No Treasure for Pirates -- Bug-Thread

[Takhisis]

What link?

 

[Eclipse4449]

Ooops sorry

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/adding-units-to-c3c-thorough-guide-for-the-newbie.71114/

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, I used the latest .biq from June 4th, 2016 and double-checked all land units and all buildings (sea units will follow later, once we know how we want it). I made the following fixes:

Land Units:

• Settler & Worker: remove "Enslave" and "Unload" ability. Marked both as "Tactical Missile". (See below)
  
• Removed the "Capture" ability from every unit that had it. (This should hopefully make sure, that no land unit can grab (="capture") a treasure unit. Consequently, our treasures can only be transported by the merchant ships. See next point.)
• Gave the treasure unit 1 movement (so it can move by itself without being grabbed by a foot unit) and flagged it as "Tactical Missile" (so it can be transported by the merchant ships only -- we need to remember to mark the merchant ships as "Transports Tactical Missiles only"!)
• Removed the "Airlift" capability from all units that had it. (As we have neither Airports nor Airfields in this scenario, this option makes no sense. Better keep every unit as simple as possible in order to avoid unwanted side-effects and strange behavior...)
• Spanish Explorer had the "Upgrade Unit" button checked, but the properties said "Upgrades to: None". Removed Upgrade button.
• Remove "Unload" operation from all land units that had it. (Makes sense only for transport ships...)
  
• Captain says it upgrades to Pirate Captain, but the "Upgrade" button was missing...
• We have the following upgrade chain: Matchlock Musketman (5/5/1) upgrades to Matchlock Musketeer (6/6/1) upgrades to Flintlock Musketeer (8/8/1). All three of them can enslave. But while the first two enslave a unit of their own kind, the last one enslaves a Worker. This must be a mistake (or at least an inconsistency)?! I changed the Flintlock Musketeer so that its enslavement results in another Flintlock Musketeer. (Or, if you think that this feature is too powerful, we should change all three of them to enslave workers - what do you think? Especially in the light of the fact that the Line Infantry also enslaves Workers -- and I would not recommend to change that to Line Infantries... That would be game breaking: Defeat a couple dozen cheap Matchlock Musketmen with a Line Infantry and create a whole bunch of these powerful units "out of thin air"...!)
  The Dragoon by the way creates Dragoons when enslaving. The more I think about it, the more I believe we should change all enslavement into just workers?! Everything else may be too overpowered?!
  
