Fixed Correct display of rank titles and names

[Pieter Boelen]

Another query @Grey Roger: From what I understand, the Sir title sort-of 'sticks' so that even a First Lord of the Admiralty might addressed as a Sir.
As the game is concerned, that title is independent of the actual rank name.

What I'm thinking of is to show either full name or name appended with Sir at the top of the dialog interface, but skip any other rank names there as they might not fit in the interface.
Then when facing a character, show full rank plus name, but swap Knight with Sir so that it doesn't look so weird.

Now the main question: Are there equivalent situations for other nationalities too? An earlier search of mine didn't yield any results.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Further research suggest that Knight Sir Hew Dalrymple would be correct so that can be set for FullName.
Then just Sir Hew Dalrymple in dialog to save space.
Does that sound about right?

 

[Grey Roger]

Where did you find that "Knight Sir Hew Dalrymple" is correct? I'd have thought that he'd always be addressed as "Sir Hew Dalrymple", except possibly on formal documents which might say something like "Sir Hew Dalrymple, Knight Commander of the Bath, <insert other titles>". Other titles, and for that matter titles of other nations, probably don't have the same problem - for example, "Earl" should be "Earl", whether as title or address. It's just "Sir" vs. "Knight" which is the problem.

Rank, on the other hand, might go in there as well. In his rousing speech prior to the battle against Temeraire, Pellew introduces himself to the crew: "My name is Captain Sir Edward Pellew".

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So for English navy ranks, you get the Sir addition when you get to the Order of the Bath rank.
That gets appended to your first name in addition to your position title.

For privateers, swap Knight with Sir in the dialog header and when facing characters.

Nothing special needed for other nations.

Bit convoluted with several exceptions needed, but can be done. So be it.

 

[Grey Roger]

The Order of the Bath was just an example of someone with a knighthood and another award who, in full introduction, would have the whole lot mentioned. About the only time I'd expect that to be done is in formal documents or being initially presented to someone, e.g. at a dinner party. Neither players nor NPC's will have such awards except possibly due to story plot, in which case story-specific dialog can take care of the formalities.

Beyond that, about the only place I'd expect "Knight" to appear is in the "Character" screen as the character's displayed rank. Anywhere else, i.e. where the rank is part of the character's name, I'd expect to see "Sir". When did you ever hear of "Knight Francis Drake", for example?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That's what I meant. Reason for me mentioning the order of the Bath is because one of the promotion uniforms indicates being for the order of the Bath.
I figure that is the rank at which a regular navy player can be given the Sir title too.

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm going to have to reconsider French privateer ranks. Noble titles are fine for every other nation and for France in most periods, but in post-revolution Napoleonic France, going around calling yourself Comte, let alone trying to claim any authority from it, is liable to earn you a short sharp appointment with Mme. Guillotine. A French privateer in that period would certainly not receive a noble title as a reward for service to a state which, in the spirit of egality, calls everyone "Citizen". Any suggestions?

Also, the white flag with tricolour in the corner was valid until 1794. White had been the colour of the royal flags and was felt to be unsuitable for revolutionary France, so in 1794 the ensign became the same as the national flag, a full tricolour. This, of course, makes it the same as the merchant flag - that's Egalité for you.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm going to have to reconsider French privateer ranks. Noble titles are fine for every other nation and for France in most periods, but in post-revolution Napoleonic France, going around calling yourself Comte, let alone trying to claim any authority from it, is liable to earn you a short sharp appointment with Mme. Guillotine. A French privateer in that period would certainly not receive a noble title as a reward for service to a state which, in the spirit of egality, calls everyone "Citizen". Any suggestions?

For gameplay purposes, we do need some sort of ranks. And making the rank names period-dependent would require more development too.
So if we can avoid doing that, it would certainly be simpler....

Also, the white flag with tricolour in the corner was valid until 1794. White had been the colour of the royal flags and was felt to be unsuitable for revolutionary France, so in 1794 the ensign became the same as the national flag, a full tricolour. This, of course, makes it the same as the merchant flag - that's Egalité for you.

Again, for gameplay reasons, it is nice to be able to tell the difference between merchant and navy ships based on the flag they're flying.
Here are some suggestions for alternate ones though:
http://tmg110.tripod.com/freefr.htm
http://tmg110.tripod.com/frnvf.htm

For example:

This naval ensign was often flown at sea instead of the plain Tricolor by ships of the Free French Navy (FNFL)

Historically the years for that flag are all wrong though (1940-1945), so I'm not sure you'd consider that an improvement.

According to this site, the flags we currently have in use are correct for the beginning of our period, but are technically only valid for 4 years:
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr_revol.html#nav
But we can't change flags within a period without making it actually another period.

 

[Grey Roger]

For gameplay purposes, we do need some sort of ranks. And making the rank names period-dependent would require more development too.
So if we can avoid doing that, it would certainly be simpler....

