[WTP] Quick questions

[ConjurerDragon]

Artificial limitations add no value to the game, in my opinion.

There are no artificial limitations. Ships did not appear out of thin air in the 15th century in all sizes and variations that hundreds of years of experience and learning about sailing have produced.
Each of them is the successor of an earlier ship that had limitations or drawbacks that were eliminated, e.g. by new inventions or larger shipyards or more experience how to sail with or cruise against the wind and using a modified takelage.

Having them all available at the very start of the game would beg the question why Columbus did not ship from Spain to Hispaniola in a comfortable and safer ship that historically only existed centuries after his death.

But West Indiaman doesn't compete with a single Caravel, now does it? 3x Caravels can deliver the same amount of cargo as upgraded West Indiaman - and they absolutely have more chances to survive a pirate ambush. Although, Caravel being by far the worst ship in the game, it loses comparison to anything.

Caravels are the best ships in the game - because when Columbus set sail they were the most modern and only ships available that were halfway suited to sail across the Atlantic (as compared to the sluggish ships the Hanse used in the Baltic or the oar galleys used in the Mediterrenean that had to stick to calmer waters and navigated mostly in sight of land).
Every other ship model came later.

 

[Martin Peralta]

However a pirate ship does not need to be invisible - just out of sight and the flag of another country slapped on the mast...

What about limited visibility for pirates? meaning that if it stays for example 2 squares away from a lonely trade ship - its invisible, but if the trade ship is escorted by military vessel - it is visible up to 3 squares away? So that occasional raids are possible..

Every other ship model came later.

Another point in favor for the idea of having something like a tech-tree driven / time constrained progression of the ships availability, meaning that you get to play with the big and strong ships only late game.. Got a lot of extra money in 1499? Sorry, no Ship of the Line for you

 

[nci]

Caravels are the best ships in the game - because when Columbus set sail they were the most modern and only ships available that were halfway suited to sail across the Atlantic (as compared to the sluggish ships the Hanse used in the Baltic or the oar galleys used in the Mediterrenean that had to stick to calmer waters and navigated mostly in sight of land).

For starters, Columbus used 2 Caravels and a Carrack.

@ConjurerDragon pushing for realism, you completely omit the fact that ships did not come in single unified size and form. Your beloved Caravels could be 50 tons burden, or 160 tons. Yet we are supposed to be stuck with single 2 cargo slot vessel despite such discrepancy?

Same goes for Galleons - most were smaller than Carracks, at 500 tons or less - albeit some went as far as 2000 tons. I personally don't perceive ship types in WTP as particular historical designs for this reason - they can't possibly reflect historical reality, not with this small number of variations we have - but rather as a sum of traits. If we get adequate amount of different sub-classes for each ship class, and new designs organically become available over time, with old ones becoming obsolete - I'd absolutely support your idea. But as things are, we simply don't have enough variations implemented. It will require a lot of work to implement. Limiting the ship availability in current circumstances, we won't achieve historical realism - all we will do is hide certain ship traits from particular eras, without any good reason, just to restrict player out of sheer spite.

And don't forget it's just a game, not a simulator. Any ship can transport treasure, not only a galleon. Any ship can become a pirate ship, not only some slow and weak ones (base speed of Privateer and Pirate Frigate is slower than their military counterparts, they are also weaker - but the latter can at least be explained by worse equipped and less disciplined crew). Any ship can attack any other ship. There are enough restrictions that offend common sense, why add more?

What about limited visibility for pirates? meaning that if it stays for example 2 squares away from a lonely trade ship - its invisible, but if the trade ship is escorted by military vessel - it is visible up to 3 squares away? So that occasional raids are possible..

This is already handled well by promotion system.

