Pirate Nation and Pirate Raids [ACCEPTED]

[raystuttgart]

Pirates have often been discussed many times in many threads for Civ4Col modding.
And since Schmiddie already has some nice graphics here I thought we might give it a try again.

What I do suggest in this concept is however not a full blown playable Pirate Civ.
It is more of a mixture of existing implementations of "Wild Animals" / "Native Raids" / "Runaway Slaves" / "Pirate Ships".

I would like to minimize efforts for now to get an implementation going.
Maybe some day in the future this might be expanded though.

A) General Information:

Pirates will be implemented as a new Player (with an new Leader) but with very limitted functionality.
(Only a few Units, no Buildings, almost no Professions, no Diplomacy, ... at least for now. Thus much less effort is required.)

We will of course need to increase Max. Number of Player in DLL and adjust Maps so Pirates will be created properly.
(Done that already twice for Wild Animals and Archbishop and it is not as much effort as it sounds.)

• Pirates will always be at War with all European Colonial Nations.
• Pirates will always be at Peace with all Native Nations and technically also with Wild Animals.
• Existing DLL-Diplo Event "Pirate Ships" will be adjusted, so "Pirate Ships" (without Units) belong to Player Pirates.
• "Runaway Slaves / Petty Criminals / ..." will then also belong to Player Pirates but their behaviour will be the same as now (at least for the first step of implementing this concept)
  
• "Pirate Ships" (without Units) will still be spawned like now but less often
  
• The Feature "Pirate Nation / Pirate Raids" will be a GameOption like "Wild Animals".
• If GameOption "Pirate Nation / Pirate Raids" is deactived no "Pirate Ships" (without Units) will be spawned either
  
• It will also have a lot of XML modifiers for balancing. (e.g. earliest turn of "Pirate Nation" appearing)

B) Game Concept simplified:

Stage 1: Founding a Pirate City:

• After some game turns have passed a Pirate Ship with Pirate Land Units ("Pirate Settler", "Pirate Captain") will spawn on a Europe Ocean Plot.
• This Ship will then land its Units in a reasonable distance to European Colonies. (Landing on same Land Area)
• Once the Ship landed its Units it will go looking for European Ships and then act like the current Pirate Ships. (Using same AI)
• The "Pirate Settler" will found a Pirate City and the "Pirate Captain" will stay in the City to serve as its defender.
• "Pirate Settler" is basically the "Colonist Unit" of Pirates with Profession "Settler"
  
• All other Pirate Units are only Units (Profession "NONE") that can not join a city or be caught.

Stage 2: Starting Pirate Raids:

• This City will spawn "Pirate Bukaneers" that will start "Pirate Raids" similar to "Native Raids". (New AI "Pirate_Raid" - basically a Copy of AI "Native_Raid")
• Spawning of Pirate Bukaneers in Cities will be triggered by logic - since they neither grow nor have buildings.
  
• Major difference to "Native Raids" is, that you can easily identify them as Pirates and attack/destroy them before they reach your city.
• Also note that those "Pirate Bukanners" will be strong fighters.

Stage 3: Actual Pirate Raids and Effects:

The "Pirate Raid" events triggered by "Pirates Bukaneers" actually making it to your cities could be

• "Gold Stolen"
  
• "Building destroyed"
  
• "African Slave" / "Native Slave" becoming an "African Pirate" / "Native Pirate" (that will also attack you but not raid)
  
• ...

Basically quite similar to current "Native Raids".

Stage 4: Destroying Pirates and Pirate City

• For every "Pirate Ship" you destroy you will get money.
• For every "African Pirate" / "Native Pirate" (weak) you destroy you will get a little bit of money.
• For every "Pirate Bukaneer" (strong) you destroy you will get money.
• For every "Pirate Captain" (quite strong) you destroy (and thus his City, which he defends) wou will get even more money.
• Pirate Cities can not be captured. They will directly be razed.

Stage 5: Respawning and Deactivation of Feature

• The amount of Pirate City / Pirate Ship with Units that can exist at once will be configurable in XML. (Amout of max. Pirate Cities configurable in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml)
  
• When some time has passed slowly step by step further Pirate Ships (with Units) will be spawned. (Time between next spawning configurable in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml)
  
• After X times of destruction of Pirate Cities, those Pirate Ships with Units will not be spawned again. (Number of Destructions before "defeated" configurable in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml)
  
• Then the "Pirate Nation" will be defeated. (A Pop-up will inform you about it.)
• Once "Pirate Nation" is defeated, Pirate Ships without Units will also not be spawned again.

