Need Help Questions about nation relations

[Hylie Pistof]

I can't find a thread about this so will ask about this here.

I recently got into a fight with a British ship and ended up sinking it as it was blocking entry to a port I wanted to enter. This upset the Brits a bit by -1 point. But the Dutch and Portuguese happen to be friendly with the Brits and this got them VERY upset to the tune of -16 points! Isn't this just a bit backwards? One would think the Brits would be the most aggrieved by losing a ship while the others would be: "Chin up old man."

Anyways, this means that all ship combat is now a BAD IDEA.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Holland and Portugal had relations higher than -45 (Wary) with you, didn't they?
Allies of the nation you attack immediately turn Wary. But that happens only once because afterwards they already ARE Wary.
So then you just get equal negative points with each of them. Continue like that and eventually the allies will turn hostile too.

The only reason it seems weird is because you were already at war with England, but not with the other nations.
If you attack ships of an alliance, be prepared to upset the whole alliance.
Neutral and Allied are now notably different things.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Hylie Pistof: Does the above explain it? Does it make sense?
It seemed a good idea to handle it like that at the time I was writing that code.
But your feedback would be much appreciated.

Also... suggestions on how to make this NOT confusing to players somehow.
I seem to remember this being at least the second time that question is asked.
If I recall, @Jason asked about it a few weeks ago as well.

 

[Levis]

I think the Point he is making is that ist weird the brits only lost 1 Point while he sunk theire ship....

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I got that. And I understand and even agree that it appears weird. But there's a reason for it.

Imagine having England and Portugal allied. England is already hostile to you and Portugal is friendly.
You attack an English ship. You lose the points for that ship with England, just like you always would.
But Portugal, which thinks you are a friend, sees you sinking the ship of one of their allies.
Therefore they immediately turn Wary.

So in absolute values, yes you DO lose more points there with Portugal than with England.
But you won't suddenly drop lower with Portugal than you did with England.
This is a one-time effect. Once Portugal IS Wary, attacking further English ships will count equally for both nations.

Would you agree that makes sense? If not, what would you propose changing?

 

[Levis]

It makes sense although maybe we could add a message in the shiplog explaining this? So that they became warry because you attacked a ally

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It makes sense although maybe we could add a message in the shiplog explaining this? So that they became warry because you attacked a ally

Questbook perhaps? As part of the "Nations Relations" tutorial?
While I originally removed that quest after it had been completed, I now leave it in place to serve as a reminder.
Might stand out more than the Ship's Log does.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

What it means is that the player can not sink or capture more than 16 non pirate ships before having to go bribe a governor and probably a lot less than that. It just makes combat another one of those "Meh, why bother?" scenarios.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What it means is that the player can not sink or capture more than 16 non pirate ships before having to go bribe a governor and probably a lot less than that.

You are right that with my Portugal/England scenario above, it would take a maximum of 16 ships and probably less to turn Portugal hostile as well.
But as I said: "If you attack ships of an alliance, be prepared to upset the whole alliance."
If you don't want to upset a nation, don't sink/capture their or their allies' ships. That makes sense, no?

That still leaves pirate ships as viable targets, but also ships not belonging to the alliance.
So if England and Portugal are allied and England is hostile, that is going to mess up your relations with Portugal.
That doesn't need to be a problem if you remain friendly with the French/Dutch alliance, for example.

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One thing that does occur to me: In that scenario, what if you buy a LoM with Portugal?
England would still be hostile then and I can't think of any simple automatic solution to that.
You'd probably have to buy amnesty from England to get out of that tight spot.

Of course if you already HAD a Portuguese LoM and England allies itself with Portugal later,
then in Free Play your relations do update to match and you become friendly to England too despite being hostile before.

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So I'm not quite seeing the major problem just yet. You can't stay friendly with whatever nations you choose though.
If you WANT to be friendly to Portugal, but not England, that becomes basically impossible if the two nations decide to have an alliance.
But then... that is the whole point of having nation relations actually matter. And the effect of those relations changing.
Could be annoying and inconvenient, of course. But that's international politics for you.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

My point is that it is not possible to play without sinking ships. Sooner or later you get cornered and have to fight your way out thus upsetting profitable trading partners. I care nothing about national politics. They are all Pirates as far as I am concerned. Always have been and always will be. All I care about is having lots of trade routes and them getting mad at me cuts down on said trade routes.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Trading between allies and neutral nations is safest, of course.
Trading between friends and foe is not.
If you choose a side, you can safely sink their ships. The other side does not object.

