Low Priority Hostile territory

[Grey Roger]

@Pieter Boelen previously commented in some other thread that being in an enemy town ought to be more dangerous.

When you talk to a storekeeper or shipyard owner in an enemy town and you've been recognised, he says "I refuse to deal with someone of your nation and reputation. Now get out before I call the guards!". Why not have him call the guards? It already happens if you have the wrong flag when you talk to the storekeeper in Antigua and try to tell him you have a LoM.

And then there's the secret police. This could be a new type of random citizen - you talk to him, he denounces you as an enemy spy and pulls a sword. (Or, if he's Spanish, a soft cushion - nobody expects that. )

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Do we want the guards to show up INSIDE the shops or once you get outside?
Inside might be easy, but it'll get proper crowded.

To make it outside, we'd need a quest to be started that completes as soon as you exit the location.
Should be possible.

I'm wondering how much of those dialogs also we should move into the "generic" files as per @Levis' new functionality.
That would certainly make it a whole lot easier to add/edit any general functionality.

 

[Grey Roger]

At Antigua the guards turn up inside the store. It is indeed crowded.

If you're going to have the fight outside, triggered by a quest, why have it finish right away? The guards are after you! Places to escape and end the quest could include the church (the literal definition of sanctuary), any house with an open door where you can tell the owner that the guards are after you, or of course your own ship. Taking refuge anywhere else, e.g. the tavern or shipyard, will get you a break in the action so you can rest and your character can heal up, but the guards are still waiting for you when you leave.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I like the idea, but it sounds like a relatively big project to do. Will have to go on my wish list for after I finished my current projects.

We would need to disable fast travel since otherwise you can get away too easily.

Does sound like fun to force the player to escape from a fully hostile town after being recognised.

We first need to sort out our false flag detection code for certain though.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Since we're talking about various nation relation related subjects anyway, I'll bring up this topic again as well for consideration.
Probably still will be a Build 15 feature, but it cannot hurt to think about it now along with the other things.

For Build 14, probably the only thing that will be done is that you can be recognized as a traitor when your "served nation" is PIRATE.
When you are recognized by a merchant as being hostile, he/she will simply refuse to deal with you.
During the Bartolomeu Storyline, specific towns are marked as "dangerous" after related quest scenes.
This means that randomly ALL characters (random citizens included) in that location may turn immediately hostile to you when you enter.

For Build 15, one thing that can be done is to have the merchants make good on their threats of calling the guards, as @Grey Roger already suggested.

One additional thing that I would very much appreciate is if the guards in a hostile town would actually take some action by themselves.
At the moment, the town guards just stand there and if you attack them, they'll all fight back.
If you talk to them, they'll just say some random stuff and you can continue on your merry way, even if they are actually hostile to you.
They also will never talk to the player on their own.

What I would like to see is that if the player is hostile to the guards, then they may randomly initiate dialog with the player when they get close.
This dialog would then contain something similar to the Antigua functionality where you have to "prove" you're not hostile by bribing them and/or being lucky.
The chance of this should be based on your "false flag detection chance", so this wouldn't happen often in the early game, but does happen later.
If you fail the guard's query, then all guards turn hostile and you'll have to fight for your life.

The code to automatically initiate dialog with the player is already in place and occurs mainly for random citizens.
A "prove you're not hostile" dialog is also available for shore accessible forts as well as the Antigua Navy Base, though that currently does not depend on your false flag detection chance.
@Levis also set up some more active guards for his Opium Smuggling functionality.
So a lot of the foundations are already there; we'll just have to make better use of them.

 

[Grey Roger]

For Build 14, probably the only thing that will be done is that you can be recognized as a traitor when your "served nation" is PIRATE.
When you are recognized by a merchant as being hostile, he/she will simply refuse to deal with you.
During the Bartolomeu Storyline, specific towns are marked as "dangerous" after related quest scenes.
This means that randomly ALL characters (random citizens included) in that location may turn immediately hostile to you when you enter.