C) Graphics

• Pirate Ship -> we have it
• Pirate Captain -> one of Schmiddie's new graphics
• Pirate Bukaneer -> one of Schmiddie's new graphics
• African Pirate -> one of Schmiddie's new graphics
• Native Pirate -> one of Schmiddie's new graphics

D) AI concept:

• Well, this feature could easily be implemented to have "easier rules" for AI. (To prevent them from too much damage.)
  
• Otherwise I currently have no ideas how to prevent Pirates from further weakening AI.

------------------------------

Summary:

Basically the Player is intended to hunt down those Pirates and their Cities to avoid getting damaged.
Pirates will try to start raiding your cities but since they are easy to recognize they can be destroyed before they actually reach your Cities.
For doing so, the Player will get gold rewards.
Pirates will not spawn for ever, once enough Pirates Cities were destroyed, the Pirate Nation is dead.

Remarks:

It is definitely a feature that could damage you, if your Cities are not prepared.
Thus it adds some challenge of course. But it would be a GameOption.
You can also get rewards though for destroying Pirates.

This feature has a lot of potential to weaken AI if we are not careful.
Thus I would most likely only implement it if team and community are ok with "easier rules" for AI.
Otherwise I can not guarantee for anything.

Possible alternatives for easier rules for AI:
A) Effects of Pirate Raids minimal for AI + Pirates mostly spawning near to Human Player
B) Pirates not being allowed to enter CityRadius of other European AIs

------------------------------

Looking forward to feedback and suggestions.

Edit:
(Reminder to myself)

Spoiler :

The Player "Pirate Nation" can never technically be completely dead (taken out of the game) otherwise "Runaway"-Feature would not work anymore (if Runaways belong to "Pirtate Nations").
"Pirate Nations" will always need to be added to the Game (just like "Wild Animals").

The "Game Option" would thus simply be used to spawn / not spawn "Pirate Ships" (with or without Land Units).
The "defeated after X Pirate Cities" destroyed (if spawning limitted like that) would also only affect spawning logic.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
We will of course need to increase Max. Number of Player in DLL and adjust Maps so Pirates will be created properly.

Is the number of players not already limited to a max of 50 so that adding more players or more AI nations means crashing the game or losing Natives or Wild Animals?
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/wild-animals-not-spawned-with-41-ai.642455/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/max-number-of-players-info-to-modders.508827/

• Pirates will always be at War with all European Colonial Nations.

Thomas Morgan established himself on Jamaica and became an english Governour. LaFitte joined forces with Andrew Jackson and the US in the war of 1812 vs. the British Empire. So I do not like Pirates with settlements that are always at war with all European Colonial Nations.

• Pirates will always be at Peace with all Native Nations and technically also with Wild Animals.

Cpt. Hook will have your liver for preventing his revenge!

• The Feature "Pirate Nation / Pirate Raids" will be a GameOption like "Wild Animals".

Excluding each other? As far as I understand the Barbarian faction spawns wild animals in the first half of the game and Pirates in the second half of the game - so would that be split to 2 factions?

Stage 3: Actual Pirate Raids and Effects:

The "Pirate Raid" events triggered by "Pirates Bukaneers" actually making it to your cities could be

• "Gold Stolen"
  
• "Building destroyed"
  
• African Slave becoming an "African Pirate" (that will also attack you but not raid)
  
• ...

Basically quite similar to current "Native Raids".

And limited as them by having approbiate defences (e.g. the notorious 6000 gold stolen by a failed native raid, or a raid bypassing a fortress).

Stage 5: Respawning and Deactivation of Feature

• There will never be more than 1 Pirate City / Pirate Ship with Units at once.

Why? On a gigantic map a player might not even find the pirate city if e.g. player colonizes New England and the Pirate spawns in Brazil.
Not rather 1 possible Pirate City per difficulty level? Or does the pirate target the player only as not to disable AI colonial nations and therefore only 1 is needed?

• When some time has passed after the Pirate City was destroyed, the next Pirate Ship with Units will be spawned.
• After X times of destruction of Pirate Cities, those Pirate Ships with Units will not be spawned again.
• Then the "Pirate Nation" will be dead. (A Pop-up will inform you that "Pirate Nation" was defeated.)
• Once "Pirate Nation" is defeated, Pirate Ships without Units will also not be spawned again.

Why? Piracy was a thing through the entire timeline of american colonization and pirate ships should harass merchant shipping from the first successfull cargo to Europe to the end of the game.

