Fewer trade quests to pirate ports

[Grey Roger]

If you take a trade quest, there is a significant chance that the destination is a Pirate colony. The attached version of "PROGRAM\QUESTS\quests_common.c" reduces that chance. Function "GenerateNationTrade" picks a random nation, and in this version, if it picks PIRATES, it tries again. It only tries once more, it does not block PIRATES entirely, partly because the occasional quest to a pirate port is amusing but mainly because allowing pirate destinations is a safety net in case it can't find a friendly, non-pirate nation. So, for example, if you take a trade quest from a British store during normal relations, valid nations are Britain, Holland, Portugal and Pirate, giving Pirate a 1/4 chance. With the retry, that becomes 1/16.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds about right.
Pirates aren't big traders; are they?

Indeed I remember them being there mainly as failsafe.
And that failsafe, certainly on the past, got triggered WAAAY too frequently!
Especially if nation and player relations strongly reduced the available destinations.

I remember removing player relations from the check altogether.
That seemed to help...

 

[Grey Roger]

Yes, I found the commented out check on player relations. Just use a false flag if the store keeper likes a nation which you do not.

The other way that Nevis Pirate Settlement specifically can be picked is at the next stage. If the chosen nation has no port, the quest defaults to Pirate Settlement. To counter that, I added a check in "GenerateNationTrade" when assembling the list of friendly nations; if a nation has no ports, it will not be added to the list. So British store keepers in Napoleonic period will not be able to pick Portugal, for example.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yes, I found the commented out check on player relations. Just use a false flag if the store keeper likes a nation which you do not.

Yup.
Or choose not to do the quest if the danger is too great.

The other way that Nevis Pirate Settlement specifically can be picked is at the next stage. If the chosen nation has no port, the quest defaults to Pirate Settlement. To counter that, I added a check in "GenerateNationTrade" when assembling the list of friendly nations; if a nation has no ports, it will not be added to the list. So British store keepers in Napoleonic period will not be able to pick Portugal, for example.

Clever!