Hidden Nationality units

[stachnie]

I have an idea how to replace units like Pirate ships, Barbary Corsairs, Privateers etc. As far as I know, there is a very long gap between Privateers and more advanced pirate ships (I have found such ships in the Sevopedia but I do not know if they may be built). This is historically accurate but the history could be different.

IMVHO there could be some kind of a special unit (e.g. a Pirate) which could be attached to any war ship (including Caravels). It would cause e.g. 20% strength penalty but the unit would be Hidden Nationality, could attack without triggering war etc. It should be available under any government and it should be relatively expensive but some civics like Monarchy or Feudalism could give a high bonus (like 300%) to their production. In order to limit the number of such units, they could be produced in a city with some Special Wonder (it should have some penalties like -15 to local stability everywhere and some Crime). These units could upgrade to more expensive but perhaps a bit improved versions.

Similar units (with a proper Small Wonder) could be produced for land units. They may be National units and perhaps one could build e.g. 15 of them.


S.

 

[DRJ]

I like the idea. I am quite sure that there are some templates of similar unit-layouts and buildings to copy from and then adjust so it could be done without much coding.

 

[strategyonly]

I like the idea. I am quite sure that there are some templates of similar unit-layouts and buildings to copy from and then adjust so it could be done without much coding.

I agree also, waaaay too much space in-between ships and str, especially in the Industrial Era and before.

 

[Thunderbrd]

It could cut down on our unit count too.

I like it. Privateer Captains could be simply quite expensive to build, attach to boats (lead them) to provide said benefits (which we may need a tag or two for) and require a naval crime generating building set - expanding on Pirate Cove I'd imagine.

It makes more sense really. BUT, a few concerns:
1) As always - AI. There's probably quite a bit of an issue here in that this may require a new special AI type for those units and some motivation built into the training priorities to build them. In my opinion, the Flavor settings of the Leaders should vary how motivated they are to build these units as its a playstyle issue that would determine how much this kind of thing would be relied upon. We may not have all the necessary flavors for this yet but some plans to expand on this could help there.

2) Do we allow modern+ naval units to become privateers? Would a privateer really be able to commandeer a Battleship?

3) Pirate Captains usually collect a fleet of captured ships around them, not just one ship. So I'd urge an adjustment to the naval capture mechanism (which I think is done in python) to react to a capture by any Privateer tagged boat - may need a new promo tag to drive this - by giving the newly captured vessel the Privateer promo as well. And again, some AI may be necessary to get these fleets working together in some harmony - efforts to use S&D and, if its currently possible with the current naval capture mechanism, to work on developing improved abilities to capture other vessels, and to motivate them a bit more to develop promos that gain them gold, research, espionage from combat victories and more that would befit them as pirates.

 

[stachnie]

2) Do we allow modern+ naval units to become privateers? Would a privateer really be able to commandeer a Battleship?

Well... perhaps pirate Battleship fleet would be too strong, especially when facing wooden ships Is there any easy way to make such commander able to attach to Destroyer (maybe also Submarine) but unable to attach to Battleship?

S.

 

[Koshling]

It could cut down on our unit count too.

I like it. Privateer Captains could be simply quite expensive to build, attach to boats (lead them) to provide said benefits (which we may need a tag or two for) and require a naval crime generating building set - expanding on Pirate Cove I'd imagine.

It makes more sense really. BUT, a few concerns:
1) As always - AI. There's probably quite a bit of an issue here in that this may require a new special AI type for those units and some motivation built into the training priorities to build them. In my opinion, the Flavor settings of the Leaders should vary how motivated they are to build these units as its a playstyle issue that would determine how much this kind of thing would be relied upon. We may not have all the necessary flavors for this yet but some plans to expand on this could help there.

2) Do we allow modern+ naval units to become privateers? Would a privateer really be able to commandeer a Battleship?

3) Pirate Captains usually collect a fleet of captured ships around them, not just one ship. So I'd urge an adjustment to the naval capture mechanism (which I think is done in python) to react to a capture by any Privateer tagged boat - may need a new promo tag to drive this - by giving the newly captured vessel the Privateer promo as well. And again, some AI may be necessary to get these fleets working together in some harmony - efforts to use S&D and, if its currently possible with the current naval capture mechanism, to work on developing improved abilities to capture other vessels, and to motivate them a bit more to develop promos that gain them gold, research, espionage from combat victories and more that would befit them as pirates.

