Pirates! Mod Scenario

[Ambreville]

Paasky is referring to the Pirates.wbs file which contains the map information for the scenario. It can easily be edited using Notepad. The Pirates are Team 0. I'm not sure either if a civ defined as minor can be playable.

I'm sure this makes sense to someone who is into CIV4 coding and whatnot. I'm not, obviously, so I'll skip that discussion altogether.

(Re Winds) Major coding headache. Theorically, it might be possible, but I'm not even going to try that one.

Thought it would be. I don't blame you for staying away from that one!

(Re Pivateers) With some creative scripting, it might be possible, but it sounds like another headache to me. I made the decision early on to make the Pirates a seperate, sovereign faction. I played around with having "rogue" pirates (a.k.a. sea barbarians) who attacked anyone and everyone, but ended up scrapping that.

I think you misunderstood my suggestion. I never meant to imply that you should change the nature of Henry Morgan's CIV. Leave him as a playable CIV, by all means! The privateering part comes in addition to pirates as an active CIV.

Actually, look at the Age of Discovery scenario -- it has something close to what I am suggesting. It features AI-controlled pirates that attack Player- or AI-controlled merchant ships. You can also capture adjacent ships... Maybe this can be the basis for what I was thinking.

Yes, the island/treasure could be randomized and multiplied. I just didn't bother. I simply placed it in a sort of out-of-the-way place inside the Bermuda Triangle. I also didn't want more than one Ghost Ship roaming around at any one time (especially since it respawns when sunk).

Neither do all treasures need to be cursed, nor do all curses necessarily trigger a ghost ship's appearance.

On a side note, I originally had zombie pirates that rode around on the ghost ship and attacked settlements, but I ended up scrapping that one too, even though they were pretty cool. I'll leave it to someone else to add a kraken.

All that sounds pretty cool to me too.

 

[Elhoim]

Nice looking mod! Great work!

 

[vra379971]

I won...easily as the Pirates...Lets put it this way. I captured Cartegena with 90% of my INVASION FORCE intact.

Where I think the game needs work is in the number of units players are allowed to amass for any civ. I understand the point is having gold, but that has the side effect of allowing players you can capture (or return even ONE treasure ship) the ablilty to access an unlimited military.

If you really want to balance this so that a competent human doesn't run away with the game (and to simulate the true historical situation), you need to make every unit a national unit so that the amount of military you can have is limited, so that you'll have to choose to defend some places, and leave some empty. Also, it'll limit the amount the troops you can have in an invasion force. Note, this (if possible) should only be applied to whatever side the human is playing as the computer more or less does this naturally.

Next. The British (and to some degree the French) need Python related help. Part of the reason the pirates can get off to such a good start (and why they where eliminated in RL) is because the British conducted raides out of Port Royal, and her majesty's navy (or his) gradually expanded control. Point is, the British, Spanish and the French should recieve supplies (mainly alot navy for the British in Jamaica, some troops for France, very few and for Spain...they reallu should get a defender ship for every treasure ship as it's waaay to simple to pick them off. Tha said, a national unit limit would help this problem, instead of me buying a Brig for 300 gold and making a 4.7k profit.

 

[VeteranLurker]

I am running Warlords with the 208 patch. I've installed the 1.1 version of the mod into the \mod\ folder, clicked 'advanced' to run the mod (as I have successfully done with other mods such as ViSa). It then brings me to the 'play now'\'load game' screen, not the 'single player' etc. screen as mentioned in the readme. When I click 'play a scenario' it brings me to the map screen, where the only option is WBQuickSave -- which it cannot find when I select it. So, what's the deal here?

 

[Yeekim]

Great Scenario - certainly better than any in Vanilla Warlords!
Won once with Pirates on Noble - cakewalk and once with British on Monarch - bit harder.

Around 1680 the Spanish start sending two treasure ships at a time from Portabello and Categena ..<silver and gold>

a line of pickets along theeir coast works wonders <theres at least two other cities they could be sailing from but to make a treasure ship a city must have gold or silver in its borders so picket each possibility with at least 6 ships and your good>

I'd guess that the "skyrocketing" is rather connected with Spain reaching the end of a tech tree, after what they presumably run the slider at 100% gold.

 

[vra379971]

That's the conclusion I came to as well.

 

[Yeekim]

I won...easily as the Pirates...Lets put it this way. I captured Cartegena with 90&#37; of my INVASION FORCE intact.

Where I think the game needs work is in the number of units players are allowed to amass for any civ. I understand the point is having gold, but that has the side effect of allowing players you can capture (or return even ONE treasure ship) the ablilty to access an unlimited military.

If you really want to balance this so that a competent human doesn't run away with the game (and to simulate the true historical situation), you need to make every unit a national unit so that the amount of military you can have is limited, so that you'll have to choose to defend some places, and leave some empty. Also, it'll limit the amount the troops you can have in an invasion force. Note, this (if possible) should only be applied to whatever side the human is playing as the computer more or less does this naturally.

Next. The British (and to some degree the French) need Python related help. Part of the reason the pirates can get off to such a good start (and why they where eliminated in RL) is because the British conducted raides out of Port Royal, and her majesty's navy (or his) gradually expanded control. Point is, the British, Spanish and the French should recieve supplies (mainly alot navy for the British in Jamaica, some troops for France, very few and for Spain...they reallu should get a defender ship for every treasure ship as it's waaay to simple to pick them off. Tha said, a national unit limit would help this problem, instead of me buying a Brig for 300 gold and making a 4.7k profit.

I do not think there is any need for national units. In the beginning, Pirates, British, French and especially Dutch have next to no production, so they'll have a hard time creating any military, much less swamping someone with it. The last two are doormats right now, really (the British have at least ONE city with decent production capability to start with, and Pirates can get some with their GG).
Simply removing the ability to buy units as Pirates should address the issue well enough.

