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Solved Which of the Akella games has quick battle/skirmish & 16th century ships?

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Landlubber
This is kind of an odd request for help, since I am not overly concerned with storyline or gameplay. I am looking to use one of these games to generate specific ship battle images for a lecture/presentation, and the battles will range in era from the Age of Discovery to Trafalgar.

So what I need to know is, do any of the recent Akella games (POTC, AOP, CoAS) and community-generated mods have these features:
  • Quick Battle/Skirmish mode, so one doesn't have to spend hours hunting for the correct ship type of the correct era of the correct nationality to engage. :)
  • Late15th/early 16th century vessels (carrack, caravel, nao) up to the usual 18th century ships of the line
  • Reasonably plausible 16th century attire for in-game character (i.e. no tricorne/bicorne hats).
Obviously for the 18th and 19th century naval engagements it's possible to go with something like Empire or Napoleon: Total War, both of which I already own, but I am hoping that I can buy one of the Akella games, download a mod, and knock this out quickly, rather than blow a few weeks rendering stuff from scratch.
 
1. No game has a specific mode for this. However, the PotC Build Mod does have a Period mod to ensure you will encounter only period-correct ships.
Additionally, you can use the Console to give you the type of ship that you want from a total number of 235 different ones.
So I imagine you can set up a battle fairly quickly.

The same applies to AoP+CoAS, except that they do not have a Console to help you do this on-the-fly.
Still, you can set your starting ship in the code. However, not having a Period mod means that in either of those two games, you may not encounter the types of ships you want.

2. All our games have a vast variety of ship types included, including very early type ships and, at least in PotC, going as far as including Steam Ships in the last two time periods.
You can find screenshots of several ships in the News posts here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/new-horizons/news

3. I'm not entirely sure of plausible clothing for characters, but the PotC Build Mod has 1044 character models in total, so I reckon you should be able to find something you like.

However, note that in none of the Akella games, you will actually see your player character while sailing around and doing ship battles.

I hope this helps. Let us know if you get things up and running and need some help setting up your desired ship battles. :doff
 
Something else that sprang to mind:

In the PotC Build Mod, we have a Free Camera Mode that can allow interesting angles for your screenshots.
It is not particularly easy to use, but it's possible to work with it, especially when also using the time compression features.

This video contains some examples of what you can achieve:

If you do manage to make the screenshots you're after with one of these games, please post them if you're happy to do that!
I'd love to be able to include them on our ModDB profiles, for example. We can always use good quality pictures. :cheeky
 
None of the games were made with your uses in mind, but POTC is probably the easiest to adapt to your needs. But since you asked in the COAS forum here is soms COAS content.
A historically accurate Dutch pinnace. Dutch Pinnace-1.jpg

The HMS Victory. HMS_Victory GOF2.jpg
We did not know this at the time but this is remarkably close to the Whydah.La Licorne GOF2.jpgTheWhy4.jpg
The Revenge of "The one and fifty three" fame.Revenge-2.jpg
The Sophie with the Bounty, which was sunk by Hurricans Sandy, in the background.Sophie-2.jpg
 
Thanks, gentlemen; I appreciate the advice and assistance. I *love* the CoAS visuals, but the lack of a console hints that it be an easier endeavour in POTC.

I'll make sure I read all the manuals and mod documentation before I ask silly questions about console-generating ships on the fly. :)
 
You may want to look at the screenshots on our MODDB site and my site. http://www.moddb.com/members/modernknight1

There may be some that you could copy and crop for your purposes. Also there may be some movies that you could pause and print screen and then post into Paint, crop and voila picture of the action you want. I have dozens of movies on Youtube of gameplay and there are lots of others of our games there as well. https://www.youtube.com/user/modernknightone

MK
 
I have a few good Napoleonic v. Napoleonic CoAS screenshots. Is there anything specific you want from that era?
 
I appreciate the offer, Post Captain, but to be truthful I am after some obscure stuff. The Dardanelles Operation and Battle of Athos, for example. Obviously the Ottomans and Russians weren't major players in the Caribbean, so it will require minor repaints which I think I can handle.
 
 
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