This should perhaps only happen when you're famous. In "Bartolomeu" it happens after you've rescued your crew and part of Spain's response is to put "Wanted" posters in various towns. It would probably be impossible to make more general "Wanted" posters about <insert player character's name>, but random citizens shouldn't have much chance of recognising you unless there's a reason. There is, however, a snag with that.

One additional thing that I would very much appreciate is if the guards in a hostile town would actually take some action by themselves.
At the moment, the town guards just stand there and if you attack them, they'll all fight back.
If you talk to them, they'll just say some random stuff and you can continue on your merry way, even if they are actually hostile to you.
They also will never talk to the player on their own.

Marines in military ports may challenge you. Regular guards aren't supposed to talk to people. Again, if you're famous then they might recognise you, otherwise they're supposed to stand there unless provoked. There are several YouTube clips of British guards outside royal buildings who are practically inert until someone pushes his luck too far and gets a gun pointed at him.

What I would like to see is that if the player is hostile to the guards, then they may randomly initiate dialog with the player when they get close.
This dialog would then contain something similar to the Antigua functionality where you have to "prove" you're not hostile by bribing them and/or being lucky.
The chance of this should be based on your "false flag detection chance", so this wouldn't happen often in the early game, but does happen later.
If you fail the guard's query, then all guards turn hostile and you'll have to fight for your life.

So, as I was saying, there's a snag with being recognised, which is that the "false flag detection chance" doesn't work very well, as you'll find out if you're completely unknown and try to sail into port under a false flag when there's an enemy merchant ship present. Either that will need to be fixed or some other method of determining whether guards and civilians recognise you must be devised.

Be careful not to make it too likely to be spotted, even if you're famous. Otherwise you ruin the game for more advanced players, not to mention probably break some quests.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

This should perhaps only happen when you're famous. In "Bartolomeu" it happens after you've rescued your crew and part of Spain's response is to put "Wanted" posters in various towns. It would probably be impossible to make more general "Wanted" posters about <insert player character's name>, but random citizens shouldn't have much chance of recognising you unless there's a reason. There is, however, a snag with that.

Can't remember exactly what I did for that ".dangerous" check as it is something quick and dirty that I did many, many years ago specifically for Bartolomeu.
Indeed it could be made more fancy, taking into account the proper false flag detection.

Marines in military ports may challenge you. Regular guards aren't supposed to talk to people. Again, if you're famous then they might recognise you, otherwise they're supposed to stand there unless provoked. There are several YouTube clips of British guards outside royal buildings who are practically inert until someone pushes his luck too far and gets a gun pointed at him.

Perhaps make the chance that the guards talk to you ALSO dependent on the false flag detection chance?
Actually, that might simplify things a bit.... Then we can have the dialog itself not based on that at all, so we can reuse the existing ones as they are now.
So then my suggestion would be:
- Regular hostile town: Chance of guards talking to you depends on your "false flag detection" chance (e.g. related to fame)
- Add a GroupDialog to all town guards so that if you're hostile to their nation, they'll show the Antigua patrol dialog text instead of the random stuff they say now
- For "Dangerous" locations (Bartolomeu Storyline only): Increase the chance of this happening and/or make the guards immediately hostile to you when you're detected, rather than them asking any questions and giving you a chance to get out

So, as I was saying, there's a snag with being recognised, which is that the "false flag detection chance" doesn't work very well, as you'll find out if you're completely unknown and try to sail into port under a false flag when there's an enemy merchant ship present. Either that will need to be fixed or some other method of determining whether guards and civilians recognise you must be devised.

I am aware that there is a bug with that and for sure I will look into that properly, along with all other nation relation related gameplay stuff.

Be careful not to make it too likely to be spotted, even if you're famous. Otherwise you ruin the game for more advanced players, not to mention probably break some quests.

When all functionality does what we think it should, it will be time to start balancing the actual false flag detection chance code.
I am already thinking to kick the "difficulty level" out of the equation there so that everybody will be playing with the SAME numbers.
For sure I don't want to break the later game; it has to become more challenging, but not impossible. But the only way to find out is to do some thorough playtesting once it is operational.