I do want ranks, but something other than noble titles. "nations_init.c" already has period-dependent condition blocks assigning soldier models their correct uniforms, so another such block assigning alternative titles in "Napoleonic" period shouldn't be that hard.

Again, for gameplay reasons, it is nice to be able to tell the difference between merchant and navy ships based on the flag they're flying.
Here are some suggestions for alternate ones though:
http://tmg110.tripod.com/freefr.htm
http://tmg110.tripod.com/frnvf.htm

For example:

I can't see any of those images. Tripod isn't answering.

This naval ensign was often flown at sea instead of the plain Tricolor by ships of the Free French Navy (FNFL).

Historically the years for that flag are all wrong though (1940-1945), so I'm not sure you'd consider that an improvement.

We already have steamships which didn't exist at that time. Why not add WW2 warships while we're at it, then those flags would be fine.

According to this site, the flags we currently have in use are correct for the beginning of our period, but are technically only valid for 4 years:
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr_revol.html#nav

From that same page:

Whether actual flags were prepared according to these specifications in such a time of upheaval is, of course, a matter of debate, however, it is good to know what they should have looked like.

So that version may not even be correct for 1790, and certainly isn't correct for characters such as Hornblower and Aubrey whose games start later than 1794.

But it also says:

The National Convention adopted the Tricolore as the national flag on 27 Pluviose of the Year II (15 February 1794). The Decree says:

II. The national flag shall be formed of the three national colours, set in three equal stripes, vertically disposed so that the blue is attached to the staff of the flag, the white in the middle, and the red flying in the air.
III. The jack and the daily ensign shall be formed in the same way, observing the size proportions established by custom.
IV. The commissioning pennant shall also be formed of the three colours, with one-fifth blue, one-fifth white, and three-fifths red

That means I can redesign the French naval pennant to use those proportions, while the merchant pennant keeps the standard equal proportions. Or just make the merchant pennant plain blue.

Besides, the only real reason you need to distinguish merchant flags from naval flags is so that if you see a "versatile" ship and look closely at the flag, you can see whether it's operating in war or trade mode. This probably won't be an issue for "Napoleonic" French ships except small things like cutters and sloops, and if you need to worry about whether one of those is naval or merchant then you probably want to run away from anything flying any French flag.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Besides, the only real reason you need to distinguish merchant flags from naval flags is so that if you see a "versatile" ship and look closely at the flag, you can see whether it's operating in war or trade mode. This probably won't be an issue for "Napoleonic" French ships except small things like cutters and sloops, and if you need to worry about whether one of those is naval or merchant then you probably want to run away from anything flying any French flag.

Pirate preying on French merchants springs to mind. The flag would tell you which of the ships has the most interesting cargo to loot.

That means I can redesign the French naval pennant to use those proportions, while the merchant pennant keeps the standard equal proportions. Or just make the merchant pennant plain blue.

I saw that part too. But good luck to players telling the difference between differently sized stripes!

 

[Grey Roger]

So I should just make the merchant pennant plain blue.

Meanwhile, any suggestions on alternative titles for French revolutionaries?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm currently doing some further work to fix all this. So far, this had led to the following:

- The displayed name of Hew Dalrymple was already "Commodore Hew Dalrymple" and not "Knight", just like it should be for navy officers.
Possibly you were affected by having an older game version where that wasn't corrected yet.
Anyway, I updated this to display "Commodore Sir Hew Dalrymple", which should be better.

- I removed the "Captain" rank title for characters without a first name again as this would cause them to display as "Post Captain Captain Sawyer".
This does mean those characters again get ONLY their last name at the top of the dialog interface, which doesn't look too nice.
Are there any objections to us just MAKING UP some first names for them? That would certainly be the simplest solution.

- English navy AND privateer players get the title of "Sir" at rank 7, which is Commodore for Navy and Knight for Privateer.
For navy this is because that is when they also get the "brtbath_18" character model.
For privateer, this is one rank later than you had for Francis Drake but does match with the title of Knight.
I have now applied it to ALL privateers too.

This means that "Knight Sir Firstname Lastname" should only apply for NON-navy characters and privateer players.
I think that doesn't actually occur in the game, so I'll leave this as-is until somebody finds such a reference in use somewhere.

- "Unknown Keene" is fixed by setting "companion enemy enable" ON for those temporary companions which stops their nations from changing when you swap flags.

I made some extra changes to ensure that Hornblower does remain ENGLISH and doesn't switch to PERSONAL_NATION.
Also tried applying SetRank to him and he didn't suddenly gain a Privateer status on doing that (just like he shouldn't), so I cannot confirm that problem in my current version.

Meanwhile, any suggestions on alternative titles for French revolutionaries?

