No Treasure for Pirates -- Bug-Thread

[Lanzelot]

The Merchant Ships have a superfluous Bombard ability.

Also, do we have a specific discussion I've missed regarding the ships' tech tree?

Eclipse had sent me an excel sheet with all the ship units a while ago. In fact, I would already have attached it here, but I noticed that it is not up-to-date. I assume it represents some kind of "original state" of the ship unit tree in the original scenario before TheGuardian (or was it Againsttheflow?!) did his modifications of the ship tree. So the excel is of little value to us and would probably confuse more than help.

But in order to simplify the ships a bit, I can imagine a setup like the following. Basically there would be 5 classes of ships:

Ship Class | Purpose | Special Ability Light Warship |Fast but lightly armed warship|No transport capability
Heavy Warship |Slower but heavily armed warship|Can transport "light troops" (e.g. musketmen and the like). Lethal bombard.
Merchant Ship |No combat value, used only for transportation|Can transport "treasure units" and workers/settlers
Troop Transport |No combat value, used only for transportation|Can transport "heavy troops" (Marines, Line Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery)
Pirate Ship |Fast and medium armed warship|Can transport everything. Hidden nationality. Pirate tribes can build it from the beginning, other nations need to research "Letter of Marque" first.

The first two classes would be available in two "flavors": one for the English/French/Netherlands ("Frigate", "Ship of the Line") and one for the Spanish/Portuguese ("Galleon", "Royal Galleon").

Also the Pirate Ships would be available in two "flavors": one for the Pirate tribes (requires the "Pirate" resource) and one for the remaining nations (does not require a resource, but requires "Letter of Marque"). The "Pirate" flavor should be faster, stronger and cheaper than the "European" flavor.

Also, each ship class has a three-level upgrade path, where each new ship generation has some distinct advantages over the predecessor version in terms of faster movement and/or increased hitpoints and/or increased A/D/B values and/or increased transport capacity and/or additional special abilities (lethal bombardment, blitz, enslavement).

This would give us a total of 24 different ships in the game (but only 15 of them buildable by one given nation), instead of the zoo of 60-70 buildable ships we currently have... In addition we could think about having one more ship as unique unit for each nation, which can trigger the Golden Age.

How does that sound?

There is one problem though: I have only very basic modding knowledge and I'm not sure, whether I'll be able to implement this system. Especially I would have to figure out, how "treasure" units can be loaded into a ship directly without first being "picked up" by a foot unit. However, we all know that this is possible, because El Justo did exactly that in his AoI scenario. (So I guess, we'll need to ask him for a tip or two...)

 

[Takhisis]

Right now I am using a Corvette to transport Musketmen with Treasure units attached. They're faster than the Caravels and Merchantmen.

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, the guys over in the customization forum are really helpful indeed! Civinator and Laurana Kanan both replied to my questions I posted in the "Pirates" thread. So the miracles of why the Drydock is not buildable as well as why the Mortar cannot be loaded on some ships of which I thought it ought to be loadable (e.g. Merchantmen etc.) are now resolved:

Hi Lanzelot,

of course there are significant differences between the Caravel and the Merchantman in that scenario. The Merchantman has both the Naval Power and the Seatransport strategy, while the Caravel only has the Seatransport strategy. The error in the setting of the mortar causes that strange behaviour you did describe. To prove that theory I downloaded the scenario and the biq and made a Debug-version of the biq. If you change the setting for the mortar in the editor and add the load-function, the mortar will load in the merchantman in harbours without any problems.

Of course this is only working for new started games with the changed biq, In your current PBEM game the mortar will still have the old wrong settings.

The Drydock has a very simple error in the settings. Activate the coastal installation box for that building in the editor and remove the "Near water setting". This is of course also only working for games that are started with the new settings.

