Hornblower Quest Completed Successfully

[Talisman]

Hornblower Quest completed - have asked Maria to Marry me.

Really Good Quest SJG - Liked the Battles

Minor issues found while playing - none break the quest

QUEST BOOK ENTRIES
MY FIRST SHIP - Texts 1, 3 & 4

I am not sure if these are still used - but they did not appear in my Quest book.

RETRIBUTION - Text 2
Island name Antigua did not appear - error #Sisland_antigua# should be #sisland_Antigua# I think


SMALL DIALOGUE ERRORS

Antigua 1st land Battle - dialog with Matthews - one entry calls Quelp - Captain Quelp.

Dialog with Sharpe at the Murdered Riflemen - In the 4th Option of the dialog - murdered Riflemen are called Higgins & Cooper. In all the other options they are called Archer & Evans.

In Loyalty when Quelp has his own ship and escorts you to Cayman when you go to find Sharpe. When you talk to Quelp before setting sail Quelp says he is escorting you to Isla Mona.

When you get to Cayman where you have the choice of going to the Tavern or Finding the Rifleman in town - in the Tavern Able Seaman Stanley is standing by Bar - but I could not get a dialog screen for him ( rifleman in town works OK - see image - red Uniform but green in dialog screen head).

OTHER MISC. THINGS.

Dreadnought Foster - Standing arround on Kingston, Jamaica jetty whenever you go there ( after arguement with Hammond )

Wellesley - after card game at apothecary - meet Pellew & Wellesley in Capt Cabin. Wellesley is Grey Man ( see Image ) : I think Wellesley2.TGA.TX missing

In Charlestown after being introduced to Teresa Moreno, you go to tavern - it is night-time & there is fire from earlier seige of Charlestown burning outside tavern. ( see Image ) - not there when I arrived before I went to see Teresa Moreno - don't know if it is only therre at night as I arrived at Charlestown during the day.

Teresa Moreno equiped with a pistol BUT no powder or Bullets


Not sure if all the TRAPS work - though I managed to trigger most of them I think.


The QUEST JUMPS at the end seem to confuse the game about the players identity - in the Prison my Character screen showed my name as Horatio Horatio Hornblower. By the end of the quest my name was Lt William Horatio Bush (see Image )

Still have lots of Passengers / officers with me at the end of the quest ( some of whom have died - perhaps my guilty conscience ) - see image
they are :-

William Chumley
Richard Sharpe
Archie Kennedy
Henry Wellard
Lt Percy Buckland
Patrick Harper
Rifleman Tongue
Lt William Bush
Teresa Moreno
Rifleman Cooper
Styles
Jack Hammond
Able Seaman Wilks


As I said none of the above cause the quest to break.

Thanks for all your hard work Short jack Gold - It is a really excellent quest.

 

[Short Jack Gold]

Hornblower Quest completed - have asked Maria to Marry me.

Really Good Quest SJG - Liked the Battles

As I said none of the above cause the quest to break.

Thanks for all your hard work Short jack Gold - It is a really excellent quest.

And THANKS to you for testing!
(and for the kind words)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Done!
Except for some glitches towards the end, mostly noted by Talisman, this quest ran very smoothly. The land battles gave a very good sense of being there and feeling the ebb and flow of battle. It was very fast paced, which caused me concern at first because there weren't many good places to save the game. But as it turned out lots of saves were not needed. If only the main quest ran this well......

 

[Short Jack Gold]

Thanks Miklkit
Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Would anyone be able to make some good screenshots from the most interesting scenes in this storyline? I know there's some stuff in here that could be very scenic and would work brilliantly for our promotional purposes.
Some Napoleonic land battles, the various story scenes on the ships, etc. should make for some good stuff.

You can use the FREE_CAMERA setting at the bottom of PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h to find some interesting angles.
And don't forget to use F9 to hide the on-screen interface where applicable to prevent that from obstructing the screenshots.

If you have ENABLE_CHEATMODE set to on at the bottom of PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h, there will be a character "C.S. Forester" in Antigua port at the start of the storyline who can quickly jump you to various parts of the story.
This means you don't have to play through the entire story in order to be able to do this.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Jurgen Cottignie wrote the following on Facebook:
"I've just ended the chronicles of Horatio Hornblower. It's the first time I played it. As I am a huge fan of and Hornblower and Sharpe I found it a very very nice story! To the makers: You guys/girls did a fantastic job with the creation of this story line.
Thanks a lot!!!!"
Thought @Short Jack Gold and @Grey Roger would like to know.

 

[Grey Roger]

@Short Jack Gold, if he's still around (which I doubt as the username didn't offer an autocomplete as it does if I type "@pie" or "@grey"), is the one who deserves most credit for this storyline.

But if Jurgen is patient, he'll see some more "Hornblower" stuff in the not too distant future...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

if he's still around

Unfortunately he's not. But it may be possible to drop him a PM or send an e-mail if desired.

which I doubt as the username didn't offer an autocomplete as it does if I type "@pie" or "@grey"

His username is with spaces; I corrected in in your above post.

 

[BathtubPirate]

Not much going on here but I just completed The Chronicles of Hornblower and want to give a quick feedback. Though I have yet to play the bonus mission which the Admiral hinted at, but I intend to do so.