You could try starting with Personal Nation though.
You may need some reputation to help you then or do some Governor Ship Hunting quests for nations to become Neutral rather than Wary.
But then you can deal with everyone free of repercussions.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Some additional points here: I understand YOU as player don't care about international politics.
But those different nations DO. And they don't care about what the player does or doesn't care about.
That could be considered quite inconsiderate of them, of course. But you cannot deny that it makes realistic sense, can you?

Until now, the game has been extremely player-centric. For Nation Relations, that is no longer the case.
It is my intention to move further and further towards a "player-independent game world" in the future.
That would, in a way, force the player to "fit in or pay the price".

I can imagine that could be potentially annoying. But it IS realistic and also offers a much greater potential for gameplay.
This opposed to a game world that is player-centric and basically allows you free reign/adapts to your needs.

 

[Grey Roger]

If you choose a side, you can safely sink their ships. The other side does not object.

So if England is allied to Portugal and at war with France, and you get a French LoM, then you can sink English ships without further harming your relations with Portugal. Though in "Golden Age" and "Colonial Powers" England, Portugal and Holland are allied, France and Spain are allied, and the two groups are at war with each other, which means buying the French LoM and tying your relations to those of France will put you at war with Portugal anyway.

Personal Nation, whether by choice at the start of the game or by buying multiple LoM's, is the one which has to tread carefully among the minefield of international relations, especially if they're variable. Being Personal means if you're initially friendly to Portugal and sink English ships, Portugal is going to sit up and take notice. This, I suspect, is what happened to @Hylie Pistof - he's probably already started as Personal Nation and ran into trouble as a result. The Portuguese governor values his friendship with England more than his friendship with you, so by attacking English ships you're becoming a political liability to him. The problem with Governor Ship Hunting quests is that Portugal is that the target is as likely to be French or Spanish as Pirate, so you'll be raising your relations with Portugal at the expense of your relations with those nations...

If all you want to do is trade peacefully then the obvious move is to buy amnesty from all powers, then all you need to worry about is pirates, and nobody (apart from other pirates) is going to get upset about you sinking those. (One strategy I'm considering is getting LoM's from everyone, buying amnesty where necessary first, then making my fortune by hunting pirates and eventually ending up with maximum titles all round. Not the quickest way to fortune, but the end result ought to be so much land that I effectively own half the Caribbean. )

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I am officially tired of getting no usable feedback on this despite specifically and repeatedly asking for it.
Until we get repeat discussions of stuff we went through before and that didn't lead to anything.
So.... last chance before the Beta 4 public release: Discussion - Nation Relations: FINAL(!) Request for Suggestions on a Simplified Mode | PiratesAhoy!

So if England is allied to Portugal and at war with France, and you get a French LoM, then you can sink English ships without further harming your relations with Portugal. Though in "Golden Age" and "Colonial Powers" England, Portugal and Holland are allied, France and Spain are allied, and the two groups are at war with each other, which means buying the French LoM and tying your relations to those of France will put you at war with Portugal anyway.

True; I added that behaviour months ago on your request. So if you have a French LoM, you can sink English ship and Portugal will be OK with it because you have a legal reason for your actions.
This only works if you have ONE LoM; if you have more than one, then you get into a bit of a mine-field. But that is personal choice.

Personal Nation, whether by choice at the start of the game or by buying multiple LoM's, is the one which has to tread carefully among the minefield of international relations, especially if they're variable. Being Personal means if you're initially friendly to Portugal and sink English ships, Portugal is going to sit up and take notice. This, I suspect, is what happened to @Hylie Pistof - he's probably already started as Personal Nation and ran into trouble as a result. The Portuguese governor values his friendship with England more than his friendship with you, so by attacking English ships you're becoming a political liability to him.

