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Included in Build Distinguish between different playstyles

Grey Roger

Sea Dog
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GO HERE: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/distinguish-between-different-playstyles.24511/page-8#post-501142

Is there some way to tie your crew's uniforms to your choice of flag, rather than having it stuck with whatever came with your most recent letter of marque? Because if we're trying to be realistic, sailing into St. Pierre with the ship wearing a French flag and the crew wearing British uniforms is a bit of a giveaway. xD

Why are we put into uniform at all? We're privateers, we're not in the regular navy. We shouldn't be in uniform and we shouldn't be getting ranks - noble titles would perhaps be more appropriate. That, incidentally, would negate the problem of having the wrong uniform when you raise a false flag.
 
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I think somehow the "navy" and "privateer" aspects of the game got joined up a bit because people want both and we have only one feature available. :facepalm

You do make valid points there from a privateer's perspective. I wonder how to incorporate that into the game without requiring a lot of rewrites....

Perhaps an attribute to be set in the early game whether you are navy or privateer?
If you're navy, then you get all these promotion changes, but for privateer you would skip on some.
Also perhaps a navy officer should NOT get land until you reach flag rank, but a privateer would.

That should not be excessively difficult. We would still maintain the existing rank names though, because I'm not sure how to easily get around that.
 
A privateer shouldn't receive any rank but if you look at the history of henry morgan if they are profitable enough they could be knighted and even be apointed gouvenor.
Now wouldn't that be a nice goal to work towards :aar
 
So what SHOULD a privateer in service of the crown get? No ranks, no land.
Should we then skip the whole "gaining ranks" system for privateers altogether? :shock
 
About the crew, if we have to choose between nation troops and normal sailors, I'd rather see normal sailors as default. The nation troops are marines and even in a naval ship most of the crew would be dressed in sailor clothes, not uniforms.
 
hmm maybe we should write 1 or 2 privateer ranks where you don't get much land, but therefore unlock higher ship classes faster..

And I had an idea: Can we add a house in one of the nations colonies for the player when he gets promoted? E.g. the Bridgetown residence would be nice for an Admiral :)
 
The easiest reward for privateering is to gain land and noble titles. I would imagine that this requires only the code which forces you into uniform to be bypassed, commented out or removed, and the rank names to be replaced with title names. A privateer would probably also not be given a free big ship.

Isn't that what earlier versions did anyway? And, for that matter, Sid Meier's "Pirates"?

A navy career ought to be a lot different in other ways. A captain might be allowed a free hand to roam the Caribbean hunting down pirates or ships of an enemy nation. Or he might be ordered to patrol a specific area. He wouldn't be a free man as a privateer would, he'd have to obey orders. Basically, you're not looking at a career, you're looking at a storyline. "Horatio Hornblower" is one such. It might be possible to write a looser one with some specific missions and some periods, as in "Assassin", where you're told to go off and generally harass the enemies of your nation.

Appointing you governor of an island seems a little superfluous when you can appoint your own governor of any island you like. You just steal someone's battleship, pound the island's fort into submission and then put one of your officers into the governor's seat. :D Besides, if you're appointed governor then it's the end of your sea-faring. So while it might be a suitable end to a storyline, it's not a good idea for a free-play.
 
Indeed originally the governor promotions where full-on privateering. But since there are people who like to play as Royal Navy too, it all got a bit jumbled up.
Ideally actual Royal Navy gameplay should indeed be more like a storyline than Free Play.

Perhaps we can set up one player type that is "Commissioned Officer"?
That one would treat governor promotions as royal navy affairs and would come with the appropriate soldiers as boarding crew.
All other player types would then go back to being 'normal' privateering without extra promotion rewards.
Then I would suggest also that "Commisioned Officer" does NOT gain land upon promotion until you achieve flag rank.

We just return to our issue with national rank names, because those are generally defined and I do not know how to handle two separate sets per nation.
Perhaps we should have "regular privater" skip the lower navy ranks and go straight for "Sir". But then you wouldn't have such a large range of promotions available. :facepalm
 
Of course that's a proper storyline and not Free Play stuff like we're thinking about here....
 
Of course. :p
Except if I have time and motivation to add an outside location to Conceicao with the Bartolomeu's house and some people cultivating land :razz
 
We should probably do a bit more serious thinking on this so that we know what to work on after the Beta 3.4 release.

The Hornblower storyline already gives the player a ".professionalnavy" attribute to make gameplay a bit more different.
My idea would be to create ONE Free Play storyline with a naval starting character. If you choose this one, you will get that attribute.
Even better might be to add another extra player type named as "Commissioned Officer".
Choosing that one will make you a proper navy officer instead of a general freelance player.