• "Load" button added for the Mortar.
• Treasure Unit: I checked how El Justo did it in his epic AoI scenario, and it is actually pretty simple. I removed the "Immobile" flag, so the unit can now move by its own. I added the "Load" button, so it can now be loaded into ships. So far the same as in AoI. Now I also marked it as "Tactical Missile", so it can be loaded only in those ships that have the "Transports Tactical Missile" ability (which will be our merchant ships). As the treasure unit does not have a "Bombard" button, this should not cause any unwanted side-effects...
  And finally the fact that I removed the "Capture" ability from all land units, should ensure that no one can grab a treasure with e.g. a cheap Musketman and then load that Musketmen into a Frigate. So we will be forced to use merchant ships for the transport of treasures (and to escort the vulnerable merchant ships with powerful warships...) I hope that will make the game much more interesting...
  The treasure unit also had the "Enslave" ability, but I think this does not make any sense for a unit without attack value. So I removed it.
  Final Question: I noticed that in this scenario the treasure unit is also marked as a "Leader" and has the "Finish Improvement" ability checked. I haven't tested it, but I think this means that if you move a treasure into a non-capital city, you can then use it to rush Small Wonders. (If you move it into the capital, it will automatically be converted into gold and victory points, before you get the chance to use it in any other way.) Should we keep this feature?? It may add a nice flavor to the game, but I have some doubts whether it will work as intended, and perhaps we are adding too many complications to the game. (After the experience with the inexplicable crash, I am hesitant to use too many extra-ordinary hacks...)
• Removed "Enslave" capability from City Defender.
• Does anybody understand, how the Captain/Pirate Captain units are supposed to work? They are not available to any nation, so no one can build them. (Which probably means, the pirate factions stick with the units they start with?!) The Pirate Captain is additionally marked as "King" as well as as "Leader"?! So does that mean, that if you kill such a unit, the corresponding pirate nation will be eliminated from the game?! (Like in the Sengoku scenario we played a couple of times...) And even though they are not buildable, being a "Leader" you may get one from an elite victory?! Also the Captain (which is not a King nor a Leader) can be upgraded to Pirate Captain. I really have no idea, how this is supposed to work -- especially since neither unit has any tech prerequisite, so are available right from the start! (Normally you can first build one unit and then upon finishing a certain technology, the more advanced unit gets unlocked and the older one can be upgraded and disappears from your build list?!
  So I didn't change these two units yet, as long as I don't understand them...
• Removed the Load, Unload, Sacrifice and Capture actions from the 16, 18 and 20 pound Coastal Battery, as neither of these capabilities makes any sense for these units. Also, the 18# upgrades to the 20# battery, while the 16# battery also has the "Upgrade Unit" capability activated, but doesn't specify to which unit it upgrades... Fixed that and set its upgrade target to the 18# battery. (But mind you: as these units are "immobile", we will never be able to move them into a town, so will never be able to upgrade them... Only the ones that start in a town or get auto-produced in a town, will be able to get upgraded. But it will probably not be practical/advisable to build an expensive Armory (required building for upgrading land units, costs 200s) in every town just to be able to upgrade 1-2 coastal batteries there...
  Also made the 20# battery buildable for Spain, Portugal, England, France and the Netherlands, which it wasn't... (The 16# was not buildable by any nation, because it gets auto-produced by the Coastal Fortress building. But the other two need to be buildable, as otherwise we won't have any in the game...)
  And the 18# battery required Coal in order to be built?! We already verified that there is no Coal on the entire map... So I changed that to "None". I also removed the "Homeland" requirement from the 20# battery. The game starts with quite a few 16# guns in the New World, so I see no reason, why we should not have the 20# version there as well?!
• The Officer units (Spanish, English, French and Dutch): ow, well, I understood them even less than the Captain units... Again they are marked as "Leader" and as "King". And they all have the "Sacrifice" flag activated. So what if you sacrifice your own officer? Will you then automatically eliminate yourself from the game? (Or if you use the "Leader" to rush a small wonder... )
  For now I only removed the "Unload", "Sacrifice" and "Capture" flags.
• Removed "Build Airfield" and "Build Radar Tower" from Worker and Pirate Worker units. (On second thoughts I left the "Build Airfield": after all we have the "Observation Ballon", which may need a landing field...)
• Added "Load" and removed "Enslave" from Raw Materials. Also marked it as "Tactical Missile".
• Removed "Sacrifice" button from Marine...
• The UndeadCaptain is a normal king unit, no leader etc. However, its shield cost (300s) seems exorbitantly high for a 15/15/1 unit! (Compare the Line Infantry, also a 15/15/1 unit at 30 shields, or the UndeadPirate (10/10/1) for 15 shields.) I changed the UndeadCaptain to 40s. Note: we may need to re-think the shield-costs of some units anyway. For example, why does the Marine (12/12/1) cost 200s, while the Line Infantry (15/15/1) is only 30s?! The fact that it is amphibious cannot be worth 170s?! Reduced it to 50s for now.
• UndeadPirate, UndeadWarrior and Undead Spearman say "Enslaves", but do not specify the resulting unit... What should we set here? Worker or Undead Spearman? (UndeadCaptain enslaves to Undead Spearman.)
• PirateSkirmisher costs 0s. Increased that to 30s, which seems about right for a 12/12/1 unit in this game. BTW: why does it have the "Blitz" ability, if it has only 1 movement point? Does that make any sense? Should we give it 2 movement?!
• Flintlock Musketeer (8/8/1) is 10s, while its predecessor, the Matchlock Musketeer (6/6/1) is 15s. I increased Flintlock to 20s.
• The Explorer unit (available to Portugal, France, England and Netherlands) has "All terrain as Roads", while the Spanish version, the Spanish Explorer does not. The Spanish version is more expensive (25s instead of 15s). For this it has a few extra capabilities over the normal Explorer (blitz, higher A/D/M and can enslave workers), but I still think it should also have the "all terrain as roads" ability like all explorers have.

