Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!
Join our discord server for regular podcasts/AMA about upcoming and released pirate games (Caribbean Legend, Corsairs Legacy, Ahoy, ERAS 2, etc.):
One possibility, if the distinction can't be made at the time of the battle, is to give you your pirate points when you sell the ship. If you don't have a LoM then it's a pirated ship. (Maybe get more points with Pirates if you sell it at a Pirate shipyard?)
But adding that to you above note, sinking an enemy ship without a LoM should NOT be an act of piracy, except when that ship is a coastguard vessel.
That is two extra exceptions in one go. Would it not be reasonable to treat them both equally as they are now?
After all, a minor act of piracy is hardly an evil consequence for the player. It is just more than NO consequence.
If it's possible to distinguish between coastguard and other, then fighting the coastguard ship ought to be an act of minor piracy, whereas defending yourself against attack by an enemy warship on the high seas should be entirely legal. The only difference is that you earn a few points with Pirates, but if that starts leading you towards becoming a pirate then legal self-defence should not have this consequence.
Alternatively, if you sink (or capture ) a coastguard ship of a nation you were FRIENDLY with, that nation turns hostile (of course).
But the pirates don't care whether you sank or captured the ship. You just gain a few points with them either way.
The difference being that the coastguard ship is attacking you because it caught you breaking the law, you're resisting arrest, so you're breaking the law even more. That ought to count for something with the pirates...
<Merchant hoisting hostile flag to provoke a fight with a warship>
With the current system, that one can be either a completely legal attack or a minor act of piracy.
If you have a LoM, then you're perfectly OK to do that. And if you don't, then it is the same as it always is: minor act of piracy.
Seems fair enough to me. Legal loophole or not, it sounds like a ungentlemanly act to me and my gut feeling tells me it should be piracy.
It's not so much ungentlemanly as stupid - you're deliberately picking a fight for no reason and no possible gain. At best, you get to pay for some repairs and replace some ammo; at worst, you get sunk; either way, you lose.
Actually I didn't think about that, I just regarded 5 (and, for that matter, 4) as subsets of 1 and 2 - defending yourself against an already hostile ship while flying an appropriately hostile flag.
You're absolutely right; they're all just variations on the same thing. For all of them applies:
Capture/Sink actual hostile ship while flying a hostile flag and NO LoM = minor act of piracy
If no distinction can be made between capture and sink then I'd still say this not piracy, it's self defence. You're not doing anything illegal which would make the pirates like you, so you shouldn't earn points with them.
Capture/Sink actual hostile ship while flying a hostile flag and WITH LoM = valid attack
Capture/Sink actual hostile ship while flying a FRIENDLY flag = always major act of piracy
Capture/Sink actual hostile ship while flying a PIRATE flag = always minor act of piracy
Agreed. Attacking under a friendly flag is treachery and earns maximum consequences. Attacking under a pirate flag means you're telling everyone you're a pirate so expect to be treated accordingly, including by pirates.
One possibility, if the distinction can't be made at the time of the battle, is to give you your pirate points when you sell the ship. If you don't have a LoM then it's a pirated ship. (Maybe get more points with Pirates if you sell it at a Pirate shipyard?)
It should be quite easy to tell that function. Add an extra input parameter that is true if it is called from the one spot and false from the other.
Just not sure if it makes all that much sense to do it, especially since it only sometimes applies (it's OK to sink a random ship but NOT a coastguard ship).
We thought about doing it at the time of selling before, if I recall, and decided against it at the time.
Also, that would be a rather substantial reworking of the system and since the current one doesn't seem to be actually broken, I really don't want to do more than I have to.
If it's possible to distinguish between coastguard and other, then fighting the coastguard ship ought to be an act of minor piracy, whereas defending yourself against attack by an enemy warship on the high seas should be entirely legal. The only difference is that you earn a few points with Pirates, but if that starts leading you towards becoming a pirate then legal self-defence should not have this consequence.
It could be done to distinguish between coastguard ships non-coastguard ones, but I don't like that. Seems rather arbitrary.
And also ONLY coastguard ships? Not apply to ALL navy ships? How often does that even happen and consider the amount of effort required to make that change.
Doesn't seem worth it to me.
Additionally, self-defence IS legal, regardless of whether it is a coast guard, navy or annoyed merchant ship.
It only becomes a minor act of piracy IF you sink them or capture them for your own. That is where you go past simple self-defence and make it piracy.
