Gherarde de Jongh is not hostile

[Grey Roger]

@Bartolomeu o Portugues:
I've just returned to Bocht Van Hato with the Darien idol, fought Gherarde de Jongh's soldiers, and put to sea. There's his ship next to me and he's not hostile - I have an enhanced compass which shows friends such as Roxanne Lalliere in green, enemies in red, and everyone else in grey. Gherarde de Jongh's ship shows up in grey and I can sail round it without it trying to shoot.

This is because I approached Curacao under an English flag - England is friendly to Holland and I have an English LoM. The relations system now only looks at flags, so Gherarde de Jongh sees me flying a friendly flag and does not attack. At least, not until I'm where I want to be and then raise a Portuguese flag.

There are a couple of lines in "quests_reaction.c" which look as though they're trying to set him to attack me:

            SetRMRelation(PChar, HOLLAND, REL_WAR);
            SetCharacterRelationBoth(GetCharacterIndex("Gherarde de Jongh"),GetMainCharacterIndex(),RELATION_ENEMY);

Perhaps add:

Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Gherarde de Jongh")].recognized = true;

That's the current way to make sure someone attacks you regardless of flags.

 

[AkrimalS]

Sometimes it infuriates me when, for example: you go out to sea from the port of Bridgetown under the flag of Portugal and you are immediately met in the bay by the Portuguese, who are allied with England, but are at enmity with you. (The only thing I don’t understand is that they forgot there and shouldn’t the bay be a peaceful zone. These ships should be further away, near the fort, not the city, so I can access the global map).

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

@Bartolomeu o Portugues:
I've just returned to Bocht Van Hato with the Darien idol, fought Gherarde de Jongh's soldiers, and put to sea. There's his ship next to me and he's not hostile - I have an enhanced compass which shows friends such as Roxanne Lalliere in green, enemies in red, and everyone else in grey. Gherarde de Jongh's ship shows up in grey and I can sail round it without it trying to shoot.

This is because I approached Curacao under an English flag - England is friendly to Holland and I have an English LoM. The relations system now only looks at flags, so Gherarde de Jongh sees me flying a friendly flag and does not attack. At least, not until I'm where I want to be and then raise a Portuguese flag.

There are a couple of lines in "quests_reaction.c" which look as though they're trying to set him to attack me:

            SetRMRelation(PChar, HOLLAND, REL_WAR);
            SetCharacterRelationBoth(GetCharacterIndex("Gherarde de Jongh"),GetMainCharacterIndex(),RELATION_ENEMY);

Perhaps add:

Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Gherarde de Jongh")].recognized = true;

That's the current way to make sure someone attacks you regardless of flags.

Ok, you can change that

 

[Grey Roger]

Sometimes it infuriates me when, for example: you go out to sea from the port of Bridgetown under the flag of Portugal and you are immediately met in the bay by the Portuguese, who are allied with England, but are at enmity with you. (The only thing I don’t understand is that they forgot there and shouldn’t the bay be a peaceful zone. These ships should be further away, near the fort, not the city, so I can access the global map).

If a Portuguese ship attacks you while you are flying a Portuguese flag, there has to be a reason. Most likely it saw you under a hostile flag and remembers you as hostile. But in the storyline, Holland and Portugal are both at peace with England and at war with each other, so you could very easily approach Bridgetown under a Portuguese flag and be attacked by a Dutch ship.

Get yourself a Portuguese letter of marque as soon as possible, then you can attack those Dutch ships and earn promotion points for it. England won't get upset because it's only neutral to Holland. It will be more likely to get upset if you go the other way and attack Portuguese ships because England is allied to Portugal.

Besides, if you're playing the "Bartolomeu" storyline and are hostile to Portugal then you're in for a lot more trouble than just having to face Portuguese ships near English ports. The story requires you to visit Sao Jorge on several occasions and the fort might recognise you even if you fly a Portuguese flag.

More generally, the sea AI is a bit stupid here - it sometimes puts enemy ships near the coast as raiders, but doesn't care where it puts them, which means you sometimes see small French or pirate ships near an English fort which then attacks them.

 

[AkrimalS]

If a Portuguese ship attacks you while you are flying a Portuguese flag, there has to be a reason. Most likely it saw you under a hostile flag and remembers you as hostile. But in the storyline, Holland and Portugal are both at peace with England and at war with each other, so you could very easily approach Bridgetown under a Portuguese flag and be attacked by a Dutch ship.

Sorry, I got confused and wanted to write that I was being attacked by the Dutch, which is allied with England. But you basically already wrote about this. Is it possible to fix this on the new beyond-new-horizons engine?

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm not sure that this is anything to do with the engine. The code which places random ships can not take account of every possible town, where its fort is, and which locators around the island are far enough away from it to be safe.

And it would also be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prevent ships from attacking each other, or you, when you happen to be near a port.

When approaching an English port, fly an English flag. That should prevent any Portuguese or Dutch ships from attacking you, unless a Dutch ship recognises you. When approaching Sao Jorge, fly a Portuguese flag. And if you need to visit a Dutch port, either fly a Dutch flag and hope the fort doesn't recognise you, or go to a beach and take your chances with whatever ships may be there.