Fix in Progress How do I enable jewels with merchants and am I able to borrow money from more loansharks at the same time?

[Fluen]

I miss the times, when the merchants sold jewels, so I could build my own treasure (and hide it in my own chest aboard). Is there a way to enable it again? I've only played a new game for a few days and am not afraid to restart it.

I use the newest build and update of it and also need to know, if it's possible to borrow money from two or more loansharks at the same time, because I've run into som quests for shipyards, blacksmiths and other craftmen that require a great amount of expensive materials.
I did try to borrow maximum money from the loanshark on Jamaica in November 1750 and was by the questbook informed that I had to repay the loan on "21st 1752". No month was mentioned. And even if the loanshark in his dialogue said, I had credit for four months, I lost reputation at 21st of January 1751. So I reloaded a save from a time in December 1750 and borrowed maximum money from the loanshark on Puerto Rico, who also gave me credit for four months. I noticed, that the only open loan in the quest book was the one from Puerto Rico, and it said I had to pay the money back "5th 1752" (again no mention of month). Then I hurried to Jamaica to succesfully repay that loanshark. But on the trip back I lost reputation again at 5th of January 1751. Eventually I gave up and reloaded a save from before I even got involved in that quest and skipped it.
Later I waited for the 1st of January 1751 and borrowed money from the loanshark in Charlestown on Nevis. Now the quest book mentioned both date, month and year and gave me four months to repay him. I still wonder if the trouble with the dates on the first loans was caused by passing the New Year's Eve, loans taken in 1750 (starting year for "Tales of a Sea Hawk") or borrowing maximum amount of money from two loansharks at the same time. Any ideas?

 

[Grey Roger]

Gems: edit "PROGRAM\ITEMS\initItems.c". Find the jewellery section, shown by the comment '// JEWELRY'. You'll find several lines like this:

n = InitItem(n,"jewelry1", "sapphire",2,  1,  0.05,  3,    753, 0,   1, 1, 0,   0,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0, +1,  0,  0,  0,  0,  1);// Sapphire            // + skill item //BB remove all skill bonus

Replace the last 1 with 0, e.g.:

n = InitItem(n,"jewelry1", "sapphire",2,  1,  0.05,  3,    753, 0,   1, 1, 0,   0,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0, +1,  0,  0,  0,  0,  0);// Sapphire            // + skill item //BB remove all skill bonus

Do that for each line that defines a gem or other jewellery which you want to be able to buy. You will need to start a new game for this to take effect, and even then, not all traders and stores will stock gems.

I'll need to look into loansharks. There may be a bug when you take a loan near the end of a year as it doesn't seem to properly account for adding months past December.

 

[Grey Roger]

Update: put this into "PROGRAM\DIALOGS". It fixes a bug with the time limit that has been there since the stock game. I haven't tried waiting for the timer to expire to see what happens, but certainly I can load a savegame which is set in December, take a loan, and the questbook shows the correct day, month and year for the deadline.

Adding four months to December, i.e. month 12, means the original code then thinks the time limit is month 16! The Build Mod has some useful functions for calculating additions to days or months, so I changed the loanshark dialog file to use them.

You won't need to start a new game for this. But it won't correct any loans you already have, so you'll want to load a savegame from before you took any.

 

[Fluen]

Concerning the availability of jewels, I didn't need a new game to get it to work. I simply used initialize. Then I discovered, that the possession of jewels gave extra skill points, and disabled that. Things work fine just now.
I'll test the update to the loansharks later.

I don't know, if I should start a new thread for everything, that puzzles me. So I'll just write here, that I've noticed, that pirate ambushes in town no longer seem to be dangerous to other people than the soldiers on guard. As both citizens and my people are left alone, and both music and icons indicate a peaceful situation, I suppose, the now harmless pirates (unless one is stupid enough to attack them) are an intended feature. I just don't understand why.

 

[Grey Roger]

It's best to put bug reports into the "Build Mod Bug Tracker" section, which is where I've moved this one. For preference, start a new thread for each bug, so that if the bug is fixed, the thread can be marked as "Fixed" and then archived - this helps keep the forum a bit tidier and makes it easy for modders to see bugs still waiting to be fixed.

Which pirate ambushes do you mean? The only ambushes I've seen are the occasional random thugs who attack you. Neither guards nor citizens get involved unless either a thug, you or one of your officers takes a rotten shot, misses the enemy and hits a guard instead, in which case all guards then join in to attack whichever group hit them. Or, if someone hits a citizen by mistake, all other citizens will then join in against whoever did the hitting.