Sinking them kills everyone on board, which is pretty nasty in my book. And I like just treating capturing the same because that means less exceptions.
And if you don't want to end up sliding fully into piracy, you CAN compensate for that by attacking some pirate ships again.
So it is all possible without any changes to the current system.
<Merchant hoisting hostile flag to provoke a fight with a warship>
It's not so much ungentlemanly as stupid - you're deliberately picking a fight for no reason and no possible gain. At best, you get to pay for some repairs and replace some ammo; at worst, you get sunk; either way, you lose.
Since most likely nobody will even bother doing this in the first place, I also see no need to add the extra loophole exception to catch that case and make it always legal.
Actually I didn't think about that, I just regarded 5 (and, for that matter, 4) as subsets of 1 and 2 - defending yourself against an already hostile ship while flying an appropriately hostile flag.
If no distinction can be made between capture and sink then I'd still say this not piracy, it's self defence. You're not doing anything illegal which would make the pirates like you, so you shouldn't earn points with them.
Can it be done? Yes it can. But to what point and purpose? Nobody says that self-defence MUST consist of sinking the ship that attacks you.
And sinking another ship seems to me more nasty than capturing the ship for yourself, not killing the crew and keeping the captain alive too.
Perhaps harder to do for the player, but then you should probably be thinking about escaping rather than turning to fight.
Agreed. Attacking under a friendly flag is treachery and earns maximum consequences. Attacking under a pirate flag means you're telling everyone you're a pirate so expect to be treated accordingly, including by pirates.
Looking through UpdateRMRelation again just now, I did note one thing that might be worth changing:
At the moment even a MINOR act of piracy will lose you your Trading License.
Those are quite expensive so that is rather a nasty surprise if this was a first-time accident!
For now, I will remove all lines that automatically take your license away from you.
Worth noting though that the Trading Licenses don't actually work if your served nation is Pirate.
But that does not immediately happen, so this should be a bit less nasty.
As it was originally @Grey Roger's suggestion that I added to the removal of the Trade License item, we could easily keep it like this:
Code:
if(CheckAttribute(char,"quest.relation_tutorial")) // PB: Now you should know what you're doing!
{
// No longer an honourable merchant
if (CheckCharacterItem(char, "Trade_Passport")) TakeItemFromCharacter(char, "Trade_Passport");
if (CheckCharacterItem(char, "EITC_Passport")) TakeItemFromCharacter(char, "EITC_Passport");
}
else
{
Lai_QuestDelay("relationbook", 0.0); // PB: Relations Tutorial
}
That way at least you get fair warning on the first honest mistake without immediately losing your super-expensive item.
Personally I reckon we can skip it altogether, but you guys can decide on that one.
Alternatively, when your first shot hits the enemy ship and you haven't hoisted a hostile flag, perhaps have a "Logit" message on behalf of your first officer reminding you that you're still under a false flag and are in danger of being labelled a pirate.
// PB: Warning Note -->
if (iRelation == RELATION_ENEMY && GetFlagRMRelation(sti(rOurCharacter.nation)) != RELATION_ENEMY && !CheckAttribute(rBallCharacter, "false_flag_note"))
{
LogIt("Captain, we are under a false flag therefore in danger of being labelled a pirate for our actions here!");
rBallCharacter.false_flag_note = true;
}
// PB: Warning Note <--
As it is difficult to determine when this should and shouldn't be shown, it is now happening once per reload to sea.
That should probably suffice.
From my side, with these changes added, this feature should be pretty much Beta 4 ready.
The only thing I'd still be willing to do if desired is to add a toggle for a simplified mode where, for example, allies play no role.
A very great thanks to @Grey Roger and @pedrwyth for keeping me on my toes and forcing me to consider all angles with this feature!
This is going to be quite a huge change for the next update and getting it right has been tough to say the least.
I'm still awaiting your guys' (dis)approval to me removing the "losing Merchant License item upon an act of piracy" feature.
It probably won't affect me as I'm unlikely to bother with a Merchant Licence, so comments from anyone who does want to use it may be more useful. But this is part of why I believe that self-defence should not count as an act of piracy - if you are attacked and then sink the attacking ship, it should not be an act of piracy and you should not lose your Licence. (In particular, sinking a pirate ship should not be an act of minor piracy. It's why merchant ships had guns. ) Something which genuinely is an act of minor piracy should, however, cost you your Licence - it's supposed to be a declaration that you're a peaceful merchant going about his lawful business, and should be forfeit if you're caught doing piratical things.