This here suggests that the continued use of titles isn't actually that far wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_nobility#Nobility_since_the_Revolution
Otherwise I have no idea what to replace them with.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

- I removed the "Captain" rank title for characters without a first name again as this would cause them to display as "Post Captain Captain Sawyer".
This does mean those characters again get ONLY their last name at the top of the dialog interface, which doesn't look too nice.
Are there any objections to us just MAKING UP some first names for them? That would certainly be the simplest solution.

I now made a custom function that returns "Captain/Mister (nation-specific, of course) Lastname" for characters without a firstname that can be used where appropriate.
For now, I have that one in use for the Dialog Interface Title and the Save/Load Interfaces.

Additionally, I also promoted "Sir Hew" to Rear Admiral so he doesn't have the exact same rank and titles as "Commodore Sir Edward Pellew" anymore.
Still a bit odd that he addresses himself as "Major General" but shows as "Rear Admiral.
I tried a trick to make that all match up, but then he displays with his full title in the Dialog Interface too, which just doesn't fit.
So this will have to do.

I've also distributed Common Long Rifles to all Riflemen while I was at it.

 

[Grey Roger]

Hew Dalrymple is supposed to be Major General. This is him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Hew_Dalrymple,_1st_Baronet,_of_High_Mark

The easiest thing might be to not give him any rank or title by game mechanic but just include it as part of his name. He doesn't appear all that often anyway - during the initial briefing and during the after-dinner scene which precedes "The Devil and the Duchess".

Pellew has to change rank a few times. He's Captain when he first appears and Admiral by the end of the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Adding Hew's rank to his name is what I tried but that really doesn't fit in the dialog interface title.
If you insist on having it not wrong, the simplest solution is to leave it out altogether and just keep his Sir prefix.

Pellew starts the game as Commodore. If that shouldn't be the case, then he'll need the appropriate SetRank lines added throughout the story.

 

[Grey Roger]

When Keene transfers you to the Indefatigable, he says you'll be under Captain Sir Edward Pellew. (Pellew also introduces himself as such in the speech before you sail off to fight the Temeraire.) He's still Captain when you're invited to dinner with the Dalrymples, as Sir Hew refers to him as Captain Pellew.

By the time you've been given command of Retribution and sent off to find Lt. Quelp on Cayman, Pellew has been promoted; when you ask Lt. Chadd about ships' records, he refers to Commodore Pellew. And when you play cards with Pellew and the Hammonds, Pellew is given an Admiral's uniform. This wasn't a problem before, but if his rank is going to be displayed then yes, Pellew will need to start off at rank Captain and then have at least two SetRank lines added. Do you want to do that or shall I?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

When Keene transfers you to the Indefatigable, he says you'll be under Captain Sir Edward Pellew. (Pellew also introduces himself as such in the speech before you sail off to fight the Temeraire.) He's still Captain when you're invited to dinner with the Dalrymples, as Sir Hew refers to him as Captain Pellew.

By the time you've been given command of Retribution and sent off to find Lt. Quelp on Cayman, Pellew has been promoted; when you ask Lt. Chadd about ships' records, he refers to Commodore Pellew. And when you play cards with Pellew and the Hammonds, Pellew is given an Admiral's uniform. This wasn't a problem before, but if his rank is going to be displayed then yes, Pellew will need to start off at rank Captain and then have at least two SetRank lines added. Do you want to do that or shall I?

Rank titles ARE shown when facing characters as you probably have already noticed, so they might as well match up with the story.
Therefore I have just changed Pellew to be Post Captain at the beginning of the storyline and get two promotions as per attached file.
Can you check if I put that in the correct spots?

Also, I'm going with the simple solution for "Hew": No rank title at all, just the "Sir" prefix.
What isn't there, can't be wrong.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

All the above now included in here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817
As far as I'm concerned, this should now be fixed. Of course testing and comments will be appreciated.

 

[Grey Roger]

I'd have had Pellew's promotion to Commodore happen some time during "The Devil and the Duchess". You have it in 'case "Retribution_and_Promotion"', which is right after the court-martial and right before Hornblower gets his new ship, which is very tight timing, whereas there's plenty of time while Hornblower is stuck in prison for Pellew to earn his promotion.

The promotion to Admiral is at 'case "Bush_sees_PellewA"'. That's far too late. There seem to be several attempts to give Pellew his Admiral's uniform: "Go_to_play_cards", "meeting_on_flagship", and "Bush_sees_PellewA". Unless the first two are removed, the promotion has to happen before the card game. Another suitable interval in Hornblower's career is his decommissioning and two months with Maria.

So I'd have the promotion to Commodore at or somewhere near 'case "FREE_from_the_prison"' and the promotion to Admiral at 'case "Two_months_later"'.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So I'd have the promotion to Commodore at or somewhere near 'case "FREE_from_the_prison"' and the promotion to Admiral at 'case "Two_months_later"'.

Done!