Fixed Correcting "Early Explorers" Period

[Grey Roger]

You should already have my updated "Ships_init.c" as part of the update to "Bartolomeu o Portugues", which has the revised "Revenge" stats. Beyond that, a revised start for English free-play characters in "Early Explorers" is still very much a WIP and not ready for inclusion in any modpack release.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

How about the changes to islands? I might need your code for that if I am to set up some stuff for the Francis Drake start.

 

[Grey Roger]

The only changes to islands which I've made are to disable Antigua and make Alice Town English in "periods.c", and you won't want that in a modpack until I've finished moving English starts to Alice Town. You've sorted out the code for the governor of Alice Town. (If you do want Alice Town to be English, e.g. for a start point for Francis Drake, then all you need to do is edit "periods.c", find these lines under "Early Explorers:

period.Towns.Alice.Name = "San Elena";
period.Towns.Alice.nation = SPAIN;
period.Towns.Alice.gov.name = "Gaspar";
period.Towns.Alice.gov.lastname = "de Torres";

Comment out or remove the lines to set name and nation, and change the governor name to something English (I used "Edward Bull" for no reason other than "Torres" sounds like it could be Spanish for "Bull").

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Probably a lot of Early Explorers national tutorials occur in inappropriate towns. That would apply to the Standard storyline as well.

Are Portugal and England neutral/friendly in Early Explorers? If so, the default start at Barbados may not be too bad?

How about an Early Explorers Dutch start? That is still going to be on Bonaire. Except that is Spanish as the Dutch have no islands.
Not very good!

Why do we want to put the tutorial at Alice Town? Was that because it is actually English in The Spanish Main and Governor's Harbor isn't?

Other options:
- Force an instant teleport to a correct nation port and skip tutorial for all nation/period combinations that don't have a town, regardless of Player Type.
- Set starting nation temporarily to PIRATE for all inappropriate options. Have to be careful doing this with Corsair when they get a LoM as the pirates wouldn't deal with you then.
- Start in the default town, but raise a false flag as needed and ensure that false flag is not detected.

If we set up Corsair as "instant teleport" and all other "wrong" options as PIRATE, that might be a solution that doesn't require any tutorials to be rewritten.
This wouldn't fix it for the Standard storyline, but we can just lock the date on that one as we have the Free Play one for that already.

What "wrong" options could we possibly have? I think:
England and Holland in Early Explorers
Portugal in Napoleonic
Right?

 

[Grey Roger]

Are Portugal and England neutral/friendly in Early Explorers? If so, the default start at Barbados may not be too bad?

Portugal is hostile to England and allied to Spain because of the Iberian Union.

How about an Early Explorers Dutch start? That is still going to be on Bonaire. Except that is Spanish as the Dutch have no islands.

Holland is friendly to England, so if I manage to get England starting at Alice Town then Holland can follow.

Why do we want to put the tutorial at Alice Town? Was that because it is actually English in The Spanish Main and Governor's Harbor isn't?

Yes. In "Spanish Main", at least, Governor's Harbour, alias Puerto la Cruz. has to be Spanish for the "Assassin" and "Bartolomeu" stories to work. But neither Alice Town nor Governor's Harbour was owned by anyone (except possibly Arawaks) in the "Early Explorers" period, so if it's easier to transplant the English (and Dutch) start to Governor's Harbour instead then that's about as realistic as Alice Town.

Other options:
- Force an instant teleport to a correct nation port and skip tutorial for all nation/period combinations that don't have a town, regardless of Player Type.
- Set starting nation temporarily to PIRATE for all inappropriate options. Have to be careful doing this with Corsair when they get a LoM as the pirates wouldn't deal with you then.
- Start in the default town, but raise a false flag as needed and ensure that false flag is not detected.

- Force a stormy start, which sends you to a random beach and skips the tutorial.
- Make your starting nation temporarily friendly to PIRATE and start at Pirate Settlement. Pirate towns shouldn't automatically reject anyone with a LoM anyway, many of the residents and customers probably are privateers - but that's a matter for a different thread.