AI for this probably wouldn't be too hard. Needs a new AI for the 'commander unit' but that would be pretty simple since its just trying to attach to a ship and that's its ONLY goal. It would itself need to be a water-unit so it could get to them (otherwise we'd have to write cooperative AI so that they came to it, which would be harder). Once it attaches it just converts the unit AI of the unit it attaches to, to the one we use for pirates now.

 

[DRJ]

It could cut down on our unit count too.

I like it. Privateer Captains could be simply quite expensive to build, attach to boats (lead them) to provide said benefits (which we may need a tag or two for) and require a naval crime generating building set - expanding on Pirate Cove I'd imagine.

It makes more sense really. BUT, a few concerns:
1) As always - AI. There's probably quite a bit of an issue here in that this may require a new special AI type for those units and some motivation built into the training priorities to build them. In my opinion, the Flavor settings of the Leaders should vary how motivated they are to build these units as its a playstyle issue that would determine how much this kind of thing would be relied upon. We may not have all the necessary flavors for this yet but some plans to expand on this could help there.

Couldn't the "Pirate Captains" use the same AI logic that is in place when AI decides to attach a Great General to a special unit? All we would need to do is to not allow the modified GG/Pirate Captain to become a great Commander and also a tag is needed that the Pirate Captain can only be attached to naval units, right? EDIT: And as Koshling just wrote a the Pirate Captain itself would be a water unit with some self defense (maybe as a war canoe does or something, think of a jollyboat. He could have the captain Ahab promotion against whales though so it would be a gamble to send him onto deep seas later )

Also there might a mechanism be needed to "build" a great person in a city (like a modified great general) but I don't know if that is already in place somewhere in late game (like building a great farmer). Are there possibilities to "build" like say celebreties without creating buildings, just selecting them in queue from the units list (thinking of some casted clone-boybands or something)

2) Do we allow modern+ naval units to become privateers? Would a privateer really be able to commandeer a Battleship?

As the suggestion was made by OP he wanted them -20% strnegth so yes, less discipline, less supplies... But I think some civics should disable the effect of the rogue ship, for example while being in a democracy with a justice system it would be inactive. Is it possible to make promotions inactive with certain civics? I don't want them to be deleted from the unit just not having effects while using certain civics.

3) Pirate Captains usually collect a fleet of captured ships around them, not just one ship. So I'd urge an adjustment to the naval capture mechanism (which I think is done in python) to react to a capture by any Privateer tagged boat - may need a new promo tag to drive this - by giving the newly captured vessel the Privateer promo as well. And again, some AI may be necessary to get these fleets working together in some harmony - efforts to use S&D and, if its currently possible with the current naval capture mechanism, to work on developing improved abilities to capture other vessels, and to motivate them a bit more to develop promos that gain them gold, research, espionage from combat victories and more that would befit them as pirates.

100% agree The max plunder should be 20 max in ancient, 200 in ancient/classical
2000 later, maybe 20000 in transhuman. As you said, the plunder should consist of gold, science as well as espionage mixed by chance (or even by the production focus of the nearest town of the ship you just raided).
Example: lets say your attached Pirate Captains ship raids a galley in ancient times receiving like 50 gold, 27 science and 13 espionage
(which would be 90 total of a max 200 and thus not so good -- the longer you haven't raided a certain nation the better the effect would be, so pillaging the same nation can't be very effective over a long time as they realize they would go broke they now would be prevented of that by just transporting less in their ships)

Also you could think of having the chance to get a resource for some turns!
So in this case the Pirate Captains ship would raid like 5 turns worth of copper (Eternity Speed that would be).
Not really enough to build a national copper smelter but you could at least start on working on it (if you lacked the resource) and even be lucky to finish it in time by using some slaves to speed it up.

Yeah slaves, another "good" that could be gained by a raid, so you could decide if you want to take the ship as a prize or as a slave. Slaves could be takesn only on ships with a transport capacity or maybe even teleported to nearest city (I don`t like it but it would be easier for AI)...