In that case, I'll definitely keep it as-is so you won't lose the License.
I know @ANSEL was quite surprised in an earlier release that it suddenly disappeared, so that is probably best avoided.
Once your served nation switches to PIRATE though, the license loses its effect anyway. The crew then KNOWS you're a pirate and WILL want to see that plunder.
But this is part of why I believe that self-defence should not count as an act of piracy - if you are attacked and then sink the attacking ship, it should not be an act of piracy and you should not lose your Licence.
I don't think it would be wise nor fair to leave this "self-defence by killing everyone" completely without consequences.
As it is, the consequences are minor so they can serve as an advance warning before players end up turning full-blown pirate.
And it shouldn't. And it isn't. If you encounter proof in the game that this IS considered a minor act of piracy, then that would be a bug for sure that needs fixing.
Attacking pirate ships should always be fair game and that is how it should already be set up.
What would you consider a genuine act of minor piracy? I'm confused.
By my understanding, if I take the suggestions posted here over the past week, sinking a ship would generally either be NO act of piracy (virtually always) or a MAJOR one with nothing much inbetween.
it's supposed to be a declaration that you're a peaceful merchant going about his lawful business, and should be forfeit if you're caught doing piratical things.
True. That is why it has been set up for a while now so that it loses its effect once your served nation switches to Pirate.
This of course doesn't happen on your first (probably accidental) minor act of piracy though, but only later on if you keep acting like a pirate.
That prevents the current "minor act of piracy" logic from being "too evil" while still keeping it functional.
As far as I'm concerned, the system should be pretty much OK for general play.
Two things that I do still need:
- What kind of simplifications would be desired for an Arcade Game Mode, if any?
- Does the current system actually do what I have been claiming it does or are there still unintentional bugs?
- Do players run into any actual gameplay issues with this during testing that need to be tweaked?
I think we've done pretty much everything that can be done from a conceptual point of view.
It is all in the gameplay from here.
I don't think it would be wise nor fair to leave this "self-defence by killing everyone" completely without consequences.
As it is, the consequences are minor so they can serve as an advance warning before players end up turning full-blown pirate.
Why not? Compare to an attack on land - if someone attacks you, you're allowed to fight back and kill them. If someone attacks you at sea, why wouldn't you be allowed to kill them as well?
If the player has read the guide about the law then he'll know what counts as minor piracy. If not, or he forgot it, then he may defend himself against attack, sink the enemy, get away with it and think it's OK, right up until the moment when he suddenly turns Pirate and wonders why.
What would you consider a genuine act of minor piracy? I'm confused.
By my understanding, if I take the suggestions posted here over the past week, sinking a ship would generally either be NO act of piracy (virtually always) or a MAJOR one with nothing much inbetween.
To be honest, I'm trying to figure out what "minor piracy" is as well. By definition, piracy was a major crime and a hanging offence, there was nothing minor about it.
Maybe raise the stakes a bit. Minor piracy is sinking or capturing another ship without just cause. Major piracy is doing it in a particularty dirty way, e.g. while flying a friendly flag. Self defence isn't piracy. But sinking a coastguard ship after being caught smuggling could count as minor piracy. Pirates don't care about wars between nations so they don't care if you serve Holland, which is at war with Spain, you are attacked by a Spanish warship and sink it in self defence. On the other hand, you're caught smuggling so you're a criminal, you sink the law enforcement ship which was trying to arrest you so you're a bigger criminal, and the Pirates like that.
Killing the enemy crew after they've surrendered could also count. There may be times when you're forced to do this, e.g. if I remember correctly, if an Animist ship surrenders you don't get the options to take the captain prisoner or hire him as an officer; or you already have the maximum of 36 in your "Passengers" list so there's no room for another prisoner or officer. So a first offence shouldn't get you into major trouble. If you make a habit of sending the prisoners over the side, the Pirates will take notice and eventually award you a plank with which to do it properly.
Why not? Compare to an attack on land - if someone attacks you, you're allowed to fight back and kill them. If someone attacks you at sea, why wouldn't you be allowed to kill them as well?
At sea it isn't a matter of "someone atacks you". It is "a ship with crew attacks you"; that is a lot more people.
And while the ship's captain can probably be held responsible for his actions, the same cannot be said for the rest of the crew who are just following orders.
