Exports, Piracy and Trade

[Oni Ryuu]

Exports, Piracy and Trade​

Spoiler Common Processes :

Restricted Resource
Add a resource to your mod that doesn’t appear in any terrain type.

Player-only Building
Set all civilisations to ‘never build’ Culture.
Any culture enhancing building that you want the AI to produce must improve happiness by a minimum of 1.
Player-only buildings must have only Culture (1 point minimum) and the ability to auto-produce the desired unit.

Tradable Unit
Create a unit with the desired name and blank stats.
Make the unit available to all civilisations.
Give it the Load command.
Set its weight class (Foot, Tactical Nuke etc.)
Make it require the restricted resource

Flag Unit
Create a none-disbandable unit and mark it as a Flag Unit in Unit Abilities: and AI Strategies.
Make your Flag unit(s) require a Restricted Resource.
Set the gold value of the unit in Scenario Properties>Victory Point Limits>Gold for Capture.
All flag units in the same game will yield the same value in gold.

Export Merchandise

Description
Players produce a variety of merchandise of different values and production costs. The products are useless to the producing player but valuable to everyone else forcing you to export them to a treading partner. The increasing production and transport of these products will cause your swollen merchant fleet to travel on predictable trade routes stressing the need for an effective navy.

Spoiler :

Implementation
Enable Auto Place Victory Locations, Victory Point Scoring and Capture the Unit in Scenario Properties>Scenario.
Remove the population cost’s from all other units (Only ‘Product’ units can have a population cost. No other units can have a population cost including workers and settlers.
Add a Flag unit and set its value in Scenario Properties>Victory Point Limits>Gold for Capture. (The Flag unit’s reward in gold is the international denomination for trade. The value of a product is its population cost multiplied by the value of the Flag unit.)
Set the Standard Slave unit to the Flag unit.
Add a tradable unit and set its population cost
Set its weight class (Foot, Tactical Nuke etc.)
Create a player-only Building
Make the building auto-produce the desired product and set the production rate
Set the maintenance cost.

In-game Instructions
Products must be taken to a rival player by whatever means you have.
The recipient player can take possession of the products by attacking them with a nationless unit. The products then transform into flag units. The flag units can be captured and taken to the capital to convert them into cash.

Gold Mining

Description
Gold shipments are a way of generating greater profit from gold resources and encouraging players to transport gold from across their nation to their capitals. A Flag unit is generated at regular intervals from a Player-only Building.

Spoiler :

Implementation
You will need to enable Auto Place Victory Locations, Victory Point Scoring, Capture the Unit and Allow Anyone to Capture Any Flag in Scenario Properties>Scenario.
Change the Gold in Natural Resources to a Strategic Resource.
Create a Flag unit.
Add a Player-only Building to Improvements and Wonders.
Enable Required Goods Must Be within City Radius and select the Gold resource.
Select the Gold unit in Units Produced and set how often you want the building to produce the gold unit in Frequency.
Set the maintenance of the building to less than the flag units’ worth divided by the production frequency.

In-game Instructions
The flag units can be captured and taken to your capital to convert them into cash.

Plundering Ships

Description
Plunder units are the spoils of war at sea. This unit must make its way to your capital by whatever means will allow it. If successful, a set figure of gold will be added to your treasury and the combat unit will return to normal.

Spoiler :

Implementation
You will need to enable Auto Place Victory Locations, Victory Point Scoring and Capture the Unit in Scenario Properties>Scenario.
Set the gold value of the Flag unit in Scenario Properties>Victory Point Limits>Gold for Capture.
Adapt one of your Flag units to naval stats.
Give all desired naval units the Enslave ability in Special Actions and select the "plunder unit" in Enslave Results In.

In-game Instructions
The flag units can be captured and taken to your capital to convert them into cash.

Tradable Goods

Description
This is a way of transferring, storing or trading units of production with the function of reducing the production requirement of a building or unit by a set figure. Several of these units can be added to the game, each with different values. These units need to be transported to the desired city to be disbanded to yield the production bonus.

Spoiler :

Implementation
Create a unit and remove its Go To button and give it the Disband and Load abilities.
Give the unit a shield cost 4 times higher than the one you intend it to provide.
Add a Player-only Building to Improvements and Wonders.
Select the Goods unit in Units Produced and set how often you want the building to produce the Goods unit in Frequency.
Finally, set the maintenance cost of the building to less than 1/4 of the Good units’ worth in gold divided by the production frequency.

