For example, in the world today we see Religious cult groups undermining local authority, rebels trying to overthrow the government, hunt saboteurs waging a moral/class war...surely Clash could benefit from such miscreants?

I know that the govt. model is being overhauled, so I won't go too briefly into this, but isn't it a little odd that a King could decide that he wants to overthrow himself and become a monarchy? Like in Civ, it's very convenient to quickly change from one to the other with only a little anarchy in between...since when did that happen in real life?

Take the English Civil War...the King actively fought against rebel uprisings, but they won through anyway. Perhaps this could be incorporated? Maybe a player could make conditions favour the rebels, not resist too much. When they get overthrown, they naturally become the next elected leader or whatever. Obviously, if they don't want this revolution, they can try to stop it. I just don't like the idea of the player starting revolutions...I think the people themselves should do it if and when they are unhappy with conditions and seek to better them.

From extensive previous discussions we've pretty much decided that the player is the "guiding spirit" of the civ. So the player running a revolution against the current king is a completely valid action. We're not sure exactly how this is done yet... As to what happens if the player's side in the struggle loses, we never made a firm decision. I have included my take on this below.

What happens when you lose to a revolt, or the revolt you started fails?
I'd originally been thinking that you would just lose the game. But just having the player need to cope with whatever government that comes out might be Very fun. I do strongly think that if you pick the wrong side in a revolt and lose you should be Stuck with whatever government comes out of the revolt.

So in keeping with the "guiding spirit" metaphor, if the government change you're backing fails, you've suffered a setback. But as the player you can take control of whatever authority exists and try and make it do your bidding. If the civ splits into two governments, then the player will need to choose which one they want to back, and the other one will go over into AI control, possibly forever.

The ideas about how to handle revolts, riots etc. are there in the current government model. If you are interested in seeing what we have in mind, just read it. Hrafnkell's old model has an awful lot of small details in it, and these will probably be changed with Rodrigo's reworking of it. But if you just skim the document for the general flavor of things, you'll get a pretty decent understanding of how we think things should work.

Assuming for a minute that the player is the driving force in the form of the King and that your nobility are demanding more control and allowing extreme corruption to occur. You could simply raise an army and oust any offending members of the nobility. However, chances are that they'll have extensive private armies and much of your overall military strength will lie in them than your personal guard. A military coup could become a civil war...

Secondly, you could play heavy with them, restrict their activities and rights and hope it controls them as opposed to making them furious enough to start a revolution.

Thirdly, you could attempt to assassinate / dismiss them or remove them in a way without direct military conflict. This could cause cause a terror effect, which might lead to player control or to revolution.

Fourthly, you could live with it and hope it changes in the future.

Finally, I agree with you, it would hopefully be possible to invoke the other classes against the one...although unless the other classes happen to be particularly happy with you, interference may make them side with the nobility in some areas...

All of these are options reasonably available to a King. All have their benefits and drawbacks depending on the state of the Kingdom (skill and number of assassins, etc).

However, lets assume that even with all the commendable strategy in the world, the player inadvertantly causes a civil war and loses to the nobility, who maybe rule it as a republican monarchy (Each Lord in charge of his own province, for example).

I don't see that this should eliminate the player. I personally see the player as the guiding force of the Civ in the capacity of whoever and however the Civ is being ruled at the time. In a monarchy, they are the King or Queen and remain so until official balance of power shifts. In my example, once the player loses the Civil War (eg. Capital is taken), then his control switches from the decimated King's Men to the Nobility, as their newly appointed leader.

However, I think it would be more representative of anarchy and civil war if the player has to maintain his stance as the current ruler no matter what. Yes, they could throw the war and intentionally lose, but then they still have to deal with Royalists, who are now the enemy to the new power...

I also see the player shaping the govt. future in a similar way. If they find they don't like the way the Nobility rule and its restrictions, they can encourage civil disorder and uprisings and effectively start a revolution to depose themselves. However, they won't necessarily be able to determine exactly what will take over...although whatever it is, they must live with it. I think that's sort-of along the lines of what Johnmcd was saying...if the people become unhappy (whether by intentional interference or not) with the current system, they may well return to a previous one.

I like the idea of a govermental split going to AI control. In my case of the Royalists, I see that occuring. Provided of course that there were still large enough areas still loyal to the King. Otherwise, they wouldn't become a new Civ - they'd be the major rebels of the new Civ for a while.

Also there may be some times when, hey, the player will no longer control the game. FE a revolution takes hold and succeeds in ousting the entire royal family and replacing it with another. They kill the entire family and put another in its place changing nothing else.

This could be seen as a natural progression of civilisations. Why then should the player be made to lose the game for allowing this to occur?

Anyway, I also disagree with your Royal Family example. Things would be very different. The economy would most likely be in tatters, Royalist forces supporting the old monarchy would be still at large and chances are that a warlike neighbour may have his sights on your borders while your army's still regrouping. I think this is enough of a difference so that the player wouldn't be carrying on from where they left off.

Besides, I really disagree with the AI directly running the Civ for any length of time, except in states of anarchy - where I believe the player should still have some minimal form of control. Why? I just don't want the player to feel that the game is running them and that their inputs mean little in terms of the outcome. The player should feel that they are running the Civ, even if the AI handles a large amount of the actual runnings.

It's also a little too neat that the player is miraculously reinstated. I prefer Mark's line of them having to live with the consequences of a revolution.

Anyway, I really started this thread to look more at rebels and pirates - the day to day war against the govt., as opposed to one single revolutionary event.

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Just to re-iterate my piracy ideas:

From what I know, merchant trade routes are being specifically defined in the game. This means that piracy can actually be made a physical element to the game rather than just a figure deducted from an equation.

FE, in the colonial days of the Caribbean, there were trade ships travelling to Europe carrying huge amounts of gold, silver and valuable commodities. The military escorts were few and local military power was quite literally a joke. For pirates, this was a godsend opportunity to get rich quick...which is what many did, leading to a huge amount of piracy in the Carribean, fueled by the fact that nations were contracting pirates to support their military efforts. Eventually, more and more pirate hunters were employed, trade fleets were given larger escorts and, in the Pirate's Sunset, fleets or warships would be dispatched to deal with any reported incident of piracy. This lead to its eventual elimination.

I see piracy being incorporated directly as a game function along those lines. I use the Carribean as my example because that's probably the best case of piracy and its effects and also how it can be stopped. Therefore, I propose a general equation for piracy:

Frequency of piracy = total value of merchant-based trade occuring in region / military power in region.

Naturally, this is very basic, but gives a general idea of how piracy works. I'll now go into further detail:

I see pirates as a mixture of characters and spontaneously generated units. For example, I trade goods to the value of $100K and have no military influence in the region. As a result, pirate units are spontaneously generated along the trade routes the merchants are taking. If the value of trade increases further, then more pirates will appear, and so on...depending on what others suggest, I would say that Pirate Captain characters should appear after certain levels of piracy are reached. My suggestions are,

a) Once a pirate unit has completed 3 successful raids, it becomes a pirate "group", has a character leader and any new pirate units created in the immediate vicinity belong to that "group".

b) Once a pirate unit has "stolen" a certain value of trade, it becomes a pirate "group".

c) Once (x) number of pirate units occur in a given area, they spontaneously become a "group".

d) For every (x) number of pirate units created on the map, one will be assigned a character and have "group" status.

However, pirates don't fit entirely smoothly into the existing character system. They are mercenary in nature and could be hired by the govt., for a probably large price. It is doubtful that they will care too much about the nationality of the merchants they plunder, only the money they recieve. Pirates could be contracted as saboteur-style units and sent to other locations on the map to interfere with enemy trade or, more likely, they could simply be bribed not to attack your merchants on a route where merchants of more than one nationality pass through. However, pirates are unlikely to entirely honour any treaty - especially if a wealthy and unguarded merchant of yours passes by...
In this manner, they act like radicals, not being truly "controlled" by the player, merely influenced. However, I would suggest that Pirate Captains could be hired into the military for one-off operations...England has done this many a time in its colonial history...famously with St. Kitts, where a pirate hired to raid Spanish villages returned after his contract, took the money and promptly sacked the town on his way out. In short, they are uncontrollable characters only interested in money...several would probably refuse govt. contracts for fear of betrayal anyway.

