[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[Willi_Tell]

Aye ya ol' landlubbers, so I say "yes!" - I will create a background screen for Port Royal (I like that name...)
(but it may take 1-2 weeks)

 

[raystuttgart]

Thanks.
(It is no problem if this will take a few weeks.)

I will implement it and use Africa Backgrounds until we get the correct ones for Port Royal.
("Port Royal" is fine for me as a name.)

 

[raystuttgart]

I have uploaded my current work for Africa Screen.

-------

Adjusted after this post:

Spoiler :

The following bug still exist:
(All the rest seems to be working fine.)

Button for "Recalling a Ship" sent to New World back to Africa does not work yet.

----------

When testing the current version in SVN:

• New Game will be necessary. Savegames of old versions are not compatible.
• Make sure you have cleaned the cache

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Well ok, I have finished DLL and XML for Africa Screen

• Prices are independent of / different from Europe (and of course vary over time by similar rules)
• By default, only African Slaves can be bought as Units (with slightly increasing price)
• No Immigration (that still takes place in Europe only)
• Taxes are the same as in Europe (It is the Africa Colony of your King)
• Yields boycotted in Europe are boycotted in Africa as well (It is the Africa Colony of your King)
• When declaring Independence Africa is not accessable anymore as well (It is the Africa Colony of your King)
• Every plot that allows to sail to Europe, does allow to sail to Africa as well (there are no different EuropePlots and AfricaPlots)
• AI ignores AfricaScreen but gets the DLL-Diplo-Event for African Slaves more often

- for the prices and goods:
[*]Guns and tools should be a bit more expensive than in Europe (africans were interested in the muskets and there's historical evidence -Africa side!- that proves the guntrade in the 16th century), no cannons though. Horses probably shouldn't be sold, or at a very low price as most african tribes didn't use horses (exception are the arab and/or muslims in the north, the Sahara and in the Sahel, and the Ethiopean state.) Often because they weren't available or because the tribes in question were living in the jungle.
[*]gold, silver, metal might probably be a bit cheaper (but not by much) as gold was gained in West Africa and traded up north (Timbuktu)
- for taxes a difference with the homeland might be in order: even though the factories were often enough established by royal decree (or at least with sponsorship) enough of the trade went through more informal channels. There's of course the reality of the distance to the homeland allowing for 'smuggling'.
- boycotted yields: not too sure about it: you're not trading with the homeland but with the local potentates, and often directly so. The idea is to extract money and (more importantly) slaves from the area. Might be more historical to not have boycots there but have prices fluctuate far more violently (to represent 1) a lower capacity of the locals to absorb large amounts of produce and 2) to simulate the different tribes near the long African coast. Prices of guns and tools would be more stable)
- Africa screen no available after DoI: yep, King is blockading your navy and merchantfleet.
- for AI ignoring Africa-screen: maybe have some events for the AI where they can sell amounts of tools-guns to the africans to simulate player-capability of going there and selling that stuff?

All of this is of course assuming it's possible to actually code, and fun. But I thought that another pov might provide some additional ideas.

Port Royal: sounds like a good idea A place with a limitless capacity to buy rum

 

[raystuttgart]

But I thought that another pov might provide some additional ideas.

Our ideas for this feature are pretty clear.

What it should be:

• An additional market with (slightly) different prices.
• A place to buy cheap labour - meaning Slaves (at slightly increasing prices).
• Easy to understand and use.

What it should not be:

• A cheap way to outsmart your King. (Avoiding boycotts and taxes. Or being able to massively sell goods after DOI.)
• Overpowered feature that massively changes gameplay. (e.g. too high profits)

The player is supposed to really think if it is worth sailing to Africa instead of Europe by analyzing his current situation and prices in these markets.
(He might get slightly higher profit for some yields in Africa but he cannot recruit immigrants or buy powerful units there.)

AI already got some compensation.
(It gets offered the DLL-Diplo-Event for Native Slaves more often.)

The concept / current implementation is generally ok to my opinion.
(Of course we still need to fix some minor issues which is the current focus.)

The rest is only balancing.

 

[raystuttgart]

I fixed / implemented "Buying with Drag&Drop" in Africa Screen.
I also implemented some improvments related to Africa for YieldHelp and UnitHelp. (MouseOver Texts)

Edit:
I also fixed / implemented "Selling with Drag&Drop" in Africa Screen.

The remaining bug will be fixed the next days.
(Recalling Ships in Africa Screen)

The feature is almost complete now.
(New Revision uploaded to SVN.)

 

[raystuttgart]

I now fixed "Recall to Africa".
(New Revision uploaded to SVN.)

The feature "Africa Screen" is now complete.

Once I get the graphics for "Port Royal Screen" I will implement that as well.
(After figuring out the technical details for "Africa Screen" already, it will not take very long.)

We should do some intensive testing though before next release.
The feature is much bigger considering amount and complexity of code changes than it might seem.

Everything seems to work as intended until now.
But these aspects still need to be tested:

• Boycotted Goods in Africa Screen
• Behaviour of Africa Screen during WOI

 

[fox456]

I may have missed it, but will the Africa Screen be an integral part of the game or will it be optional?