This will make the following differences:
- No Food/Rum consumption: This is handled by the Admiralty (done already for Hornblower storyline)
- No Salary to be Paid: This is handled by the Admiralty (done already for Hornblower storyline)
- If nation relations change, so do the player relations
- Start with your crew being soldiers
- Do NOT get awarded land upon promotion until reaching Flag Rank
- Do NOT get any dialog choice to buy a LoM from any governor
- Do NOT get any dialog choice to purchase amnesty from a pirate relation agent
- Thoughts? What else needs to be disabled for Navy Officers?

Then for Privateer Gameplay:
- Do NOT get awarded any promotion ships
- Do NOT get soldiers as crew when you purchase a LoM
- Player nation relations remain player-dependent and do NOT change when natons make/break alliances (current game behaviour)
- WISH: Different rank names for promotions (cannot guarantee we'll manage that one....)
- Thoughts? What else bothers you currently when playing as Privateer?

The following things would remain the same:
- Both ways, gain points with a nation for sinking enemy ships/capturing enemy towns/etc.
- Still gain promotion swords at the appropriate ranks
 
just a tought but why not give the player the option (in a free to play scenario) to become a navy officer by going to the naval acadamy?
We could even tie a little quest to that.
And you can always resign the navy again once you are one altough this probally means you will be hunted as a deserter.

I think we are only distinguising 2 forms now while there should actually be 3.
You've got:
Navy officer: he follows the orders he gets from the navy
Privateer: a captain in service of the nation he is serving
Pirate: does what ever he wants

I still think the privateering is to easy in this game. When you are a privateer and you attack a ship from a nation which is not in war with the nation you got your letter of marque you should lose the letter and be branded a pirate.
Also when you are a privateer you should pay part of the loot you gain to the gouvernor.
When you are a navy officer you should return all the loot you gain from taking the ship.
When being a pirate you can keep everything.

I think that when you are branded a pirate everyone should treat you neutral or hostile. Some nation might not even let you enter the port and the guards might ask you to leave the town. Ofcoure you can make your relations better by paying the diplomat.
When you are a privateer you are in service of a specific nation so the other nations should be hostile to you. Same goes for the naval officer. The privateer should also be able to pay for getting better relations.
A navy officer wont get to pay for better relations, if he really wants to visit a town he has to find another way.

If you are a navy officer you shouldn't need to pay for any ship related stuff, so also repairing your ship should be free (at least on islands of your nation). But you shouldn't be able to hire crew in the taverns. You need to hire crew at the naval acadamy also (which is also for free for you). I think when you are a naval officer you should get some kind of quests or targets to finish so you get payed. We should try to include town capture quests here, you can get an assigment to capture a town when you are a high level.

When you are a privateer you can go to the gouvenor to get a ship hunting quest and we should also include town capure quests on higher levels too. I would really like it when you could also recruit some other privateers to help you with your quest (they should work as compagnions) that would make things more interesting I think.

Being a pirate you can attack whatever ship you want and make sure you get all the loot and spend it however you want. We should have a guy pop up in the pirate settlement once i a while to grand you amnesty and you can choose to become a naval officer or privateer then again.

I need to think a bit more about it, but I'd say we should have these 3 playing styles.
 
Doing all that makes it real complicated real quick. Pretty good ideas, I've got to say.
But I was after a simple solution for starters based on the systems currently already in place.

How about the fourth playing style of not serving anyone in particular but also not waging war on anyone?
For example playing as a merchant or so?

Also, if you have to surrender your loot to the governor, what reason is there for doing that? Other than very deliberate Role Playing, I mean?

And if you don't pay anything as Naval Officer but don't get much of anything either, that could make for boring gameplay.
You'd be forced to do random missions for the governor all game long because there wouldn't be much else to do.
Only way to make that truly interesting is to have proper character-based story in there. And we already have that: The Hornblower storyline.
 
just a tought but why not give the player the option (in a free to play scenario) to become a navy officer by going to the naval acadamy?
Alternatively, why not observe that there's already a free play scenario with a naval character, "Nelson's First Command"? ;)

I still think the privateering is to easy in this game. When you are a privateer and you attack a ship from a nation which is not in war with the nation you got your letter of marque you should lose the letter and be branded a pirate.
If we're going to start trying to be realistic, I'd like to first see you penalised if you fire on a ship without first hoisting a flag hostile to that ship, even if the other ship has recognised you as an enemy and started firing first. Loss of reputation for a start, loss of letter(s) of marque as well - the letter of marque requires you to behave to some extent as a naval officer, meaning you abide by the rules of war, meaning you have to hoist a valid flag before you start fighting. That would also solve the problem with forts not joining in the fight. Either you hold fire, accept the damage from the enemy ship, keep your false flag up and the fort ignores you; or you raise a hostile flag to return fire and have to contend with the fort as well; or you return fire under your false flag, the fort doesn't know which of you is the real enemy and keeps out of it, but you are penalised for fighting under a false flag.