What "wrong" options could we possibly have? I think:
England and Holland in Early Explorers
Portugal in Napoleonic
Right?

Portugal in Napoleonic presumably starts you in Sao Jorge, now renamed Saint George. England and Portugal are allies and the Portuguese emissary is in Saint George town hall, so this shouldn't be a problem. You won't be able to buy warships except by getting a LoM from someone who has shipyards to sell them, a problem which will also apply to the Dutch in "Early Explorers". (Though the best privateering ships in "Early Explorers" are the English Fast Galleon, alias "Revenge", and everybody else's Fast War Galleon, both of which are "versatile" and can be bought without a LoM.)[/quote]

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Portugal is hostile to England and allied to Spain because of the Iberian Union.

Then to maintain the original starting location, the false flag option would be required.

Holland is friendly to England, so if I manage to get England starting at Alice Town then Holland can follow.

Yes. In "Spanish Main", at least, Governor's Harbour, alias Puerto la Cruz. has to be Spanish for the "Assassin" and "Bartolomeu" stories to work. But neither Alice Town nor Governor's Harbour was owned by anyone (except possibly Arawaks) in the "Early Explorers" period, so if it's easier to transplant the English (and Dutch) start to Governor's Harbour instead then that's about as realistic as Alice Town.

True. I was only trying think of a solution where we wouldn't need to make the tutorial work in Alice Town at all.

- Force a stormy start, which sends you to a random beach and skips the tutorial.

That is pretty much what all custom starts do; they actually use the Stormy Start code, but "hyjack" it to do things a little bit differently.

- Make your starting nation temporarily friendly to PIRATE and start at Pirate Settlement. Pirate towns shouldn't automatically reject anyone with a LoM anyway, many of the residents and customers probably are privateers - but that's a matter for a different thread.

We've been through this: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/pirates-and-privateers.24958/#post-505808
They will accept a LoM as long as you're not actually hostile to them. That should be quite reasonable for English and Dutch Early Explorers starting characters.
So that might be a solution there.

You won't be able to buy warships except by getting a LoM from someone who has shipyards to sell them, a problem which will also apply to the Dutch in "Early Explorers". (Though the best privateering ships in "Early Explorers" are the English Fast Galleon, alias "Revenge", and everybody else's Fast War Galleon, both of which are "versatile" and can be bought without a LoM.)

Indeed buying ships without a shipyard would be a bit of a pain. Navy Officers don't have that problem, of course.
It might be possible to allow players to also buy navy ships from friendly nations if they've got a LoM.

Or we could add Shipyard functionality to the emissaries.

 

[Grey Roger]

The challenge of playing an English or Dutch privateer in "Early Explorers" is that there are no ports of your nation. English privateers can start with the English Fast Galleon; Dutch will just have to pick something interesting from the general line-up, possibly the regular Fast War Galleon. After that, you're on your own. Anyone who wants to play with full port facilities can go to "Spanish Main" instead.

If we don't need a friendly port for a tutorial because there is no tutorial then we don't need Eleuthera at all and all we need is somewhere friendly or neutral to host their emissaries so you can get a LoM and promotions. If England has no colonies of its own then either St. Pierre or La Tortue will do. Looking at "Periods.c", Holland seems to be at war with everyone except England, which doesn't do them much good if England has no ports either. They're hostile to France as well. Maybe change that to neutral since Holland's main concern was freeing itself from Spain and France's main concern was France, its wars of that time being civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants), so France and Holland probably weren't much concerned with each other. Besides, putting the English and Dutch emissaries in La Tortue's governor's residence makes La Tortue a wonderful meeting place for all sorts of pirates and privateers, which is exactly as it should be.

 

[Grey Roger]

We've been through this: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/pirates-and-privateers.24958/#post-505808
They will accept a LoM as long as you're not actually hostile to them. That should be quite reasonable for English and Dutch Early Explorers starting characters.

That's what I thought, except that:

- Set starting nation temporarily to PIRATE for all inappropriate options. Have to be careful doing this with Corsair when they get a LoM as the pirates wouldn't deal with you then.