If you start with Personal Nation, ALL non-pirate nations will be Wary of you, but NOT hostile.
So as long as you KEEP them not hostile, you'll have an easy life. Of course if you DO offend one of the nations, you'll have to deal with their allies too.
And before you know it, you may have made enemies of a few nations. But that's the challenge you've got.

The problem with Governor Ship Hunting quests is that Portugal is that the target is as likely to be French or Spanish as Pirate, so you'll be raising your relations with Portugal at the expense of your relations with those nations...

No, I changed that a month ago or so. With ANY Governor Ship Hunting quest, you will NOT get negative relations with the targeted nation. Ever.
From the coding side, ship hunting quests trigger ZERO changes to nation relations. But when you complete the quest later, you'll get plus points only with the nation you did it for.
So you could even sink English ships, Portugal starts to head towards hostility, then do some Ship Hunting quests for Portugal to compensate.
That is very possible.

If all you want to do is trade peacefully then the obvious move is to buy amnesty from all powers, then all you need to worry about is pirates, and nobody (apart from other pirates) is going to get upset about you sinking those. (One strategy I'm considering is getting LoM's from everyone, buying amnesty where necessary first, then making my fortune by hunting pirates and eventually ending up with maximum titles all round. Not the quickest way to fortune, but the end result ought to be so much land that I effectively own half the Caribbean. )

LOL! You do get into some issues there though:
- Multiple LoMs means less points gained per ship per nation; that is some code you yourself added, if you remember
- Pirate ships are ALWAYS small, so you probably gain 1 point per ship or so

So yes, you could do that. And it would work. Eventually. But it would take quite a long time.
But go ahead, try and see how far you get!

 

[Grey Roger]

True; I added that behaviour months ago on your request. So if you have a French LoM, you can sink English ship and Portugal will be OK with it because you have a legal reason for your actions.
This only works if you have ONE LoM; if you have more than one, then you get into a bit of a mine-field. But that is personal choice.

Yes, hence my comment in the later paragraph "Personal Nation, whether by choice at the start of the game or by buying multiple LoM's..."

If you start with Personal Nation, ALL non-pirate nations will be Wary of you, but NOT hostile.
So as long as you KEEP them not hostile, you'll have an easy life.

Which, if I understand @Hylie Pistof correctly, is what he wants:

All I care about is having lots of trade routes and them getting mad at me cuts down on said trade routes.

So minimal combat and trading peacefully with everyone.

No, I changed that a month ago or so. With ANY Governor Ship Hunting quest, you will NOT get negative relations with the targeted nation. Ever.
From the coding side, ship hunting quests trigger ZERO changes to nation relations. But when you complete the quest later, you'll get plus points only with the nation you did it for.

That makes even less sense than the system in which allies behave the same way as neutrals! If I take a job from a French governor to sink a British ship, I'd expect the British to sit up and take notice, especially if I'd been operating under a British LoM until then.

LOL! You do get into some issues there though:
- Multiple LoMs means less points gained per ship per nation; that is some code you yourself added, if you remember

I think I suggested it but you probably added the actual code - I've no idea which code is involved. Besides, if it's a pirate then you earn less points per nation but you earn that fraction with all nations, which is why I suggested it.

- Pirate ships are ALWAYS small, so you probably gain 1 point per ship or so

So yes, you could do that. And it would work. Eventually. But it would take quite a long time.
But go ahead, try and see how far you get!

I did say "Not the quickest way to a fortune". But it's not quite that bad. First of all I use that exploit of yours to take some governor quests, thereby scoring more than 1 point per ship and sinking ships from every nation in the Caribbean while making friends with all of them, and eventually helping myself to someone's frigate. Once I've got the "Landing Party" perk, either in person or via an officer, various unfortified pirate towns start getting repeatedly raided - you don't score much for sinking a pirate sloop but you score lots for kicking in the door of Nevis Pirate Settlement. If I manage to steal someone's battleship via one of those governor quests then Turks Island joins the hit list. Or, for best results, adopt this strategy after completing "Tales of a Sea Hawk", which gets me Sovereign of the Seas, currently the only ship known to have sunk the Flying Dutchman, and more than capable of robbing Turks Island.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yes, hence my comment in the later paragraph "Personal Nation, whether by choice at the start of the game or by buying multiple LoM's..."

