Mod Release Three new locations in Colombia (including Gambling House)

[Jack Rackham]

That location looks really interesting. Where did you find it?

 

[Levis]

That location looks really interesting. Where did you find it?

it's the model for the fountain but then made smaller, and I used the model for the cursed coin and put the roulette picture on there and make that spin inside it.
The location is one of the residences (A03) but retextured, and I put in extra tables and changed the patch so it has collision.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I used the model for the cursed coin and put the roulette picture on there and make that spin inside it.

Oooh; that's clever, that is!

And that makes me think... hugely enlarge that model; put a white sand texture on it; then place it below the Black Pearl outside deck location...?

 

[Levis]

Well I think I have some nice things .
I still want to do more with the casino, but for now I think this will do.
I would very much appreciate it if @Grey Roger and/or @Jack Rackham test this. I don't know for sure if the fixes done by jack to the patch etc are included in it. I did include the things by Grey roger so the mansion is now moved etc (also fixed the lighting for it etc).
I haven't fixed the background for the mansion yet, but that can be done later.
(Also made a quick fix to the gambling. for blackjack the deck now wont be shuffled untill all cards are drawn, this allows you to actually use more advanced blackjack techniques if you are playing it).

Here is a screenshot of what you can expect.

New version can be found in this post

 

[Grey Roger]

HA! managed to fix the stairs in cartagena kind off. They are serviceable. Idealy the normal should be fixed or some more triangles should be added. You now get a slight graphic glitch if you walk up/down but probably only noticable if I tell you this. And it's still better then suddenly being blocked.
I don't wanna look into it more now but maybe later I can fix that too.

I found the glitch almost at once and I wasn't even looking for it! It's even funnier if you have an officer...

Having said that, I agree completely that it's still much better than not being able to go down the stairs at all! Thanks, @Levis - pending a further correction, this is going into the next update.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Sorry but I don't have the time to test this as I'm busy with another thing. The location looks great though. But the added furnitures
need COL files too.

 

[Grey Roger]

Well I think I have some nice things .
I still want to do more with the casino, but for now I think this will do.
I would very much appreciate it if @Grey Roger and/or @Jack Rackham test this. I don't know for sure if the fixes done by jack to the patch etc are included in it. I did include the things by Grey roger so the mansion is now moved etc (also fixed the lighting for it etc).

I'll have a look at the casino in detail when I have time, but for now, a quick WinMerge shows that:

• Alejandro de Mendoza is now set to 'LAi_SetSitType' instead of 'LAi_SetHuberType'. That means he'll behave like someone sitting in a tavern rather than like a governor.
• The 'vcskip' lines in "Cartagena Mansion Town" and "House Grandma" are removed. Random visitors may appear in the mansion and Chima's house.

Just to confirm, are those what you want?

Also, you've added a line 'Locations[n].island = "Redmond"' to "House Grandma". Should that not be 'Locations[n].island = "Colombia"'?

 

[Levis]

I'll have a look at the casino in detail when I have time, but for now, a quick WinMerge shows that:

• Alejandro de Mendoza is now set to 'LAi_SetSitType' instead of 'LAi_SetHuberType'. That means he'll behave like someone sitting in a tavern rather than like a governor.
• The 'vcskip' lines in "Cartagena Mansion Town" and "House Grandma" are removed. Random visitors may appear in the mansion and Chima's house.

Just to confirm, are those what you want?

Also, you've added a line 'Locations[n].island = "Redmond"' to "House Grandma". Should that not be 'Locations[n].island = "Colombia"'?

vcskip shouldn't be removed, was a mistake.
the sittype is correct
the location island was a mistake, think I copied the wrong one.

Sorry but I don't have the time to test this as I'm busy with another thing. The location looks great though. But the added furnitures
need COL files too.

they have colfile, but they are a bit different , wanted them to be a bit more brighter

Thanks, @Levis - pending a further correction, this is going into the next update.

Once I want to do some math I will figure out how the normals work and fix it but not now .

---

Oh and also if you are looking at it take a look at the windows in the casino had some fun with them .

 

[Jack Rackham]

Of course I had time to check the walk-patch and my small fix is there too.

 

[Grey Roger]

I've now had a chance to visit the casino.


Only one of the people there wants to gamble. The rest seem to use standard civilian dialog.

The casino is open at night. The people, however, don't have 24 hour logins so the place is empty at night. I'd imagine a casino would be open at night, though possibly the exit leading to the loanshark's office would close at night - we don't want broke gamblers going downstairs for some extra free cash, do we? Possibly give the existing people 24 hour logins, or maybe make up a second batch of people for use at night - taverns do this, you'll see different permanent people at night.

The furniture does look a little bright. Rather than giving them extra-bright .col files, perhaps retexture them a bit lighter and then darken the lighting to match the rest of the room?