But if you have a LoM and your nation is set to be friendly to Pirate, at least temporarily, then they should be willing to deal with you.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The challenge of playing an English or Dutch privateer in "Early Explorers" is that there are no ports of your nation. English privateers can start with the English Fast Galleon; Dutch will just have to pick something interesting from the general line-up, possibly the regular Fast War Galleon. After that, you're on your own. Anyone who wants to play with full port facilities can go to "Spanish Main" instead.

True.

If we don't need a friendly port for a tutorial because there is no tutorial then we don't need Eleuthera at all and all we need is somewhere friendly or neutral to host their emissaries so you can get a LoM and promotions. If England has no colonies of its own then either St. Pierre or La Tortue will do. Looking at "Periods.c", Holland seems to be at war with everyone except England, which doesn't do them much good if England has no ports either. They're hostile to France as well. Maybe change that to neutral since Holland's main concern was freeing itself from Spain and France's main concern was France, its wars of that time being civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants), so France and Holland probably weren't much concerned with each other. Besides, putting the English and Dutch emissaries in La Tortue's governor's residence makes La Tortue a wonderful meeting place for all sorts of pirates and privateers, which is exactly as it should be.

I like the idea of using Tortuga for both. Seems quite appropriate for piratey reasons.
The tutorial doesn't work there, of course, so my suggestion would be to set player nation temporarily to PIRATE and have the start at Nevis for all player types that don't have a specific start defined, because there IS a tutorial there.
The specific starts can then be at Tortuga. In both cases, if the player nation has no island available in Early Explorers, then the relations to the pirates must be neutral.
This to ensure that the tutorial doesn't break because of it being in a hostile port and that you can safely enter Tortuga under a pirate flag.

Looking at "Periods.c", Holland seems to be at war with everyone except England, which doesn't do them much good if England has no ports either. They're hostile to France as well. Maybe change that to neutral since Holland's main concern was freeing itself from Spain and France's main concern was France, its wars of that time being civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants), so France and Holland probably weren't much concerned with each other.

If I recall, Holland was being very much protestant so that could make for a bit of strife there, no?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But if you have a LoM and your nation is set to be friendly to Pirate, at least temporarily, then they should be willing to deal with you.

Setting pchar.nation = PIRATE; doesn't make you friendly to the pirates, it just makes you hoist a pirate flag.
So we should probably REALLY set the player to be neutral to the pirates. Probably not even needed to do that with the player's nationality.
In other words, England wouldn't need to be neutral to the pirates, as long as an English player is.
That's what I meant with "being careful". But yes, it can be done.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Should a Corsair player ALWAYS be neutral to the pirates? Or only English and Dutch ones in Early Explorers?

 

[Grey Roger]

True.

I like the idea of using Tortuga for both. Seems quite appropriate for piratey reasons.
The tutorial doesn't work there, of course, so my suggestion would be to set player nation temporarily to PIRATE and have the start at Nevis for all player types that don't have a specific start defined, because there IS a tutorial there.

But I thought we were dumping the tutorial? Otherwise I'm back to trying to get it to work at Alice Town...

The specific starts can then be at Tortuga. In both cases, if the player nation has no island available in Early Explorers, then the relations to the pirates must be neutral.
This to ensure that the tutorial doesn't break because of it being in a hostile port and that you can safely enter Tortuga under a pirate flag.

Tortuga isn't Pirate, it's French. You probably don't want to try entering under a Pirate flag. On the other hand, France likes England in "Early Explorers", which is why I've sailed into La Tortue under an English flag with no trouble.

If I recall, Holland was being very much protestant so that could make for a bit of strife there, no?

Yes, which is part of why it was trying to break away from Spain. France didn't need to fight Dutch Protestants, it had its own. Besides, I'm trying to think of a reason for France and Holland not to be hostile so that a Dutch privateer can start at La Tortue. England should be fine, as it's currently set to be allied to France. Which, incidentally, is another reason for making France neutral to Holland. As things stand at the moment, France likes England and hates Spain, which seems to put the local governors on the Huguenot side. So they ought to like Holland too, or at least be neutral. If they're Catholic then they should be at war with England as well as Holland, and be allied to Spain, which stuffs up using La Tortue as a meeting place...