So what options does the player have to combat piracy? Well, returning to my original equation, it is clear that either you reduce the value of merchant trade on pirate-infested routes (not possible unless merchants on that route controlled by govt.) or you increase military readiness in the area.

My suggestions for this are as follows:

Let us assume that we have a Trade Route used by many merchants which passes through a couple of mountains, then through a forest and finally across some plains before reaching its destination. Currently, pirate activity is high in the mountain pass, slight in the forest and non-existent on the plains.

A player being sick of losing some of his wealthy merchants on this route might garrison a legion at some point on the pass to act as an anti-piracy measure. This will reduce piracy in the local area (less pirates generated) and the unit may be able to search the area and actively eliminate pirate units.

However, the player might find that now the pirates in the forest are growing as the caravans surviving the pass route are increasing the value of trade in the forest trade route without any military increases there to curb the new levels of piracy. Result? Player garrisons a new legion in the forest. Piracy is reduced...only now it starts on the Plains, etc. etc.

This is naturally a viable method for short trade routes, but what about longer ones? Or routes that don't all follow the same path but branch out across pirate infested terrain? Either the player has to assign a huge amount of military units to the area, or they could take other action.

I would suggest that AI controlled pirate hunter characters can be hired on an "indefinite" contract. These would be initially dispatched to an area and would attempt to eliminate piracy in that area and then search for it further and further afield. However, this would be expensive...bounties have to be large to make it worthwhile. Also, to increase the monetary burden and prevent hire/fire of such characters, a concept such as adding a 10-turn period of notice for terminating a pirate-hunter's contract.

However, pirate hunters should not be infallible. If sent unsupported into a region crawling with pirates, it's unlikely they would ever return. Pirate morale would then increase and make them even harder to oust, just as pirate hunter/military victories would reduce their morale and entice them to run for the hills in search of a better trade route or a new life away from piracy.

For those interested in a bit more maths, I'm now going to attempt to expand on the piracy equation (although in not too detailed a way, as I'm not yet totally familiar with the scale of Clash...)

Frequency of generation of pirates in squares adjacent to a trade route = value of trade passing through trade route over (x) number of turns (x probably equal to 3/4) / proximity of military units to trade route square.

Pirate units: Frequency might also be affected by the average "happiness" of the people in the area. (Disgruntled citizens turning to a life of crime effect). Also by the availability of weapons and some possible technological factors...forgive the vagueness - I'll sharpen these definitions as I become more familiar with the relevant models.

Value of trade = this can also be affected by merchant escorts. A merchant unit with a strong escort will have a perceived value of less than its actual value...the effect of pirates deciding against risking their lives on an attack. Assuming escort strengths vary on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being no escort and 10 being crawling with the best equipped guards possible, then value of trade given by a caravan could be the actual value divided by the strength of the escort.

Proximity of the Military: If a military unit is garrisoned in a square, no pirates will be generated there and pirate attacks on merchants will not occur there (you don't steal from under a policeman's nose). In adjacent squares, pirate generation may be reduced by 75% and for a 2 square radius 25%. Also, pirate attacks on the adjacent squares will be reduced, depending upon the "strength" of the military unit and the morale of the pirate unit. FE, a "strong" military unit may eliminate all pirate attacks in adjacent squares when pirate morale is low, but if pirates feel very confident, they may conduct attacks regardless of the military. I also suggest that pirates with high enough morale may attack military units that are "interfering with their activities".

Morale effects: The first pirate units are created with "neutral" morale. Neither good nor bad. After each successful attack on a merchant, their morale will rise. By defeating a military unit or pirate hunter, their morale will rise very rapidly. Pirate units generated independently will always have neutral morale. Pirate units generated into a "group" will have a morale corresponding to the average morale of the "group". Specific pirate units containing a leader will also experience a morale increase.
Pirates who fail attacks on merchant units will lose morale (although only slightly - this may not register for the first 2 failures or so). Having a military unit 2sq. or less away will decrease the morale of pirate units on, say, 6 or below on a scale of 0-10. Pirates with morale above 6 are unlikely to be fazed so easily. Successful attacks against pirate units within a 2sq. radius will have the same effect.
Pirate hunters do not affect morale of pirates. Pirates accept that they exist. Military intervention is another matter...

Morale also increases the likelihood of pirates attacks being successful. This meaning that a group of pirates with high morale could prove dangerous and very hard to remove.

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Finally,

Trade routes: This model of piracy assumes Trade routes to exist...in other words, routes which many merchants use due to their convenience or safety in getting from A-B. Should trade routes become overwhelmed with pirates, merchants will probably seek a new way to their destination. This will cause the pirates on the old trade route to also seek a new concentration of merchants. Thus piracy can become as dynamic as the factors that it thrives upon.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM I disagree. I don't feel that the player should be penalised for events that are almost destined to happen anyway. FE, how many civilisations progressed through history as despotisms? None...all had revolutions and gradually power has been transferred away from the one and over to the many. This could be seen as a natural progression of civilisations. Why then should the player be made to lose the game for allowing this to occur? Anyway, I also disagree with your Royal Family example. Things would be very different. The economy would most likely be in tatters, Royalist forces supporting the old monarchy would be still at large and chances are that a warlike neighbour may have his sights on your borders while your army's still regrouping. I think this is enough of a difference so that the player wouldn't be carrying on from where they left off. Besides, I really disagree with the AI directly running the Civ for any length of time, except in states of anarchy - where I believe the player should still have some minimal form of control. Why? I just don't want the player to feel that the game is running them and that their inputs mean little in terms of the outcome. The player should feel that they are running the Civ, even if the AI handles a large amount of the actual runnings. It's also a little too neat that the player is miraculously reinstated. I prefer Mark's line of them having to live with the consequences of a revolution.

Well that I see as a problem. If the player knows no matter how badly they mismanage their civ internally, with the exception of outside threats, they know they can always rule some part of their civilization. That IMO is wrong, but is what could very well end up happening. Also the "natural progression" that results in violent overthrows is the result of mismanagment and shouldn't be allowed for the player to take control of the opposing side. Espically if the civ is an empire and its loosing its grip as England did.

About what I said in getting rid of the entire royal family, that almost never happens and for clash we can say it can't and the player always gets a second chance like i descibed below that, but only a second chance, not a third, fourth, firth....

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM Frequency of piracy = total value of merchant-based trade occuring in region / military power in region. I see pirates as a mixture of characters and spontaneously generated units. For example, I trade goods to the value of $100K and have no military influence in the region. As a result, pirate units are spontaneously generated along the trade routes the merchants are taking. If the value of trade increases further, then more pirates will appear, and so on...depending on what others suggest, I would say that Pirate Captain characters should appear after certain levels of piracy are reached. My suggestions are, a) Once a pirate unit has completed 3 successful raids, it becomes a pirate "group", has a character leader and any new pirate units created in the immediate vicinity belong to that "group". b) Once a pirate unit has "stolen" a certain value of trade, it becomes a pirate "group". c) Once (x) number of pirate units occur in a given area, they spontaneously become a "group". d) For every (x) number of pirate units created on the map, one will be assigned a character and have "group" status.

Also just because a ship is unguarded doesn't mean they'll simply fall to these upstarts as they prob don't know anything about pirating.

Also if they do succeed, all the treasure will be taken. The crew might be set adrift, but you'll have nothing left.

Also once created, if they suceed, pirates tend to stay pirates for a while.