Roulette in its present form dates back to 1796, though it's believed that an early roulette wheel was devised by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century. The Wikipedia page on Roulette shows an 18th century wheel with the pockets only marked "E" or "O" (even or odd). So the table, without the modern style betting board, could be an adaptation of Pascal's wheel, and if you want to make the wheel look different from a modern version then you could use that 18th century picture as a starting point for a new texture. (Or I could make the texture if you like.) Having said that, we've had poker in PoTC for some time and that was first developed in early 19th century USA. So there's no harm in leaving the wheel as it is.

And we could make blackjack more suitable for the Age of Sail simply by renaming it. An earlier version was called "vingt-un" (French for twenty-one) and was mentioned in a book by Miguel de Cervantes, though he used the Spanish name "veintiuna" (which also means "twenty-one"). Blackjack is a later version, exact date unknown but certainly a bit late for our purposes, which gets its name from a bonus payout for a hand of an ace of spades and a black jack. As far as I can tell from the code, our version doesn't do that, which means we're already playing vingt-un.

Oh and also if you are looking at it take a look at the windows in the casino had some fun with them .

I did. They do look interesting and very appropriate for the place, as does the wall decor.

There was one oddity. After playing PoTC I routinely check "system.log" and "error.log" for anything out of the ordinary, and this was no exception. From "system.log":

Can't load texture resource\textures\LOCATIONS\SPAIN\BAKSIDAN.TGA.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\MS04023.BMP.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\BIGHOUSE02.TGA.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\BIGHOUSE02.TGA.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\LIGHTING\STORM\LOCATIONS\INSIDE\CASINO\SHADOW.TGA.tx

Missing texture files are generally harmless, except that they make it a bit harder to find significant messages. But the one which interests me is that one about "LIGHTING\STORM\LOCATIONS\INSIDE\CASINO\SHADOW.TGA.tx". That shouldn't happen in an indoor location. The casino is a retexture of "residence03", whose normal version is now Willemstad town hall, so I went there to see if it produces a similar message, and it doesn't. A bit of experimenting with location file "Colombia.c" showed that the roulette wheel is responsible - if I comment out the whole part about the roulette wheel, start a new game and go to the casino, no such message appears. It doesn't seem to do any harm but we may want to keep an eye out for any weirdness if the game gets confused about whether this is an indoor or outdoor location. The obvious potential problem certainly didn't happen - it might have been raining outdoors but it wasn't raining in the casino.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

And we could make blackjack more suitable for the Age of Sail simply by renaming it. An earlier version was called "vingt-un" (French for twenty-one) and was mentioned in a book by Miguel de Cervantes, though he used the Spanish name "veintiuna" (which also means "twenty-one"). Blackjack is a later version, exact date unknown but certainly a bit late for our purposes, which gets its name from a bonus payout for a hand of an ace of spades and a black jack. As far as I can tell from the code, our version doesn't do that, which means we're already playing vingt-un.

Potential disadvantage:
Modern players won't know what they're playing if they get the option "vingt-un" and therefore will likely use the option less than they otherwise would.

A bit of experimenting with location file "Colombia.c" showed that the roulette wheel is responsible - if I comment out the whole part about the roulette wheel, start a new game and go to the casino, no such message appears.

Maybe because @Levis mentioned the wheel was using the outdoor fountain functionality...?

 

[Grey Roger]

Potential disadvantage:
Modern players won't know what they're playing if they get the option "vingt-un" and therefore will likely use the option less than they otherwise would.

Modern American players might not know what they're playing. From the Wikipedia page on Blackjack:

Blackjack, formerly known as Black Jack and Vingt-Un, is the American member of a global family of banking games known as Twenty-One, whose relatives include the British game of Pontoon and the European game Vingt-et-Un.

Besides, modern players who do know what they're playing, probably aren't playing it, because what we have isn't Blackjack.

Incidentally, I didn't notice the cursed coin on the roulette wheel earlier, but I've seen it now. Nice touch, @Levis!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

From the Wikipedia page on Blackjack

I do remember the name "een-en-twintig-en" from somewhere in my distant youth...
That's a literal translation of "twenty-one-ing".

Modern American players might not know what they're playing.

World is becoming increasingly Americanized; isn't it...?

 

[Levis]

I've now had a chance to visit the casino.
View attachment 38765

Only one of the people there wants to gamble. The rest seem to use standard civilian dialog.

yup placeholders for now. this was now in a deliverable state so people can test it and I can get feedback like down below. I will add the option for roulette later, and I also have an idea for the guy in the corner.

The casino is open at night. The people, however, don't have 24 hour logins so the place is empty at night. I'd imagine a casino would be open at night, though possibly the exit leading to the loanshark's office would close at night - we don't want broke gamblers going downstairs for some extra free cash, do we? Possibly give the existing people 24 hour logins, or maybe make up a second batch of people for use at night - taverns do this, you'll see different permanent people at night.

