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Planned Feature Town under attack

Bartolomeu o Portugues

Bartolomeu o Portugues

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I don't know if the idea is already in the forum or even in the game :unsure. But, if yes, Pieter you can eliminate this thread.
So, imagine Portugal is at war with Spain for instance. You are walking in São Jorge and suddenly a bunch of Spanish soldiers appears and attack people and guards. So that you cannot run away all the doors are locked and fast travel disabled.
If the people, you and the guards succeed in repealing the attack, everything comes back to the normality. If the enemy kills everybody in the location (and you inclusive) as it already happens you're reloaded in the tavern room with the inconvenient of losing money or even your ship.
Seeing all the nation are at war with pirates. A pirate attack can also occurs of course.
 
On that subject, YOU can attack towns and give them to other nations or take them for yourself.
But that never happens randomly! The functions are there to make it happen, so we could work that in.
Only with "Changing Relations" ON, of course. But it would certainly add some more life to the game world again.
Especially if there is a logic behind it and the player can influence it if so desired.

Also Player Towns might then be taken back.
 
Sounds good.
I was planning to add a naval blockade already when I was goint to tackle the worldmap again. We could add this to it.
If there is a naval blockade there will just be warships round the port so you can't enter it (easily).
You could then sneak to a nearby beach and enter the town. fight off the guards and break the attack.
Does that sounds nice?
 
Sure does! And if you don't do that, then the town may be captured.
 
Sounds good indeed :yes. But the possibility of a naval blockade happens when you are already inside the town should also exist, right?
 
Sure, Especially if you have a lot of ship damage and need a week or so to have the whole ship repaired it would be interesting to see this being interupted by a attack on the town.

My goal is to have some kind of warning in the town rumors, When a attack sets of from a island the rumor goes wild (or maybe a bit before already when its prepared, maybe you helped to prepare it by doing a fetch quest :p). But in the new version the rumors wont be avaible everywhere also instantly so you might not hear it in time.
 
I suggest not locking doors. This is all fun for high level characters, but it's instant death for low level characters with low Melee skill, poor armour and weapons, and few fighting perks. So the player should be able to run away. The game could then do a recognition check. If the character is not recognised then no harm is done, he's just another nobody fleeing in terror with everyone else. If he is recognised then lose lots of reputation - "When danger reared its ugly head he bravely turned his tail and fled". If the player fights and wins, regardless of recognition, he gains lots of reputation; even if he wasn't famous before, he's the hero who saved the town. Likewise, there has to be an escape route for low level characters if you're going to spring surprise blockades. Otherwise this is effectively "all of a sudden you die", which is a great way to ruin the game. Having a blockade suddenly appear while your ship is in serious need of repair, so you can't get out without being finished off by the blockaders, is also "all of a sudden you die".

What about characters who have sneaked into town and are actually aligned with the attackers? Should they have the chance to be rewarded for aiding the attack? If the Spanish suddenly attack Sao Jorge while Johan Elting is in town, you can bet he won't be fighting on Portugal's side!
 
All good points, @Grey Roger. We should definitely NOT make the mistakes you warn us for! :shock

By the way, have you ever played with Land Crewmembers? If not, you might want to give it a try.
You get random raids then as well, which may be fairly similar to what is proposed here.
 
No. What's in it for my character? Apart from such weapons and gold to be looted from dead attackers, and the risk of losing reputation if one of my people hits a citizen by mistake, that is.

Another thought. Your idea of random captures of towns reminds me of "Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales", in which that happens. So how about borrowing another idea - a governor quest to capture a colony. You only get it after you've been promoted high enough, partly because that's when the governor trusts you not to simply take the colony for yourself, and partly because promotion ships are now working so you'll have the firepower to take on a fort. (Unless you sold it, in which case, if you're planning on accepting this sort of mission, you'd better get hold of a battlewagon from somewhere else.)
 
Adding a town capture quest should be possible and not to hard to add.
 
Grey Roger said:
No. What's in it for my character? Apart from such weapons and gold to be looted from dead attackers, and the risk of losing reputation if one of my people hits a citizen by mistake, that is.
Click to expand...
Main reason would be to add some variety to the game and hopefully make things more interesting.
I am not sure if you will like it, but the feature is there and you won't know until you find out.
You get extra crewmembers to support you ashore, so technically you shouldn't get into substantial more danger.
 
Can't think of anything to add. It will be nice if the AI will eventually be able to make effective use of the terrain in HoO, or to have the maps change so that there are makeshift blockades on the road and the like.

Mercenaries 2 is apparently a good game to look at for AI making very good use of the terrain.


EDIT: One thing you might experiment with in PotC is some morale. Not sure if this is possible in the engine without heavy scripting, but I'll mention it all the same.

If there is 1 defender by himself against 20 attackers, the defender would be liable to flee deeper into the town. If he meets up with a group of 30 other defenders, he'll stand with them and fight against the 20 attackers.

Similarly, the attackers, might flee if outnumbered, till they rejoin with more attackers.
 
This thread is a bit old but I was just thinking about this after capturing a French town.

What if, after you capture a town, other nations can attack/naval blockade it and you would get a letter from your town's governor/fort commander 1 month before the attack to join the defense (because it's your town, if it's not yours the rumors, as suggested by Levis, would be great).

It would be cool if you could also get 2 or 3 officers to patrol the area near the town so if an attack happens they will be there anyway and could defend the town.

Another feature that would be very cool (but maybe a lot more complicated) would be changing relations between different factions. Let's say your are starting your colony and capturing French cities in the Golden Age of Piracy. The Spanish would join the war because they are allies but if you are capturing too many cities then other nations would join the war against you. Even if they weren't allies, they would be allies till your colony get's smaller.

Pirates would also benefit from this kind of big attacks because there wouldn't be that many patrols and warships around so they could attack more merchants.
 
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Hi Tingyun,

Thanks! :) It looks like I'm a bit blind because I didn't see it!

Yes, he is describing something like that. And Pieter is right, it would have to be done very carefully but would be a very nice addition.
 
Just so you know, these ideas ARE totally possible.
But like with so many others, they require someone to stand up and make them happen.
If anyone is willing, we'll be here to support as necessary for sure.

I think in theory most of the required functionality is already in place.
The main thing that needs doing is to call that functionality randomly in such a way that it'll do the job.

It would be OK by me if the first version is done really very simply (and annoying in gameplay).
Have to start somewhere after all and at least that would provide something to build on.

So for anyone who wants to try his hands at modding, I think this might actually be a relatively doable feature to start with. :onya
 
I know I'm kinda resurrecting a thread, but since we are actually making the Build Mod 15, more of this kind of thing would be cool to see as well, just wanted to bring this idea back to light.
 
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