An interesting storyline which differs in a lot of ways - mostly gameplay-wise - from the classic Tale of the Sea Hawk. I liked how it integrates military missions as strategical realistic as possible as well as the mystery elements about a potential traitor. The story is clearly not intended as a semi F2P like Sea Hawk: I never had to worry about a ship, food or rum, never visited another island than those demanded by the main quest and never paid any salaries, because at no point of the game I had more than 1'000 coins in my pocket. The game does everything for you so you just have to play through the story. In parts it feels more like an illustrated interactive novel compared to the original main quest, which has its ups and downs, but is something different for a change. Some of the early acts are dragging a bit, like the ones aboard Sawyers ship and in the spanish prison, where it seems like a neverending circle of talk - reload new scene - talk… But others, especially the last act and the whole stuff on Guadeloupe, were quite enjoyable, as the restrictions in the gameplay keeps things focused, almost in real time. Congratulations to the writers for their efforts, there has been a lot of thought and care put into this and I had a few pleasant evenings!

There have been a few occasions where the game was buggy, once it crashed to desktop and once Captain Sawyer wouldn't talk to me so I had to reload. The rest have been the so called "Traps", which were a bit frustrating, I looked the part at the spanish prison bridge up as I was sure at first it was a bug. But all in all it hasn't been much of an issue.

Now please help me choose what I shall blind play next: Woodes Rogers or the Gold Bug?

 

[Grey Roger]

You could finish "Hornblower". Apart from the extra mission, which ties up some loose ends about the traitors, you can continue in FreePlay mode. Promotions will now be the usual method, by sinking or capturing ships to earn relation points, then talking to a governor - and wait till you see what happens when you're promoted to Post Captain...

Almost all of what you've played so far was the work of @Short Jack Gold. The wedding scene was mine, and so is anything which followed - including the bonus mission. The story is indeed sort of like an interactive novel, or perhaps more precisely, an interactive version of the TV series on which it's loosely based.

Woodes Rogers and Gold Bug are both the work of @Jack Rackham, so he can advise better on those.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Both are more puzzle-oriented than other storylines. GoldBug has no sailing and WoodesRogers very little.
They are both loaded with tons of unique stuff, like locations, characters and items. GoldBug is shorter and WoodesRogers
has a sequel still being worked on.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Woodes Rogers or the Gold Bug?

They're both also like interactive novels. Basically no free play at all, if I recall.
Which makes them stand out even more from the crowd.

 

[BathtubPirate]

You could finish "Hornblower".

Okay I'm gonna play at least the bonus mission and whatever awaits me after the promotion. But you understand that I wanna check out the others too.

The wedding scene was mine.

That one was sweet.

They are both loaded with tons of unique stuff, like locations, characters and items.

Alright, tell me which one you created first and as a friend of release chronology I'm gonna play this one next, then put in something different in between before playing the second one. Looking forward to it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But you understand that I wanna check out the others too.

Are you in a rush? If not, take your time to enjoy it!

Alright, tell me which one you created first and as a friend of release chronology I'm gonna play this one next, then put in something different in between before playing the second one. Looking forward to it.

I can answer that; Woodes Rogers came first.

 

[BathtubPirate]

Are you in a rush? If not, take your time to enjoy it!

I'm not in a rush, it just got really frustrating. I wanted to continue the Hornblower story like Grey Roger told me, but I can't possibly defeat Quelp near the windmill. Not a chance. I'm dead when I let him even near me. Then I die in a rather buggy way, where I respawn several times in the tavern upper room, only to die and respawn again.

Unfortunately I overwrite or delete my saves from time to time and right now I only have two saves - one after landing at the beach shortly before I confront Quelp and one about two thirds into the main story. I can't avoid Quelp to go level up first, since I'm not allowed to go back on my ship at the beach save and when I respawn in Port au Prince I can't find my ship (or Quelp) in the jungle.

Now it's even more tempting to begin another storyline.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I can't avoid Quelp to go level up first

To avoid frustration, you might consider using cheatmode to get through.

 

[BathtubPirate]

@Pieter Boelen yeah I did that, although I hated to. But the alternative would have been to replay a large portion of the whole story.

 

[Grey Roger]

What is your "Melee" skill, and what sword and armour do you have?

I reckoned that after playing through the whole original storyline, you should have pretty decent skill, armour and weapons, and set Quelp up to be a challenge. He should be difficult but not impossible to beat.

 

[BathtubPirate]

@Grey Roger

I'm afraid I have completely missed to acquire an armour with Hornblower, since I'm not very used to that feature yet and got through the main story without many problems. My Melee skill was only two. Not really sure about the sword but I sold all I have and kept the best one several times, I think it might have been a vagrant/german rapier in the end. The fact that I had such difficulties with the fight might be on me, but I only had the option to get through it somehow or replay a large portion of the quest because I sorted out many saves… So I reluctantly cheated two or three Level-ups.

Can you give me a few more hints how earning relation points and promotions work? Until now I went to a governor and took the task of sinking a specific ship near his island. Should I repeat that on various british islands?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Can you give me a few more hints how earning relation points and promotions work? Until now I went to a governor and took the task of sinking a specific ship near his island. Should I repeat that on various british islands?

You can also just attack any enemies of Britain at random. Hit the big ships, get more points. Hit a town, even better.
Everything contributes to your points and when your nation rank turns green in F2>Nations Relations, then it's time to find a governor again.

Those ship-hunting quests can be fun to find a guaranteed relatively evenly-matched challenge,
but once you have a Letter of Marque (LoM), or you're in the Navy, it's probably a bit boring/restrictive/ineffective to keep doing them.
Their main purpose is that when you don't have a LoM, you can use those quests to gain points with a nation, get some "safe" experience/money/points and also reduce the cost of a LoM when you decide to get one.