Finally just having military prensence shouldn't just lower pirate action in the area, but you should be able to capture pirate ships.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM However, pirates don't fit entirely smoothly into the existing character system. They are mercenary in nature and could be hired by the govt., for a probably large price. It is doubtful that they will care too much about the nationality of the merchants they plunder, only the money they recieve. Pirates could be contracted as saboteur-style units and sent to other locations on the map to interfere with enemy trade or, more likely, they could simply be bribed not to attack your merchants on a route where merchants of more than one nationality pass through. However, pirates are unlikely to entirely honour any treaty - especially if a wealthy and unguarded merchant of yours passes by... In this manner, they act like radicals, not being truly "controlled" by the player, merely influenced. However, I would suggest that Pirate Captains could be hired into the military for one-off operations...England has done this many a time in its colonial history...famously with St. Kitts, where a pirate hired to raid Spanish villages returned after his contract, took the money and promptly sacked the town on his way out. In short, they are uncontrollable characters only interested in money...several would probably refuse govt. contracts for fear of betrayal anyway.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM So what options does the player have to combat piracy? . . . My suggestions for this are as follows: Let us assume that we have a Trade Route used by many merchants which passes through a couple of mountains, then through a forest and finally across some plains before reaching its destination. Currently, pirate activity is high in the mountain pass, slight in the forest and non-existent on the plains. A player being sick of losing some of his wealthy merchants on this route might garrison a legion at some point on the pass to act as an anti-piracy measure. This will reduce piracy in the local area (less pirates generated) and the unit may be able to search the area and actively eliminate pirate units. However, the player might find that now the pirates in the forest are growing as the caravans surviving the pass route are increasing the value of trade in the forest trade route without any military increases there to curb the new levels of piracy. Result? Player garrisons a new legion in the forest. Piracy is reduced...only now it starts on the Plains, etc. etc. This is naturally a viable method for short trade routes, but what about longer ones? Or routes that don't all follow the same path but branch out across pirate infested terrain? Either the player has to assign a huge amount of military units to the area, or they could take other action

That's a good idea, but remember that merchants, even gov. apointed ones, are their own entity. If a merchant is being harrassed constantly by bandits in the mountain pass, he'll go around it, if the cost is less than what the pirates take, or he'll hire his own guards. True you can station guards there to eliminate (hopefully) this threat, but the merchants can also take care of themselves.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM I would suggest that AI controlled pirate hunter characters can be hired on an "indefinite" contract. These would be initially dispatched to an area and would attempt to eliminate piracy in that area and then search for it further and further afield. However, this would be expensive...bounties have to be large to make it worthwhile. Also, to increase the monetary burden and prevent hire/fire of such characters, a concept such as adding a 10-turn period of notice for terminating a pirate-hunter's contract. However, pirate hunters should not be infallible. If sent unsupported into a region crawling with pirates, it's unlikely they would ever return. Pirate morale would then increase and make them even harder to oust, just as pirate hunter/military victories would reduce their morale and entice them to run for the hills in search of a better trade route or a new life away from piracy.

TK - I think it's unfair to penalise the player for allowing a revolution to begin in terms of points. What if the revolution is to overthrow a tyrannical despot in the name of Democracy? Surely that's a good thing, yet it is penalised...

Either way, they don't get rewarded by that system for mis-management...

Besides, I'd hate the idea of a "second chance". What happens if near to the start of the game you make a stupid mistake, especially if you're new to playing Clash, and there is a successful revolution? No more chances, so what're you going to do? Be excessively militaristic in case of any revolution in the future.

And under your system, how does a revolution take place? Does the player decide that he no longer wants to be King, he wants to be President and thus changed govt.?

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I'm aware that pirates wouldn't just appear because one ship goes through...that's why there would be a value scale for frequency of piracy. For example, if the value of merchant trade was 100K (say that's large for argument's sake) and military power was zip, then frequency would have a value of 100. It may be that pirate units occur per every 20 frequency units. Therefore, 5 pirate units would be generated along this route as huge amounts of money are transported with little guard...

However, if there was a whopping great military base on the route giving a military "strength" of 10, then you'd have a frequency of 10 (100/10) which would mean no pirate units would be generated, ie...it's too dangerous to risk trying.

I forgot to include a few things in this proposition...one of them was social influences. I thought about working an additive to the frequency based upon number of unhappy heads in local cities/provinces. However, what happens when pirates occur far from province boundaries? Also, I'm looking at drawing up some kind of idea for rebel (anti-govt.) activity, which would focus a lot more on population "happiness".

However, I agree...the presence of rebel factions, poverty and anti-govt. feeling (as well as the morale) would most likely add to piracy.

Your point about ships falling to upstarts is valid. That's the morale influenced element. If the ship is totally unguarded, chances are that even a "neutral" pirate force would win through. Although their attack may be thwarted or only partialy successful (ie, some of the value is stolen). In both cases, both units survive, although maybe with casualties, but morale of the pirates will be affected by the outcome. For every success they will become more experienced and more deadly...potentially to the point of taking on the most heavily guarded convoys.

Pirates would only stop being pirates if their morale fell so low for a sustained time (say 5 turns). After that, the members of the band would desert. They may also stop being pirates and become, say, rebels. The other situation is where they are "broken" or fleeing from a situation where the military are intervening to wipe them out. After fleeing, they may find no other suitable areas for piracy, in which case their morale will slowly fall, etc. etc.

I hadn't thought about capturing pirate ships or reclaiming gold, etc from them. Yes, that should be possible. Although their ships probably wouldn't be particularly impressive. Military presence would lower piracy in the area. The presence of a war fleet at sea would discourage piracy...until it was far away enough not to be able to return in time to defend a ship from attack...

I agree with merchants taking care of themselves. If piracy is bad, or if they "hear" piracy is bad, they will either seek new routes or employ guards, depending on the costs and benefits of either. This will aid them in defending themselves, but if a pirate group has been there long enough to get high morale or many members, they may find that their preparations are inadequate...

Pirate hunters should hopefully be implemented if this system of piracy is...reason being that a nation with a small military shouldn't be unable to provide direct responses to pirate activity. Pirate hunters, although expensive, should be quite effective and once hired, can be left to deal with piracy of their own accord.

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Further modifications...

The pirate unit: I see the pirate unit as being vastly different from your standard military unit, although it operates in much the same way.
Pirates historically use ambushes and swift-strike tactics, getting what they can and then "running for the hills" to avoid pursuit and detection. To represent this, I would suggest that pirate units are invisible to non-military units, eg. merchants. This allows them to "ambush" and once an attack is completed, disappear so that their exact location remains unknown to the player and future merchants in the area.
However, military units in an adjacent square can see pirates, although pirates can see units within a 2sq. radius (lookouts and knowledge of the terrain as well as "tipping off").
Pirate units act as military units when fighting military units. When attacking merchants, there are three outcomes: pirate failure (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, but no value lost), pirate partial success (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, part of value lost), pirate success (casualties, merchant defence strength drastically reduced / oblitierated, merchant unit possibly destroyed, all value taken).
In each case, casualties for both sides (loss of "strength" for pirates, loss of defence value for merchants) are determined by the strength/morale of the attacking/defending units. Value loss is also determined in a similiar way in the event of a pirate partial success.

Terrain effects: Pirates are more either more likely to be created in wooded/mountainous terrain with lots of cover, or receive morale bonuses for being situated there. Island chains / archipelagos should also give a similar bonus.

Pirate AI: Pirates cannot fortify themselves. To them, all land is potentially hostile, so their rate of movement is fixed. Their main aim is to attack merchants of any nationality in an attempt to plunder the valuable commodities they carry. Well-defended merchants may deter pirates without high morale, but otherwise any merchant within a pirate's 2 sq. radius carring any valuable goods will be attacked.
However, pirates often know that they not a good match for a military unit. Pirates with low morale who detect a military unit will move out of its 2 sq. radius. Pirates with average morale (neutral and 1 either side) will operate within its 2 sq. radius, but will not enter adjacent squares. Pirates with high morale will act as if the military unit was not there, or will attack the unit.

Happiness effects: Pirates located near villages, etc. will have a negative effect on population happiness. This not only shows the effect that piracy has on how safe citizens feel, but also accounts for the fact that pirates would most likely sell their goods and recruit from these villages. By decreasing local happiness, they increase their own recruitment rate and will also encourage other social undesirables to be more active. Pirates far from villages (more than 4sq.) will have no effect. Their trade with the village will be infrequent enough not to cause any major benefits or problems to either side.