 

[cheeseman]

I've noticed a frustrating thing with whaling; if a sperm whale resource is inside the 2-tile radius of a town (what can I say, I got 'lucky' with mapgen), it is impossible to exploit; whaling boats will refuse to collect from it and since there are no jobs for colonists to use it, the resource becomes worthless. Obviously, this is kinda contrary to historical onshore whaling.
When I tried, the whaling boat threw a fit, tried to instead collect from a resource in the euro travel area, teleported there and when I sent it back like a naughty child, it promptly got attacked by pirate frigates and sunk, so I'm a little miffed. <_<

 

[raystuttgart]

... if a sperm whale resource is inside the 2-tile radius of a town ...

That was implemented on purpose to avoid any exploits and potential bugs.
Also to avoid trouble with AI in case of "Blubber Ressource" gets in City Reach.

Summary:
Whaling needs to happen outside of City Radius.
It is like this since TAC and will stay like this for good reasons.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

by the way, a sperm whale resource that is not within the radius of the city, but located within cultural boundaries, is also not subject to processing. this is normal?

 

[raystuttgart]

... not within the radius of the city ...

... but located within cultural boundaries ...

No, it should be workable by the Whaling Boat then, it is just about "City Radius" (2 Plot distance in 2-Plot-City-Radius DLL) if I remember correctly.
Is it in the radius of a Fort maybe? Or is it in the radius of a Native Village ? (Because technically that is also considered "City Radius".)

Everything considered a "city" technically counts.
(Not just colonial cities of your own.)

Otherwise I would have to check it then.
(Please provide a screenshot first though.)

 

[cheeseman]

That was implemented on purpose to avoid any exploits and potential bugs.
Also to avoid trouble with AI in case of "Blubber Ressource" gets in City Reach.

How non-trivial would it be to implement some combination of the following;
- An alternative buff for the whale tile while fished to compensate for loss of oil (e: similar to the secondary yield of hunters, perhaps?)
- A line of code that prevents sperm whales spawning within 2 tiles of land
- Replace sperm whales in coastal waters with a variant that functions like an ordinary resource (sperm whales are rarely found on the continental shelf anyhow), with yields rebalanced accordingly

Purpose being to either avoid the overlap and/or make whaling more intuitive without a complete overhaul.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

(Please provide a screenshot first though.)

ok, I'll check the village radius as well. I'll send a screen or create an issue.

 

[raystuttgart]

A line of code that prevents sperm whales spawning within 2 tiles of land

Should be pretty simple actually.
(Everything else you suggested is too much effort for too little benefit.)

EDIT:
Implemented now.

 

[Vorpal+5]

Hi,
Potentially returning player here! I have played on and off the various mods of Civ4 Col and even played Sid version back in 94

One thing that always bothered me and where I feel forced to apply house rules, because I don't like to exploits games, is that when you capture a city, all the population is gently available immediately for whatever you want. It includes expelling them all of the city so you can use the specialists elsewhere in your main cities. This is grossly not historical but more importantly for a game, it really kills the game balance because that's the start of a massive snowballing in power ... To the point that at some point once you know you can take one or two cities from a European fellow, then you'll steamroll everything rapidly. Your surge of power will be immense in a few turns.

So please tell me you have done something regarding that for the next release of WTP?

And also, when do we get the new version? I'm impatient!! ;-) Just joking, you have done such an awesome job with this mod. But yeah, still impatient to play!

 

[Milamber1931]

Just check for the Profession "Settler". (In Colopedia Section "Professions".)

Profession and Unit are 2 completely different things.
Units do not need Equipment only Professions do.

Profession: Settler
Expert Unit: Prepared Settler

I have the necessary equipment in the colony but when I move the Prepared Colonist from his current role to the garrison it doesn't list Settler as an option. When I go outside and try to change his profession that way it also doesn't show that as an option. 2nd issue with equipping units comes when I bought a Conquistadore unit from the crown and tried to make him a Mounted Conquistadore but I couldn't even move him into a colony to then move him back to the garrison and make the appropriate selection. For both of these situations I have described I am out of ideas for how to make the changes required to get the new units, any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[raystuttgart]

I have the necessary equipment in the colony but when I move the Prepared Colonist ...