Annoying oversights in both cases: because of wrong settings in the biq, the Drydock requires fresh water (river/lake) instead of being on the coast. And the Mortar is another case of inconsistencies in the unit settings (missing Load-button, non-sensical Unload-button for land units, etc.) which I also noticed for many other units in the scenario. (E.g. the Settler unit has the "Enslavement" flag activated, which doesn't make any sense for a non-combat unit... ) Therefore I'll go through every unit and every building in the biq and double-check their settings. I'm pretty sure that one of these inconsistent or even contradicting settings is causing our current save-game crash. (It'll be a lot of work, but I should have some free time over the Christmas vacation.)

Some comments on what you all think about the revised ship-tree are welcome.

 

[Eclipse4449]

I've missed quite a bit since my virus issue.

Very nice Ship-tree. Will we be able to upgrade your ships with research?

 

[Lanzelot]

Jarovid found this on the creation forum:

I read in forums recently that such crashes may occur if some immobile units have load option checked, and when AI load immobile unit and try to move it.

That explains the crash that ended our game The Coastal Batteries are all immobile and have the "Load" button checked. So one of the AIs must have loaded it into a ship, and they must move between the French end the English turn?! That explains why nothing that was changed during the French turn had any effect on the crash?!
So we need to make sure that no immobile unit has the Load button activated. (Going through all units and double-checking their settings was on my list anyway.)

 

[Lanzelot]

Will we be able to upgrade your ships with research?

Yes, that's the plan. And in order to have to change as little as possible on the scenario, I want to try to reuse the existing techs and units as much as possible. (Though renaming a unit should not be a problem, I hope. Important is only, that we don't need to add new icons, civilopedia entries etc to the game.)

Here is a first draft on how the ship tree could look in detail, the northern version is available to France, England and the Netherlands, the southern version to Spain and Portugal:

Light Warship (northern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Bombard | Movement | HP Bonus | Special Abilities | Transports
Corvette| - |90|1|40|40/1/2|12|4| - |Foot Units (1)
Frigate|Basic Warships|100|1|50|50/1/2|13|6|Enslave|Foot Units (2)
Heavy Frigate|Fast Ships|120|1|60|60/1/3|14|8|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard|Foot Units (2)

Light Warship (southern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Bombard | Movement | HP Bonus | Special Abilities | Transports
Brig| - |90|1|40|40/1/2|12|4| - |Foot Units (1)
Brigantine|Basic Warships|100|1|50|50/1/2|13|6|Enslave,|Foot Units (2)
Brig of War|Fast Ships|120|1|60|60/1/3|14|8|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard|Foot Units (2)

Heavy Warship (northern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Bombard | Movement | HP Bonus | Special Abilities | Transports
Man-O-War|Royal Ships|130|2|70|70/2/3|9|6|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard|Foot Units (2)
Battleship|Battleships|140|2|80|80/2/3|10|8|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard, Lethal Land Bombard|Foot Units (3)
Ship of the Line|Ships of the Line|160|2|90|90/2/4|11|10|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard, Lethal Land Bombard, Blitz|Foot Units (4)

Heavy Warship (southern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Bombard | Movement | HP Bonus | Special Abilities | Transports
Royal Galleon|Royal Ships|130|2|70|70/2/3|9|6|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard|Foot Units (2)
War Galleon|Battleships|140|2|80|80/2/3|10|8|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard, Lethal Land Bombard|Foot Units (3)
Flag Galleon|Ships of the Line|160|2|90|90/2/4|11|10|Enslave, Lethal Sea Bombard, Lethal Land Bombard, Blitz|Foot Units (4)

The "foot units" are basically the ones from the musketmen upgrade line.

I think that we should make the northern and southern versions a bit different from each other. E.g. one version could be a bit "heavier" than the other version, meaning that it has more hitpoints, but on the other hand requires more shields?! And perhaps also a very slight difference in movement and attack value?!

Also, which icon should we use for each ship?