Either way, they don't get rewarded by that system for mis-management...
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I'm with TK on this. After all, if its become so bad that the people have to have a revolution then, yes, you should get penalizaed. You can go from monarchial to democratic rule peacefully, over a longer period of time. Short periods too, though it tends to be disasterous for the populous (take former Soviet Union). There was no "revolution" that brought it to a democracy. (although there were failed attempts). Instead the player can slowly change the society, little-by-little to not upset everyone so much or quite rapidly if need be. The point is, any revolution is bad, because if comes from mismanagement gone unchecked for a long period of time.

Besides, I'd hate the idea of a "second chance". What happens if near to the start of the game you make a stupid mistake, especially if you're new to playing Clash, and there is a successful revolution? No more chances, so what're you going to do? Be excessively militaristic in case of any revolution in the future.
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OK. First off saying your a first time player to these types of games, I've of the opions that there is direct on-line help for you when you start and as you progress through the game, espically at the begginning. This is in addition to on-line help that anyone can access and a manual (since some people just seem to jump in without so much as glancing at the manual...*sigh*). Also we can set a time period where u can restart say after 2-3 turns if its before year X. After that, the second chance rule would come into effect.

And under your system, how does a revolution take place? Does the player decide that he no longer wants to be King, he wants to be President and thus changed govt.?
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From the way i see it, no. Its not like the Civ games in that way. That's going a little to far away from reality and doesn't really show how things are at all. Nor does it IMO enhance gameplay or other things.

I'm aware that pirates wouldn't just appear because one ship goes through...that's why there would be a value scale for frequency of piracy. For example, if the value of merchant trade was 100K (say that's large for argument's sake) and military power was zip, then frequency would have a value of 100. It may be that pirate units occur per every 20 frequency units. Therefore, 5 pirate units would be generated along this route as huge amounts of money are transported with little guard...

However, if there was a whopping great military base on the route giving a military "strength" of 10, then you'd have a frequency of 10 (100/10) which would mean no pirate units would be generated, ie...it's too dangerous to risk trying.
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OK, but there should be a delay, ie that first shipment would make it safely through since the pirates wouldn't have time to gather up. Also just because there is a military base there doesn't mean that absolutely no pirates will be there. One should also take referance as to if that is:
A> if it is a widely traveled area
B> the surrounding area is more patrolled
C> the surrounding area has slim(er) pickings

However, I agree...the presence of rebel factions, poverty and anti-govt. feeling (as well as the morale) would most likely add to piracy.
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Another thing could be the government and religion. No hey really!! I'm not joking. The government and/or religion can be pro-pirate. Norsemen was a culture like this. Such a nation could lauch it own pirate attacks and the current system of military presence may not work.

Your point about ships falling to upstarts is valid. That's the morale influenced element. If the ship is totally unguarded, chances are that even a "neutral" pirate force would win through. Although their attack may be thwarted or only partialy successful (ie, some of the value is stolen). In both cases, both units survive, although maybe with casualties, but morale of the pirates will be affected by the outcome. For every success they will become more experienced and more deadly...potentially to the point of taking on the most heavily guarded convoys.
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Well we should define success then. Would it be a scuccess if 90% of your crew died to capture a 100K ship FE and none of their crew replaced your lost numbers? Would it be a success if you didn't manage to capture it, but lost >1% and captured only a little gold? This needs to be decided if your using a morale system like yours.

Pirates would only stop being pirates if their morale fell so low for a sustained time (say 5 turns). After that, the members of the band would desert. They may also stop being pirates and become, say, rebels. The other situation is where they are "broken" or fleeing from a situation where the military are intervening to wipe them out. After fleeing, they may find no other suitable areas for piracy, in which case their morale will slowly fall, etc. etc.
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Actually if their morale dropped and stayed that low they'd attempt to oust their captain and go after better game instead of just being pirates.

I hadn't thought about capturing pirate ships or reclaiming gold, etc from them. Yes, that should be possible. Although their ships probably wouldn't be particularly impressive. Military presence would lower piracy in the area. The presence of a war fleet at sea would discourage piracy...until it was far away enough not to be able to return in time to defend a ship from attack...
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One thing i haven't seen you say yet, is pirate strength. Each group of pirates have differnt strength ratings, just like every group of ships. Some pirate groups may be so strong that even the presence of a war fleet may not phase them (these would IMO have already have a character as captain). In fact they may attack the fleet to boast of their power in attempt to destroy it (this would be more likely than you might think since it does more than prove how tough they are, it also gets rid of a great military presence in the area and basically makes them THE presence in the area).

The pirate unit: I see the pirate unit as being vastly different from your standard military unit, although it operates in much the same way.
Pirates historically use ambushes and swift-strike tactics, getting what they can and then "running for the hills" to avoid pursuit and detection. To represent this, I would suggest that pirate units are invisible to non-military units, eg. merchants. This allows them to "ambush" and once an attack is completed, disappear so that their exact location remains unknown to the player and future merchants in the area.
However, military units in an adjacent square can see pirates, although pirates can see units within a 2sq. radius (lookouts and knowledge of the terrain as well as "tipping off").
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First off Units like your talking in civ2 and such I don't believe in using (And yes, I know Mark your not of that opinion, but its a 50/50 for and against in the market), so just try and fit your ideas into both types if possible. Also pirates could still attempt to hide from military units, though not ness perfect, i'd say 25-50%.

Pirate units act as military units when fighting military units. When attacking merchants, there are three outcomes: pirate failure (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, but no value lost), pirate partial success (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, part of value lost), pirate success (casualties, merchant defence strength drastically reduced / oblitierated, merchant unit possibly destroyed, all value taken).
In each case, casualties for both sides (loss of "strength" for pirates, loss of defence value for merchants) are determined by the strength/morale of the attacking/defending units. Value loss is also determined in a similiar way in the event of a pirate partial success.
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Actually pirates could capture the ships and some of the crew could join if successful so the losses the pirates have could be regained after the battle is over.

Terrain effects: Pirates are more either more likely to be created in wooded/mountainous terrain with lots of cover, or receive morale bonuses for being situated there. Island chains / archipelagos should also give a similar bonus.
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Ummm why the bonus to wooded/mountain terrain? If its for bandits, they are similar, but you need to make some differances between them.

Pirate AI: Pirates cannot fortify themselves. To them, all land is potentially hostile, so their rate of movement is fixed. Their main aim is to attack merchants of any nationality in an attempt to plunder the valuable commodities they carry. Well-defended merchants may deter pirates without high morale, but otherwise any merchant within a pirate's 2 sq. radius carring any valuable goods will be attacked.
However, pirates often know that they not a good match for a military unit. Pirates with low morale who detect a military unit will move out of its 2 sq. radius. Pirates with average morale (neutral and 1 either side) will operate within its 2 sq. radius, but will not enter adjacent squares. Pirates with high morale will act as if the military unit was not there, or will attack the unit.
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OK most of that seems fine. However, pirate rate shouldn't be fixed. True they might not be able to fortify themselves like other military units can (though they should be allowed if powerful enough to build forts and such), walking over a swamp is harder than plains.

Happiness effects: Pirates located near villages, etc. will have a negative effect on population happiness. This not only shows the effect that piracy has on how safe citizens feel, but also accounts for the fact that pirates would most likely sell their goods and recruit from these villages. By decreasing local happiness, they increase their own recruitment rate and will also encourage other social undesirables to be more active. Pirates far from villages (more than 4sq.) will have no effect. Their trade with the village will be infrequent enough not to cause any major benefits or problems to either side.
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Pirates could, on the rare occasion, have neutral/positive effects if the society likes them in general. Perhaps the populous sees them as destroyers of their rich neighbors who stole their gold mines from their ancestors. These cases should be rarer though, but they might not steal from these people if it could be a potential "safe haven."

