Forts

[Kailric]

Thanks

One question: how do I eliminate the black background in GIMP?

Select the "Fuzzy Select Tool", make sure Threshold is set to 0, then click on the black and when its selected hit delete.

Threshold determines how close other colors have to be in order to be selected by the Fuzzy Select Tool, the higher the more colors that gets selected.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

Select the "Fuzzy Select Tool", make sure Threshold is set to 0, then click on the black and when its selected hit delete.

Threshold determines how close other colors have to be in order to be selected by the Fuzzy Select Tool, the higher the more colors that gets selected.

Thanks!

 

[Kailric]

Have another picture update. You just never know what you will end up having to do when you start a mod like this. I've had to add a lot of little extras to make Forts a fun, playable experience.

I am getting close to ready to upload a test version. In my play testing forts add a lot of extra strategy and coolness. Forts are good for when there are bonus resources in bad locations or dangerous locations that you just would not want to start a settlement. They are also good for pre-settlement spots when you want to defend the spot for a colony later but don't have the resources to defend a colony.

Fort Officers will have two new commands:

Assign Home Settlement: After a fort is built you will get the chance to assign it a Home Settlement. This is the Settlement the fort gets is resources from in order to produce goods from its surrounding territory.


Assign Resources to Produce: If a fort has several resources it can gather but not enough cargo space you can use this command to select which resouces to gather each turn. That way if you need more Furs than Lumber you can choose to collect Furs.


Wagon trains can be assigned to any city that is supporting a Fort. It will then move from fort to fort gathering the goods that have the highest amount in total yield first.

Lumber and Furs: Forests and Light Forest both are considered to be Bonus resources. Furs where the hottest item back in the Pioneer days and most forts where built for that very reason, to gather furs. So with that in mind with a Lodge built in a forest you will be able to gather both lumber and furs.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Forts are good for when there are bonus resources in bad locations or dangerous locations that you just would not want to start a settlement. They are also good for pre-settlement spots when you want to defend the spot for a colony later but don't have the resources to defend a colony.

Exactly!

And what if to make a Fort screen similar to the City screen? Of course, without administrative buildings. Then in the Fort could be build a Barrack (training of soldiers) or Hospital (treatment of wounded), or here we could organize a number of simplies productions. For example, the animal hides processing by type:

 

[Kailric]

Exactly!

And what if to make a Fort screen similar to the City screen? Of course, without administrative buildings. Then in the Fort could be build a Barrack (training of soldiers) or Hospital (treatment of wounded), or here we could organize a number of simplies productions. For example, the animal hides processing by type:

Yeah, I thought about the Fort Screen. That sounds cool but would take a lot of python coding and I don't know much about that atm. So much to code, so little time

 

[Kailric]

I posted an upload on the main page. Please check it out and test Forts for me. Thanks.

 

[TC01]

The first thing I notice is that there does not appear to be a way for my Veteran to claim the fort- I click on the Change Profession button but nothing happens. See attached screenshot for the situation.

 

[Kailric]

The first thing I notice is that there does not appear to be a way for my Veteran to claim the fort- I click on the Change Profession button but nothing happens. See attached screenshot for the situation.

Hmm, prolly cause of the indian village cutting off the route to the city. I'll check into that, but move the fort where the route path does not go through an indian village.

Edit: Yeah, I just tested that situation and it is the Indian Village thats causeing this. I think forts next to Indian villages is a good idea but it should strain the relationship with the indians.

Edit: Ok, I seemed to have fixed that. You can now build beside Indian Villages and the Fort will work, there was a couple bugs there that prevented that.

 

[Kailric]

Just uploaded version 0.03.

Fixed one bug where if your Fort's home city only had 2 food the Fort would act like it was unsupported the next turn.

Also, a Fort's culture rate is now based on the Home City's Culture rate.

 

[TC01]

A few things:

I would write two "can't support" messages- one that says "This fort cannot be supported because it is not linked by roads to any colony", and another that says "This fort cannot be supported because you are not producing enough food". I found it a little confusing at first because my fort was connected- but then I realized I wasn't producing enough food.

