• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

A random string of thoughts...

Encounters are set to random in Build 13. I am doing some work at the moment on ship assignments for various nations so that certain ships are only used by certain nations. Also I have some thoughts on bigger ships becoming available as the years progress. After all: Manowars would not be found in the 1600's, right? Also I am thinking we should set chances for ships, so then we can set Manowars to be much less common. The way I am considering to code it, is going to make it possible to set manowars to be more common for, for example, England as well. I could see various nations using different kinds of ships more frequently. Also I could make the appearance chance of ships depending on the ship class: So class 1 ships would be really quite uncommon and the lower the class, the more common the ships would be.
 
Well, for some reason I'm thinking Pirates of The Caribbean takes place in the 1720's. But it's certainly early 18th century. The ships we see tend to be more advanced designs I think. But it's also not the 1720's we know either. Think about the relationship between supernatural entities and real political power. Where would England and the East India Company be if Calypso, the oceans themselves embodied, hadn't been bound? The sea was tamed by the pirates so they could have free reign but it also turned out to empower the EIC to, eventually, outgrow and overpower piracy.

And what of the other colonial powers? Do we ever see anyone but England (as embodied by the EIC) out there? I need to do more homework to get a better picture of things.

It seems to me the real factions in the PoTC universe, in the Caribbean and the world of pirates, aren't European powers as much as they are the assorted factions lead (such as they are - which isn't very well) by the Pirate Lords. They're a disorganized, treacherous and infighting rabble only held together, when they are, by the threat of the East India Company, and its English backers, of the Mythic Caribbean.

This lends itself to a whole bunch of questions of course. If Davy Jones and Calypso are real what else is real? What other powers are out there? What magical traditions might exist beyond the animist/voodoo style we tend to see? Clearly there's some Chinese mysticism (also probably animist in nature - Daoist but incorporating the Chinese love of cryptic technology, look at that sea chart in "End of the world"). Clearly Aztec blood sorcery is still quite vibrant but does it have any other practitioners? What of other religions? Do we see anything formal amongst the British? An Anglican tradition? What else? Certainly the role of general seafarer superstitions is front and center in every tradition so if I were designing a cosmology I'd probably look at how sailors traditionally felt about such elements. And what of science in such a setting? Clearly technology has moved on apace as we see it in the firearms and the design of the ships. Makes one think that sorcery or theurgy isn't so common or easy or reliable as to be used on a daily basis. But it clearly is the trump card when you can pull off, say, a binding or releasing of a Calypso.
 
<!--QuoteBegin-Ron Losey+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Good direction to be going, but it leaves out a few factors.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

These few factors are exactly the thing I wanted to avoid after making a "testrun" with a broader model.
Here´s what I had for the Shamshir ("What you see is what you get" - approach):

1Material: damacsen_steel
2Material handle: ebony
3ornaments: yes
4material ornaments: gold
5cost(1):
6cost(2):
7cost(4):
8Manufacturerer: smith_expert
9cost (8/day)
10days needed:
11<i>Total production costs:</i>
12(Quality: *1.1 for every step over average) Excellent13import: Mediterranean
14import Km: 7000
15cost(12): (I thought about a 1.015 multiplier every 1000km, taking the "rarity" of the item
in the Carribean into account)
<i>Total</i>: 12*6.72

Lets say the initial price would be 3 pounds in the med, you´d have to pay 43 pounds (for comparison: 45 pounds was the yearly income of a commanding officer of ther RN in 1700)

So we end up with 12 values for sword, doing the same for a ship would be ...well, madness <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

Of course there´s no connection between the price and the stats anymore, so I´d need a new stats system. ^^ Right now you´re forced to have an excellent F100/cardinal´s guard/Bosum´s choice in the endgame and this isn´t exactly my cup of tea (and your crew needs locker full of these weapons, too).

The idea behind this that a Bosum´s Choise is basically an excellent cutlass and there shouldn´t be any major stats
differences between the two if both are forged by a master smith.

Every average rapier-style weapon gets 85 piercing 85 blocking and min damage/max damage 15/30
Every average sword-style weapon gets 80 piercing 80 blocking and min damage/max damage 20/35
Every average curved blade weapon gets 75 piercing 75 blocking and min damage/max damage 25/40

Every quality over average gets + 4,5 in p and b (due better balance of the weapon) and 4 points in min/max damage. For an excellent - or perhaps even fine- quality you would have to bring some kind of high quality iron/steel (which should be <i>very </i> rare) to a smithy and hope that he gets the job done (should be dependend on your luck). Another idea would be that each smith is specialized in, say, 3 weapons (i.e. is able to produce fine and excellent quality) and you´d have to find the smith that makes the weapon of your choice first.

Unique weapons like the F100/cardinal´s guard/Bosum´s choice get a slight buff (perhaps +1) but shouldn´t
be upgradeable (as they already are of excellent quality ).

