shipwright or shipwrong: mod 'em if you can

[Gilrandir]

Ships are universally known to be a very special kind of units: they disappear when the faction is reduced to the rebel status, you can't command them in a battle, you can't hire them as mercenaries or bribe them, you can't re-train, disband or ransome them or appoint their captains governors. I wonder if anything of these has been altered in mods? I mean it would be cool to take two cogs of your own, add a couple of hired baggalas, bribe a dozen of carracks and go buccaneering at will.

[drone]

Some of the ships have era/faction settings for mercenary status in the unit prod file, I don't build inns so I can't say I've ever seen a ship on offer though. With respect to the bribing/retraining, I'm guessing the problem is the sea region. You can't move a ship into a province for retraining, and you can't move agents onto sea regions to do their abilities.

[Gilrandir]

Some of the ships have era/faction settings for mercenary status in the unit prod file, I don't build inns so I can't say I've ever seen a ship on offer though. With respect to the bribing/retraining, I'm guessing the problem is the sea region. You can't move a ship into a province for retraining, and you can't move agents onto sea regions to do their abilities.

I build inns and hire the mercs pretty often but I never saw a ship wanting to be hired. As for bribing, you don't need to send the agent to a province to bribe the army, you just point him at the army from any neighboring province of yours and then you are asked for a confirmation of you desire to further corruption in alien countries. Why can't you do the same with a fleet dispatching your spy from an adjacent maritime province?

[caravel]

You need to understand from the start that ships are a special type of agent and don't really have much in common with army stacks.

Ships function almost exactly like agents, have a specific mission and specific targets, with the same valour stat (called "command" for ships). Ships differ in their ability to be grouped and in their Range, Attack, Defence and Speed stats. The stats are fairly simple to understand - range should need no explanation - if a ship attacks, it uses it's attack stat, if it's being attacked it uses it's defence stat. If while being attacked, it moves to another province, it uses it's speed stat to determine it's chances of escaping. The last one is more useful to the AI as it sees your moves when you click "end turn" and can react to them... this all involves the usual seed number, "dice roll", with the "command" stat improving the chances, etc.

Sea regions are like another set of land regions (provinces) in a completely different "zone" to the land regions. Nothing can access sea regions apart from ships - which only appear there via being produced from a shipwright in the adjoining province. Definitions in the startpos file determine which sea region is used for a particular coastal province to spawn it's ships. This is how ships get into the "sea zone" and there is no way for them to move out of it (it's hard-coded).

There has been a lot of discussion in the past as to exactly how ship/fleet vs ship/fleet engagements work. We still don't know exactly, but due to the random nature of some battles (who hasn't lost a whole stack of Baggalas to a solitary Galley?), it's not clear exactly what stacks do or if stacks vs individuals are better.

In most campaigns in the vanilla game I usually achieve naval superiority early on (far too early) by grouping ships in twos or threes (solitary ships are too tempting for the AI to attack and mean that in the event of a storm your shipping lanes are broken). When attacking I usually break the fleets into individual ships - grouping them back together the following year.

All ships are specific to major or minor factions, so if you want "pirates" then you need to add FN_REBEL to the faction association column for the ships you want the pirates to use. I would advise against this as the AI is hopeless at shipping as it is and most AI factions will be at war with the rebel faction meaning they will have even more difficulty establishing trade routes.

As for mercenaries, I've never tried it - nor mercenary agents for that matter... I doubt it would work - but perhaps try it.

[Gilrandir]

You need to understand from the start that ships are a special type of agent and don't really have much in common with army stacks.

Ships function almost exactly like agents, have a specific mission and specific targets, with the same valour stat (called "command" for ships). Ships differ in their ability to be grouped and in their Range, Attack, Defence and Speed stats.

Does it mean that they are unmoddable? So modding amounts to introducing new units, new factions and new provinces, does it not?

[drone]

Does it mean that they are unmoddable? So modding amounts to introducing new units, new factions and new provinces, does it not?

Depends on what you mean by "unmoddable". You can't alter the skills/limitations of the "Ship" agent type, but you can create new ships or modify the stats and prereqs of existing ones.

[Trapped in Samsara]

...you can't re-train, disband or ransome them...

Hi Gilrandir

I think you can disband ships.

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

PS Will you be making an appearance in The Hobbit, which is due out shortly?

[Gilrandir]

Hi Gilrandir

I think you can disband ships.

Well, it's been long since I played MTW so I'm not sure about this one. You may be right.
It's about time to start a new campaign, me thinks. French in high, attempt 3.

PS Will you be making an appearance in The Hobbit, which is due out shortly?

You are getting it wrong. Do you think it's Orlando Bloom aka as Gilrandir who visits this forum now and then? But if you mean an appearance in a movie theater where it is going to be shown then with all likelihood I will. I only hope they haven't done anything nasty to the book. It is quite short, so I can't imagine how they might have extended the plot to make two movies out of it.

[drone]

It is quite short, so I can't imagine how they might have extended the plot to make two movies out of it.

They are making 3 movies out of it. I believe they are adding in the Necromancer (Sauron at Dol Gulder) plot line to pad it out.

So, you can create new agents? Muslem princesses? Mendicant monks? Leprous beggars? Individual Holy Grail seekers? Peripatetic troubadours? Any other legendary characters who purport to have filled medieval roads? If so the campaign map can really become way too overcrowded.

You can create new agents, but not agent types as these are hardcoded. So theoretically you could make a heretic priest that spreads heresy, but it would still need to be given an existing unit type name like BISHOP. You could create a ocean-going dreadnought with 3 range, 9 attack, 9 defense, 4 speed, but it would still be a SHIP unit type.

Edit-> yeah, what caravel said.

[caravel]

I did mess with the faith propagation of buildings as well. I remember adding a heretical penalty to the brothels and taverns - increasing as the levels increased. The idea was that the happiness bonus would offset it somewhat as would the effect of the church - I also liked the idea of a province with the highest level tavern and brothel turning into a hive of vice and villainy meaning that large garrisons would be needed to keep it in check. The main reasoning behind this was that though a campaign starts with religious diversity, it's often easy enough for the player to convert provinces and ensure they stay converted. In the end it was all too complex and the AI was oblivious to it all - since then I've erred on the side of simplification rather than adding more toys and complex features which only the player can exploit...

If I had some spare time (and enough drank) I'd create an invisible, rebel faction only, "heretical pervert"... if only just to read "a heretical pervert has been caught and executed" every once in a while...

[drone]

Just curious, have you tried putting negative numbers in for the faith/zeal propagation for buildings or agents?

[Gilrandir]

If I had some spare time (and enough drank) I'd create an invisible, rebel faction only, "heretical pervert"... if only just to read "a heretical pervert has been caught and executed" every once in a while...

I wonder what methods of execution would be used? Would the powers-that-be stick to the old eye for eye approach to punish the perverts?

[Plato]

It also depends what sort of brothel is being represented. English bagnios were bath-houses and so played a useful role in sanitation. However, cleanliness wasn't necessarily next to godliness.

I also liked the idea of a province with the highest level tavern and brothel turning into a hive of vice and villainy meaning that large garrisons would be needed to keep it in check.

I'd have thought that's more likely to provide a steady stream of customers to both establishments.

I do concur with you that high-level establishments should have a negative impact on income - a few well-placed bribes will mean the competition gets taken down a few pegs.