Getting them ALL killed doesn't sound all that respectable to me, so I'm afraid I DO think that some sort of consequence is in order.
I do reckon that killing someone who attacks you ashore should be OK. For one thing, it is the act of that particular person who can be responsible for his actions. (Unless drunk?)
Also, there are much less options available to you than at sea. Though even ashore, you could try to escape or disarm your opponent or his blade may break.
So there are non-lethal solutions even there. But I agree that is not needed.
That being said, right now there are pretty much no consquences for attacking any armed characters ashore at all.
You can be friendly to England, then kill all English guards in a town and nobody cares. That is something I'd like to see addressed for Beta 5 as well.
If the player has read the guide about the law then he'll know what counts as minor piracy. If not, or he forgot it, then he may defend himself against attack, sink the enemy, get away with it and think it's OK, right up until the moment when he suddenly turns Pirate and wonders why.
You can see that coming in advance and if you also sink pirate ships once in a while, that could take a long, long time to trigger.
Even then, "turning pirate" here means that pirates will NOT be hostile to you any longer, which is actually quite nice, no?
The only disadvantage is being recognized in non-pirate ports for this, but that doesn't always happen.
Even then, because you haven't officially JOINED the pirates, your served nation of pirate isn't actually strongly fixed.
If you buy a LoM, you'll be unmarked as pirate again. So it is really a very loose definition of being a pirate.
Which I think is quite historically valid, because there WERE "pirates" who were pardoned and turned privateer and such.
How about we don't worry about players potentially accidentally "turning pirate" despite being warned about it in advance,
provided with an explanation, the pirates first turning wary and those players STILL not noticing.
If that is truly an issue, I'd attribute it more to "user error" than an inherent problem with the game system.
To be honest, I'm trying to figure out what "minor piracy" is as well. By definition, piracy was a major crime and a hanging offence, there was nothing minor about it.
Then don't call it piracy. It is only named that in code anyway and functionally hardly qualifies as such.
Consider it a "not entirely respectable act". Consistently behaving in a "non respectable" way will eventually get people to call you out on it.
I see no problem with that.
In general, what I am hoping to accomplish with the game is to have most actions give a (reasonable!) consequence of some sort.
Some consequences may be good, some bad, some small and some large. And some actions may even be without consequence.
But until now, the game has been very strong on the "whatever you do, it doesn't really matter much to anyone" and that just doesn't seem like good gameplay to me.
Eventually I want the game to start feeling like it is inhabited by "real people" in something resembling a "believable world".
At sea it isn't a matter of "someone atacks you". It is "a ship with crew attacks you"; that is a lot more people.
And while the ship's captain can probably be held responsible for his actions, the same cannot be said for the rest of the crew who are just following orders.
Getting them ALL killed doesn't sound all that respectable to me, so I'm afraid I DO think that some sort of consequence is in order.
Scenario 1: Britain and France are at war. I have a British LoM, am in a big warship, find a French merchant cutter and blow it out of the water. This is a legal act of war so it's fine.
Scenario 2: Britain and France are at war. I have no LoM but serve Britain, find a French naval cutter which attacks me, and blow it out of the water. This is somehow an act of minor piracy.
So attacking a merchant ship and wiping out its peaceful crew is perfectly legal, but being attacked by a naval ship and wiping out its fighting crew isn't.
Scenario 3: WW2: Britain and Germany are at war, a U-boat surfaces next to a British merchant and demands its crew take to the lifeboats before the U-boat sinks it. Instead the merchant ship fires its cannon, gets lucky, and sinks the U-boat. Somehow I don't think anyone other than the U-boat crew is going to get upset (though this sort of incident is why U-boats stopped doing that and instead just torpedoed the merchant ship without warning). Even if the same merchant manages to get lucky several times, the captain is in no danger of being labelled as a pirate.
That being said, right now there are pretty much no consquences for attacking any armed characters ashore at all.
You can be friendly to England, then kill all English guards in a town and nobody cares. That is something I'd like to see addressed for Beta 5 as well.
If you just attack the guards without provocation then I thought you'd get penalised for attacking a character who hadn't drawn a weapon. If they're already hostile to you then presumably you've done something to trigger it so in effect you've got the consequences before you kill them. (Probably got recognised as being from an enemy nation, which means England already hates you.)
