Solved Period Relations and Towns

[Pieter Boelen]

Awesome, first class job Pieter! I can't wait to test out the realistic period mod, if only I could get my computer to download Alpha 9

What's wrong with the downloading? In any case, you can wait until Alpha 10.
And thanks to YOU; in this case, it wasn't the coding that was the hard part.
Without your research, it still wouldn't have been done!

I understand that you are away soon as well? In your absence I will update the rest of the Govenor's names and insert them into the mod. I will also continue to update the modrefguide and see if I have anything useful to add to the Wiki.

That'd be great! I have all the coding in place; I just need to add the rest of the period-correct information.

Hopefully Bartolomeu is still talking to me as I promised to look at some weapons descriptions with him, and I can only apologise to him that I have'nt had the time yet.

I think those weapons also still require interface pictures and without that, I can't add them.
I wonder what we should do with the weapons anyway. We've had over 10 new ones since the release of Alpha 10.
Probably we should make the Period Weapons mod some day too, so if you've got any details on periods
where certain of the weapons we have in the game would/wouldn't be used, that'd also be useful.

Lastly, would anybody have any objections if I had a go at writing a quest? I would quite like to have a crack at writing something to do with the Eighty Years War, probably something to do with a Dutch Trader becoming a leading force against the Spanish as they raid the Spanish Main of all it welth. Just an idea I'm messing with

Nobody will mind you writing a story; however, unless you're prepared to code it in, it's not sure if anything will be done with it.
But you'll always get help if you're going to try. In fact, your setting sounds most intiguing.
Why don't you make it an extention of the Assassin main quest though?
Have a look at this post of mine and ensuing comments from Bartolomeu:
http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?/topic/12786-assassin-main-quest/page__view__findpost__p__345889

 

[simwake26]

long as ya willing to try coding the story your self,sure,or if ya can find a coder who isn't busy that works too i guess.

Nobody will mind you writing a story; however, unless you're prepared to code it in, it's not sure if anything will be done with it.

Absolutely, I would'nt expect anybody else to work on this for me, why would they when they have plenty of their own idea's. When I said 'write' I actualy ment 'code' but I'm a novice coder which is why I said I was only messing around with the idea for now. I don't wan't to promise anything that I can't deliver

Probably we should make the Period Weapons mod some day too, so if you've got any details on periods
where certain of the weapons we have in the game would/wouldn't be used, that'd also be useful.

That's not a problem at all, I have lots of weapons resorces and I can easily add them into the modrefguide in their respective time periods or even the Wiki. That way, people with more coding knowledge than myself can insert them into the correct time periods in the mod at their leisure

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Absolutely, I would'nt expect anybody else to work on this for me, why would they when they have plenty of their own idea's. When I said 'write' I actualy ment 'code' but I'm a novice coder which is why I said I was only messing around with the idea for now. I don't wan't to promise anything that I can't deliver

That's the spirit, mate. Unfortunately there's many people who don't understand that.
But we'll always give all help we can to people who are willing to try.

That's not a problem at all, I have lots of weapons resorces and I can easily add them into the modrefguide in their respective time periods or even the Wiki. That way, people with more coding knowledge than myself can insert them into the correct time periods in the mod at their leisure

Do you reckon you could take the weapons from initItems.c and for each list the appropriate periods?
Making it actually period-dependent would be ridiculously easy: just some if-statements or switches needed.
But it can't be done until we know what goes where. :?

 

[Captain Maggee]

The thing is Sim there are some people who do expect us to listen to their idea and make US do it (I know your not like this though )

Just make your own thread if you get stuck and we will try and help

I am very happy that your going to give it a try

The thing I suggest is look at code that is similar to what you want and then see if you can get it to replicate

 

[simwake26]

Do you reckon you could take the weapons from initItems.c and for each list the appropriate periods?
Making it actually period-dependent would be ridiculously easy: just some if-statements or switches needed.

I can certainly do that, and if someone was willing to provide me with a first couple of code examples, I could start coding them in as well

The thing is Sim there are some people who do expect us to listen to their idea and make US do it (I know your not like this though )

Just make your own thread if you get stuck and we will try and help

That's the spirit, mate. Unfortunately there's many people who don't understand that.
But we'll always give all help we can to people who are willing to try.

Cheers guys, the thing I love about this forum is the amount of people willing to give up their time to help people out. I think sometime other people just forget or don't realize that all the work you guys do, is done in your own time for the love of the game. So have a great big pat on the back from me

Having said the above, I would like to get the other projects I'm working on finished first befor I start a quest, so I would like to finish realistic period Govenor names, realistic period weapons and would like to gauge the opionion of what people think about realistic period characters i.e. having the likes of Sir Francis Drake, Hernan Cortes, Blackbeard etc in their respective periods.