I'll look at it later this week , totally forget to check that.

The furniture does look a little bright. Rather than giving them extra-bright .col files, perhaps retexture them a bit lighter and then darken the lighting to match the rest of the room?

They don't have extra bright col files, by day it's set to lightness of 80 (out of 255) it's just that the rest of the room is very very dark. but I will look into it a bit more.

Roulette in its present form dates back to 1796, though it's believed that an early roulette wheel was devised by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century. The Wikipedia page on Roulette shows an 18th century wheel with the pockets only marked "E" or "O" (even or odd). So the table, without the modern style betting board, could be an adaptation of Pascal's wheel, and if you want to make the wheel look different from a modern version then you could use that 18th century picture as a starting point for a new texture. (Or I could make the texture if you like.) Having said that, we've had poker in PoTC for some time and that was first developed in early 19th century USA. So there's no harm in leaving the wheel as it is.

I prefer not to change the wheel because else it might not be recognisable enough. But I specificly didn't add the betting board to the table as a compromise.

And we could make blackjack more suitable for the Age of Sail simply by renaming it. An earlier version was called "vingt-un" (French for twenty-one) and was mentioned in a book by Miguel de Cervantes, though he used the Spanish name "veintiuna" (which also means "twenty-one"). Blackjack is a later version, exact date unknown but certainly a bit late for our purposes, which gets its name from a bonus payout for a hand of an ace of spades and a black jack. As far as I can tell from the code, our version doesn't do that, which means we're already playing vingt-un.

I'm totally fine with renaming it, but okay if we just call it twentey-one? that would be easier for people to understand I think.

There was one oddity. After playing PoTC I routinely check "system.log" and "error.log" for anything out of the ordinary, and this was no exception. From "system.log":

Can't load texture resource\textures\LOCATIONS\SPAIN\BAKSIDAN.TGA.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\MS04023.BMP.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\BIGHOUSE02.TGA.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\BIGHOUSE02.TGA.tx
Can't load texture resource\textures\LIGHTING\STORM\LOCATIONS\INSIDE\CASINO\SHADOW.TGA.tx

Missing texture files are generally harmless, except that they make it a bit harder to find significant messages. But the one which interests me is that one about "LIGHTING\STORM\LOCATIONS\INSIDE\CASINO\SHADOW.TGA.tx". That shouldn't happen in an indoor location. The casino is a retexture of "residence03", whose normal version is now Willemstad town hall, so I went there to see if it produces a similar message, and it doesn't. A bit of experimenting with location file "Colombia.c" showed that the roulette wheel is responsible - if I comment out the whole part about the roulette wheel, start a new game and go to the casino, no such message appears. It doesn't seem to do any harm but we may want to keep an eye out for any weirdness if the game gets confused about whether this is an indoor or outdoor location. The obvious potential problem certainly didn't happen - it might have been raining outdoors but it wasn't raining in the casino.

I noticed that too but didn't notice any weirdness. It's something I want to look into later, but for now I didn't see any special reason to fix it. I might know how to fix it so will try that later.

Potential disadvantage:
Maybe because @Levis mentioned the wheel was using the outdoor fountain functionality...?

It's the cursed coin model from the world map, so probally that's why it has a storm version needed or something.

 

[Grey Roger]

They don't have extra bright col files, by day it's set to lightness of 80 (out of 255) it's just that the rest of the room is very very dark. but I will look into it a bit more.

From a forum article which I copied to a text file for my own reference, 80 is fine for original PoTC models, but for AoP/CoAS imports (such as the fountain), 40 is recommended.

I prefer not to change the wheel because else it might not be recognisable enough. But I specificly didn't add the betting board to the table as a compromise.

Fair enough, the Even/Odd version would look odd to most people. Incidentally, the reason I didn't notice the skull before is that it's almost completely obscured by the fountain hub; the reason I noticed it later was that I was looking at both "roulette.gm" and "roulette2.gm" for clues as to why one of them caused that message in "system.log". (Perhaps put a small version of the skull logo in place of the green 0?)

I'm totally fine with renaming it, but okay if we just call it twentey-one? that would be easier for people to understand I think.

"Vingt-Un" is just French for "twenty-one" - most people will probably have learned that in school. The game was called "Vingt-Un" in France, of course, but also in Britain, and named as such in the 1800 version of Hoyle's book. And people who don't understand the name from either of those sources might even be tempted to try it to find out what it is.

On the other hand, we already have some historical inaccuracies, some due to game history, e.g. "battleship" instead of "ship of the line". Calling the game "twenty-one" wouldn't be any worse than that.