Should a Corsair player ALWAYS be neutral to the pirates? Or only English and Dutch ones in Early Explorers?

That depends on what you mean by "corsair". Roxanne Lalliere in "Bartolomeu o Portugues", for example, is very clear on the difference:

I'm not a pirate, I am a corsair. I have a letter of marque of the French authorities.

You could start corsairs off as being neutral to pirates, then it's up to them what they do with their LoM's. If they want to remain welcome in pirate ports then they'll confine their attentions to nations hostile to whoever issued the LoM. But I don't see any reason to make some corsairs neutral to pirates by default and others not.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But I thought we were dumping the tutorial? Otherwise I'm back to trying to get it to work at Alice Town...

The tutorial must remain at least for the Brave Black Flag player type.
I was thinking of also keeping it for all other ones, excep those that have a specific custom start defined.
Plus we must keep it for the Standard Storyline, though we could decide to lock the date on that one.

Tortuga isn't Pirate, it's French. You probably don't want to try entering under a Pirate flag. On the other hand, France likes England in "Early Explorers", which is why I've sailed into La Tortue under an English flag with no trouble.

Actually, the Tortuga fort is ALWAYS OK with pirates. That is on purpose.
This also applies to the Jamaica fort in Early Explorers (and The Spanish Main?). Both because they were known pirate strongholds.
That is already in place in the game and has been for several years.

Yes, which is part of why it was trying to break away from Spain. France didn't need to fight Dutch Protestants, it had its own. Besides, I'm trying to think of a reason for France and Holland not to be hostile so that a Dutch privateer can start at La Tortue. England should be fine, as it's currently set to be allied to France. Which, incidentally, is another reason for making France neutral to Holland. As things stand at the moment, France likes England and hates Spain, which seems to put the local governors on the Huguenot side. So they ought to like Holland too, or at least be neutral. If they're Catholic then they should be at war with England as well as Holland, and be allied to Spain, which stuffs up using La Tortue as a meeting place...

The above might provide an alternate solution, but it is OK with me either way.

That depends on what you mean by "corsair". Roxanne Lalliere in "Bartolomeu o Portugues", for example, is very clear on the difference:You could start corsairs off as being neutral to pirates, then it's up to them what they do with their LoM's. If they want to remain welcome in pirate ports then they'll confine their attentions to nations hostile to whoever issued the LoM. But I don't see any reason to make some corsairs neutral to pirates by default and others not.

Indeed it would be a bit weird to treat some one way and some another.
I'd be quite fine with Corsair = LoM + neutral to PIRATE + start at Tortuga.

So what are we deciding now? Let's see if I've got this straight:
- Standard Storyline: Lock starting date to prevent tutorial being in wrong-nation ports in Early Explorers
- Free Play Storyline:
> Corsair Player Type: LoM + neutral to PIRATE + start at Tortuga
> Rebel Player Type: Tutorial must remain!
> "Other" Player Types: Instant teleport to own-nation port

Are we limiting the Standard Storyline and Free Play Tutorials too much with that?

 

[Grey Roger]

It makes sense to lock the Standard Storyline start date anyway. For one thing, the various ships built into the storyline pretty well nail it down to "Colonial Powers". For another, the storyline is completely stuffed in "Early Explorers" because Spain owns most of the Caribbean, including Silehard's house.

Corsairs in general don't need to start at Tortuga, though it probably doesn't do any harm provided their nation is not hostile to France. Tortuga isn't Pirate.

Rebels start at Pirate Settlement, Nevis by default, don't they? In that case their tutorial should not be a problem.

Other player types teleport to own-nation port, which brings us back to what happens to English and Dutch in "Early Explorers"...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It makes sense to lock the Standard Storyline start date anyway. For one thing, the various ships built into the storyline pretty well nail it down to "Colonial Powers". For another, the storyline is completely stuffed in "Early Explorers" because Spain owns most of the Caribbean, including Silehard's house.

True, that! Locked it is.