Yup. I was just agreeing with you.

That makes even less sense than the system in which allies behave the same way as neutrals! If I take a job from a French governor to sink a British ship, I'd expect the British to sit up and take notice, especially if I'd been operating under a British LoM until then.

If you have a British LoM, you're probably not friendly to France. And if you're hostile to France, you shouldn't be offered those quests.
So it could happen like that and it would be a bit odd. But I figure it is unlikely to occur.

I made it a simple solution: Either an act at sea has impact on ALL nations or on none at all.
So for specific quest ships, such as Governor Ship Hunting and Escort Quest Enemies, gaining/losing points is skipped altogether.
And for the Governor ones, you get only the plus points once you complete the quest.
That is handled through the quest code so that it doesn't have to be in the general function.

We discussed various different ships and how they should ideally be treated two months ago or so.
But the only message I got from that was "this is plenty complicated", so I figured I'd go with the most reasonable time-effective solution.
As in: The solution that would be better than doing nothing, but not take me weeks of figuring out.

I think I suggested it but you probably added the actual code - I've no idea which code is involved. Besides, if it's a pirate then you earn less points per nation but you earn that fraction with all nations, which is why I suggested it.

All true. You posted a line of code on the forum and I implemented that here exactly how you suggested it:

      if (GetNationRelation(i, iNation) == RELATION_ENEMY && IsInServiceOf(i))             // You are in the service of a nation hostile to the one you attacked
       {
         relChange = fPoints;
         if (GetLetterOfMarqueQuantity() > 1)   relChange = relChange * (1 - GetLetterOfMarqueQuantity()/10); // GR: Reduce points for multiple LoMs
       //   TraceAndLog("Add " + relChange + " points: You are in the service of " + GetNationNameByType(i) + ", which is at war with " + GetNationNameByType(iNation));
         ChangeRMRelation(char, i, relChange);
         if (curFlag != PIRATE)   iActOfPiracy = 0;                           // Any act under a pirate flag IS an act of piracy
       }

That's from PROGRAM\NATIONS\nations.c in the UpdateRMRelation function.
That is a single function that handles relation changes based on an event (sink/take ship, sack/take town, etc.).
I'm currently happy with the way it is set up (and it already looks a bit more complex than I'd prefer).
But I'd welcome you or @pedrwyth or @jsv or anyone else to look at that code.

First of all I use that exploit of yours to take some governor quests, thereby scoring more than 1 point per ship and sinking ships from every nation in the Caribbean while making friends with all of them, and eventually helping myself to someone's frigate.

You would not get multiple points from the Governor Ship Hunting quests. Unless they're BIG target ships.
Maybe a "target nation turns hostile/drops in points" effect could be added to that quest code.
That should be relatively simple to include. But definitely skip allies there since you DO have a legal reason for the attack.

 

[Grey Roger]

That would be my thought as well. Effectively a ship hunting quest is a single-use LoM, so you lose relation points (and your LoM if you have one) with the target ship's nation. It's a legal attack as part of an officially declared war between nations (otherwise the governor wouldn't be targetting that ship), so you don't lose points with allies of the target.

As for the code to determine how many relation points you get based on how many LoM's you have: if and when I get to play a privateer game for long enough to see how this works out, and if it then seems either still too easy to go up the ranks simultaneously in several nations or significantly too hard, then I'll report back.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That would be my thought as well. Effectively a ship hunting quest is a single-use LoM, so you lose relation points (and your LoM if you have one) with the target ship's nation. It's a legal attack as part of an officially declared war between nations (otherwise the governor wouldn't be targetting that ship), so you don't lose points with allies of the target.

You can consider that to be on my To-Do list.

As for the code to determine how many relation points you get based on how many LoM's you have: if and when I get to play a privateer game for long enough to see how this works out, and if it then seems either still too easy to go up the ranks simultaneously in several nations or significantly too hard, then I'll report back.

Cheers!