It's the cursed coin model from the world map, so probally that's why it has a storm version needed or something.

No, @Pieter Boelen got it right - it's the modified fountain which is responsible. Fixing it proved to be trivially easy - I simply hex-edited "roulette.gm" and replaced "shadow.tga" with "invisi.tga". I thought I might need to change the "lambert123SG" as well, but left it alone for a first try. When I went into the casino with the modified model, quit the game, and checked "system.log", there was no message about "resource\textures\LIGHTING\STORM\LOCATIONS\INSIDE\CASINO\". Presumably the game looks in the "LIGHTING" folder for "shadow.tga", either due to code or due to the engine, but it's quite happy to find "invisi.tga" in the base "Textures" folder. There were also originally a couple of lines in "system.log" about "BIGHOUSE02.TGA.tx", which are from "long_table.gm", so I fixed it the same way - replaced "bighouse02.tga" with "invisible1.tga". The attached file contains both "roulette.gm" and "long_table.gm" with the fixes.

 

[Levis]

@Grey Roger thanks for fixing that. I don't know exactly when you are planning on making a new zip. I probably have time this weekend to fix the last issue (like the lighting, I will half all the lighting values).

I'm also thinking of changing the blackjack/21 game a bit where there is a difference in payout between the dealer going bust or just losing. That would mean that the opponent actually can have some skill, because now they just draw untill they either win or go bust and they have not AI at all. And I think it would be more fun if higher level opponents actually play better (and I would like to have a go at programming some statistical analysis AI to have them determine chances etc ).

So I was thinking, you bet for example 1000 euros
if you win you get 1500 back
if the dealer goes bust (or you win with 21) you get 2000 back

And losing and going bust yourself will still net you 0.
This way the game is also stacked more in favor of the dealer which makes sure you don't empy his pockets that much.

I do also in the future want to add the possebility in the casino to do higher bets (and even higher if you have the high stakes perk).

 

[Grey Roger]

According to Hoyle, summarised by the Wikipedia article on Twenty-One, the British version of Vingt-Un has no bonuses based on anyone going bust but a double payout if you get a 21. If the dealer gets a 21, you have to pay him double, unless you have a 21 yourself which makes it a draw. The French version does something similar except the bonuses only apply to an immediate 21, i.e. an ace plus a 10 or face card. The American version was basically the British version until it evolved into Blackjack during the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-99).

Which means:

So I was thinking, you bet for example 1000 euros
if you win you get 1500 back
if the dealer goes bust (or you win with 21) you get 2000 back

... you shouldn't get the bonus if the dealer busts but you should get the bonus if you win with 21, and possibly pay a penalty if the dealer wins with 21.

Am I right in thinking that the "high stakes" perk is already factored into gambling? It would certainly make the place special if it has its own higher limit, cumulative with the perk!

Incidentally, you may wish to rename it. The location definition doesn't matter but perhaps change the label, maybe give it a distinctive name. The reason is that in some versions of Spanish, "casino" can mean a canteen or officers' mess. We have a Spanish translation in progress, therefore some Spanish players.

 

[Levis]

Here is a new version of the two locations and the casino.

These are the fixes I can still remember:
- renamed the casino to "Gambling House"
- Fixed the lighting of the things in the casino
- Fixed the gambling code so now gambling in the casino allows you to have some higher stakes
- In poker you can now raise your bet after you've seen the gamblers move
- In blackjack the dealer shows their first card and the rules are fixed (so draw is possible)
- Fixed the login of the characters
- Fixed the missing textures
- Renamed blackjack to vingt-un

I still want to do more with this but imo at this point it's at a point where it can be included. At a later point I want to look at making the roulette actually work . I'm also thinking of adding another gambling house in another location which could use some love (tortuga?) where a small reskin should be enough .
@Grey Roger I hope you will include this in the new zip once you make it .

Download here (New Game or Reinit (F11) Required)

 

[Grey Roger]

Thanks, @Levis!

I've merged this with my own stuff (still prefer my way of handling a natural 21 in vingt-un, for example ). And also with some of your other work, so that both "Music License.txt" and "music_standard.c" include both the casino music and Mahala's music.

A lot of this was in the earlier version and already destined for the update; the main differences with the new version are the updated casino textures and the door from the casino to the loanshark's office being locked at night.

I've set the mansion to use window background "mumh9" rather than "redrsb" for the simple reason that the tailor's shop, which is in the same area, also uses "mumh9". Pending an accurate background for the area, at least they're consistent.

 

[Levis]

@Grey Roger as long as it works I'm fine with it. could you upload the gamble.c file you have now? mostly because I'm curious.
From what I saw in your earlier version you put the detection of the natural 21 in another place as where the rest of the logic was processed. I tried to have all the logic in the same place so if you ant to change something it's easier to find the code which handles this.