Pirates as mercenaries: Pirates do not hold political ideologies. They will not support one govt. above another and thus will remain neutral in the event of a Civil War, unless lucratively bribed to join one side or the other. Pirate units or groups with leaders may be recruited as Privateers, depending upon the leader's personality and his affiliation for local and national govt. The pirate can be given a location on the map to travel to. Once there, they will function as pirates once more until destroyed or recruited as Privateers. Rather than being on contract, they will act on a lump sum basis, varying on how far away the proposed location is and possibly on the value of trade in the surrounding area of the proposed location.
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Privateers should, over time, if they follow the same government policy, be allowed to "favor" one government (course they'd have to bribe them first). FE during the caribean age you meantioned aboved, govenors often gave titles to pirates who raided their enimies and land as well. This "bribe" would hopefully be remembered later on, and often if it was a lot, though not always, it was. Thus they still act as pirates, but will not attack one nation generally (exceptions if they put no forces surrounding tons of treasure).

Listen, I'm not against this idea of starting revolutions yourself if you think its for the overall betterment of your civ, just it shouldn't be easy, in fact, the opposite. Also it shouldn't be allowed if you as the player have purposefully made the revolution nessasry because of how you managed your government. That would be getting the cheap way out. What I'm saying is the player must have A> certain % of the populous in unrest against the government or against what your rebelling against. B> the resources to do it. A heavily militaristic society that uses it military to suppress it populous rather than supress it neighbors will be unlikely to have a revolution last more than 1 turn. C> Even if it does occur, the player must fight for the right to rule his civ (again) or atleast a piece of it.

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Temporay Digression here, but if 1 successful revolution occurs, it increases the likelyhood of others, while the opposite is true. This should be implimented and it isn't really hard.
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Stuff2, I strongly disagree with your proposal. To clarify, here is how I see the player in Clash:

The guiding spirit of the Civilisation, in the form of the current ruler of the Civilisation.

The player is a guiding spirit because he/she outlives the lifespan of a monarchy or even an entire governmental system. However, I just hate the idea that a player can totally foul up their Civ and, when the people rise against them, magically become leader of the rebel forces, regain control of the Civ and most likely start all over again. In fact, I hate the idea that the player can "possess", if you like, whatever influential character he/she pleases. Although I see nothing wrong with seeing through their eyes (in micromanagement) or in receiving information reliably available to them (their personal spies report rebel activity near the city, maybe an attack will occur soon...).

I expect you're wondering how I define the "current ruler" of the Civ, especially when, for example, rebels occupy 75% of the territories, but a strong Royalist army holds the remainder and is unlikely to be broken. Since the rebels hold the main area of the Civ, they could be called "rulers", yet the monarchy is still the official "ruler" of the Civ as it was known before the revolution...

Quite simply, I define the "current ruler" as being the leader of whatever administration currently commands the capital. In the above example, if the Royalists still hold the capital city then the player is "stuck" with them, although if he/she wanted the rebels to win through, it would be possible to "throw" the defences and allow the rebels to capture the capital. The penalty being that on their way they would cause havoc, destruction, death, etc. and leave the place in a sorry state for whatever takes control of the Civ. Pretty much Mark's point.

This also solves the problem of what happens in the event of a split in the civilisation, causing two separate nations to evolve...the player commands the one which still holds the capital and retains the original name of the Civ.

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Stuff2, your idea about the guerilla leader is possible. If the Civ capital gets captured by a foreign power, then the player could be eliminated or forced to rule the remainder of states in anarchy until a new Civ was formed. However, most likely the Civ would surrender, etc. or be conquered, resulting in the player being "eliminated".

I would say no...this should not be the case. As Stuff2 suggested, the player could become a guerilla leader, but I see a different way out. I talked earlier of colonialism, where the player could rule under command from a foreign power as a "colony" or "empire province" or whatever. The new Mother Country would place restrictions on what could and could not be done, such as no private armies, must give 40% of all tax revenue to Mother Country, etc. but the player could still "rule".

This would give the opportunity for the player then to initiate covert strategies against their oppressors to construct a rebel force capable of taking back at least part of the Civilisation. It might take a good few turns and any mistake or detection could result in starting all over again, but nevertheless, the struggle to reclaim the Civ could continue. Exactly when the player would cease being the colonial magistrate and start being the "rebel leader" or whatever, I'm not sure. But it's just an idea at the moment.

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I still don't like TK's idea of point penalising. Although yes, I accept it is possible to have only partial, non-civil war type revolutions, such as the signing of the Magna Carta. However, it's equally possible to have vicious bloody revolutions that actually achieve very little.

I see where you're coming from. A civil war would happen when the people were very angry at a ruler's actions...but wouldn't it happen if they felt "oppressed" anyway? Even in a monarchy system where the player makes sure everyone is either happy or content or whatever you choose to say, some people will still be unhappy at the idea of one person having total control of anything that happens. The "hidden" unhappiness factor, if you like. Bear in mind that something as simple as a player imposing a quota on fishing limits might cause every fisherman in the kingdom to have this "hidden" unhappiness. That might lead to anti-govt. actions, which in turn will spark off any bad feeling elsewhere and cause visible unhappiness. This is merely the beginning of the spiral which gradually leads to the player sending in the military to control the situation and the local people making the decision as to whether they want the situation to be "controlled" or not. If the army is strong enough, or the ruler popular enough or the people content enough not to take up arms, the revolution might be quashed. Alternatively, such an action might be the spark that ignites the people against the crown, causing a Civil War. An influential rebel leader, good at winning people to his cause, would also have an effect here.

In this case, the player has made one or two decisions that didn't go down well with everybody and this has led to the starting of a revolution. I see that as how the revolutions occur, which isn't necessarily a direct fault of the player and why they shouldn't be penalised for it.

The second chance rule...hate it, always will hate it. The player has no "chances". They continue until either time ends on them or until a foreign power literally wipes them off the map. Or whatever other "ending" situations occur.

As for on-line help, I agree. I also think that there should be perhaps some kind of toggle for on-line help that informs specifically of revolutionary events, but only AFTER the trigger event has occured, citing the possibility that rebel action may happen. I don't want the help to tell the player "don't do this, you might cause a rebellion"...let them learn by their own mistakes.

Mark/Stuff2 - I'm all in favour of the player changing character, but I don't believe they should have a direct say in who/what they become. They should change character as a result of events in the game, not from their own choice.

LGJ - Your last point I disagree with. I peronally prefer the idea that the rebels are the unknown enemy. The AI controls them, maybe it makes dealings with foreign powers, ceding them territory if they are successful, etc. That way, even if the player sympathises with them and makes it as easy as possible for them to win, when he/she takes over their administration, they may find foreign powers are demanding that promises be fulfilled, etc.

Actually, I'm going to start a topic on revolutions specifically. Maybe you'll all curse me for that, but it's getting hard talking about piracy and revolutions intermittently in the same thread. It's also making my posts very very long, which isn't helping anybody.

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BACK TO PIRACY

Why should the first shipment necessarily make it through? A whopping great merchant unit taking 100K of goods across a long perilous land route and having little or no guard will automatically make it? I disagree. To set up a large caravan such as that, news will spread of your route, destination and cargo. Pirates would be waiting for you...that I could guarantee. That's why the frequency idea would come in. Pirates would attack it as soon as it went out of local territory (I don't like the idea of pirates being generated in villages themselves, etc).

I agree. A military base won't necessarily eliminate piracy, but it will reduce it if pirate morale is low (ie, the area has slim picking or pirates are new and inexperienced). This is already accounted for in the 2sq. radius of military units concept I mentioned earlier.

Norsemen were pro-pirate, but not usually against each other! Yes, there were village and clan feuds, which could be taken into account in the game, but piracy was limited to other nations. Although I like the idea that Viking cultures, for example, generate more pirate units. However, I would suggest that Norse cultures, etc. rather than generating pirates should be blessed with the ability to either be able to negotiate with all pirates, or to be able to physically command them as units, or to be able to send them around the world at reduced or even at no cost. Alternatively, piratical activity conducted by commissioned Viking pirates could add to the revenue of the Civ. Maybe their culture could build pirates the same way cultures build merchants? I don't know.