Please check Colopedia for the Profession Equipment requirements of "Settler".
Also please remember that if you play in "Marathon", the modifier of that GameSpeed may be applied.
(It is 3 times as much in "Marathon" than if you play in "Normal".)

To test:
Drop massive amounts of Food, Lumber and Tools on a Ship in the City, load it into the Ship and unload into the City.
Then try again if it works. I am very sure you have misunderstood something.

2nd issue with equipping units comes when I bought a Conquistadore unit from the crown and tried to make him a Mounted Conquistadore

That is not possible. They are Special Units and do not change their Professions.
There is no Profession "Conquistador" and there is no Profession "Mounted Conquistador".

Conquistadors, Native Mercenaries, Hessians, ... can not change their Profession.
They are specialized "Event Units" that were not built to do anything else than fight as they are.

--------

Again:
Please check Colopedia.
It will tell you which Professions exist and what they need.

--------

Otherwise:
Post Screenshots and do not just write texts.
Things get 10 times easier to explain with Screenshots.

 

[raystuttgart]

So please tell me you have done something regarding that for the next release of WTP?

No, this is still possible. We had not even discussed to change the rules for that. I am not even sure what you expect as solution?
(Happiness and other new mechanics already published in WTP 3.0.1 try to limit "steam rolling" a bit already.)

Edit:
We could e.g. easily set "Unrest" according to city size.
So the bigger the city the longer the "Unrest" will be, preventing any citizens to be moved.

Edit 2:
I can easily also make it a GameOption, so player can chose if they want that.
So either always the same turns of Unrest (as of now) or depending on size (as above).

----

Yeah, I think I like that.
(It is easy to implement and really does the job.)

But yeah, still impatient to play!

Well again, we are working on the biggest expansion this mod has seen since 1st release of RaR.
It simply takes time to do so. Also currently situation for many of us is not that simple and time for modding is rare.

 

[Vorpal+5]

Thanks for your open mind Ray. For me that's a big issue, this mass deportation of so many good specialists. Sure, I can refrain from doing it, but if you can propose an optional rule which is not too difficult to do for you, then best of both worlds, for everyone!
I wish you courage for your next release, with the sanitary context and the tremendous amount of work remaining!

 

[raystuttgart]

Sure, I can refrain from doing it, but if you can propose an optional rule which is not too difficult to do for you, ...

As I said, I am going to implement this here:

We could e.g. easily set "Unrest" according to city size.
So the bigger the city the longer the "Unrest" will be, preventing any citizens to be moved.

Also there are already features like e.g. "Happiness" and "Health" in current WTP 3.0.1.
For future releases we plan also "Upkeep" to limit steam rolling and "Religion" or even "Nationality" that require colonists to be assimiliated.

-----

For the moment that is all I can offer to you.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Vorpal+5
I implemented it quickly.

Spoiler :

By the way:
There already was a factor considering the city size for Occupation turns.
I just added an additional % modifier selectable as GameOption ingame to increase the effect.

If you still feel that it is balanced too soft for your taste, simply increase this value further:

    <Define>
       <DefineName>PERCENT_MODIFIER_GAMEOPTION_UNREST_TURNS_DEPEND_ON_CITY_SIZE</DefineName>
       <iDefineIntVal>200</iDefineIntVal>
   </Define>

 

[Vorpal+5]

Excellent!

 

[Cacaso]

African slave / native slave, can they run away when used as pioneers?
Can they become freed black or native converted by hard work in this profession?

Because if the risk of fleeing is zero, this would be an exploit used to convert slaves into freedmen, and then use the teachings of a tribe to get some profession, and then delete it and have a free man.

But if he runs off with the tools, that would be too great a loss.

 

[raystuttgart]

African slave / native slave, can they run away when used as pioneers?

I think you can not use them as Pioneers anymore.
It is a "Forbidden Profession" for them in XML.

Can they become freed black or native converted by hard work in this profession?

Theoretically they could / would, since LbD (Learning by Doing) itself does support this.
But see above