What does the "Assign Resources to Produce" button do? If I click on it I get a "Fort has no resources available to produce" message, but my Fort is producing resources.

EDIT: I just read the first post again. But then perhaps this button shouldn't even appear unless the fort is producing too many goods?

Invisible native borders are overriding Fort borders. Is this supposed to happen?

 

[Kailric]

A few things:

I would write two "can't support" messages- one that says "This fort cannot be supported because it is not linked by roads to any colony", and another that says "This fort cannot be supported because you are not producing enough food". I found it a little confusing at first because my fort was connected- but then I realized I wasn't producing enough food.

What does the "Assign Resources to Produce" button do? If I click on it I get a "Fort has no resources available to produce" message, but my Fort is producing resources.

EDIT: I just read the first post again. But then perhaps this button shouldn't even appear unless the fort is producing too many goods?

Invisible native borders are overriding Fort borders. Is this supposed to happen?

Yeah, I actually confused myself one time wondering why the Fort was not connected. I will add the second message next update.

Well there must be a bug in the Assign Resources to Produce command. I updated the first page with a screenshot of this command in action. It doesn't matter how many goods your spot is working this command should always work.

I just checked it out there is a bug in the code so I'll look into this, k thanks.

I am still tweaking Culture and borders. A city does not produce culture unless ther are workers in the town hall. So I made forts where they do not produce culture unless the Home Settlement is produceing culture, so If an indian village is produceing culture with the current code you will have to produce more culture than the Indians and get the plot to 100% yours in order to take over their land or defeat the indians Any other suggestions?

EDIT: ok I found the bug on the Assign Resources to Produce command. I was still working on the code to that but forgot to finish it up so I'll do that this evening and post it in another update.

 

[Kailric]

K, I just uploaded the next version. I think I fixed the bug in the Assign Resources to Gather command. Also I added better text to the Select Home Settlement command for when there is no connections.

Also included is one more command for transports, "Return Home and Unload" as described on first post.

EDIT: I totally forgot about one other command:

Upgrade Fort: Your Transports (Ships or Wagons) can upgrade a fort to the next level. Simply deliver 100 lumber and 100 Muskets to the Fort and select this command. The Fort will become a Fortress with extra goods space in the Warehouse and doubleing the goods produced per turn.

 

[Kailric]

Some other ideas with this would be for other units to gain functionality when assigned to a fort. I want to do something with scouts cause after you have explored the whole map the scout proffession isn't of much use. So assigning them to forts could be an option but I am unsure of what exactly to do with them there. Maybe warn of impending Indian attacks?

Also, adding Cannons to forts could allow them to take shots at passing enemy Privateers or the like.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

Some other ideas with this would be for other units to gain functionality when assigned to a fort. I want to do something with scouts cause after you have explored the whole map the scout proffession isn't of much use. So assigning them to forts could be an option but I am unsure of what exactly to do with them there. Maybe warn of impending Indian attacks?

Also, adding Cannons to forts could allow them to take shots at passing enemy Privateers or the like.

How about a Scout in a fort giving a combat bonus to units inside the fort and/or units adjacent to the fort (representing that scouting the enemy forces, and therefore having more information about them, would give an advantage in battle)?

 

[Kailric]

How about a Scout in a fort giving a combat bonus to units inside the fort and/or units adjacent to the fort (representing that scouting the enemy forces, and therefore having more information about them, would give an advantage in battle)?

Yeah, thats a pretty neat Idea. They work with military formations on attack, defense, or while on the move. I am going to read up on some of the Colonial scouts like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, or Jim Bowie and see if I come up with any ideas.

 

[Kailric]

Well here is somethoughts I had while researching Scouts. They are Reconnaissance Units as we know, and they scout the terrain to find advantages, disadvantages, determine enemy size and movement and attempt to prevent suprise attacks and things of the like. The Game has defense Bonuses for Terrain so why not add a feature for Scouts in that they Reduce the defense bonus from Terrain that units are attacking into.