Even so, the pirates generated by merchant trade, even if Norse, would be different. I don't see the frequency equation being changed due to religion/culture, although the Civ's ability to deal with or react to pirates should be changed. If you want a culture to suffer from piracy, then make their pirate hunters worse or reduce the effect of their military to a 1sq. radius.

Success doesn't look at casualties. Success looks at whether or not the pirates plundered any value from the caravan and if so, how much. No success = no value, partial success = some value, total success = all value. To account for them recruiting, every turn they don't attack, their "strength" would return closer to its natural level (recruiting). It won't add to the game to add the element of merchant crews joining pirate bands.

Ousting the captain could occur. Actually, I like it. If the unit/group has an assigned character and morale falls, then the character could be executed in mutiny and replaced. Morale would then return to neutral. However, in independent units, I still think they should disband.

Pirate "strength"...yes, I have avoided that term. The reason being that I see pirates operating more on morale than strength. Chances are, they're not going to be that differently armed to the forces they're attacking. Certainly not after a couple of victories and weapons being stolen, etc.

Assuming for a moment that "strength" is determined in the old Civ-type style of 3-attack, 2-defence, then all pirate units should start the same. Independent pirates are unlikely to change. However, groups might. A large group of pirates might attack as one rather than several small groups. In this case, their strength could be related to the number of pirate units in the group. E.g. for every 6th unit added, rather than a new unit being generated, an existing one is upgraded into a higher "strength" rating. Also, a unit carrying a character might be intitled to a strength increase as well as a morale increase.

Now, I also referred to "strength" as being, if you like, health or numbers of the unit. In this case, casualties may be replaced, etc, although I still think they should just regenerate their health/numbers over a short period of time.

Yes, I refer to the military unit in a Civ style manner. That's because I'm more familiar with that style and because I'm not entirely sure how a "unit" in the other proposed style would work. As and when I work that idea through, I'll put modifications up here.

Pirates hiding on 25-50% chance. Yes, I like that. Then they'd naturally move away if they weren't going to attack, (...live to fight another day) or ambush the military unit.

Right - I'm not making a distinction between pirates as in Carribean pirates and bandits. I call all such unit types "pirates". Simply because their motives are the same, only their terrain of operation is different.

In an island chain, after crippling a ship, you can sail away and lose pursuers. The same applies in mountains and woods. These pirates will know their terrain well...probably better than a patrolling unit. They will know about the almost invisible goat-track that takes off 2hours from the mountain ascent, allowing them to quickly escape. A patrol chasing them will go the only way it knows - the long way, and thus lose them.

Also, it's a lot easier to hide a bandit camp in a dense forest than it would be on a wide-open plain where you can see for miles.

Hmm, I'm still undecided about pirates and forts. It just wouldn't happen unless they started acting as a Mafia in the local area. If they became strong enough to build forts, they'd probably be strong enough to start a village. That village would then "build" further pirate units and add to strength of existing ones. Although I don't know if that's something good to add to the model or not.

I see your point about swamp movement, etc. However, pirates would only be restricted when moving in areas they didn't know so well. How do you define what areas they don't know? I think they should be given a fixed movement rate over all terrain. They can still be outrun by military in the open, but in the forests, they're in their element...

No. Pirates would not be positive to the village's happiness. They will always be negative. The positive effects you talk about are positive for the rebellious members of the Civ, the anti-govt. groups. Since happiness is looked at purely from the govt. perspective, people happy about pirates will be unhappy about the govt. I'm not including Norse cultures, who would perhaps be unaffected by pirates at any distance.

Ah...now a distinction is made between pirate and privateer. I agree. A pirate who becomes affiliated to a Civ (the Civ gives them two or more contracts) should be able to be bribed into becoming a Privateer unit. This is how I see this working:

On the revolution thing, I don't see anything in Stuff2's post saying the revolt automatically succeeds... I would have disagreed with the approach if I thought so. The AI will always play the other side to the best of its ability on such occasions. I think we agree that when you change horses (who the spirit works through) you need to Fight for control as usual. If you lose, you are stuck with the same old government with depleted resources from the revolution itself. If you attempt to overthrow the government without a very solid base, you will just be hurting your civ.

There are also timing issues we'd need if we do such switches. Otherwise players can do things like:
1. ensure powerful societal elements are pissed off enough to revolt
2. intentionally move all 'royalist' military units off to some other country to basically guarantee the revolt's success
3. start the revolt.

Or even more bizarre things can happen by the player switching back and forth on a per-turn basis... Take government, do something really stupid, take rebels do something smart, repeat as needed...
So if we go this way, we would probably need a time lag of some sort for the 'transfer' to occur. Its a sticky problem...

The Diamond:

Your 'who holds the capital' proposal is IMO too limiting. FE then in an American revolutionary war context, the player could Never become the Americans, but be forced to remain with the British. Or rather the only way you allow this is if the capital gets overrun by some other power. IMO the player Must be allowed to make the choice of which segment to play themselves. I agree there are lots of potential pitfalls to doing it the way I'm pushing (I don't recall if the current Govt model makes a definitive stand on this either way). But I think if the design traps can be overcome it will result in a better experience for the player.

All:

On pirating-

Why should the first shipment necessarily make it through? A whopping great merchant unit taking 100K of goods across a long perilous land route and having little or no guard will automatically make it? I disagree. To set up a large caravan such as that, news will spread of your route, destination and cargo. Pirates would be waiting for you...that I could guarantee. That's why the frequency idea would come in. Pirates would attack it as soon as it went out of local territory (I don't like the idea of pirates being generated in villages themselves, etc).
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I'm saying the very very first ship that travels through those wasters (or atleast in a long time...say 100 years). There would be no pirates as no pirates would expect any ships coming through. Not only that, but if they did realize a ship was coming through, by the time it did come through, it would be gone before they could reach it, unless it was very ssssssssllllllllllooooooooowwwwwwwwww.

Norsemen were pro-pirate, but not usually against each other! Yes, there were village and clan feuds, which could be taken into account in the game, but piracy was limited to other nations. Although I like the idea that Viking cultures, for example, generate more pirate units. However, I would suggest that Norse cultures, etc. rather than generating pirates should be blessed with the ability to either be able to negotiate with all pirates, or to be able to physically command them as units, or to be able to send them around the world at reduced or even at no cost. Alternatively, piratical activity conducted by commissioned Viking pirates could add to the revenue of the Civ. Maybe their culture could build pirates the same way cultures build merchants? I don't know.
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First of all you need to know that cultures are not defined the way they are in Civ2 and such. Cultures are determined by the circumstances that surround them and thus are fluid. Therefore a Norse culture could exist, but couldn't get any "inherant bonuses" for being such, just that say some things are more likely/easier than others. Check back and you'll see plenty on this. Also look at the now outdated social/cultural model for more info.

Assuming for a moment that "strength" is determined in the old Civ-type style of 3-attack, 2-defence, then all pirate units should start the same. Independent pirates are unlikely to change. However, groups might. A large group of pirates might attack as one rather than several small groups. In this case, their strength could be related to the number of pirate units in the group. E.g. for every 6th unit added, rather than a new unit being generated, an existing one is upgraded into a higher "strength" rating. Also, a unit carrying a character might be intitled to a strength increase as well as a morale increase
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Ok, morale should play a part it, probably more than it does with the rest of the military model (which you should check out when you have time if you want to continue on this model...its kinda a must to atleast familiarize yourself with it). Anyway other things will affect battle than just morale, like strength, strategy and tactics, technology, training etc. I'd say str and morale are the two biggies for pirates. Tactics and strategy are generally the same, hit and run, hide and move on when things get two rough. This can change somewhat if the pirates become extremely powerful in a region. technology, varies, though is never more than the region that it came from (however if it came from a highly advanced region it can sail to a lesser advanced area). Training is usually low, sometimes a little higher, though probably never more than moderate for the entire group. Captains can be whatever.