Summary:

Basically the Player is intended to hunt down those Pirates and their Cities to avoid getting damaged.
Pirates will try to start raiding your cities but since they are easy to recognize they can be destroyed before they actually reach your Cities.
For doing so, the Player will get gold rewards.
Pirates will not spawn for ever, once enough Pirates Cities were destroyed, the Pirate Nation is dead.

Remarks:

It is definitely a feature that could damage you, if your Cities are not prepared.
Thus it adds some challenge of course. But it would be a GameOption.
You can also get rewards though for destroying Pirates.

This feature has a lot of potential to weaken AI if we are not careful.
Thus I would most likely only implement it if team and community are ok with "easier rules" for AI.
Otherwise I can not guarantee for anything.

Well then drop the "at war with all colonial nations". Create Pirates that would work together with at least some AI colonial nations. After all even Francis Drake was officially only a Pirate at first (before he became really successfull).

Possible alternatives for easier rules for AI:
A) Effects of Pirate Raids minimal for AI + Pirates mostly spawning near to Human Player
B) Pirates not being allowed to enter CityRadius of other European AIs

Or being able to make peace with AI nations.

 

[raystuttgart]

Is the number of players not already limited to a max of 50.

It is limitted, but we still can increase a bit (in this case by 1 )

I know that we currently have 49 (incl. all Natives, all European, all Kings, Archbishop and Wild Animals). I checked it in the source code before starting this thread.
I always wanted to stay below 50 in the past to reserve at least 1 for Pirates - thus never wanted to have more Native Nations as we already had in RaR..

And I am really quite sure that 50 is no problem yet.
(I trust the Civ4BTS modders that told me. They are really quite experienced modders.)

I was told by (I think) Nightinggale that 60 would also be possible.
And I trust him as well but I don't think we will get there anyways.

So I do not like Pirates with settlements that are always at war with all European Colonial Nations.

Well, currently I can simply not offer to make them a full blown Pirate Civ (with e.g. Diplomacy).
But the implementation of this concept would allow to be changed in the future.

Cpt. Hook will have your liver for preventing his revenge!

Well, he will get used to cuddling with the Wild Animals.

Excluding each other? As far as I understand the Barbarian faction spawns wild animals in the first half of the game and Pirates in the second half of the game - so would that be split to 2 factions?

Yes, Wild Animals and Pirates will become 2 separate Players.
This will e.g. allow to have Pirates be expanded in the future, allow Pirates to become "defeated" and will make a few other technical aspects easier.

And limited as them by having approbiate defences (e.g. the notorious 6000 gold stolen by a failed native raid, or a raid bypassing a fortress).

That will already be taken care of in "Native Raids" as well.
devolution has made a good suggestion and will probably implement it.

We will of course reuse that for "Pirate Raids" as well.
Thus the problem will not occur there either.

Why? On a gigantic map a player might not even find the pirate city if e.g. player colonizes New England and the Pirate spawns in Brazil.

Pirates will always spawn and settle on a land area where another European Colony is located. (In reasoable distance.)
But yes, it is possible that it will not be you. But at one point you should find them if another AI does not always destroy them first.

I wanted to prevent the feature to become too annoying.
Thus I wanted to limit the amount of Pirate Cities.

Technically it would of course also be possible to not have a hard limit to 1 Pirate City / Pirate Ship with Land Units.
(I am not sure however if our Players would like that.)

I am open for both ways: Limitted (1 or maybe 5) or Unlimitted Pirate Cities
(Could also be configurable in an XML setting in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.)

Or does the pirate target the player only as not to disable AI colonial nations and therefore only 1 is needed?

Possible, if community agrees to "easier rules for AI".

Why? Piracy was a thing through the entire timeline of american colonization and pirate ships should harass merchant shipping from the first successfull cargo to Europe to the end of the game.

I could also create the feature in a way that Pirates will never be defeated and could always respawn.
Some people might find them annoying though in endgame.

I am open for both ways: "defeated after X Pirate Cities destroyed" or "always respawning".
(Could also be configurable in an XML setting in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.)

Well then drop the "at war with all colonial nations".
Create Pirates that would work together with at least some AI colonial nations.
Or being able to make peace with AI nations.

I can only offer the current "light weight" concept.

I feel like everything else will get too much effort for now.
(Not only for me but for other team members too.)

But maybe it will be expanded to a full blown Pirate Civ in the future.

 

[Guynemer]

Q: Could runaway slaves/servants run towards/join the pirate state?

 

[XSamatan]

Great concept!

Please integrate this into the main build as soon as possible

Q: Could runaway slaves/servants run towards/join the pirate state?