Corsairs in general don't need to start at Tortuga, though it probably doesn't do any harm provided their nation is not hostile to France. Tortuga isn't Pirate.

The fort accepts pirates though.
But indeed possibly the merchants/shipyards don't.

Rebels start at Pirate Settlement, Nevis by default, don't they? In that case their tutorial should not be a problem.

Yes they do.

Other player types teleport to own-nation port, which brings us back to what happens to English and Dutch in "Early Explorers"...

Override with Tortuga instead.

 

[pedrwyth]

The tutorial must remain at least for the Brave Black Flag player type.
I was thinking of also keeping it for all other ones, excep those that have a specific custom start defined.
Plus we must keep it for the Standard Storyline, though we could decide to lock the date on that one.

Actually, the Tortuga fort is ALWAYS OK with pirates. That is on purpose.
This also applies to the Jamaica fort in Early Explorers (and The Spanish Main?). Both because they were known pirate strongholds.
That is already in place in the game and has been for several years.

The above might provide an alternate solution, but it is OK with me either way.

Indeed it would be a bit weird to treat some one way and some another.
I'd be quite fine with Corsair = LoM + neutral to PIRATE + start at Tortuga.

So what are we deciding now? Let's see if I've got this straight:
- Standard Storyline: Lock starting date to prevent tutorial being in wrong-nation ports in Early Explorers
- Free Play Storyline:
> Corsair Player Type: LoM + neutral to PIRATE + start at Tortuga
> Rebel Player Type: Tutorial must remain!
> "Other" Player Types: Instant teleport to own-nation port

Are we limiting the Standard Storyline and Free Play Tutorials too much with that?

I think once BBF/free play is properly set up standard needs limiting much more than just date. For example as a test I chose Blackbeard and start at San Juan allegedly in standard which makes no sense at all. The guy in the store (Virgila Mendez?) not only wanted to trust me as an escort but said I was famous for having escaped a French Squadron etc (which I hadn't) I suspect it would be much better trimmed back to its basic story (plus it would keep all the optional sidequests). I didn't carry on except to go to Speightstown to see if it would trigger a French raid on leaving which it didn't. With pretty much full choice through free play the only reason for standard is to play the original Nathan Hawk storyline - so it should be renamed Nathan Hawke and be thought of the same as hornblower or Bartolomeu where there is structured story with some free play ability

For free play rather than waste all the tutorials how about having a "tutorial" type which gives a random selection of one of the lesser used types and a tutorial in the "home port" (ie the one where it is already written) for the nation you choose.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed some sidequest dialog wouldn't make sense outside the Standard storyline.
That same Vigila Mendez thing applies to ALL storylines too. Easiest solution is to rewrite the dialog to be more generic.

There should be no need to limit the starting nation on the Standard Storyline, I reckon.
It is possible to start as a different nation and still trigger the invasion, if I recall.
For Stormy Start at least, it happens the first time of entering WorldMap after being in 3D Sailing Mode at Barbados.

Always skipping the tutorial for Free Play (except for BFF) would mean the American tutorial would by bypassed altogether.
That's not quite what I had in mind either.

 

[pedrwyth]

I guess it's more about changing to other specific characters than nation that weakens the plot.

The trouble with going generic is removing the feel that it is directly relevant when playing the original as intended.

I think it needs to be clear where a tutorial is available to someone who wants/needs one is all.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I guess it's more about changing to other specific characters than nation that weakens the plot.

For the Standard Storyline, character type only affects your skills. But the actual custom starts are only in Free Play.

The trouble with going generic is removing the feel that it is directly relevant when playing the original as intended.

We can put the original dialog.h files in the Standard storyline folder with a generic copy in the main PROGRAM folder.
That didn't work before, but I set that up a while back so a storyline .h file takes precedence over a generic one.

I think it needs to be clear where a tutorial is available to someone who wants/needs one is all.

Standard Storyline always. Free Play.... Will be tricky.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

> Corsair Player Type: LoM + neutral to PIRATE + start at Tortuga

^ This is done now for my game version.

Would anyone be willing to write some starting dialog text, player type description, questbook entry, etc. for this new "Corsair" type?