Also when you are a privateer you should pay part of the loot you gain to the gouvernor.
When you are a navy officer you should return all the loot you gain from taking the ship.
Navy officers and crews did get a share of the prize money. In reality the ship would be disposed of by the admiralty court and shares of prize money paid out, and that goes for privateers too. In the game, you get a pitiful fraction of the ship's value when you sell it at the shipyard (see how much you get, then see the price of the ship on sale). The difference is what the government keeps. Of course, the same applies if you're a pirate as well; perhaps this time the difference is the shipyard pocketing the profit in exchange for not turning you in as a pirate, then paying some lawyer to do shenanigans to put the ship legally up for sale.

When you are a privateer you are in service of a specific nation so the other nations should be hostile to you. Same goes for the naval officer. The privateer should also be able to pay for getting better relations.
A navy officer wont get to pay for better relations, if he really wants to visit a town he has to find another way.
Only those nations which are hostile to your nation should be hostile to you. If Britain and Holland are allied to each other and neutral to Spain, and you're British, then you should have no trouble getting into a Dutch or Spanish port. If you really want to enforce national law then you'll also need to prevent enemies from attacking you in a neutral port, and penalise you if you attack them. (The only knowledge I have on this matter isn't from the age of sail, it's from WW2, specifically the Battle of the River Plate. When Graf Spee was in neutral Montevideo, it wasn't allowed to attack British merchants there. In fact, it wasn't even allowed to sail within 24 hours of a British freighter departing, so it couldn't just lurk there waiting for something to leave and then go after it. Britain used that to keep Graf Spee from getting away before reinforcements arrived by having a freighter leave every day. :D)

As I mention in more detail further down, a naval officer is acting under orders. If he needs to get into an enemy port, it's because some sort of governor quest sends him there. The quest can deal with whether he gets relations improved via background diplomacy, the officer needs to pay someone himself, or he has to sneak in the back door. It can also deal with putting him into suitable clothes, because in reality a Dutch officer wandering around a hostile French port in Dutch uniform will not be wandering around freely for very long...

If you are a navy officer you shouldn't need to pay for any ship related stuff, so also repairing your ship should be free (at least on islands of your nation). But you shouldn't be able to hire crew in the taverns.
True, you don't hire crew from taverns, you get them without paying. Ever heard of press gangs? :whipa Officers can be hired from taverns as usual, or you can get them from a naval academy free of initial charge.

When you are a privateer you can go to the gouvenor to get a ship hunting quest and we should also include town capure quests on higher levels too. I would really like it when you could also recruit some other privateers to help you with your quest (they should work as compagnions) that would make things more interesting I think.
You can already recruit another privateer, though not specifically for one quest. You hire an officer and put him in charge of a second ship. ;)

Being a pirate you can attack whatever ship you want and make sure you get all the loot and spend it however you want. We should have a guy pop up in the pirate settlement once i a while to grand you amnesty and you can choose to become a naval officer or privateer then again.
You already have that. He's called a diplomat. You have to pay for the amnesty, though. ;)

But the real difference between a privateer and a naval officer is that the privateer can go wherever he wants, whereas the naval officer is subject to orders. Short of confining naval characters to tightly plotted storylines, the only way I can see this working is to have more quests received from governors. Perhaps a naval officer can only get missions from a governor, specifically escort and possibly cargo or fetch quests. Having completed the mission, you have a time limit in which to report back to the governor, otherwise you lose rank, pay and possibly the game. It's possible for you to be released for a fixed time; the "Assassin" quest has a couple of interludes in which you aren't given a specific job and are told to go and amuse yourself at the expense of Spain's enemies for a while, so perhaps the governor could do something similar. When time is up, you have to return to a governor for another mission.
 
@Grey Roger, if you get the chance, please also have a look at my two posts above.
If we figure out something simple, I may yet be able to do something about this for the public Beta 3.4 release. :yes

Alternatively, why not observe that there's already a free play scenario with a naval character, "Nelson's First Command"? ;)
My thinking is indeed to have it set right at game start for now.
Simpler to accomplish.

If we're going to start trying to be realistic, I'd like to first see you penalised if you fire on a ship without first hoisting a flag hostile to that ship, even if the other ship has recognised you as an enemy and started firing first. Loss of reputation for a start, loss of letter(s) of marque as well - the letter of marque requires you to behave to some extent as a naval officer, meaning you abide by the rules of war, meaning you have to hoist a valid flag before you start fighting. That would also solve the problem with forts not joining in the fight. Either you hold fire, accept the damage from the enemy ship, keep your false flag up and the fort ignores you; or you raise a hostile flag to return fire and have to contend with the fort as well; or you return fire under your false flag, the fort doesn't know which of you is the real enemy and keeps out of it, but you are penalised for fighting under a false flag.
As cool and realistic as that sounds (I DO LIKE IT!), it would require substantial code rewrites, so we'll have to put that on the long-term wish list.