In-game Instructions
The Goods unit can be unloaded onto an ally’s beach, transported by land or shipped directly between two owned ports.
If you’re sending the goods to an ally, the recipient player can take possession of the units by attacking them with a nationless unit.
Take the unit to the desired city then simply disband it to receive the production bonus.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm, this will come in handy for bringing the Pirates, yarrr! up to date.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Thanks for posting this. Clear, concise, and thorough. Three qualities a summary/tutorial should have, and you got them all.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’m just glad I can start contributing now.

 

[Lanzelot]

Interesting stuff indeed! Especially the "plunder" would be perfect for the Pirates scenario. I have a couple of follow-up questions on that mechanism:

1. The plunder unit is created via "enslavement". Is it possible to modify the probability for enslavement, or is it hard-coded to 1/3? (I didn't see anything in the editor.)
2. If a ship that has the "enslavement" capability, wins a sea battle, there will always be the chance of a plunder unit being created, independent of the type of enemy unit that was defeated, right? That would not be so optimal for us: we plan to have "warships" (which don't transport gold treasures) and "treasure ships" (transport ships that carry gold from the Spanish Main back to Europe). If a warship gets defeated, it should optimally not result in a plunder unit. Only if a treasure ship gets defeated, it should turn into a plunder ("treasure"). And even better: only a loaded treasure ship should turn into plunder, not an empty one... But I guess that would be asking for too much...
3. This one is not related to enslavement, but rather to flag units in general. Does anyone know what will happen to a flag unit which is currently loaded in a transport ship, if that transport ship gets sunk/destroyed in combat? Will the flag unit survive and remain on that sea tile to be picked up again, or will it go down with the ship? I know that, if a flag unit is "captured" by a land unit and that land unit later gets killed in combat, the flag unit survives and can be picked up by the victor. Would be nice, if something like that is also possible with sea battles.

 

[Lanzelot]

Tradable goods (as you may have guessed) can be traded between human players (without an unintended declaration of war) to benefit both parties. The trade does require a land connection between cities of each party.

Do you mean that these "goods" can be traded via the F4 screen (like workers)? How is this possible? I didn't see anything special in the settings of the worker unit, so I always assumed the "tradebility" of workers was hard-coded in the exe?!

 

[Takhisis]

I always assumed the "tradebility" of workers was hard-coded in the exe

The second unit in the units list in the .biq file is the tradeable one, IIRC. Stupid hardcoding, yes, but that's how it works.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Interesting stuff indeed! Especially the "plunder" would be perfect for the Pirates scenario. I have a couple of follow-up questions on that mechanism:

1. The plunder unit is created via "enslavement". Is it possible to modify the probability for enslavement, or is it hard-coded to 1/3? (I didn't see anything in the editor.)
2. If a ship that has the "enslavement" capability, wins a sea battle, there will always be the chance of a plunder unit being created, independent of the type of enemy unit that was defeated, right? That would not be so optimal for us: we plan to have "warships" (which don't transport gold treasures) and "treasure ships" (transport ships that carry gold from the Spanish Main back to Europe). If a warship gets defeated, it should optimally not result in a plunder unit. Only if a treasure ship gets defeated, it should turn into a plunder ("treasure"). And even better: only a loaded treasure ship should turn into plunder, not an empty one... But I guess that would be asking for too much...
3. This one is not related to enslavement, but rather to flag units in general. Does anyone know what will happen to a flag unit which is currently loaded in a transport ship, if that transport ship gets sunk/destroyed in combat? Will the flag unit survive and remain on that sea tile to be picked up again, or will it go down with the ship? I know that, if a flag unit is "captured" by a land unit and that land unit later gets killed in combat, the flag unit survives and can be picked up by the victor. Would be nice, if something like that is also possible with sea battles.

1. I don’t know any way change the ratio.
2. Ideally I would swap ‘plunder’ for a way to capture the ship. It’s the best I can do with what’s available. The enslave attribute only applies to the enslaver. The enemy unit has nothing to do with the result from enslave. The only way you can replace like for like is by attacking a land unit that has no combat stats.
3. Good question, I don’t have an answer.

Do you mean that these "goods" can be traded via the F4 screen (like workers)? How is this possible? I didn't see anything special in the settings of the worker unit, so I always assumed the "tradebility" of workers was hard-coded in the exe?!

4. Goods, plunder and gold are marked as ‘hidden nationality’ so can be exchanged without war. I’ve never traded workers before.

The second unit in the units list in the .biq file is the tradeable one, IIRC. Stupid hardcoding, yes, but that's how it works.

5. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where can I find out more about this IIRC code?

The plunder unit is a mobile naval unit marked as a flag unit with hit points and a defence value. It sails to port and is treated on land as though it was an immobile land flag unit. If you capture it (pick it up) with a land unit, that land unit can still enter transports and displays no abnormal behaviour. It works, I can’t tell you how. I don’t know much about coding but I know a lot about trial and error.