In general, what I am hoping to accomplish with the game is to have most actions give a (reasonable!) consequence of some sort.
Some consequences may be good, some bad, some small and some large. And some actions may even be without consequence.
But until now, the game has been very strong on the "whatever you do, it doesn't really matter much to anyone" and that just doesn't seem like good gameplay to me.
Eventually I want the game to start feeling like it is inhabited by "real people" in something resembling a "believable world".
Agreed, but I'd prefer to see realistic consequences. Being labelled a pirate for defeating ships belonging to an enemy nation is not one. For one thing, that affects your relations with all nations, including your own. You can be pretty certain that if a British merchant sank a lot of French warships during the Napoleonic Wars, its captain wouldn't be labelled a pirate, he'd be labelled a hero!
On the other hand, although your relation to the enemy nation will be at the default -60 because your nation is at war with them, it will go down further when you sink one of their ships. Perhaps factor that into false flag recognition. That British merchant who sank a lot of French warships during wartime might be labelled a hero at home; he'd be labelled something else in France - not a pirate, but certainly a ship to be recognised and destroyed on sight!
Or have different reactions for shopkeepers. A Frenchman visiting an English port whose relations are the default -60 is pretty harmless, so have the shopkeeper adjust his prices to take maximum advantage. On the other hand, if his relations are -100, he's been sinking English ships, so the shopkeeper can be more patriotic and refuse to do business.
Perhaps also do something with the totals of ships sunk, ships boarded and people killed, all of which are recorded somewhere because they appear in the log section of the F2 screen. Those, plus your reputation and fame, should give NPC's some idea about the sort of character you're playing, and could affect the chances of an enemy ship surrendering early in a fight, how shopkeepers react to you, how muggers react to you, etc.
Scenario 1: Britain and France are at war. I have a British LoM, am in a big warship, find a French merchant cutter and blow it out of the water. This is a legal act of war so it's fine.
Scenario 2: Britain and France are at war. I have no LoM but serve Britain, find a French naval cutter which attacks me, and blow it out of the water. This is somehow an act of minor piracy.
So attacking a merchant ship and wiping out its peaceful crew is perfectly legal, but being attacked by a naval ship and wiping out its fighting crew isn't.
Scenario 3: WW2: Britain and Germany are at war, a U-boat surfaces next to a British merchant and demands its crew take to the lifeboats before the U-boat sinks it. Instead the merchant ship fires its cannon, gets lucky, and sinks the U-boat. Somehow I don't think anyone other than the U-boat crew is going to get upset (though this sort of incident is why U-boats stopped doing that and instead just torpedoed the merchant ship without warning). Even if the same merchant manages to get lucky several times, the captain is in no danger of being labelled as a pirate.
For your entertainment, let me present Scenario 4:
Player somehow acquires a brilliant warship, but is not in the navy and does not have a LoM*.
Then the player goes and seeks out warships of nations that are already hostile to him.
Those ships are hostile to you straight from the start, therefore sinking them would then not give you any consequences.
Does not sound right to me.
Also, how about we agree to rename "minor act of piracy" to "unrespectable act" to note that it is NOT actual piracy.
If it were, then you'd be marked a pirate instantly and that does not happen.
But even your merchant who keeps getting lucky against the U-boats could eventually build a reputation for that.
And eventually people may start asking questions of how that is even possible and whether his actions were completely "by the book".
Even if that merchant knows he didn't do anything out of the reasonable, eventually he'd have a hard time convincing anyone else.
Even your note that U-boats stopped allowing their targets to live and just torpedoed them indicates that there was an issue with this even in real life.
That makes this a stupidly complex issue and there probably is no right answer.
Therefore I will set up the system the way it makes the most sense from a gameplay point of view.
And "all common attacks not having consequences" is very close to "it doesn't matter what you do", which doesn't sound very interesting to me.
If you just attack the guards without provocation then I thought you'd get penalised for attacking a character who hadn't drawn a weapon. If they're already hostile to you then presumably you've done something to trigger it so in effect you've got the consequences before you kill them. (Probably got recognised as being from an enemy nation, which means England already hates you.)
For the guards, from the code I understood that you SHOULD get penalized if they hadn't drawn their blade yet.
But I do not think that actually works. As far as I remember, you can pretty much wreak havoc ashore and leave and nobody is any the wiser.
Anyway, that is another issue for another day. Specifically a day after Beta 4 has been released.
