Poll Your Preferred Gameplay Style

[Grey Roger]

At the moment Open Sea Mod is linked to Iron Man Mode. But maybe it could be linked to Realistic Game Mode instead?

Please, no. For the most part I like realism which is why I play on "Realistic" mode, but I have limited game-playing time and don't want to waste it sailing on empty sea unnecessarily. I tried enabling "Open Sea" from within "InternalSettings.h" once, found that it put me too far away from enemy ships and too far away from an island when I'd sailed right up next to it on world-map and switched to 3D sailing, and promptly disabled it again.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Please, no. For the most part I like realism which is why I play on "Realistic" mode, but I have limited game-playing time and don't want to waste it sailing on empty sea unnecessarily. I tried enabling "Open Sea" from within "InternalSettings.h" once, found that it put me too far away from enemy ships and too far away from an island when I'd sailed right up next to it on world-map and switched to 3D sailing, and promptly disabled it again.

Either way doesn't really matter so much to me. In the end, we cannot make enough interface settings to cater to everyone.
But that is why we've got those extra InternalSettings.h toggles for those who want to tweak their realism a bit more to their liking.
So then for the time being, I'll keep it as-is.

 

[Robert Nutter]

I'm still adjusting to all the new storylines and quests, so my normal mode of play is very much a straightforward one, really. Though I am liking the looks of the other storylines so once I have a bit more time will probably go through them properly too.

The only tweaks I make are that I tend to turn rum and food off (i know, I know I'm awful) as I like to focus solely on the personal aspect. I use all the other mods though and have been getting very accustomed to using realism mode since playing Build 14. I also get notified of all sightings (makes it more unpredictable and realistic that way), and tend to play at sea dog difficulty. I havn't tried Iron man as whilst I love the concept of Direct Sail, I'm not sure I'd have the time or patience to constantly play that way!

I'll normally start on the standard storyline, as it affords the greatest freedom, and with the war tartane or even normal tartane if I'm feeling brave. I like building myself up; that's what this game's always been about for me. I'll then do some trading and absolutely completely avoid any and all at-sea engagement until at least ship tier 7. Normally this means only taking close proximity trade missions to begin with, though doing some escort missions from the taverns is normally a good way of ensuring I at least have some chance of winning a fight if I should get dragged into one! As for my character and allegiance, I'll always go as Gunner for England; mostly because this fits the storylines best and everything's in English so it just makes more sense; I have played a few campaigns as the Spanish though, as I do love some of their ships and islands!

Eventually, once I get enough money, I'll upgrade to something else; normally a Barque of some kind or a sloop if I can afford it.. At which point I'll start getting into the main quest and also having an explore to see what other quests are around.

I confess I've never played a campaign as a pirate; I'd love to though.


I know it's probably a boring mode of play this one, but it's great feeling the sense of achievement going from tartane to SOTL without needing to break the law


The only thing I'd change personally would be maybe a way of choosing an exact date, year and location in the standard storyline and maybe a few others? I don't know how possible this is due to the quests breaking but one can dream

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'll normally start on the standard storyline, as it affords the greatest freedom

Three words: "Free Play" Storyline.
There you can create whatever starting character you like and has the added bonus of having Changing Nation Relations.

The only thing I'd change personally would be maybe a way of choosing an exact date, year and location in the standard storyline and maybe a few others? I don't know how possible this is due to the quests breaking but one can dream

Enabling a custom start date for storylines is easy enough; just remove one line from their code-files and it works.
But written storylines don't make sense in other periods than the one that they're set in.
And their stories may make use of wrong-period character models and ships.

So why would we want that functionality, when the Free Play storyline already allows that?
If you want to follow the storyline, it might as well make historical sense.
And if you don't want to follow the storyline, the Free Play one allows all sorts of varied starting scenarios and has all sidequests available anyway.

 

[Black Bart]

Please, no. For the most part I like realism which is why I play on "Realistic" mode, but I have limited game-playing time and don't want to waste it sailing on empty sea unnecessarily. I tried enabling "Open Sea" from within "InternalSettings.h" once, found that it put me too far away from enemy ships and too far away from an island when I'd sailed right up next to it on world-map and switched to 3D sailing, and promptly disabled it again.

Yeah i'm trying some different settings to see why (in particular) you end up really far away from the island after dropping down into 3D mode from the Map Navigation mode, i 'think' it has something to do with the value '10000' in the file NK.c around line 2200 (where the entries for the Open Sea Mod are), although i'm not sure as this might not be the issue due to the #define ACCURATE_NAVIGATION 1 line at the start of the CCCdirectsail.c file, as this suggests 'islandcell' loading is not being used. Hmm you could try to set that to 0 to see if you come out of Map Navigation mode closer to where you expect?

You can also adjust the values in DIRECTENCOUNTERDISTANCE = to get ships to appear closer to you. I 'think' they were in general set to be fairly far away to be more like seeing the ships appear over the horizon, but you can certainly experiment with some smaller values to see if that works better for you.

 

[ANSEL]

I'll normally start on the standard storyline, as it affords the greatest freedom, and with the war tartane or even normal tartane if I'm feeling brave. I like building myself up; that's what this game's always been about for me. I'll then do some trading and absolutely completely avoid any and all at-sea engagement until at least ship tier 7. Normally this means only taking close proximity trade missions to begin with, though doing some escort missions from the taverns is normally a good way of ensuring I at least have some chance of winning a fight if I should get dragged into one! As for my character and allegiance, I'll always go as Gunner for England; mostly because this fits the storylines best and everything's in English so it just makes more sense; I have played a few campaigns as the Spanish though, as I do love some of their ships and islands!