 

[Lanzelot]

Note: "Tactical Missiles" will be Treasure Units, Workers, Settlers, so that Merchant ships can only transport these three. The troop transports will have none of the "transports only ..." flags checked, so that they will be able to carry the "Foot Units" (musketeer types) as well as the units with no special flag (Cannons, Mortars, Line Infantry, Marines, Cavalry, Dragoons), but not the "tactical missiles".

In general, the northern versions are a bit faster, while the southern versions are slower, but have more transport capacity.

I noticed in the original scenario, that all the early transport ships sink in ocean. I think we should keep that concept: that will force all treasure transports to take one of the small predefined "trade routes" made up of sea tiles. (So that the pirates know where to wait... )
But I think in that case we should add a third "trade lane" to the map: at the moment there are only two, one in the middle and one in the south. I would add a third lane in the north, extending from Bermuda to Ireland. Otherwise the trade goods from the New England & New Orleans colonies to England/France would have a much longer journey than the trade goods from the Caribbean to Spain or from Brazil to Portugal! See the minimap:

Merchant Ship (northern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Movement | HP Bonus | Transports | Restriction
Merchantman|-|60|-|5|11|2|Tactical Missiles (1)|Sinks in Ocean
Large Merchantman|Basic Tradeships|70|-|10|12|4|Tactical Missiles (2)|Sinks in Ocean
East Indiaman|Adv. Tradeships|90|-|15|13|6|Tactical Missiles (3)|-

Merchant Ship (southern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Movement | HP Bonus | Transports | Restriction
Caravel|-|60|-|5|10|2|Tactical Missiles (2)|Sinks in Ocean
Galleon|Basic Tradeships|70|-|10|11|4|Tactical Missiles (3)|Sinks in Ocean
Trade Galleon|Adv. Tradeships|90|-|15|12|6|Tactical Missiles (4)|-

Troop Transport (northern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Movement | HP Bonus | Transports
Sloop|-|60|-|15|11|2|"All", except Tactical Missiles (2)
Schooner|Basic Tradeships|70|-|20|12|4|"All", except Tactical Missiles (3)
Bark|Adv. Tradeships|90|-|25|13|6|"All", except Tactical Missiles (5)

Troop Transport (southern version):

Unit | Required Tech | Shield Cost | Pop Cost | Attack/Defense | Movement | HP Bonus | Transports
Carrack|-|60|-|15|9|2|"All", except Tactical Missiles (3)
Galleass|Basic Tradeships|70|-|20|10|4|"All", except Tactical Missiles (4)
Royal Galleass|Adv. Tradeships|90|-|25|11|6|"All", except Tactical Missiles (6)

If you have better ideas for the ship names, let me know...

 

[Lanzelot]

Reserved for pirate ships

Pirate Ship (Pirate version):

Pirate Ship (European version):

 

[Takhisis]

Jarovid found this on the creation forum:

I read in forums recently that such crashes may occur if some immobile units have load option checked, and when AI load immobile unit and try to move it.

That explains the crash that ended our game The Coastal Batteries are all immobile and have the "Load" button checked. So one of the AIs must have loaded it into a ship, and they must move between the French end the English turn?! That explains why nothing that was changed during the French turn had any effect on the crash?!
So we need to make sure that no immobile unit has the Load button activated. (Going through all units and double-checking their settings was on my list anyway.)

Can we edit the save so that AI players don't have these loadable immobile units? I think there's a save editor on C3MT.

 

[Lanzelot]

I opened the save with Gramphos' Civ3Editor and checked all the Coastal Battery 16#ers. The Dutch and Portuguese ones all say "Loaded on: NONE", so either they load it in the interturn, or it is this one:

I first replaced it with a Cannon and then deleted the unit altogether, but both times the game still crashed.
Next I replaced every Dutch and Portuguese Coastal Battery in the game with a Cannon, but it still crashes
Finally I deleted every Coastal Battery from the game, human or AI. Still no luck. Either this tool doesn't work right, or the problem is something else?!