With the addition of already having period ships, period flags and period nation relations, we really could have a history teaching aid on our hands here :

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I can certainly do that, and if someone was willing to provide me with a first couple of code examples, I could start coding them in as well

You can find an example of period-dependent code in PROGRAM\Periods.c in the InitTownNationalities() function.
Something similar would need to be done in PROGRAM\ITEMS\initItems.c with the Init(Std)Blade table.
It could look something like this:

	switch(GetCurrentPeriod())
{
case PERIOD_EARLY_EXPLORERS:
n = InitStdBlade(n, "blade5",  "blade5",  6,  9, 0.90,  0,   250,  6.0, 15.0, 35,  0,  "", 0); // Dagger
n = InitStdBlade(n, "blade3",  "blade3",  6,  8, 0.90,  1,   500, 12.0, 16.0, 10,  5,  "", 1); // Badelaire
n = InitStdBlade(n, "blade4",  "blade4",  6,  7, 0.90,  1,   500, 14.0, 19.0, 10,  0,  "", 1); // Cutlass
break;

case PERIOD_THE_SPANISH_MAIN:
n = InitStdBlade(n, "blade1",  "blade1",  6, 11, 0.90,  2,   750, 10.0, 15.0, 10, 10,  "", 0); // Saber
n = InitStdBlade(n, "blade2",  "blade2",  6, 10, 0.90,  2,   750, 10.0, 15.0, 15, 10,  "", 0); // Rapier
n = InitStdBlade(n, "blade6",  "blade6",  6, 12, 0.50,  3,  1000, 12.0, 19.0, 15, 15,  "", 1); // Schiavona (pirate?)
break;

// Etc...
}

I do see a potential problem with characters that are being initialized with a certain blade.
There could be trouble if the character is initialized in a certain period, but the weapon is not available.
But that could be sorted.

Having said the above, I would like to get the other projects I'm working on finished first befor I start a quest, so I would like to finish realistic period Govenor names, realistic period weapons and would like to gauge the opionion of what people think about realistic period characters i.e. having the likes of Sir Francis Drake, Hernan Cortes, Blackbeard etc in their respective periods.

Adding characters is easy enough, of course. Giving them a distinct look and purpose is more difficult though.
As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in adding a character with a certain name,
unless he looks like he should and there's some historical gameplay centred around them.

Otherwise you get the City of Abandoned Ships Horatio Hornblower thing where Hornblower
has NOTHING to do with the character from the books and doesn't even remotely resemble a navy officer!

We do have some historical characters in the game occasionally, mostly part of storylines or sidequests.
And Bartolomeu o Portugues was a historical character too.

Oh... I suddenly remember that I do change the governor names to their period-correct counterpart where available,
but they don't change appearance. If you've got any suggestions on good models to use for the different governors,
feel free to add that to your list too. It's a bit weird that governors do change name, but not appearance.
Of course when a town is set to a non-default nationality, the governor appearance DOES change in most cases.

 

[simwake26]

Adding characters is easy enough, of course. Giving them a distinct look and purpose is more difficult though.
As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in adding a character with a certain name,
unless he looks like he should and there's some historical gameplay centred around them.

I definitely agree the characters should look correct which would mean having to skin some models I guess, and by the sounds of it Thomas is quite busy these days. There should also be the historical element I agree, but not too sure the gameplay should be centred around them. I think it may be fun to just encounter some of them i.e. your sailing along and you spot a ship on the horizion, "Ahhhhhh, it's flying Bartholomew Roberts Flag"

 

[Captain Maggee]

Alternative we could always have a random value in taverns that doesnt let you buy crew as someone else has bought them all (I got this from CoAS . I would suggest this over the flag as we really do need to all those flags unless we use it as a PERSONAL_NATION flag where there are a couple free in most storylines

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There's two free flags in all storylines, I think.
At the moment, there ARE famous pirates' flags used by random pirates.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Period Weapons Mod discussion moved here: http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?/topic/12575-period-weapons/page__view__findpost__p__347338

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I've just greatly increased the variety in governor names for different towns and different periods.
Most of it is historically accurate as per the Periods research Excel file I've been working from, though I did have to swap some things around for gameplay purposes.
Eg. we can't change the nations of some towns because we need them a certain nation, so I put their governor names somewhere else.
Also since Bridgetown and Speightstown do not have a governor, their governor names generally ended up on Eleuthera instead.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For historical realism, I now have the Portuguese Sao Gorge being replaced with the English Saint George in the last two periods.
Does anyone think that is a good idea? Unless I'm very much mistaken, that means Portugal no longer has any town and only Portuguese ships will be encountered at sea.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It sounds good for realism, but it also means no Portagee ranks can be earned. Is that a problem?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That's basically my question; it's not crucial, per se, but I'd like some input.

 

[Armada]

Poor old Portugal always pulls the short straw, doesn't it?
So am I right in saying that the Portuguese were more-or-less kicked out of the Caribbean by the late 18th century?
If that's the case, I see no reason against your idea, really. I don't expect many people will miss the island's Portuguese colony, anyway.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

From what I understand, Portugal's presence in the Caribbean is hardly historical anyway, especially not later on.

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

If it's only in the last two periods you remove the Portuguese, I don't have any objection

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yep, that's the only Periods they won't have a town. They'll still have ships though.

 

[Peter Blood]

Yep, that's the only Periods they won't have a town. They'll still have ships though.

I do think the realism is a nice touch, personally, though Portugal should still have some colonial influence in the last two eras. Why not give them control of the smuggler's den or the Buccaneer Fort (or even the Nevis pirate base) in the last two eras so at least they would have something (we wouldn't want to disrupt the natural order of things now would we?)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Anyone else got a comment? We can do anything we want. So what is it we want?