Hmm, I'm still undecided about pirates and forts. It just wouldn't happen unless they started acting as a Mafia in the local area. If they became strong enough to build forts, they'd probably be strong enough to start a village. That village would then "build" further pirate units and add to strength of existing ones. Although I don't know if that's something good to add to the model or not.
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Why not? There were known "pirate" forts. Such were rare, but not unheard of. In any case any "village" wouldn't operate quite on the same priciples as other civ villiages. I think it will make the game more interesting and act as a kinda deturrant from letting pirates get too out of control in an area.

Historical revolutions have very rarely been two-sided affairs. Take the French Revolution, the 30 Years War, or the Congo Crisis for examples. More often, it's the central power fending off half a dozen or more (possibly allied) insurgent groups and whatever foreign powers want to get in on the fun.

LGJ - even the very first merchant ship will have a reputation preceeding it. If no guards are hired and the cargo highly valuable then yes, expect pirates. However, I think that's unlikely. The cargo on the very first voyage will most likely be small, so the first ship probably will generate no pirates.

I was aware of how cultures were defined. I was only suggesting ideas of how such cultures could be accounted for in their stance towards piracy. The problem with me checking back about such an issue right now is that it's relatively unimportant in terms of the pirate proposition. If we ignored the Norse culture, it wouldn't be a drastic problem. Therefore I'm more interested in looking at basic concepts right now. If this projected idea goes any further, then will be the time for sorting details such as that.

I have looked over the current military model. I'm still trying to work out exactly how pirates would work under it, so I'll come back to you on that one. I have a fairly good idea of how things might have to be changed, but as I said, I'll come back to you.

I still think strategies would be largely the same no matter the size, unless the pirates actually became so powerful that they effectively ruled the area around their "village/villages".

Pirates would start with tech levels of the region that they come from, or are closest to. This is assuming that the weapons, etc. they can get hold of will be pretty much the same as everyone else's. However, the tech levels of the region will rise with time. Pirate tech levels onl rise when they make successful raids (plundering new weapons from the dead guards, etc.). When they rise, they will meet the current tech level of the region again.

I'm just going to ignore training, etc. until I can work the idea totally through.

As for pirate forts, it's very possible. Although I see a "fort" as being a replacement or "upgrade" for a pirate village. FE, in the forest, piracy is so great that a village starts up. As this village grows, the pirates become more security conscious of their lands and construct a fort there to protect their interests.

Now, I've been thinking about the piracy issue and toying with a couple of possible ideas and changes to things I've said earlier and this is what I've come up with:

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Pirates, as an entity, are social undesirables. Directly, they represent opportunists on both sea and land whose primary aim is to plunder unwary merchants and whose secondary aim is to increase their control in the local region.

I'm now going to make some assumptions for this proposal which I am fully aware almost certainly don't fit into the current Clash system. Please don't gripe about this at this stage, as I will endeavour to integrate them better into the game engine as the idea develops. These assumptions only exist at this stage to allow me to give actual figures and values for piracy, which can later be adapted.

Assumptions:

Merchants can carry trade values from a minimum of 1C (where K is a unit of currency) up to a maximum of 1000C. 1C represents a very small amount of cheap cargo and 1000C could represent a galleon loaded to the brim with gold and diamonds.

Merchants have defence values of the range 1-10, where 1 is no guard and 10 is many armed guards carrying the best equipment available, etc.

The map is divided into "zones" at the beginning of the game. These are literally grid-lines forming 10x10 squares as boxes within them. Zones are generic and fixed and do not take into account any other factors. The amount of pirates belonging to a group in a zone is recorded. Zones allow creation of pirate villages in areas where provinces, etc. do not exist. They are also not subject to player/AI modification and thus allow pirates to operate as entirely separate entities.

The game remembers values of trade and defence values passing through single squares on a 3-turn basis.

Pirate units have a morale value of 0-10, with 1 being exceptionally low and 10 being exceptionally high. Pirate units with morale of 0 are special cases.

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The equation for Piracy reads as follows: this equation is applied to every map square at the beginning of a turn.

Frequency of pirate generation(P) = (average value of merchant trade in square over 3 turns(aC) / average merchant defence value in square over 3 turns(aD)) / M(f = Proximity of military unit/military garrison to square (in squares))

* P=(aC/aD)/M(f=0,1,2,n) *

If f = 0, indicating square is occupied / garrisoned, M = 0. This may cause a divide by zero error, in which case M = 30,000 or some other incredibly high figure. In other words, pirates are not generated in military bases or amongst military squads.

If f = 1, indicating adjacent square is occupied / garrisoned, M = 4.

If f = 2, indicating an adjacent-but-one square is occupied / garrisoned, M = 1.25.

If f = n, indicating there is no military unit within a 2sq radius, M = 1.

ie, military presence reduces pirate generation by 75% in adjacent squares and 20% in adjacent-but-one squares.

Generating pirates will occur in one of two ways, split between either generating physical units on the map, or by generating an invisible force that "occupies" the square. Both will be considered later.

For now, take some values:

P=(3000/3)/1
P=1000

This is an exceptionally high value of P, although understandable given that three totally unguarded galleons loaded full of gold have just passed through an area of non-existent military presence. P could be higher if multiple merchants had passed through the square.

P=(30/3)/1
P=10

A relatively low value of P. Merchants carrying quite small cargos travel unguarded. Many such journeys could be made before a band of pirates endeavours to take advantage of them.

P=(300/30)/1.25
P=8

Despite the trade values being higher than the previous example, the extent of military presence acts as a serious piracy inhibitor.

P=(3000/30)/1.25
P=80

In this instance, the galleons have returned with a full military escort and are travelling close to a military garrison. Although there are rich pickings in the area, the guards are good and thus piracy is quite low.

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P is not actually the number of pirates generated. It is the probability of a bog-standard pirate "unit" being created. From the examples above:

1000/1000 = guaranteed pirate generation
10/1000 = 1/100 chance of pirate generation
8/1000 = 1/125 chance of pirate generation
80/1000 = 1/12 chance of pirate generation

This will run fine as a general equation for initial piracy. Areas with low pickings or high military influence may never even see pirates. Areas with rich pickings and no military presence are likely to find more pirates than merchants.

There is also a 3-turn delay in this system for generating pirates "in the wake" of a merchant travelling through. This accounts for Lord God Jinnai's point about the first ever trader being unlikely to experience piracy, unless the pirates chase him...

NB - Pirates cannot be created in squares containing military units / garrisons, or in squares containing dwellings of above "village" status. Likewise, expansion into squares containing pirates is impossible.

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Pirates, as I mentioned earlier, live off merchant caravans travelling in their area. They do so by attempting to plunder any merchant that passes within their visible range (2sq). This range represents the pirates use of scouts and lookouts to forewarn the band of approaching merchants so that an ambush can be laid.

On any given turn, pirate movement may occur, representing the fact that pirates are unlikely to remain in one spot for a great length of time. Movement is a 50/50 chance event - either it occurs, or it doesn't. The pirate unit, if deciding to move, will move into the adjacent square containing a higher aC value than the one it is already in. If the square it occupies has a greater aC value than the squares around it, it will move randomly into an adjacent square. Pirate units may occupy the same square. If it occurs that pirates do occupy the same square, their forces may decide to merge.

Pirate units merging is the model's way of representing successful pirates attracting many to their cause. The unit with the highest morale will attempt to persuade the others to join them. Probability of merging is a direct function of morale:

Prob.(merging)=Morale/10 chance.

Therefore, a unit with a morale of 6 has a 6/10 chance of persuading the other unit to join it. A unit of morale 10 is so well known and respected that the other unit will unquestioningly flock to its banner.

If the units do not merge, the unit with lowest morale is "merge tagged", meaning that it will never merge with anyone. This allows there to always be some independent pirate bands who will never join others.

If the units do merge, they become one single unit which is "pre-group" tagged. If a pre-group unit merges again then the unit created will become a pirate "group", be assigned a character leader and will then act as a slightly different entity.