Agreed, but I'd prefer to see realistic consequences. Being labelled a pirate for defeating ships belonging to an enemy nation is not one. For one thing, that affects your relations with all nations, including your own. You can be pretty certain that if a British merchant sank a lot of French warships during the Napoleonic Wars, its captain wouldn't be labelled a pirate, he'd be labelled a hero!
"Being labelled a pirate for defeating ships belonging to an enemy nation" does NOT influence your relations to all nations.
It takes away some points from the nation you attacked (makes absolute sense) and adds some points with the pirates (debatable, but in no way a terrible thing).
And you would probably lose some points with the allies of the attacked nation too. But that is "alliances at work" and has nothing to do with piracy.
The only way to REALLY affect all nations at once are:
1. Committing a GROSS act of piracy (firing on a friendly ship, finishing an attack under a still-friendly flag)
2.Deliberately joining the pirates by talking to the pirate leader at Nevis
You can perform "unrespectable acts" until the end of all time and the worst that will happen is that you'll be called out for it occasionally while ashore.
Until you decide to get a LoM at long last, which clearly you should have done a long time ago, which will instantly reset that again.
There IS no big issue here, so I don't know why we're spending so much time arguing over what should truly be trifles.
If you want to be considered a hero for your awesome acts against nations enemy to your own, that is specifically why you should get that LoM.
So why wouldn't you? Pick a side already!
On the other hand, although your relation to the enemy nation will be at the default -60 because your nation is at war with them, it will go down further when you sink one of their ships. Perhaps factor that into false flag recognition. That British merchant who sank a lot of French warships during wartime might be labelled a hero at home; he'd be labelled something else in France - not a pirate, but certainly a ship to be recognised and destroyed on sight!
We're rushing from a completely broken false flag detection system with stupidly simplified nation relations to something that can't ever seem to be complex enough.
You want to have nation-specific fame/infamy levels? I'm not saying it isn't possible (probably would be with a LOT of though PLUS development time).
But why would we make everything crazy complicated when there is just no need for it?
And even if there IS some sort of a serious desire for it, then how about we make sure the current system works as intended first???
Or have different reactions for shopkeepers. A Frenchman visiting an English port whose relations are the default -60 is pretty harmless, so have the shopkeeper adjust his prices to take maximum advantage. On the other hand, if his relations are -100, he's been sinking English ships, so the shopkeeper can be more patriotic and refuse to do business.
That is a different story altogether. Something like that is already somewhat in place, but could theoretically be expanded on.
But not until well after Beta 4 is released. That may indeed make the game better than it is, but as it is, that system is already at least functional and serviceable.
One thing at a time.
Perhaps also do something with the totals of ships sunk, ships boarded and people killed, all of which are recorded somewhere because they appear in the log section of the F2 screen. Those, plus your reputation and fame, should give NPC's some idea about the sort of character you're playing, and could affect the chances of an enemy ship surrendering early in a fight, how shopkeepers react to you, how muggers react to you, etc.
Imagine the number of variables that you want to throw into a formula there to hopefully get a sensible result.
Now imagine the chance of mistakes in thinking that through and implementing it.
That could easily take a good few months to get right. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if you could spend a full year on it.
If you or somebody else cares enough to tackle that, be my guest. But it isn't going to be me.
Consider also that the system currently in place DOES in a way keep track of the number of ships sunk, etc.
You start at a certain relation with the pirates (normally Hostile at -60) and gain points with them for every "unrespectable act" and lose them again every time you sink/capture an actual pirate.
For most ships, you may get at maximum 5 points (usually less).
In other words: you'd need to do this at least 12 times for non-pirate ships without doing the same with ANY pirates.
How unlikely is that to happen, do you think? Also, doesn't sparing the pirates to accomplish this suggest something too? (PIRATE!)
So to summarize: This is unlikely to happen by complete accident. And when it does happen, it is easily solved by getting a LoM.
Even if you don't solve it at all, you'll be friendly with the pirates (NICE!) and may occasionally be called out in non-pirate ports (admittedly not so nice).
All the above being said, I do see one thing that probably has to be addressed:
Normally you'll start at -60 with the Pirates. Once you commit your first "unrespectable act", you'll probably get up to at least -59.
The game considers that Wary and no longer hostile. That makes it REALLY easy to become not hostile with the pirates.
I'd propose starting your relation with the pirates further down, for example at -90 (halfway between the hostile limit and the minimum).
