MOD: Age of Pirates (BETA 5)

[Atahualpa]

​

Some time ago I did a mod for Conquests 1.22 and meanwhile I think it has matured quite a bit. Still, I hope more people would try it out and submit feedback. It's BETA 5 currently and I invested quite some time in it.

It can be downloaded directly from civfanatics, because thunderfall was so nice to give me FTP access: Age of Pirates (9.3MB) - this is referred to as BETA1, since it is the first release. I will try to make further updates incremental as to save bandwidth.
UPDATE 7 - BETA 5
BETA 5 is available!
This update weighs around 1.6MB and includes all previous updates. You only need to download BETA 1 and overwrite the files with those in BETA 5 here. It's very easy, just check to use folder names when extracting and point to the same folder that you extracted BETA 1 to. Let me know if you are having problems.

Also if you have new ideas.. just post.

Have a look at it and tell me what you think!
There is a small disclaimer that tells I am not responsible for any damages and such.. I don't know if this is still common and I just wanted to be on the safe side, cause I can't afford being sued or such - should it ever come so far - which I honestly do not believe and if I believed it would happen, I'd have not released it.

Anyway, here is the feature list:
MOTIVATION AND IDEA:
The motivation of this mod mostly came from Burroman's pirate scenario. I wanted to convert this into a full mod, that has it's own atmosphere and starting from BETA 5 I think it's getting better than ever. There were lots of custom graphics added and the playstyle is different but still fun from what you know from vanilla C3C.
The ideas of this mod were to emphasize naval combat and create a world with 2 different kinds of civilizations, one that are technology-wise backwards, have lots of gold and mostly get their strength through numbers and the other which are more advanced have little gold and get their strength through clever tactics and the use of strategy.
As for the gold part, the game works quite well and the native civilizations have lots of gold, which they don't need, whereas the pirates need gold for about everything.
The combat part is still being finetuned, but I think BETA 5 has come to a point where it's interesting to play. The pirates amphibious capabilities make for interesting tactics and quick takeovers of cities. The whole mod is quite offense oriented, defense is possible, but comes at a price. Especially for the natives it will be difficult to hold costal cities against pirates, but in turn for the pirates it will be difficult to capture those cities further inward, where their ships cannot reach and the element of surprise is not with them.
Who will win this struggle?

FEATURES (representing BETA 5):

• 2 different kinds of Civilizations: Pirates (English, Spanish, French, Dutsch and Portugese) & Natives/Tribal (Aztecs, Iroquois, Incas and Maya)
• Reworked Units, Buildings and Technology Tree
• Pirates and Natives have seperate technology trees (7 advances for natives, 15 advances for pirates), units and buildings
• Sea & Ocean need 2 Movepoints except for those ships that ignore it
• Difficult and costly to maintain Pirate Happiness with city improvements
• Chance for rioting has been increased to 50%
• Additional luxury resources: Sugar & Tobacco
• There are no strategic resources
• Unit generating Buildings for the Pirates: Dock: generates a Sloop all 5 turns, Shipyard generates a Brig all 5 turns, Buccaneer's Home: generates a Buccaneer all 5 turns
• Limited Road Movement to only 2 tiles to make ship transportation and archipelago maps more attractive
• Raised Town to Size 8, City is still 12, Metropolis is not available
• Town has a +10% defense modifier, City +25%
• The scenario is limited to 284 turns (1492-1776) and would end when normally you'd have reached 1470
• Plague has been enabled to start somewhere between 1550 and 1600 and will last for 5 turns with low strength

Units:
Tribal:

• All tribal units (except for the canoe) have a HP-Bonus of +1
• Tribal Civilizations do not have Barracks
• Scout (0/0/2/10) treats all terrain as roads
• Warrior (1/1/2/10) does not require support, enslaves to Worker
• Brave (2/2/2/20) enslaves to Warrior, can be drafted
• Chieftain (3/3/2/40) enslaves to Brave

• The only ship of tribal civs is the canoe which only allows for limited short distance moves between islands (it can only move 1 in sea and ocean squares, besides the fact that it sinks there). It is also very weak and should be easily beaten by any pirate ship - if they ever encounter it!
• Canoe (1/1/3/10) -1 HP, can transport 2 units, sinks in sea and ocean, invisible, can see other canoes, does not require support