 

[Takhisis]

5. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where can I find out more about this IIRC code?

Hmmmm. Off the top of my head, to trade a unit 1) you need it to be in your capital; 2) it has to be the second unit in the list of units in the .biq IIRC (I don't remember which thread it was) and 3) I'm not sure you can trade sea units -there's no harm in trying, after all, eventually it was found that you can preplace roads on sea tiles to extract strategic resources and you can also preplace cities on sea tiles.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

The new units are supposed to be captured like artillery in vanilla civ. The Gold and Plunder units are working well but I’ve now got a problem with goods and artillery. The artillery is being destroyed instead of being captured and goods aren’t changing nations (which are also supposed to be captured).

I’ll try to include more information when I’ve got a solution.

 

[Nathiri]

Hmmmm. Off the top of my head, to trade a unit 1) you need it to be in your capital; 2) it has to be the second unit in the list of units in the .biq IIRC (I don't remember which thread it was) and 3) I'm not sure you can trade sea units -there's no harm in trying, after all, eventually it was found that you can preplace roads on sea tiles to extract strategic resources and you can also preplace cities on sea tiles.

Isnt the captured unit the one that is tradeable (General Settings tab)?

 

[Oni Ryuu]

If it has no attack or defence value, is a land unit and doesn’t cost a citizen; the unit should be transferable (captured).

 

[Oni Ryuu]

To answer an earlier question; Goods, Plunder and Gold will go down with a sinking ship.

I’m still having a problem with the goods units. If their nationless (needed to be tradable) they allow you to occupy the same tile. If they have a nation they are destroyed when you enter the tile.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

The goods need to have a nation but they can be captured with nationless units. So the recipient needs a nationless unit to initiate the handover. Goods units need to be set to accessible by all nations. You can then remove them from the build menu by making them need an un-acquirable resource. An un-acquirable resource is done by having a strategic resource that doesn’t have a terrain type to generate on. I used the same un-acquirable resource that I used to remove railroad.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

It turns out that you can immobilise a plunder unit, it’ll just need to be collected with an offensive land unit from within a naval transport.

 

[r16]

a good example should be the Twilight of Byzantium scenario where the Genoans and Venetians have treasure producing buildings in many Aegean islands . There will be a convoy , you attack them and sink the escorts one way or the other . The final ship will be the loaded one . Let's say it has 2 "Red" units , laden with treasure and one normal units . When you capture that ship you gain all 3 units and the ship , all one level below veteran status . If veterans have 4 bars at full health , the ship and land units will join you with 3 bars . Send the 2 reds to the capital for the monetary gain and they are all ready to fight . Playing Ottomans , ı generally have no need to build ships , capturing them from the AI , and ı particularly prize the Venetian galleys or whatever . Being strong on their own , they tend to gain even more ships for me .

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Hi r16
How do you capture an enemy ship especially with its contents? If it has health points it’s not transferable.
I’m going to look into Twilight of Byzantium to see what you’re talking about. I’m hoping you’ve got some modding tricks to show me.

 

[r16]

to capture a ship at sea , barring new developments , it has to be loaded with a treasure unit by a different player or the AI . ı believe this is the "flag" mentioned by other posters . When you defeat it in ordinary ship to ship combat , instead of sinking, it and everything inside becomes yours . Can't say what would happen if there was a King unit , or leader was onboard .


was always a player , just barely attempting to mod . Actually was planning to use this concept widely to allow more units available to a given player . Like the Age of Conquest scenario that arrives with the Conquest , where you have to regularly send treasures to mainland . Say , you are playing the Dutch and capture a Spanish ship with Conquistadors on board . Units that you can't normally build , but still use as your own .

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Thanks for the info. I’ll get some tests done.

 

[Virote_Considon]

The second unit in the units list in the .biq file is the tradeable one, IIRC. Stupid hardcoding, yes, but that's how it works.

Isnt the captured unit the one that is tradeable (General Settings tab)?

Nathiri is right - it is the Captured Unit which is tradeable, not the second unit in the list.

If it has no attack or defence value, is a land unit and doesn’t cost a citizen; the unit should be transferable (captured).

To answer an earlier question; Goods, Plunder and Gold will go down with a sinking ship.

I’m still having a problem with the goods units. If their nationless (needed to be tradable) they allow you to occupy the same tile. If they have a nation they are destroyed when you enter the tile.

The problem here is that Hidden Nationality stops you from being able to capture them unless they're controlled by the Barbarian faction - your units will simply pass over them if they have 0 DEF.

What you want to do is make it so that they require a resource which is unavailable in the game, and make them available to all civs.

You won't be able to trade them in peacetime, but they can at least be captured.