Buildings:

• Smith's Workshop: this is a normal improvement (no Wonder), which adds 50% production. (So basically it's the same as the "Factory" in the normal game, except that it does not cause pollution.) I think for this the cost of 500s is a bit steep, isn't it? Should we lower it to 240s, like the factory? Also it requires Coal (which, as we already know, does not exist on the map...).
• Removed "Must be near Water" (which means "fresh" water...) from the Drydock to make it buildable in coastal cities. (Same for the Pirate Shipyard and the Fortress...) Also reduced its maintenance from 2gpt to 1gpt.
• What exactly is the "Expeditions" improvement good for?! As far as I can see, it doesn't do anything except for costing maintenance...
• The Military Academy improvement: there is one for Spain, England, France and the Netherlands. The one for Portugal is missing! Also their shield cost is zero... What would be an appropriate price for it? It auto produces an "Officer" unit every 12 turns. (We had already fixed the bug that this wasn't working, before the start of the game...)
• What exactly is the "BronzeCannon" improvement good for?! As far as I can see, it doesn't do anything (not even costing maintenance...)
• The "Armory" is mis-spelled... ("Armoury"... )

 

[Lanzelot]

Thanks for the link! I also saw that the documentation that comes with the Editor has something about the "file structure" of a scenario. Hopefully with these two resources I will figure out, how units and buildings can be added/deleted/renamed.

 

[Eclipse4449]

Wow Lanzelot you are a treasure!

Lots here

Getting "Workers" from enslave would be a GREAT benefit to Spain but not so great for smaller land holders. Pirates for example should get Buccaneers and Pirate ships. Maybe a countries' "unique" unit could enslave what would best benefit their country.
A Line unit defeating a Musket unit and getting a Line unit would be unrealistic as it would require a good deal of training

Treasures
So do treasures appear only in cities? I was under the impression they materialized in random locations, requiring units to search the fog to find and carry them to a city.
Having only one type of ship to carry Treasures is Awesome! Outside of the return trip you'll know its loaded if it is heading toward the Crown.

I'm pretty sure the intension was to receive Victory Points when treasures are delivered to their Capitol.

more as soon as I can

 

[Lanzelot]

I a agree that it would be better to just enslave workers. (Or perhaps the musket type units enslave workers, while the Line Infantry/Cavalry enslaves musketmen and Buccaneers enslave the most basic pirate unit?! Ships will always enslave ships, but only a "light" warship, I guess.)

Treasures
So do treasures appear only in cities? I was under the impression they materialized in random locations, requiring units to search the fog to find and carry them to a city.

Treasures are "auto-produced" by certain buildings: gold and silver mines, fur trade posts, tobacco and sugar plantations, etc. All of them become available with the "Resource Usage" technology. Most of them require the "Governor's House" to be built first, and also they require the corresponding resource to be within the big fat cross of the town. (Though it does not need to be hooked up with a road.)
Unfortunately our test game had not yet progressed to that point, but you'll see: once you have constructed a couple of these buildings, the treasures will really start rolling...

BTW: I have updated post #47 with my ideas for the transport ships! Please check it out and comment.

 

[Eclipse4449]

You are Awesome!!!

 

[Eclipse4449]

I agree with both adding a New trade Route and shipping in those lanes or have a "decent" chance of sinking.
I can't wait to see post#48 updates

As you may well know I am all about the Pirates. I think we should concentrate primarily on what will make it the most fun and entertaining for the Europeans and also what I think is the core of this game "the shipping of the Treasures" and then the Pirates. The Pirates should be capable of winning the game somehow, If anyone loads a Treasure on a ship they immediately realize everyone has a chance of taking it from you, this means you must escort this ship, have decoys, well more on this later I'm sure.

Thanks so much!