With this system the player wouldn´t be restricted to two or three weapons if he invests the time and - of course- a lot of money to get his favourite weapon in the desired quality ( my fav is the new snakehead, btw). Successfully fighting with a cutlass in the endgame without editing the stats in initItems.c would be a possibility.

The major disadvantage is that enemies might be overpowered at the beginning of the game.


<!--QuoteBegin-Ron Losey+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Both ships and especially cannon required rather specialized facilities to build them, and the cost would go a lot more than the prices of simple manufacturing. Cannon also generally were imported from Europe, and transportation was not cheap, especially through the issue of pirates.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Point granted. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
The easiest way to take these things into acount would be to apply a percentage modifier for shipclasses.


<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->cost of an unskilled worker/day : 12 pence
cost of a skilled worker/day : 12 pence * 2,5 = 30 pence
cost of an engineer/supervisor/day: 12 pence * 3,5 = 42 pence

percentage of uw/sw/en in a shipyard/armoury: 70%/25%/5%

cost of 1 kg wood: ? (perhaps 0,1 pence)
cost of 1 kg sailcloth : ? (perhaps 0,8 pence)
cost of 1kg iron: ? (perhaps 1,5 pence)

kg of wood needed per ton/ship: ? (perhaps 2500kg)
kg of sailcloth needed per ton/ship: ? (perhaps 100kg)
kg of iron needed per ton/ship: ? (perhaps 30kg)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

new:

cost of an unskilled worker/day : 12 pence
cost of a skilled worker/day : 12 pence * 2,5 = 30 pence
cost of an engineer/supervisor/day: 12 pence * 3,5 = 42 pence

percentage of uw/sw/en needed in a shipyard/armoury: 70%/25%/5% (for military class 1/2/3 ships -5/+4/+1)

class 3: 64/29/6
class 2: 60/33/7
class 1: 57/37/8

still very abstract, but it might get the job done

cost of 1 kg wood: ? (perhaps 0,1 pence) (for military class 1/2/3 ships +0,05 pence*)
cost of 1 kg sailcloth : ? (perhaps 0,8 pence)
cost of 1kg iron: ? (perhaps 1,5 pence)

kg of wood needed per ton/ship: ? (perhaps 2500kg) (for military class 1/2/3 ships +750kg*)
kg of sailcloth needed per ton/ship: ? (perhaps 100kg)
kg of iron needed per ton/ship: ? (perhaps 30kg)

*this would have the nice side effect of raising the maintainance costs of navy ships a bit


Oh, and for the realism vs. gameplay/game setting discussion: More realism only emphasises the mythical aspects of PotC imho. And one of the greatest strengths of the Build Mod is that it can be played as a sandbox game, too, playing the Main quest isn´t mandatory. I´m also a roleplayer but I prefer a more realistc approach and the mod gives me the possibilities to do so (but I´ll certainly enjoy playing the new Main Quest <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" /> )
 
I wish you all the best if you want to put all items and ships through those kind of calculations to get realistic prices and building times! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/piratesing.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shock" border="0" alt="piratesing.gif" />

As for the mystisicm in the game: Personally I think the game should play pretty much like any other realistic pirate game. I know many people who don't like the unrealistic aspects in PotC at all and I think they should be made pretty easy to ignore, limiting them to quests and certain locations only. I don't think we need to take them into account for the archipelago's economy.

For the ships, I had the thought of just having the availability depending on the current year. That would be the most realistic, I think. And it would allow different gameplay for different people. I know, for example, that Petros prefers the 1600's time setting with lots of galleons and caravels and no corvettes, frigates or bigger ships at all. I was thinking of having a "starting year" selection on the Choose Character interface so that you can choose for yourself what stuff you want to have available. Then as time progresses, more modern ships will become available.

The progression of the years could also be used for other things: national uniforms changing, pre-coded relation changes between nations. Perhaps even the rise of the USA if we manage to add that as a seperate country as well. That way we could basically put everything into one game, ranging from the end of medieval times to the Napoleonic era.
 
A true Pirates of the Caribbean game would probably have to be the product of a very unique mod project. It would have to be almost from the ground up. That said, I'm thinking a party-based adventure game with shipboard combat, such as we already have, combined with a historical-fantasy setting well realized would open up alot of possibilities. Not many people are probably going to understand or identify with the struggles of Holland and Spain in the New World compared to those who'd be transfixed by fleshing out those colorful pirate factions and seeing how all that infighting sorts out.

