindrance in getting Treasures to the Kings, as it is now 5 Pirate ships in tandem would do little to find which ship is carrying these goods and as stated earlier if they are spotted they would be chased and sunk for even being in the vicinity right?

 

[Takhisis]

The Military advisor only shows captures. From Tortuga and similar islands you could have the pirates capture an entire fleet, the early ships (fluyts, caravels, etc.) have a defence of less than 20 while the pirate ships attack with 50.

Also, the AI always knows where everything is. That is why they kept attacking the city where I had Line Infantry protecting the Treasure, instead of just taking my undefended islands -the Artificial Idiot's priorities are skewed.

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, I have updated posts #2, #3 and #4.

Not entirely convinced yet about giving the pirate ships "Blitz", but you may be right that it will actually be quite difficult to use, so is not as strong as we fear?! Let's wait whether Jarovid also offers an opinion.

@Takhisis: can you explain in more detail, why you think the "Taxation" concept is broken? I think it's ok. (Just trying it out in-game now. Can tell you next turn, how it worked out.)

Two more strange things I noticed:

1. Does anybody have an explanation of why a Mortar can be loaded into a Caravel, but not into a Merchantman?!? Just by looking at the .biq file, I see no difference between Caravel and Merchantman, which would explain this behaviour?!

2. The Civiopedia says that the Heavy Frigate is "a stronger and faster" version of the Frigate. However, the stats don't really confirm this...
Frigate: 50/50/12, Bombard 100 at rate 2, +8 HP
Heavy Frigate: 60/60/9, Bombard 30 at rate 2, lethal sea, +9 HP

So except for the lethal sea bombardment, I don't see any real advantage of the Heavy Frigate?! In fact, the extra A/D is not that significant, but in terms of bombardment and speed, the Heavy Frigate is significantly weaker than its predecessor. Should we also beef that up a bit?

 

[Lanzelot]

Regarding Blitz: perhaps the following could be a compromise: we don't give the early pirate ship "Blitz", but only the later generations, e.g. the ones available with the tech "Fast Ships" and following?!

 

[Eclipse4449]

Regarding Blitz: perhaps the following could be a compromise: we don't give the early pirate ship "Blitz", but only the later generations, e.g. the ones available with the tech "Fast Ships" and following?!

That is agreeable

Re; Caravel
I can't explain it other than certain ships must be built to haul specific cargo

Re; Frigates
IMO the H.Frigates' movement points should be 10 because it is a larger more cumbersome ships but keep in mind this ship's sails and canon can be upgraded with the proper research which will likely get more confusing

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, that the H.Frigate is slightly slower than the lighter Frigate makes sense. M10 should be ok.
How about the bombardment? B30 seems awfully weak for a heavy ship. (Even the Corvette at B40 is stronger.) Let's raise it at least to the level of the Frigate, shall we?

 

[Eclipse4449]

Ok, that the H.Frigate is slightly slower than the lighter Frigate makes sense. M10 should be ok.
How about the bombardment? B30 seems awfully weak for a heavy ship. (Even the Corvette at B40 is stronger.) Let's raise it at least to the level of the Frigate, shall we?

Ahh lost a whole post to inactivity

It should have a higher B than the Frigate because why it's heavier is it armor and it has more cannon but it may just have bigger canons.

But this brings up a few questions
1. What's the next larger ship? TSotL3rd class? How do these ships different? Cargo? Canon and troops? I know the scheme of this is to diversify the Navys and convoys, where one European king chooses treasure hauling ships and fast scout ships and another builds mostly War Ships and a few cargo ships. We must keep in mind there is a vast amount of different ships that can be built while simultaneously others are building ships, cost, a/d/m, special ability, what it can carry, I how it can be upgraded, the cost of upgrading vs building a newer ship (bang I just shot myself lol).

Were the stats the H.Frigate tested and reduced because on its first upgrade makes it more realistic and cost effective? No way to really know unless we drive deep into the material.

But I have great news! I just remembered that I have an original ship matrix on my backup hard drive ships.xls spreadsheet I'll send it to you tonight

 

[Takhisis]

1. Does anybody have an explanation of why a Mortar can be loaded into a Caravel, but not into a Merchantman?!? Just by looking at the .biq file, I see no difference between Caravel and Merchantman, which would explain this behaviour?!

Quick ideas:
Is the mortar marked as Infantry or Wheeled?
Do either of the Caravel and Merchantman have any trait of those (transports only Infantry or other) marked?
Do both ships have the ‘Load’ and ‘unload’ buttons available?

2. The Civiopedia says that the Heavy Frigate is "a stronger and faster" version of the Frigate. However, the stats don't really confirm this...
Frigate: 50/50/12, Bombard 100 at rate 2, +8 HP
Heavy Frigate: 60/60/9, Bombard 30 at rate 2, lethal sea, +9 HP

So except for the lethal sea bombardment, I don't see any real advantage of the Heavy Frigate?! In fact, the extra A/D is not that significant, but in terms of bombardment and speed, the Heavy Frigate is significantly weaker than its predecessor. Should we also beef that up a bit?

The civilopædia is out of synch with the real game.

 

[Eclipse4449]

The Pedia says that Buccaneers cannot attack Settlement,
Under "Special Actions" they can "Load" but not "Unload"
I'm not quite sure what "Stealth Attack" is sounds like something a Pirate would be good at, provided they are not Rum Drunk. Buccaneers upgrade to Pirates and they can unload. The difference between them is the Defense upgrade from 4 to 10, I think it should be the only difference they have other than Shield cost and Hit Point bonus of course.

 

[Lanzelot]

The Pedia says that Buccaneers cannot attack Settlement,

No idea, how the creator of the scenario did it, but they can in fact not, at least not amphibiously. When first set ashore, and then attacking next turn, I think they can.

Under "Special Actions" they can "Load" but not "Unload"
I'm not quite sure what "Stealth Attack" is sounds like something a Pirate would be good at, provided they are not Rum Drunk. Buccaneers upgrade to Pirates and they can unload. The difference between them is the Defense upgrade from 4 to 10, I think it should be the only difference they have other than Shield cost and Hit Point bonus of course.

This rather looks like a glitch with the "Pirate" unit. The "Unload" button is needed only for transport ships, and neither "Buccaneer" nor "Pirate" are a ship... Will check this out in more detail, when I get back to my Civ PC.