 

[Takhisis]

Loaded on Merchantman: French? Hmmmm. Yes, I remember I have a battery in Bayonne (autoproduced or pre-placed, can't remember) and I was thinking of moving it to Amsterdam once I conquered it. Perhaps that's it? I'll send you a new save tomorrow with the battery not loaded onto a ship.

 

[Eclipse4449]

I think while the stats of ships are open I think a captured/enslaved ship should yield the same type of ship, if technically possible the ship or enough booty to rebuild it at in the Harbor or similar building.

The Privateer aspect is of the King's favor,
they should be capable of his bidding,
by no means facing a Warship alone but 2 has a good chance or 3 tag teaming has a very good chance.

Any thoughts about Privateers economics? 2 tough Coves/Cites do not currently produce enough Gold, they should be able to steal a ship's gold if side by side. Anyway I hope everyone had a nice Christmas

 

[Takhisis]

When I played the turn I started it with the battery loaded onto my merchantman apparently.

How do you steal a ship's gold? The Pirate factions are meant to ravage the seas and improve their economies through plunder.

 

[Eclipse4449]

How do you steal a ship's gold? The Pirate factions are meant to ravage the seas and improve their economies through plunder.

Yes they are, if there is anyway to improve the chances of plundering gold I'm all for it.
they also have an "End of the Game" (Wonder I think) that should be achievable even if the Privateers go Rogue

 

[Takhisis]

It's a spaceship victory. They have to get to all the treasures, i.e. build them (they're improvements, SS parts) before anyone else and they win.

 

[Lanzelot]

"Stealing" another ship's gold would be great indeed. I have not yet tested what happens in the current game, if a pirate ship
a) sinks
b) "enslaves" (=captures)
a transport ship that has a treasure unit loaded. Does the treasure unit survive on the same tile (and can then be loaded into the pirate ship), or does it go down with the transport ship? Does anyone know, i.e. from the Age of Imperialism games?
If the treasure unit does not survive, we can modify the pirate ships so that "enslavement" results in a treasure unit. I think that should be possible easily. But first we should make a test. I remember from playing the Crusaders scenario, that when a land unit defeats a "treasure-transporting" land unit, the treasure unit remains intact and can be picked up by another unit passing by. If the same is true for treasures on water tiles?!

 

[Eclipse4449]

AoI might have this in that scenario too, it was big on transporting Treasures

Also thought of this, but I have yet to see it, There was to be a (Scout) Balloon of some kind. if so Can it be "loaded/unloaded" with a unit?
My thought, "If the Balloon was incorporated into Scouting and transporting the unit that will pick up and carry a "Treasure" across land and maybe Coastal tile, could the Frequency of Spawning Treasures be bumped up a fraction? This would or could really change this game

 

[Eclipse4449]

Being in different time zones I could spend an hour or so checking things out. If not cani have a copy of the most recent biq

 

[Lanzelot]

The "Observation Balloon" has no special abilities except for the following "Air Missions": Bombing, Recon, Re-Base.
So that's basically somewhere in-between the standard Bomber and the standard Fighter. (Bomber can't recon, Fighter can intercept in addition.) In any case, no transport capability (e.g. like the standard Helicopter).

Regarding bumping up the treasure spawn frequency: the game is set up for 600 turns, so I'm not sure if it may be over "too soon", if we do that? There is a huge number of buildings that spawn treasure: gold & silver mines, tobacco, corn and sugar plantations, fur trading posts, etc... Once every town has 1 or 2 of these buildings, treasures will spawn én masse anyway...

I've started working on the biq now. Once I've implemented all fixes listed in post #2, I will upload an updated biq file here. If someone also wants to do some work, he/she can perhaps scan the Modding Forum as to whether there are clearcut instructions somewhere for how to add/remove units from a scenario?! Then we can start working on that, after the obvious bug fixes are done?!

Happy New Year!

 

[Eclipse4449]

I found this link to add units, maybe this will help removing them