That would be indeed a fine feature

Regards
XSamatan

 

[raystuttgart]

Could runaway slaves/servants run towards/join the pirate state?

We will see, once we have "Pirate Nation".
It is possible though that we might later on change the "Fleeing System" as well.

The problem is that such a "Pirate City" does not necessarily exist in the same land area -> then there would be no place to run to ...
Also Player would hardly even notice becaus the Unit would still "simply" be running away and he would most likely catch it in 2 turns anyways. (The Destination does not really matter.)

But everything step by step.

 

[lyciummusic]

Darn, I've been waiting for this forever. Sid Meier would be proud to see what this game has become. You guys should invite him to play after next major release.

 

[Guynemer]

We will see, once we have "Pirate Nation".
It is possible though that we might later on change the "Fleeing System" as well.

The problem is that such a "Pirate City" does not necessarily exist in the same land area -> then there would be no place to run to ...
Also Player would hardly even notice becaus the Unit would still "simply" be running away and he would most likely catch it in 2 turns anyways. (The Destination does not really matter.)

But everything step by step.

It's just that the escapees being listed as "wild animals" leaves an extraordinarily bad taste in my mouth.

 

[raystuttgart]

It's just that the escapees being listed as "wild animals" leaves an extraordinarily bad taste in my mouth.

That can be changed of course.
This is almost no effort to do it, once we have "Pirate Nation" as Player.

Will adjust my concept.

But their AI (their behaviour) will still be the same - at least in the first step.
(They will simply run away without a special target destination.)

We might change it in a later step though.
(So they will purposely try to reach a "Pirate City" - and maybe get transformed to a "Pirate Unit" that would try to attack European Players.)

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Sounds like a good addition to the late game. Thumbs up from me.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

We will see, once we have "Pirate Nation".
It is possible though that we might later on change the "Fleeing System" as well.

The problem is that such a "Pirate City" does not necessarily exist in the same land area -> then there would be no place to run to ...

I do not think he meant running exclusively to the Pirate City. Rather running to the Pirate City if that is near and if not then running to some Natives or colonial nation that is hostile to the one he ran away from.

 

[rah]

Love the concept. If it was limited to one, you might never encounter one during the game, so please don't limit it to one.

 

[raystuttgart]

Love the concept.

Cool.

... so please don't limit it to one.

I would most likely implement it configurable in XML anyways.
Will adjust my concept to state that it will be configurable.

We will need to find some reasonable default settings in our test or with the help of community when we publish a "Beta Release".

But let us also wait for more feedback.

 

[devolution]

I suppose my "rogue traders" DLL event concept would fit right in with having a distinctive pirate faction For those whose not aware, it's essentially a way to supply the natives with weapons\horses.
More details here:
https://github.com/We-the-People-civ4col-mod/Mod/issues/89

 

[raystuttgart]

I suppose my "rogue traders" DLL event concept would fit right in with having a distinctive pirate faction

Sure, "Rogue Traders" could use "Pirate Nation" as owning Player as well.

Spawning logic for "Rogue Trader Ships" would probalby be quite similar as for "Pirate Ships".
(Instead of "being close to a European Player" they could be spawned "being close to a Native Player".)

 

[Drunk-Monk]

Great idea, me and nightingale talked about the possibility of implementing slave revolts, that would have a very similar function. The thread of our discussion is here : https://github.com/We-the-People-civ4col-mod/Mod/issues/335

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, I guess this one is accepted.

It is most likely a candidate for a later Release (e.g. Release 2.9) though.
(Even though it is not a "full blow Pirate Civ with amazing new gameplay" it is still considerable effort.)

 

[Benjocaron]

I know this sounds a bit like the deceased Tortuga mod, but I think it would be pretty cool to have a scenario where you are the pirate. The game would be very different in various ways. For example, your pretty criminals would have bonuses instead of penalties, your Europe would be Port Royal, etc.

 

[orlanth]

I do like the concept as well. I think the Barbary Pirates did force some countries to pay to have ships temporarily exempted from attack. So allowing some diplomacy with them could also be interesting (e.g bribing them to temporarily leave you alone or attack a rival).

 

[raystuttgart]

I know this sounds a bit like the deceased Tortuga mod, but I think it would be pretty cool to have a scenario where you are the pirate. The game would be very different in various ways. For example, your pretty criminals would have bonuses instead of penalties, your Europe would be Port Royal, etc.

Yes it could be cool, but it would also be a huge amount of effort. Thus I don't think this will ever be part of WTP core mod itself.
It would basically be a (mod-)mod of its own, that would need completely new game mechanics for just Pirate Nation.