For instance if a Soldier in a Fort with a Scout also in the Fort attacks an enemy unit laying siege to the Fort the enemy unit does not gain his full Terrain defense bonus. This ability would also apply to Scouts anywhere on the map and in most combat situations while attacking.

This ability could be Automatic and applied during combat or it could be a new command for Scouts called "Recon" or simply "Scout" in which they attempt to scout the enemy Terrain (Not Cities or Forts though) if successful they reduce the Terrain Defense bonus if they fail they could be captured and possibly killed. This would work similar to the Cannon's ability to Siege a City.

Seasoned Scouts would reduce the Terrain defense bonus by a greater amount. If the "Scout" command is used they would also have a smaller chance of failing or being captured.

Multiple Scouts could decrease a Terrains bonus defense to zero and then or if attacking into the open such as Plains the Scout could give a small bonus to attack.

This ability or command would seemingly simulate what scouts do in actual military purposes.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

Well here is somethoughts I had while researching Scouts. They are Reconnaissance Units as we know, and they scout the terrain to find advantages, disadvantages, determine enemy size and movement and attempt to prevent suprise attacks and things of the like. The Game has defense Bonuses for Terrain so why not add a feature for Scouts in that they Reduce the defense bonus from Terrain that units are attacking into.

For instance if a Soldier in a Fort with a Scout also in the Fort attacks an enemy unit laying siege to the Fort the enemy unit does not gain his full Terrain defense bonus. This ability would also apply to Scouts anywhere on the map and in most combat situations while attacking.

This ability could be Automatic and applied during combat or it could be a new command for Scouts called "Recon" or simply "Scout" in which they attempt to scout the enemy Terrain (Not Cities or Forts though) if successful they reduce the Terrain Defense bonus if they fail they could be captured and possibly killed. This would work similar to the Cannon's ability to Siege a City.

Seasoned Scouts would reduce the Terrain defense bonus by a greater amount. If the "Scout" command is used they would also have a smaller chance of failing or being captured.

Multiple Scouts could decrease a Terrains bonus defense to zero and then or if attacking into the open such as Plains the Scout could give a small bonus to attack.

This ability or command would seemingly simulate what scouts do in actual military purposes.

I like that, though I think there should also be a bonus to defending units (increase the terrain defense bonus for them?).

 

[Willi_Tell]

For quite a while, I am following your discussions and feature development about Forts with great interest.

The ideas you have - and the progress you make - is amazing

Will the "Fort Feature" just be part of Westward Ho or will you also release it as a ModComp? (that would be easier to implement it into other mods, I assume...?)

 

[Kailric]

For quite a while, I am following your discussions and feature development about Forts with great interest.

The ideas you have - and the progress you make - is amazing

Will the "Fort Feature" just be part of Westward Ho or will you also release it as a ModComp? (that would be easier to implement it into other mods, I assume...?)

Poof ModComp Your wish is my command

Actually, I uploaded a version for testing a few days ago. Please feel free to test it out.

I like that, though I think there should also be a bonus to defending units (increase the terrain defense bonus for them?).

Yeah, that seems appropriate also. I guess if two armies have scouts they could very well just cancel each other out.

 

[Kailric]

Well right now I am working on adding the ability to use Cannons to Bombard forts like you can Colonies. And then I pretty much have to work out the AI to use Forts or the Player would have a great advantage over AI opponents, this would prolly take some time to do.

TC01 mentioned Fort Commanders having the ability to attack at range and so I was thinking maybe having a Fort Commander give your Cannons a new ability to like Autoattack passing enemys and damaging them. That way you could set up choke points that the enemy has to get through.

Also, maybe Fort Commanders can allow cannons to Bombard plots at range. This would either damage the Unit but not kill it or reduce the plots defense bonus.

Actually, I never liked how they implemented Cannons at all in the Vanilla game. I mean you can only bombard Cities. Then Cannons attack like Musket units. Cannons never charged the battlefield, they weakened enemy defences and provided cover fire.

Enemy units out in the open should recieve damage from Cannon Fire, especially when the terrain offeres no defence bonus. Any thoughts on this?