Poll Capturing Bridgetown: start at lighthouse or at fort?

[Grey Roger]

You've gone to the lighthouse to meet Clement, only to find that he's been arrested. Danielle suggests capturing the town to release him. Now you're ready to attack the fort.

In previous versions of the game, you'd start at the lighthouse and you'd have to sail round to the fort. Build 14 teleports you straight to the fort. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Starting at the lighthouse, you may take some time to get to the fort depending on the wind. You may take fire from the fort before you're in range to fire back. On the other hand, if you have companion ships which you don't want going anywhere near the fort, you can order them to stay still, and leave them near the lighthouse while you sail to the fort.

Starting at the fort, you're immediately in range. So is every ship in your fleet. This is better if you only have ships which can attack the fort, and not so good if you have captured some smaller ships which you have not yet sold, or if you like to use a lumbering battlewagon to attack forts and a frigate for everything else.

Which would people prefer? Leave it as it is now and teleport to the fort, or put it back the way it was so you have to sail there?

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

I vote to start at the light house, since the player may want to do a few last minute preparations; or to not get some ship damaged or potentially sunken.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Lighthouse sounds like it makes most sense to me.

I wonder why it was changed.
I have no memory of it.

 

[fjx]

Or a third option could be added: the easy way of attacking from the land and making your way to fort.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Could also be interesting if someone wants to go this route.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Or a third option could be added: the easy way of attacking from the land and making your way to fort.

We had that at some point because that sea battle caused CTDs for a while.
So we had it bypassed.

Nothing fancy though.
Just literally skipping ahead in the story a bit.

 

[Grey Roger]

I don't recall a land attack being possible, or even skipping the sea battle. The problem was that if you captured the last of Silehard's ships, the game would hang. You had to sink the last one, whichever that happened to be. (The battle against two Animist ships in the "Strange Things Going On" sidequest had the same problem, which is why you weren't allowed to board them.)

Danielle offers you the choice of going by land:

Would you rather slog through a jungle teeming with poisonous vermin?

The original game was meant to give you the choice of playing as Nathaniel or Danielle, and if you chose Danielle, you would get a different version of the story. Little remains of this apart from some pieces of dialog which you never see in gameplay because they aren't for Nathaniel's story, but my guess is that if you'd played as Danielle, you'd have attacked by land.

No, I'm not going to write Danielle's story. Not even this bit of it.

Besides, it's only easy to enter the town by land if nobody has locked the gate...

 

[Grey Roger]

Update: playing as Danielle, you would not have attacked by land. You'd still be the one attacking by sea and Nathaniel would be the one attacking by land.

The evidence is in "blaze_dialog.c" and "blaze_dialog.h", which as well as containing all the self-dialogs, also contain dialog for if you're Danielle talking to "Blaze", i.e. Nathaniel. In particular, "blaze_dialog.c", cases "CaptureGreenford", "CaptureGreenford_2" and "CaptureGreenford_3":

What should we do now? We can't find the treasure if we can't translate that legend. And I'm afraid the old man...
We've already set ourselves against the Silehard and the English crown. What do we have to lose if we just capture that miserable town and free Aurentius?

I didn't realize you had suicidal tendencies. But if you're serious about this, then let's have a little fun!
Now you're talking! And I'm feeling like a real pirate. I'll attack the fort from the sea, and you and your men can lay siege to the town from land. What do you say?

I say I've created a monster, Nathaniel. But I'm ready when you are!

There's no reply to that last line - in fact, "CaptureGreenford_3" is wrongly written:

    case "CaptureGreenford_3":
       dialog.text = DLG_TEXT[134];
       link.l1 = GetMyName(NPChar) + DLG_TEXT[135];
       link.l1.go = "exit";
   break;

Which means Nathaniel would probably say "I say I've created a monster, " and you'd reply "Nathaniel. But I'm ready when you are!" But unless the whole lot is wrong, it looks as though the player, i.e. Danielle, is the one wanting to attack from the sea.