It'd have to be set at the end of the third movie because that's when everything opens up. The EIC is still the biggest kid on the block especially as I'll bet the pirates, just like Jack Sparrow and Barbarossa, fall back into infighting and plotting. Each bunch was displayed but barely defined. And each bunch clearly has cultural hooks one can dig into and flesh out. A much more diverse setting with much more storytelling potential, IMHO. I may be reading too much into it, but it seems that everyone the English conquered tends to end up as castouts and beggers or lowly laborers. Pirates are the ones who just stopped taking it...

And that begs the question about what England was before the EIC came to dominate it. Couldn't have been all bad, They did have rights to assemble and habeas corpus, because those among others were revoked in the third film. And what about the other colonial powers? What happened to them? And what about the West India Company...?

See where all this goes? Lots of material to work with and little of it nailed down by the films.

But, yeah, I agree with you. It's not like there are any good alternatives to PoTC that deal with a more historical game and the Build Mod as it is walks a fine line between a historical feel and a more flexible, fun, feel. Heading down the Mythic Caribbean path, too far, would probably alienate alot of existing players who are here for things as they are.

But...

One day...

Wouldn't it be cool...
 
Hm, haven´t seen the last two PotC movies but the story sounds a bit...weird (okay, the story of the original movie is pretty confusing, too, if you didn´t see) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

<!--QuoteBegin-Pieter Boelen+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I wish you all the best if you want to put all items and ships through those kind of calculations to get realistic prices and building times! piratesing.gif<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Heh, already done that (for ships, anyway^^). I only have to enter the tonnage of a given ship and the spreadsheets give me the price/building times/maintainance costs. I´m adding the ship class modifiers at the moment to see how it affects the prices of military vessels and I´ll finetune the system a bit.

I know, adding this to the game is a totally different ball game and it will take at least 5-6 months (<i>very</i> optimistic estimate) before I get a basic version up and running, but, as I said before, its a start <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
Oh, the films are an insane mess and I can barely follow the plot myself to tell the truth. But the setting, dialed back a notch or two and a bit more fleshed out, has some huge potential.
 
Personally I prefer a realistic Napoleonic time setting, but with a slight mix of anachronistic and mythical cool stuff added in. I like the films, but they're a bit too way out of the believable for a carbon-copy to work in our game. I'd want to keep most film stuff limited to quests. Although it might be interesting to add several pirates into the game who each have their own pirate nation and who can fight each other or work together. That would give the player the opportunity to solve the differences between the pirates and take on the EITC as a united front. Of course is there then a difference between England and the EITC? And between The Netherlands and the VOC?

As things currently stand, I think the best would be to:
- Make ships appear and disappear based on realistic years
- Make certain ships more rare than others, mostly the big ships
- Add the USA into the game and have them first appear and then rise to power at the end of the timeframe

Of course the "Capture Colony" mod opens up a lot of oppportunity. Right now you <i>can</i> capture a colony for your own, but it doesn't really do you much good. You can set a tax level, but I don't think that's actually used anywhere yet. There's not really any unlocked functionality by capturing colonies yet. Also the player doesn't have any influence on national relations yet. Would be cool if you could cause or solve wars somehow in the game.
 
See, actually leaning more on the setting for the films does solve some problems:

Historically, pirates weren't taking over colonies and settling down (there might be one or two exceptions but the only one that comes to mind is Morgan and he got a legitimate land grant in reward for his privateering).

Historically, pirates didn't get their hands on large fighting ships or build very big fleets (with some documented exceptions and most of those centuries before the period we have in this game).

However, if someone were pick up after "World's End" we've got a weakened EIC and emboldened pirate factions. Also think of all the additional ship models that could be included from, say, Singapore to Timbuktu if things really started to devolve into a catfight over the disintigrating British Empire (a version in miniature of which would be the "Caribbean" of the game). Taking colonies, building fleets, commanding big warships. Hey..who knows? Britain and English pirate factions (of which there are two but let's assume Jack's not exactly active as a leader so it's just Barbarossa) along with the effete French pirate lord would, of course, have the European ships (and they could span all periods within reason, this is a fantasy setting after all), while each other pirate factions would have access to the kinds of ships their original cultures did historically. Dhows, junks - hell, even Mediterranean wargalleys for those crazy Turks. Why not? Even those xebecs would start making a heckuvalot more sense!

Alright, alright, simmering down now. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />
 
or cause wars. i recall that it was very sneakily used in tropico 2. you would run up a flag of a nation, attack ships of another nation but letting at least one of them get away to spread the news of the attack, and then buy LoM's from one of the nations to make a hefty profit out of it!

there's the spansih pirate too, of course, to use galleons or something like that.
 