Pirates:

• All Pirate units except for the Musketeer have amphibious assault capabilities
• The Musketeer has the best defense, yet is the most expensive to encourage more offensive play
• Pirates have their own settler with 1 defense and which only requires 1 population
• Thief (3/1/1/40) can pick Targets when attacking a stack (except for Thief & Raider), upgrades to Raider
• Raider (4/2/1/50) can pick Targets when attacking a stack (except for Thief & Raider)
• Explorer (1/1/1/10) upgrades to Buccaneer
• Buccaneer (4/2/1/25) - created by Buccaneer's Home Building every 5 turns, upgrades to Pirate, does not require maintenance
• Musketeer (1/4/1/60)
• Pirate (5/2/1/35)
• Pirate Captain (6/3/1/45)
• Cannon (0/0/1/30) B/R/F (5/1/2) lethal sea bombardment

• All pirate ships can transport at least one unit
• The Ship of the Line is the only ship that has LETHAL LAND bombardment, the Frigate only has letal sea bombardment
• Movement points are given AFTER seafaring bonus
• Galley (1/1/4/10) transports 1, upgrades to Sloop
• Sloop (2/1/5/20) transports 1, B/R/F: 1/1/1, ignores movecosts only in sea, upgrades to Brig
• Brig (3/2/5/30) transports 1, B/R/F: 2/1/2, ignores movecosts in both sea & ocean, upgrades to Frigate
• Barque (2/2/4/40) transports 4, ignores movecosts in both sea & ocean
• Privateer (4/2/7/40) transports 1, hidden nationality, B/R/F: 4/1/2, ignores movecosts in both sea & ocean, starts golden age, enslaves to Dark Sloop
• Galleon (3/3/6/60) transports 6, ignores movecosts in both sea & ocean
• Frigate (5/3/7/50) transports 1, B/R/F: 4/1/2, ignores movecosts in both sea & ocean, lethal sea bombardment
• Ship of the Line (6/4/6/60) transports 1, B/R/F: 4/1/3, ignores movecosts in both sea & ocean, lethal sea & land bombardment
• Dark Sloop (2/1/5/20) B/R/F:1/1/1, not buildable, hidden nationality, can be refitted to a Privateer

Buildings:
Tribal:

• Sacrificial Altar +2 Happiness no Maintenance +2 Culture
• Temple: +2 Happiness +1 Maintenance +3 Culture
• Sun Temple: +4 Happiness +1 Maintenance +4 Culture
• Grain Storage: no Maintenance, Doubles City Growth
• Court: no Maintenance, reduces Corruption
• Water System: +1 Maintenance, enables Size 2 City

Pirates:

• Sword Smith: +2 Maintenance, produces veteran ground units
• Grog Distillery: +1 Maintenance, doubles city growth rate
• Bar: +1 Happiness +2 Maintenance +1 Culture +1 Pollution
• Inn: +1 Happiness +3 Maintenance +2 Culture +2 Pollution, requires Sugar
• Brothel: +1 Happiness +4 Maintenance +3 Culture +2 Pollution
• Palisade: +25% Defense +1 Maintenance
• Walls: +25% Defense +2 Maintenance, turns one pirate unhappy, requires Palisade
• Pirate Stash: +1 Maintenance +50% Tax Output
• Casino: +2 Maintenance +50% Tax Output
• Bucaneer's Home: +2 Maintenance, produces a Buccaneer every 5 turns
• Harbor: +1 Maintenance, +1 culture, produces veteran ships, allows water trade, increases food and shields in water
• Dock: +1 Maintenance, produces a Sloop every 5 turns, requires a Harbor
• Shipyard: +2 Maintenance, produces a Brig every 5 turns, requires a Harbor
• Coastal Fortress: +1 Maintenance, bombards ships with 6 and gives defense of 6 against naval bombardment
• Gallows: +2 Maintenance, reduces corruption, turns two people unhappy
• Bath: +2 Maintenance, reduces building pollution, turns two pirates unhappy, allows city to grow to size 12
• A fully equipped Pirate Town requires 28 Gold for maintenance, 9 Gold solely for the happiness and culture buildings - a Pirate's Life is expensive