That will make it take longer before you would be marked a pirate through "unrespectable acts" alone.
That delays your concerns further, making it even less likely to happen completely by accident.
Final Words:
I do not consider the current system that I set up based on your specifications to be at all badly broken in concept.
In fact, it should be quite workable and allows people to play out a wide variety of scenarios.
If any genuine concerns come to light, I want to hear about those from actual gameplay experience using the current system.
We can discuss this until the end of all time and never get to the final perfectly awesome solution to it all.
But I have no desire to do that. There are other game elements now that require more serious work.
And Beta 4 must be publicly released within the foreseeable future.
Consider the current system as a "steady base to work from" for other people who wish to make it more fancy.
Just don't expect me to do it. As far as I'm concerned, it is infinitely better than what we had and that suffices for me.
* = I know this is fairly unlikely, but you could have been a privateer before and left or somehow managed to capture one
Please remember it is supposed to be a game & an enjoyable (i.e. entertaining) experience to play.
If it becomes too much like the real world then it looses its "escapism" value.
Sometimes players want to do things in a game for the very reason that it would not be possible to do them in real life. ( After a long frustrating day at work - it is good to come home, play a game and beat the crap out of a group of town guard soldiers - for the simple reason that you can't do that in real life).
If there are any features that end up detracting from the fun for some people specifically because they're more realistic, we can always put a toggle on it.
If I manage to accomplish what I'm hoping to, you'll definitely need to pay more attention to the game and become more involved in it.
That can be both a bad and a good thing, depending on what you're looking for in the game.
That's why we've got the different Realism Modes with extra separate toggles, after all.
I'm all for that where they're needed.
Well I didn't get round to looking at the code but @Pieter Boelen gave a full account of what it is meant to do, thanks for taking the time for that and also revisiting your thinking on the way things work out. Much discussion has since ensued.
Much revolves around what a "real" scenario might be, what makes good gameplay and how much is worth complicating the coding and I'm not looking to re-open the debate, with the slight changes as proposed I'll wait and see how it pans out in play.
As I currently see it in the ship attacking me scenario I guess I can live with LoM makes it OK (I don't want to normally play as a privateer with rank and promotions etc so would probably ignore getting that). So I make the hostile nation and its allies a bit more hostile - that's OK and engender myself slightly to the pirates - I guess that's OK if it is now not called an act of piracy ( important distinction for me even if its really semantics) and I can "imagine" the pirates like me getting rid of a navy/privateer that might otherwise have been troubling them (but not liking it if I have a LoM because that indicates I'm tooled up as a privateer too and might come looking for them). As long as I go and sink a pirate or two I will cancel out the impact.
Coastguards (should that be customs and excise vessels) I know that I need to avoid sinking friendly nation ones (but can loot them - again important for getting back some cash for the damage they may inflict) but if I want to use them as a source of an improved vessel need to target an enemy nation vessel (which then proceeds as above). Knowing that I guess I can adjust my behaviour to work with that too.
Not relevant to the behaviour/coding is whether killing the crew is a "immoral" act. I don't think that because they are attacking you and although some might be "pressed" men - presumably why if you have a shortage they might willingly join you - morality about taking life wasn't the issue back then. The main reason I suspect the hostile nation would be upset is loss of property (both in ships and "experienced sailors") not "people" which to the upper classes these sailors weren't "one of us", and why the masses were often cannon fodder. Still, that's an aside as I say.
The one area I still do disagree with is if you attack under a pirate flag I think you should go most if not all the way to BE a pirate, why else would you do this? I think the gameplay for piracy in slowly choking off use of most normal places to the pirates will give a flavour of what the logistics of life might have been like - for those that want to try it. If you hoist the a pirate flag and attack accordingly, you should become a pirate.The additional step of joining the Brotherhood is then another step you may or may not take depending how "independent" you want to try and be or whether you want to work your way up.
As I say I'm not looking for any extended debate and I offer these just as thoughts and don't need a reply as such.
However to answer one question I think you should keep the Trading Licence..
For the questionon how a lesser impact could be shown for arcade I see that is difficult to pick out bits from the package without a lot of re-work. One suggestion would be to perhaps make it easier/cheaper to undo the impacts in arcade - perhaps another diplomat or two in other taverns (there are some pretty empty ones) and less cost to the process of settling your troubles.
Not sure about the player who wants to avoid it all.
