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Merchent Princes Mod

Jason Maffettone

Jason Maffettone

Lord of Entropy
Quest Writer
Provisional
Storm Modder
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/keith.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":keith" border="0" alt="keith.gif" /> Hey all, I've been working on a trade mod and have come up with some ideas on how trade and ecconomic factors could play a more important (and sensible) role in POTC. Following is an outline of the concept, followed by a "wish list" of things beyond my technical skills at the moment if anyone wants to lend a hand with this, let me know what you think.

I really liked John's Gold, Silver, and Bricks ideas (can't seems to download the ftps though if someone could email me a copy of that mod to: godemperorflamingo@yahoo.com ) that would be cool. Have allotted the space for these but don't have the picts or info.

WHAT I'VE DONE AND/OR AM WORKING ON NOW:

1) Adding consciderable new trade items: Dyes, Corn, Hemp, Rope, Tools, Meat, Fish, Salt, Rice, and Rosewood plus I would like to include those in the above mentioned mod. Conscidering some new ones I'm not sure about and would like feedback on: Glassware, Tea, Settellers, Horses, fine, furnature, any any suggestions are more then welcome.

2) Making a cohearant ecconomy out of the random import/export mess:

a) Make islands and nations have some sense as to main production. A bit of specialization that will affect what they import/export and what is contraband. Islands that produce meat and fish will tend to import salt and corn (as feed), rope producers will import hemp, clothes produces will import cotton and dyes, rare wood producers will tend to produce multiple types and import tools, etc.

b) Contraband items will tend to be national and the major exports of their enemies as an attempt to curtail the ecconomic development of the compatition. For example the French will be the wine producers so that will tend to be contraband in English colonies, etc.

c) With trade more narrowly defined I can make import/export goods go to more spisific places. So if you want to be a merchant you need to plan-out good routes and take your relations into account, etc.

d) Certain items I've removed from Import/Export status and will be generic in price (based on availability) because they are mainly player consumables and of low trade value anyway: planks, sailcloth, wheat and rum. Any island with a port would be nessessity have these items in reasonable abundance anyhow or trade with them would break down. This also frees-up more then enough slots for my detailed ecconomy idea.

3) Added a new ship. I'm calling it a "Cruiser" now but hate the name and would apreciate any better ideas: It is an older battleship (type 2) that has been purchased surplus and heavily modified to act as a well-armed heavy trader. Gives up its 70 32lbrs for 50 24's, sacrificed much bracing (hull strength) for speed, maneuverability and greater caro space. I've reclassed it to "Class 2" to take into account it's not primarily a warship now though it's no light-weight either. This is proving ideal as both a heavy lone merchant that can look after itself and an ideal long range pirate vessel that can prowl for months at a time.

WHAT I NEED BUT CAN'T DO MYSELF (The afore mentioned "Wish List"):

1) Buildings. Farms and forests of player construction that produce spisific goods. i.e. an ebony forest, a planks forest, a sandel forest, a coffeee farm, a wheat farm, etc.

2) A warehouse. I've noticed some good new warehouse models in locations but how this should work is treat it like a ship (sort of like the fort) with say 20000 cargo space that can be used to transfer goods with ships and player buildings.

3) A generic "Smugling for the crown" mission that can be used for all governers (an alternate option from the repeditive "sink the pirate") where you are asked to bring contraband items into an enemy settlement. For example since the English ban French wine the French governer might ask you to smuggle wine to an English colony, etc. A pirate or smuggler boss might assign you to to this to any government.

4) If anyone likes doing reskins I would idealy love one for the "cruiser" mentioned above. (Based on Battleship2) replacing the brown and tan two-tone with black and red or something to help distinguish it and make it more pirate savy for those using it as such. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />
 
Some pretty nice ideas you have and very possible as well.

1) Making the new buildings can be done with an entry in initItems.c, together with entries in the officer dialog for building them and a dialog file for the building owner.

2) How exactly should that work? Go to the warehouse, open up an interface (you would need Maximus for that)? But what should the options be in that interface? Maybe it would work like the "transfer cargo from captured enemy ship" screen, where you can see all goods available in the town and in your own shiphold. If new goods are being produced in the town, they would end up straight in this screen, so you wouldn't have to talk to each building owner to get the products. You would also be able to put goods from the ship into the town either to store them temporarily or to boost the town's economy.

3) Can be done by adding a dialog option to the governor's dialog and writing some code in quests_reaction.c. I don't know exactly how it should be done, but it can be done. What would be the difficulties you might encounter when doing such a quest? Enemy patrols trying to stop you from importing contraband? But you, of course, wouldn't always encounter enemy patrols. So if you don't encounter them, you would be paid by the governor, while not having to do any fighting, right? You should also have to deliver the goods to some shady figures. So maybe add some interest to the quest by making it a requirement for the player character to find out where the buyers are hiding. Sometimes they might be in a house, other times up the stairs in the tavern or store, sometimes in the jungles. You would need to find that out by talking to locals. And, of course, they would always be in a different spot for a different mission. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
You would also be able to never do the delivery or walk away with the money after the transfer, but that would cause the governor to become very cross with you. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />

4) I am no good at reskinning, unfortunately.

I think we should pay some attention to what goods we add into the game. Adding goods simply for the sake of adding them is useless. You should decide which goods make sense to add. Either because they add a gameplay element (gunpowder, tools, bricks, etc.) or because they were important goods that were exported/imported at that time. If you add a new good, you should have some sort of reason why you add it. Otherwise you get lots of goods added, which don't really add anything to the game in gameplay, realism, or anything else.

I hope you will be able to get somewhere with your ideas. If I can, I will try to help you if you have questions on how to do things. Don't count on me knowing much though. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/doff.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doff" border="0" alt="doff.gif" />
 
Great ideas on the mission concepts! Does anyone know would this need to be a clonable mission with a copy adjusted top each leader or can a single mission be made that can conform to the nessessary peramiters, like nation and item selection?

I think I've worked-out how to adjust the farms and forests as needed so I'll take care of that as soon as tI have the trade list is updated. 42 total items as I have it now which allows all the non-player consumable to be imported and expoted at at least one location (multiple for most) and all the high-end items will be contraband somewhere.

The warehouse thing is what's most needed, no clue as to how to make that happen though.
 
You can make these missions similarly to the sink-the-pirate missions for the goernors. These are also randomly generated from preset parameters. See quests_reaction.c. I don't think it would be very easy to code this, but it <i>is</i> possible.

I'll have a look at your files. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wp" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" /> A cool if graphicly challanged game.
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/poet.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":hmm" border="0" alt="poet.gif" /> BTW Pieter, After a bit of sleep I revisited the trade log issue. I coppied in a clean version of islands.int and the crash went away. I must have accidentaly changed something without intending to. I'm going to re-do the modified trade list and see if it happens again, will alert you with results.
 
I can highly recommend using WinMerge to show you all the differences between two versions of the same file. It will show you all intentional (and possible unintentional) differences. Saves you the trouble of redoing it all. Plus it makes sure you won't miss anything you changed. You can do this for a lot of files at once as well, so you can make a comparision between two different modpack versions.
 
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