Navy officers and crews did get a share of the prize money. In reality the ship would be disposed of by the admiralty court and shares of prize money paid out, and that goes for privateers too. In the game, you get a pitiful fraction of the ship's value when you sell it at the shipyard (see how much you get, then see the price of the ship on sale). The difference is what the government keeps. Of course, the same applies if you're a pirate as well; perhaps this time the difference is the shipyard pocketing the profit in exchange for not turning you in as a pirate, then paying some lawyer to do shenanigans to put the ship legally up for sale.
The return value for sold ships in the game depends on how you acquired the ship. If you pirated her, then shipyards wouldn't like to be associated with that and therefore offer a lower price.
But if you were the one to purchase the ship in the first place and now decide to sell, you should get substantially more money.

Only those nations which are hostile to your nation should be hostile to you. If Britain and Holland are allied to each other and neutral to Spain, and you're British, then you should have no trouble getting into a Dutch or Spanish port. If you really want to enforce national law then you'll also need to prevent enemies from attacking you in a neutral port, and penalise you if you attack them. (The only knowledge I have on this matter isn't from the age of sail, it's from WW2, specifically the Battle of the River Plate. When Graf Spee was in neutral Montevideo, it wasn't allowed to attack British merchants there. In fact, it wasn't even allowed to sail within 24 hours of a British freighter departing, so it couldn't just lurk there waiting for something to leave and then go after it. Britain used that to keep Graf Spee from getting away before reinforcements arrived by having a freighter leave every day. :D)
Simple solution: For Navy Officers, call SetRelationsAsNation(player served nation) upon every random nation relation change.

What about privateers getting a LoM from several nations at once? Right now the game totally allows you to do that.

Your point on neutral ships also came up in a book by C.S. Forester called "The Captain from Connecticut" set during the Napoleonic Wars.

True, you don't hire crew from taverns, you get them without paying. Ever heard of press gangs? :whipa Officers can be hired from taverns as usual, or you can get them from a naval academy free of initial charge.
Possibly we can make crew hire free in towns of your served nation for Navy Officer to simulate the press gang.

But the real difference between a privateer and a naval officer is that the privateer can go wherever he wants, whereas the naval officer is subject to orders. Short of confining naval characters to tightly plotted storylines, the only way I can see this working is to have more quests received from governors. Perhaps a naval officer can only get missions from a governor, specifically escort and possibly cargo or fetch quests. Having completed the mission, you have a time limit in which to report back to the governor, otherwise you lose rank, pay and possibly the game. It's possible for you to be released for a fixed time; the "Assassin" quest has a couple of interludes in which you aren't given a specific job and are told to go and amuse yourself at the expense of Spain's enemies for a while, so perhaps the governor could do something similar. When time is up, you have to return to a governor for another mission.
Having that in Free Play mode will require a completely new system of random governor navy missions to be added into the game.
That will also have to be a more long-term wish. For now, we'll have to leave a fair bit to the deliberate role-playing of the players.
 
Actually, I'll see what I can do on this tonight. Lay the foundations, so to say, so that hopefully @FlyingGhost can expand on it a bit over the weekend or so.
Intentions would be as follows....

Extra Carreer Option:
Commisioned Naval Officer

This will make the following differences:
- No Food/Rum consumption: This is handled by the Admiralty - Done for Hornblower storyline, try to avoid here!
- No Salary to be Paid: This is handled by the Admiralty - Done already for Hornblower storyline, do we want this here too?
- If nation relations change, so do the player relations
- Start with your crew being soldiers
- Do NOT get awarded land upon promotion until reaching Flag Rank (which rank level is that?)
- Do NOT get any dialog choice to buy a LoM from any governor
- Do NOT get any dialog choice to purchase amnesty from a pirate relation agent
- NO companion mutinies due to differences in reputation
- Cannot hire officers from taverns
- Cannot hoist other-nation flag; only player flag allowed
- Pre-programmed officers and new ships for each promotion
- WISH: Free hiring of crew in own-nation taverns

Then for Privateer Gameplay:
- Do NOT get awarded any promotion ships (or, if we indeed give a promotion ship to the player on EACH rank for a navy officer, can we keep the single ship for privateer?)
- Do NOT get soldiers as crew when you purchase a LoM
- Player nation relations remain player-dependent and do NOT change when natons make/break alliances (current game behaviour)
- WISH: Different rank names for promotions (cannot guarantee we'll manage that one....)
- Thoughts? What else bothers you currently when playing as Privateer?

The following things would remain the same:
- Both ways, gain points with a nation for sinking enemy ships/capturing enemy towns/etc.
- Still gain promotion swords at the appropriate ranks

Needed from @FlyingGhost or @Grey Roger:
- List of ships and added officers for each promotion level

Other thoughts?
 
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