Thats what I like to hear, and its the way I play the standard storyline to. People have complained about the storyline to
be to hard in the beginning , but thats because they goes to Silehard to early.

 

[Robert Nutter]

And if you don't want to follow the storyline, the Free Play one allows all sorts of varied starting scenarios and has all sidequests available anyway.

To be honest, this is what always put me off doing large campaigns with free play. I didn't think it *did* include all the side quests, and worked on the assumption the vanilla storyline must do, since it's been worked on the longest. Faulty logic on my part, probably

@ANSEL ; exactly. I think the main quest is much more fun with more money and health anyway. Its virtual suicide going to Silehard immediately, what with the near enough one-hit death in early game and varied dangerous places you need to go.

 

[Grey Roger]

The original free-play "story" was simply the "Standard" storyline with the story taken out. It's still there and is in fact the default free-play setting, "Brave Black Flag" starring Julian McAllister. Most of the side quests were indeed originally from the "Standard" storyline and some of them show traces of this, but a lot of work was done to make them generally available to all storylines. This, of course, improved the free-play considerably. Meanwhile, more and more characters have been added as free-play choices, some based on famous historical or fictional characters, some taken from other storylines.

As for the "Standard" storyline, I've always gone straight for Silehard as that's what you were meant to do in the stock game and I got into the habit (well, unless someone was paying me to go to Bonaire first, in which case I took a detour and started the "Strange Things Going On" side quest). It is true that life as a low level character is dangerous and often brief, which is one reason why it's a good idea to save game often. The other is that various things can go wrong with the game which are far more lethal to your campaign than merely being killed. So I may as well get on with the main quest, as well as raiding any dungeons I pass on the way, getting some Melee practice as well as a far better sword than you're going to find in any shop that early in the game. Mind you, I haven't played that storyline for ages, so I'm going to get caught out if it's been made significantly harder in recent versions of Beta 4...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

the #define ACCURATE_NAVIGATION 1 line at the start of the CCCdirectsail.c file, as this suggests 'islandcell' loading is not being used.

It is even SO unused that as per the very latest updates, that entire toggle no longer exists.

To be honest, this is what always put me off doing large campaigns with free play. I didn't think it *did* include all the side quests, and worked on the assumption the vanilla storyline must do, since it's been worked on the longest. Faulty logic on my part, probably

That used to be true. Until Beta 4.
We completely split the sidequests from the main quest so now they're available in ALL storylines, unless specifically disabled for story purposes.

Also... what @Grey Roger said.

Mind you, I haven't played that storyline for ages, so I'm going to get caught out if it's been made significantly harder in recent versions of Beta 4...

We actually tried to make it easier, not harder. The first mission was reported to have very tough town guards, so now they're drunk.
And the second mission now contains a LOT of hints that maybe perhaps you should take your time to prepare and not rush into things if you're not ready.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I like the open sea mod and pretty much like it the way it is. I "need" access to the world map so the Iron Man mod is out.

Spawning at a distance from battles is intentional as that gives one the time to make flee or fight decisions and then make the tactical moves so you go into battle on as favorable terms as possible.

Spawning so far away from islands is also intentional as it gives one the experience of slowly seeing the island appear in the distance as you approach it. This is very realistic and in line with what I have read in books written by sailors.

Unfortunately the effect is often spoiled by the band of "bad air" surrounding every island. This results in one having to constantly tack back and forth as the winds change to try to force you away from the island. Or just furl all sails and go do something else for a while until the winds eventually change so you CAN sail on towards the island.

The sights and sounds of sailing are very good indeed although the shipboard sounds in GOF2 are even better. Overall it is the sailing experience that makes the game for me.

 

[pedrwyth]

Can you remind me again what style you would like to play?
If possible, I do want to cater to as many wishes and people as I can.
Though it can admittedly be hard to work into every desire in such a way that it still makes internal sense.
But hey, we can always try, right?

I follow the storyline where possible - that's what the author intended I feel. In Hawk early on for example this means following the invasion thread directly - doesn't make any plot sense to me to mooch about until I feel up to going to see the governor about an invasion - it's here and now. Only when the plotline becomes too difficult to accomplish would I turn aside to improve my chances. So for example I do see that when I tackled the Oiseau succesfully I had changed ship but not in close previous saves so I obviously found I couldn't take the ship without (I did capture her and Virgile Boon to serve me). On sea unless quest related I ignore what ships I can and I sail away from any threat (including coastguard) if I can.

Whilst following the plot (or a side plot if it intervened) I would previously have paid my way via smuggling profits wherever I was bound (sometimes having to stop on the way to get a contraband cargo). This may not be achievable with new smuggling (I will find out when I next get to try and play) which I wouldn't like. I don't know the plots well enough for (or see the point of) hoovering up multiple tasks in passing so I concentrate on one line at a time. However once Silehard starts using me for his personal lackey I will start doing other side lines (also I know the capture colony will need a much better ship in time so need more money - not sure how I will get a big enough ship now I can't buy them as a non naval person). Remaining side plots I went back and did after finishing the main story - once done I stop.

I have done all of Hawk, and some of Assassin and Jack Sparrow in this mode. I last stopped on JS when sailing from Tortuga to Nevis dropping out of map mode at Nevis repeatedly threw me across the Caribbean to somewhere near Cozumel.

It's quite possible that if I played a lot I would get fed up and try other ways of playing but with the extent of the stories available that is a long way off I think (I still have to return to finish Woodes Rogers and Gold Bug too).