And yes - the Dutch, the French (and the British, to a lesser extent) really need some sort of reinforcements coming in. Free warship and units in each dozen turns or so... Right now they just spend years building another militia or merchant, poor buggers.

I'd also advise replacing the Spanish pikemen with Tercios (somebody posted that unit a while ago)

EDIT: It is even doable with Dutch! At least on Prince! Pop rush Forges and Philosophical trait will give you aplenty of Great Engineers! By 1700 I had 5 or 6 them joined to Curacao and with help of Bureaucracy I was training a Militia per turn
AI, however, still is a joke as anyone but Spain...

 

[Blake4000]

Measure ye for yer chains. I love this mod. I think it would be great if ye would include more scenarios, civics and more units. Thats just me opinion though.
You li'ly libbered land lubber. New models fer th' pirates and I want th' spannish t' be nerfed and t' have th' option o' changin' th' rules o' play. Change it from booty capturin' t' standard "Conquest" fer little fun. I know its historically inaccurate but it would provide much fun!

 

[Riker]

I am running Warlords with the 208 patch. I've installed the 1.1 version of the mod into the \mod\ folder, clicked 'advanced' to run the mod (as I have successfully done with other mods such as ViSa). It then brings me to the 'play now'\'load game' screen, not the 'single player' etc. screen as mentioned in the readme. When I click 'play a scenario' it brings me to the map screen, where the only option is WBQuickSave -- which it cannot find when I select it. So, what's the deal here?

same as here, damn. I thought it was the language, so I changed to English (I normally play in Spanish, just for training since I am not Spanish...). But it still doesn't work

 

[Jeffrez]

Hi, I tried to install your scenario on my computer but when i folllow the directions in the pdf guide that accompanies the download i cant see the mod when i try to load a mod in the advanced section, any ideas? Im running the 1.61 patch, is that liable to be the problem?

cheers

 

[Dogbeard]

Sorry I haven't been available to respond lately.

VeteranLurker and Riker, are you able to load the mod correctly? Does the title screen come up? "PLAY NOW" and "CUSTOM GAME" ought to be grayed out.

Be sure you are saving the Pirates! Mod folder to the Mod folder in the Warlords subdirectory and not the main Civ directory.

Jeffrez, 1.61 patch could be the problem. Update to 2.08 and let me know if that works.

Thanks for the kind responses, especially Blake4000's piratical post.

If you want to change it to a purely Conquest scenario, it is easily done:

Open the Pirates!.wbs file in the Public Maps folder of the Pirates! Mod using Notepad and change Line 16 from TargetScore=100000 to TargetScore=0. You may also want to either remove the Victory=VICTORY_TIME line or increase the MaxTurns if 240 turns is not enough time to wipe out Spain. [Caveat: I haven't tried this, but it should work fine.]

In the meantime, I'll be working on implementing some of the suggestions offered in this thread into the scenario.

Happy playing.

 

[Mahatmajon]

I'm getting an error when trying to open the .zip file version 1.1 in post 9. Is there a problem with the file? I don't have winzip or similar so I'm just trying to extract with the windows compression/extractor.

The scenario sounds great - I hope I can get it to work!

 

[vra379971]

I agree, the computer can't swamp.

OTOH, the human can. Easily. I had over 30 ships (most bought!) Admittedly, you can take too many purchases and lose the game because of it, but a few early attacks if you're not Spain ON Spain can fix that worry.

Basically, a Naval and Army limit would make it more interesting, and more realistic =)

 

[gfmozart]

hi, I've a problem with pirates. I've updated it to patch 2.08 but it still crashes after a few turns.

I was wondering if anybody here knows whats wrong

 

[Dogbeard]

Ahoy!

Ver1.2 will be available soon in the downloads section.

Pirates_Ver1.2.zip

The changes include:

* Wars in Europe affect diplomacy in the Caribbean

* The Pirates and Spain are permanently at war

* The English, French and Dutch receive occasional reinforcements from Europe

* Caps placed on number of certain units that may be built by any single faction (20 for most infantry, 10 for cavalry, 10 for cannons, 10 for frigates and 6 for ships of the line and flag galleons) [Note: enemy ships may be captured beyond the cap]

* French Musketeer returned to 2 movement

* More buried treasure added

* "Rogue" pirates added

Ver. 1.2 has been tested for bugs, but it hasn't been extensively playtested for balance. Hopefully, these additions will add to the balance and playablility of the scenario.

Happy playing!

 

[Morfydd]

Sounds like fun ;o)

 

[VeteranLurker]

I tried installing again on a new PC with a fresh install of Warlords v2.08, and it still won't work (loads the mod but does nothing else). Can you please troubleshoot this? My guess is that you have other mods or additional files accessible somewhere which we are lacking.

 

[Ambreville]

I tried installing again on a new PC with a fresh install of Warlords v2.08, and it still won't work (loads the mod but does nothing else). Can you please troubleshoot this? My guess is that you have other mods or additional files accessible somewhere which we are lacking.

Did you try loading the scenario directly from the map file? (If Yes, please ignore this post)

If not, go to the scenario's mod folder before launching Warlords. Then, go into the mod's PublicMaps subfolder. There should be a map file labeled (Pirates!.CIVWarlordsWBSave). Double click on the file name directly and let the game load itself.

Hope this helps.

 

[vra379971]

If you're goign to lock the pirates at war, you need to equip them to deal with the resulting WW.

The Pirates will need MUCH more help than Spain of course as they will be leading a mostly offensive affair. Just as well, will make life a little tough for 'em.

 

[VeteranLurker]

Thanks Ambreville, clicking on the map file opened it up without incident! Still, it would be nice if it eventually loaded "the old fashioned way".