Governments:

• Anarchy: Default as well as transition type, in the first turn you'll be asked what you'd like to switch to
• Pirate Anarchy: Communal Corruption, 2 free units per town, 4 per city, 1 gold per unit, paid labor, no war weariness and the standard tile penalty, no military police, 2 draft limit
• Tribal Council: Nuisance Corruption, 3 free units per town, 6 per city, 1 gold per unit, forced labor, high war weariness, fast workers, 2 units military police, 1 draft limit

CREDITS & SPECIAL THANKS:

• Burroman (Apolyton) for ideas, lots of feedback and the patch for the spanish version
• El mencey (Apolyton) for the map of the carribeans.
• aaglo (CFC) for the Sloop and Dark Sloop (Corsair Ships), the Pirate Frigate and the Privateer (Black Pearl)
• Kinboat (CFC) for the Pirate Captain (Industrial Swordsman)
• Smoking Mirror (CFC) for the Pirate
• Everyone who made Pediaicons and Sounds!!
• Ukas (CFC) for the Brothel, the Brewery (Bar, Grog Distillery), the Inn, the Sewers, the Gallows and the Bath. WOW!
• Drift (CFC) for the Palisade and the tower of skulls (Pirate stash)
• Nahuixtelotzin (CFC) for the sun pyramid
• embryodead (CFC) for the medieval building (Buccaneer's Home)
• Everyone that I forgot now and contributed in one way or the other! Send an email to atagod at gmx dot at or PM me on the forums (nick: Atahualpa) if I forgot about you.

Thanks to all that tested and submited feedback (ordered by name and site), so far:
Apolyton:
Bragelonne, Erebo, Gerar Dean, Harry, jasev, Kelzad, pepo_kactus, Niessuh, Wernazuma III
CFC:
Aya, Crash757

edit6: beta 5 added

 

[Atahualpa]

Please don't be confused by the low post count, I am just lurking on these forums. At Apolyton I got some 3000+

Here is the thread on ACS: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130209

 

[Aya]

Okay. Just downloaded it. I'll make some initial comments based on looking through the BIQ in the Civ3QEdit program before I actually try it.

1. Packaging

ZIP file is good enough. Much preferred to custom-installers which write weird and wacky files all over the place (e.g. Rhye's of Civilization which puts files into the root Civ3 directory). Probably best not to include a file called "readme.txt" in the root of the archive. If everyone did that, they would get clobbered on extraction. Better to only have the BIQ in the root of the archive, and put all other files in the subdirectory with Art and Text.

2. Citizen occupations

I guess Policemen are okay for the time period, but were there really Civil Engineers at that time? If so, they were probably called something else.

3. Civilizations

Seems okay, but Iroquois and Portugal colors are identical.

4. Techs

Do all the techs really need to be prefixed with "Tribal" or "Pirate"? Probably only necessary if the suffixes are identical.

5. Flavors

Good to see people using flavors.

6. Buildings

Could use some new graphics for these. I've not visited many brothels that looks like cathedrals.

7. Resources

Not tried a mod before with no strategic resources. I'll see how it plays in-game.

Everything else looks okay for now.

 

[Atahualpa]

The Civil Engineer, Policemen and the scientists (Pirates and Scienctists?) are not available in the game. Tribal Glory is a technology that will never be reached within the scope of the scenario.

That color thing is definately an overlook. Thx for pointing out!
About the techs, well no, it doesn't need to, I don't know why I did it. If it is a bummer to the atmosphere I'll remove the prefixes.
And I'll put the readme.txt in the age of pirates folder in the next release.

Buildings graphics, yes, I didn't care about them. The amount of work that went into this mod probably goes into the 30-40 hours region anyway. Probably for the final release, if someone helps me bringing the resources together. Skimming through the forum here is surely delightful because of all the nice work, but at the same time very time consuming and frustrating to find exactly what you need. Don't know how much hours I spent alone in the Unit Graphics forum searching for units and thanks a lot to all the people there!!!

About strategic resources: I thought this mod would offer other challenges and I didn't felt the need to include the hunt for iron or saltpeter. Though I will think about saltpeter for the musketeer, to make him harder to get and press on making this mod even more offense oriented.