I'll double check the naming of the "minor act of Piracy" in the tutorial book to ensure it won't be called that anymore.
The main reason for me giving it that name until now was because I named the code variable "iActOfPiracy" but of course no player will ever notice that.
Indeed if you've got a LoM you aren't forced to take your promotions as you manually have to ask a Governor about them.
Of course if you do, you'll get a new title, unlock some abilities, gain land and money from that and sometimes a nice sword too.
It'll also make you more famous and eventually allows you to court one of the governor's nieces or daughters.
Any attack under a pirate flag is treated the same as if you didn't have a LoM.
So it doesn't make you instantly a pirate nor does it turn all nations hostile in one go.
That may be a bit "too forgiving" though. But if we are to make it worse, how far to go?
I don't mind more relation agents being added to the game, but I'll probably be too busy with other things to do that myself.
All the governors also allow you to crave forgiveness though.
What I'll definitely do today:
Starting your relation with the pirates further down, for example at -90 (halfway between the hostile limit and the minimum).
Up for debate:
Should an attack while under a pirate flag be considered equally bad as attacking under a friendly flag/firing on a friendly ship?
At the moment that is not the case as the code figures that since you do have a hostile flag flying, at least you're being honest about being dishonest...
I'd say that attacking while under a pirate flag should indeed count as honestly dishonest and considerably less evil than attacking while under a friendly flag.
This ties into the concept of the hero pirate, which may be mostly a product of films and books, though Laurens de Graaf could qualify as a real one. If you do your piracy while under a pirate flag then you should certainly earn points with the pirates but should not lose reputation as you perhaps would by attacking under a friendly flag.
I'd say that attacking while under a pirate flag should indeed count as honestly dishonest and considerably less evil than attacking while under a friendly flag.
That means that "attacking under a pirate flag" and "attacking ships without a LoM" will be on equal footing.
Both would be an "unrespectable act" that can eventually lead to piracy, but you aren't immediately forced into that.
That only happens if you keep at it without compensating.
This means that a "pirate" can be a simple go-to flag to ensure that you ARE flying a hostile flag when you do your attack.
But to actually get into the "whole world hates you" situation, you have to choose to join the pirates by talking to them.
This ties into the concept of the hero pirate, which may be mostly a product of films and books, though Laurens de Graaf could qualify as a real one. If you do your piracy while under a pirate flag then you should certainly earn points with the pirates but should not lose reputation as you perhaps would by attacking under a friendly flag.
Ah, that reminds me.... I was going to tie that reputation drop into the EVIL act of piracy section of code.
Then hopefully I can get rid of the separate AttackNation function because we've got too many separate systems to handle very similar things.
Unrespectable Acts:
Depending on the situation, you may be committing an unrespectable acts when you capture or sink any non-pirate ships. The following are considered as such by the civilized nations of the world and are listed in order of severity:
- You had no Letter of Marque or navy commission and therefore no legal reason for the attack
- You were flying a pirate flag
- You attacked a nation you were neutral or friendly with
- You were flying a flag friendly to the ship you attacked
Depending on the severity of your actions, you may be recognized as a traitor in non-pirate towns. For common unrespectable acts, this may take a while. However, large offences are considered an act of piracy and affect your relations with all nations.
It is always possible to hoist another flag in battle, which could mean the difference between your actions being considered legal or a major act of piracy. It serves to be careful especially when being recognized for flying a false flag.
This should make sense from the concept of NOT calling everything an "act of piracy".
Does that sound about right, @pedrwyth?
) a coastguard ship of a nation you were FRIENDLY with, that nation turns hostile (of course).
) Something which genuinely is an act of minor piracy should, however, cost you your Licence - it's supposed to be a declaration that you're a peaceful merchant going about his lawful business, and should be forfeit if you're caught doing piratical things.
For one thing, that affects your relations with all nations, including your own. You can be pretty certain that if a British merchant sank a lot of French warships during the Napoleonic Wars, its captain wouldn't be labelled a pirate, he'd be labelled a hero!
for the simple reason that you can't do that in real life).
why else would you do this? I think the gameplay for piracy in slowly choking off use of most normal places to the pirates will give a flavour of what the logistics of life might have been like - for those that want to try it. If you hoist the a pirate flag and attack accordingly, you should become a pirate.The additional step of joining the Brotherhood is then another step you may or may not take depending how "independent" you want to try and be or whether you want to work your way up.