 

[Schmiddie]

an integral part

 

[raystuttgart]

I may have missed it, but will the Africa Screen be an integral part of the game or will it be optional?

You are free to use the feature or ignore it.
Simply don't sail to Africa if you don't want to.

It is no GameOption though.

 

[Nightinggale]

I committed another bugfix, which is likely only affecting multiplayer games.

It is regarding fully automated transports (clicking the "automate transport" button). Now it will only transport to your own colonies. Before this bugfix it would also unload in allied/teammate colonies. It is still possible to unload manually in those as well as manually assign a traderoute to unload there. In other words you can still supply each other if you want, but you have to actively select to transport to each other instead of it just happens automatically in the background, possibly when you didn't consider/expect it at all.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, thanks for the info.

 

[raystuttgart]

I have uploaded a first version of "Port Royal Screen" to SVN.
(Background graphics not available yet, so it uses a copy of the ones for Africa.)

A rough description:

• Only Privateers, Pirate Fregates and Smuggling Ships can sail to it. (Ships with Hidden Nationality)
• Allows purchasing Pirate Fregates and Smuggling Ships at increasing prices. (Purchase only available if ship in Port Royal)
• Has fixed "Taxes" (it is something like a bribe or a "foreigner tax")
• Of course different prices for goods
• Independent of your king (no boykotts, still available during WOI)
• No Immigration

Otherwise it works just like the other harbours Europe and Africa.

It is available through all Europe Plots.
(It did not make sense to me to allow access only from Europe_West plots because Port Royal was located in the Atlantik on Jamaica.)

Summary:

1) Port Royal only gets accessable once you have ships with "Hidden Nationality"
2) It has fixed taxes and thus might only be interesting after your normal taxes have risen or for trading boycotted goods
3) It will still allow selling of goods after WOI (in a limitted way, since only ships with "Hidden Nationality" can access)

 

[Nightinggale]

I just committed a bugfix for feeder service and as a result it will behave a little bit different.

Import is always on
Enabling feeder service will enable import. Import can't be turned off as long as feeder service is on.

Semi hidden setting
There is a new setting to tell if the colony is importing or not using feeder service. The only way to tell this setting is to see if the text in the import window is green(on) or red(off). This setting is turned on and off automatically as yield storage goes up and down.

To force enable import you do the classic computer trick: turn it off and on again. Turn import off while keeping feeder service on. This will reset the hidden setting to enable imports unless the colony has more than the threshold. Such a reset would be useful if you say have 47 tools and need 50, which also happen to be the threshold.

Compatibility with manually assigned traderoutes
No known issues. Feeder service no longer disables imports, which mean it will no longer be able to affect manually assigned traderoutes in any way. Naturally as fully automated transports can pick up from any colony with export on, then they can pick up from colonies which happen to be a pickup location for manually assigned transports.

Manually assigned traderoutes ignores feeder service and import threshold. If you don't want automated transports unloading in a colony, only manually assigned ones, then enable feeder service and set threshold to 0.

Savegames
Old savegames can be loaded. However if feeder service is on, but imports are off, then it will act like feeder service is off. This condition can trigger an assert, but should otherwise be harmless.

The TAC traderoute interface can no longer disable feeder service. The only reason it did that was to avoid feeder service from disabling imports, which it will never do anymore anyway.

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

Don't be wondering that I uploaded a new DLL to SVN.
I simply like to do a complete fresh compile with all current sources from SVN before a release goes into last testing before publishing.

@Nightinggale:

Your changes from yesterday are included.

 

[Willi_Tell]

Waiting has come to an end
Here are the screens for PortRoyal: (previews from inGame)

(regular Screen)

("winter" Screen)

There are also new files for AfricaScreen attached (I had to remove the mountain in the background, as the same mountain is also used for PortRoyal)

Hope you like it!

 

[raystuttgart]

Hope you like it !

Awesome !

Thanks a lot for your hard work.

@team:
I will upload them to SVN.

@community:
We will do some last testing the next days and then Release 1.8 will finally be published.

 

[vetiarvind]

Here are the screens for PortRoyal: [/SIZE]
There are also new files for AfricaScreen attached
Hope you like it!

Shiver me timbers on a dead man's booty! I gonnabe swiggin some grog and plonkin me arse on that African beach ass rye!

 

[raystuttgart]

Release 1.8 of Religion and Revolution is available for download.

Changes:

Spoiler :

• Africa and Port Royal (Harbours similar to Europe) with great backgrounds from Willi_Tell
• Several graphic improvments from Schmiddie
• Bugfixes to Trade Route System and Import Feeder Service from Nightinggale
• A few other small improvments and fixes
• New map from Tre59

All further information and downloadlink here:
[Religion and Revolution]: Welcome ! (Read first please.)

--------

Before somebody might ask:

New games will be necessary.
Savegames from old releases are not compatible.

 

[Schmiddie]

The version of the sub-mod in the download section where you get RaR 1.8 is currently not the correct version (it is the old version für RaR 1.6). So please wait with the download of the sub-mod until the correct version has been uploaded.

Thanks!