Btw, my biggest worry is corruption and I don't know how the Pirate Anarchy government type will handle it. I thought about a Courthouse for Pirates, but I think it will come at a Happiness penalty. Pirates don't like courts

 

[Atahualpa]

Btw, good news the mod will soon be downloadable from CivFanatics as Thunderfall gave me FTP upload access
As soon as he sends me the link I will pass it to you.

edit: different smiley codes here

 

[Atahualpa]

updated the download link, it's available from CFC now! I am hoping for more comments. I will also make some screenshots later this day.

 

[Atahualpa]

the initial feedback is... overwhelming!

Aya, have you played it a bit already?

 

[Silica_Pathways]

Dude, your mod has absolute lack of... MAP! Imho, it's pretty stupid to play pirate mod on random map. Just my thoughts, though

 

[Atahualpa]

Small map added, version number is now BETA 2.

 

[Atahualpa]

Increased to BETA 3, that should be fine after BETA 2 was quite a mess. I apologize!

 

[Atahualpa]

As for future updates I have this TODO list:

TODO:
- Replace modified random map with one of the carribean (in the works!)
- Full translation to spanish (once finished; there is a patch from Burroman that I'll continue to maintain)
- Pirate city graphics
- Custom building graphics
- Custom advances graphics
- Balancing
- A more interesting technology tree for tribal civs


Maybe someone could help me with some graphics? I think the city graphics would be top priority and then I'll go searching for building graphics so that the brothel no longer looks like the cathedral. Even though I like the irony!

 

[Wolfwood]

Is there something in this mod that makes it unusable under Conquests patch 1.15? I would not want to d/l it only to find out that it doesn't work...

 

[Atahualpa]

I am sorry, I cannot say
I deleted my dual install a while ago so I cannot test it either. I also cannot tell from the list of changes alone.

If you want to try it out nevertheless, I would be grateful, but since you have reason not to spend your time with it, I'd suggest you don't try it until someone else can confirm that it works.

I am sorry.

 

[Atahualpa]

Beta 4:
! Fixed background color for large pirate civilopedia picture
+ Added lots of new building graphics, to better fit within the scenario
+ Added map of the carribean as own scenario (Piratas de caribe.biq)
+ Added new building: Gallows for the pirate that reduce corruption but increase unhappiness
+ Added new building: Bath for the pirates which allows them to advance to size 2 cities
~ Changed the name of some buildings
~ Changed maintenance costs for pirate buildings (raised many of them)
~ Changed Harbor: no longer increases trade in water, decreased build cost
~ Changed Canoe: invisible as well as +1 attack and other things
~ Changed turn penalty for hurry sacrifice and draft to 10 turns each
~ Changed costs for tribal scientific advancements (slightly raised)
~ Changed Gunpowder: cost increased
~ Changed Pirate Anarchy: 2 free units per town, 3 per city
~ Changed Buccaneer, Sloop and Brig now require support
- Removed the +1 HP bonus that was set on the Musketeer for no obvious reason
- Removed stealth attack from the Privateer
- Removed the ability for pirates to draft

 

[Atahualpa]

BETA 5:
! Fixed pirate technology tree picture (plundering requires sailing)
+ Added a science rate cap of 60% for natives and 70% for pirates
+ Added custom city names for the pirates
+ Added settler for pirate with defense and only requires 1 pop
~ Changed Pirate Anarchy: no military police limit
~ Changed Chieftain: lowered attack from 4 to 3
~ Changed Brave: now requires support
~ Changed Canoe: now does not requires support
~ Changed rioting chance: increased from 20% to 50%
~ Changed advances costs slightly for some of the initial advances for pirates
~ Changed free units for Pirate Anarchy from 3 to 4 per city
~ Changed native buildings: reduced maintenance
~ Changed elite experience: back to 5

download link in the first post.

 

[lifeaquatic]

Ewwww...terrain mod.

 

[Atahualpa]

...is not part of this mod
I just replaced the default c3c terrain with snoopys.

Btw, the screenshots are a bit out of date. The city graphics for the pirates have changed to something more pirate like. I will update them when I find some time.