LOL. That sounds pretty cool, Morgan! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":woot" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" />
 
and downright dastardly too. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":))" border="0" alt="smile2.gif" /> the risk is that if you get recognised when sparking the war, you'll be hunted by the nation you attacked and the nation you where using the flag of. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
 
That's right, Galleons for the Spanish pirate. Of course it'd get a bit mixed up if there was some reason all these factions converged on the Caribbean for some reason so it wouldn't be too odd if those different ship types were all jumbled up (outside of the rigid and doctrinaire imperial EIC). We can imagine pirates would take prize ships from each other. And as they take colonies they'd need transport and merchants of their own. But the big money, and main focus, would still be preying on EIC shipping. They're pirates after all. Can't have them be farmers or fishermen even if they start taking territory. I'm thinking about the EIC playing a role like a cross between The Empire in Star Wars, if falling apart and more defensive than offensive at this point, mixed up with the cops from Grand Theft Auto. They're what every faction's leeching off of for profits but piss them off too much and they'll smack down any individual faction or captain (like you).

Okay. Seriously. Done. Just some brainstorming but I know we can't really do this with the Build Mod. It'd have to be something different. So it'll have to wait.
 
<!--quoteo(post=226862:date=Dec 20 2007, 09:43 AM:name=OddjobXL)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(OddjobXL @ Dec 20 2007, 09:43 AM) [snapback]226862[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not many people are probably going to understand or identify with the struggles of Holland and Spain in the New World<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey ! What are you saying ?!? That's exactly what I'd love to play, among with French and Hollandeses adventures in Brazil, the French calvinist attempt to conquer Florida, or a century or two after the Dutch settling down in Curaçao, Aruba & Bonnaire and the rich trade with Venezuela! For many people historical stories are fascinating.
You know, if I'm not against some funny movie allusion ingame, for me this game should still become more 'Seadogs II' than 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. If a lot of people enjoyed the movie, I know a lot didn't and would not even try our mods if there's too much movie stuff in it.
 
The map we have isn't even the Caribbean! Forces don't seem to dynamically war with each other (relations seem to remain static). Territory doesn't change hands. Ships seem to be an assortment from across the spread of a couple hundred years. Galleons and schooners? Ships of the line and Men o' War? Mediterranean Xebecs? Conquistador Spanish, zombie monks and undead chimps? Magical gems and jewlry that raise stats. Healing potions. What we have is a fantasy game already.

That said, I don't have a huge problem with it. One does get a sense of some odd internal consistancy in the setting. It's not nearly as over the top as the PoTC films and it does include more historical colonial powers. Two very different people, like you and I, can look at this game and see two very different things there. That's not a mean feat. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

But, ultimately, people seeking perfection are going to have to follow divergent paths. Historical realism has one set of demands. Varied gameplay and fidelity to the source material has another. Scylla and Charybdis. Build Mod's going to keep trying to sail between them. So far, so good, I reckon.
 
I still want to have the best of both worlds. The best of reality and the best of fantasy. But with the fantasy limited and definitly not over the top. The rest of the game I'd like to make less fantastical and more realistic. That way, when the fantastical does occur, it is all the more special. Now there is also Pirates of the Caribbean: Online, but from what I've seen and heard of that, it is a completely fantastical world where the fantasy elements are just as normal as the cannonballs that kill your crews. I really don't want that for our game. And I really wouldn't want that for any future PotC films either. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/no.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":no" border="0" alt="no.gif" />

As for our current map: Some of the islands have unexisting names, but we are going to have a Real Caribbean mod in Alpha 8 that's going to rename them to existing islands. So that will give us a PROPER Caribbean! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":woot" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" />
 
You inspired me to take a look at PoTC Online. That's far more cartoonish than what I'd really like to see myself. I've been referring to the fictional setting of PoTC as the Mythic Caribbean and I think I mentioned Ars Magica's Mythic Europe. There's a reason for that. Mythic Europe is a very serious-minded look at historical feudal Europe <i>if</i> the things medieval Europeans believed about their world were true! So there are Saints and faeries and devils and so forth but they're sublimated to historical beliefs about what they were and what they did. You pick up a game supplement about, say, <i>The Divine</i> and you'll probably learn more about historical medieval theology and canon law as well as administrative structures (Christian Catholic, Muslim and Jewish) than you ever knew. But it's adapted to a roleplaying setting and the supernatural elements are treated as if they could be real.

This is, admittedly, not exactly true to the spirit of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean. They're a bit sillier and looser with that kind of supernatural content and the historical context. But, there's an inkling of plausibility behind all the particle effects as if you could just tone down the over-the-top nature of it all you could easily discern real sailor's superstitions and beliefs behind it.
 
For example: use the skeleton pirates only in quests (but also as the dead corpes in treasure chests) (seaweedy for Jones, and the normal for cursed and CotBP). And the mummies only in the temples. The abbey can stay, it is a special place and I like it.
 
The Abbey can stay. I think fantasy should be limited to quests (Black Pearl, Davy Jones, Flying Dutchman, etc.) and locations (Maltese Knight Abbey). That way they're 100% avoidable for those who don't like it.
 
Back
Top