Pirate groups who persuade others to merge with them do not absorb the unit, but receive a small bonus possibly in the form of size, etc. The unit that has agreed to merge becomes a unit of that group and acts independently as it did before, but can no longer be merged with. If it is successful in merging, it will convert the other unit into its group, etc, etc.

The pirate group is held together by its leading unit, containing the pirate Captain. This unit can negotiate with govts and accept privateering contracts on behalf of the group, or as a personal mission. The difference is that in a contract, the member of the group nearest the intended destination will be sent, whereas in a personal mission, the leader himself travels to the destination. Only Captains with a strong liking and affiliation for a govt. will ever be bribed into conducting personal missions. These also require more expensive contracts.

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The pirate group is a unified entity capable of feats of piracy beyond that of an individual pirate band. When a new unit is added to the group, its morale is set to that of the group average. Its technology level is also set to the group average. Its "strength" level may receive a small bonus as well.

To represent the power of the group, the original assumption concept of "zones" is used. A pirate group containing at least 10 units in a "zone", including the leader unit is considered large enough to warrant a base of operations. This takes the form of the creation of a pirate "village" on one square of the map. This is a village effectively dedicated to the cause of piracy and smuggling and acts as a base for all pirates operating in the region. Villages are placed on the square that leader unit occupies at the time. There may only be one village per "zone".

If at any time the number of pirates in a group exceeds 20, then the village will have experienced so much revenue, protection, etc. from local insurgents that it will become a fort. There may only be one fort per "zone", and once a fort exists, no new villages can be made.

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The existence of villages or forts have several implications:

Recruitment: All units created in the zone containing the village or fort, or all units present at the creation of the village or fort automatically recieve a +10% strength increase (village) or +15% strength increase (fort) in terms of numbers, etc.

Diplomacy: Pirate villages/forts act as leverage for Privateering contracts. All contract values are increased by 5% (village) or 10% (fort).

Defensive: Pirate villages contain a militia of adequately armed men willing to defend their homes to the death. The militia can never leave the village (it comprises of its inhabitants), but defends the village twice as well as a normal pirate unit could/would. In forts, the militia will be supported by cannons and pirate bands waiting between expeditions. All units will have their defensive value increased by 50% while in the fort.

Attitude: Pirate villages create unhappiness. Most members of the Civilisation dislike pirates and pirate villages cause an increase in piracy. Also, dissidents will be able to trade more easily with pirates to obtain weapons and mutually beneficial deals. Forts exaggerate these symptoms further.

Morale: A pirate fort stands as testimony to pirates being strong in the region. All pirates currently in the zone recieve a +1 morale bonus. Also, units reaching zero morale have an alternative option...flee to safe haven. Whereas they would usually disband, they may now travel to the village/fort. Once there, members wishing to continue piracy will find a new band leader and the pirate unit will be recycled into a new independent unit.

Bravery: The existence of a fort encourages megalomaniac and excessively brave actions. Pirates will be more likely to attack military units in the "zone" containing the fort. The fort will also negate any effect of 2sq. military bonuses, as the military will be seen as helpless and pirates will be less wary of them.

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Although pirate units cannot be created in towns, etc. they may still wander through them on their travels. Pirates present in a population centre have an induced "terror" factor. This creates extreme unhappiness and increases the chance of dissident action. Independent pirates will generally only cause raucous drunken activity accompanied by a little damage. Group pirates, however, will react depending upon their Captain's affiliation to the Civ. If their Captain likes the Civ, they will remain well as well behaved as their unit leader can make them. However, if the Captain is on poor terms, the group may pillage and torch the place, leaving only a smoking wreck.

However, pirates don't undertake these actions out of political affiliation. Although their leader may dislike the Civ and be on friendly terms with local dissidents, pirate groups never become involved in Civil Wars or revolutions except in conflicts that would occur whether or not the war was taking place (eg, a high morale pirate will attack military "units" of both rebel and govt that intrude upon its space)

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Pirates are combat units and operate in a similar vein to existing military units. However, their strategy and tactics always remain the same - attempt rapid surprise attacks, do what you can, escape. They also have the concept of partial successes in combat.

When attacking a merchant, there is no guarantee of success. Even merchants with little defence might repel the attackers. There are, therefore, four outcomes to any battle a pirate is involved in:

Abject Failure: The pirate unit is wiped out, or recieves so high casualties it is effectively wiped out. This is only possible in conflicts involving military units.
Failure: The pirate unit fails in its attack and retreats.
Partial Success: The pirate unit manages to plunder part of the merchant's cargo. The exact amount of casualties and value stolen depend upon pirate strength, morale and the merchant's defence value.
Success: The pirate unit manages to extensively plunder the merchant's cargo. All value is removed and the merchant may or may not be destroyed.

When attacking or attacked, pirates are affected by a number of things:

Tech level: How good their tech level is in relation to the unit they are attacking.
Strength: How powerful/large the pirate unit is in relation to the unit it is attacking.
Morale: The general "feeling" of the pirates. Pirates in the belief that they are invincible and cannot lose (Morale 9/10) will tend to be extremely successful...
Defensive Reduction: Pirates are masters in the art of ambushes and surprise attacks, but not so in the art of calculated defence. A pirate unit being attacked suffers a -1 morale penalty.

I am now going to look further at how these factors are determined and how they affect the outcome of conflicts.

A pirate's tech level is initially set to that of the nearest Civ. This represents the fact that they will probably be just as well armed and equipped as the average merchant guard. For pirates joining a group, they adopt the average tech level of the group (their own included). Pirates' tech level does not increase with time, but will increase for every successful victory they have against a unit with a higher tech level. In the case of a partial success, the average of the tech levels is taken (ie, new pirate tech level = (old pirate tech level + other unit tech level) / 2 ). In the case of a total success, the pirate unit adopts the technology level of the defeated unit. This represents their tendency to salvage better technology weapons than their own.

Strength refers to the physical strength of the unit. A unit with many members, few injuries/casualties, etc. will have a high strength. Strength changes occur through unit mergers, terrain differences and external factors, such as pirate forts. Strength is initially a fixed value for all pirates.

Morale is initially set to 5 (neutral) when pirate units are generated. Morale is purely dependent upon success or failure but affected by external factors such as pirate forts or character leaders. When a pirate fails an attack, their morale decreases by 0.5. When a pirate unit is partially successful, its morale increases by 0.5. When a pirate unit is totally successful, its morale increases by 1. Morale may never exceed 10 or fall below 0. Pirates with a morale of 0 are so disgruntled with their band leader and/or piracy itself that they disband. Any pirate unit within the 2sq radius of the disbanding unit may receive a minor strength bonus due to some of its members joining new units.

Character leaders affect unit morale and strength. A unit containing a character leader will instantly receieve a permanent strength bonus and will also have a +1 morale bonus, due to the charisma of the leader. In addition, a unit with a character leader may never have a morale of 0. It is also worth noting that if a pirate leader changes, the group remains the same. However, if a pirate unit containing a character leader suffers an abject failure or is destryed, the group ceases to exist and all members turn independent. They also suffer a -2 morale penalty because of this.

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Pirates are more than capable of fending off local policing systems, but most pirates will think twice about engaging a trained military unit. Pirates with a morale of 5 or lower will actively move out of the 2sq radius around a military unit (when a military unit detected in their own 2sq radius, movement occurs towards exact opposite map square to the military unit). Pirates of morale 6-8 will continue to operate within the 2sq radius, but will not actively enter a square adjacent to a military unit. Pirates of morale 9-10 believe themselves to be more than a match for any military patrols. They will operate regardless of military action and if detecting a military unit in their 2sq radius may decide to make a pre-emptive attack.

Pirates with a morale of 9 will attack military units within 2sq every 1/5(1/3 w/fort). They will attack military units in adjacent squares every 1/3(1/2 w/fort).
Pirates with a morale of 10 will attack military units within 2sq every 1/3(1/2 w/fort). They will attack military units in adjacent squares every 1/2(2/3 w/fort).
Also, Pirates belonging to a group and having a morale of 7/8 will attack military units within their 2sq radius every 1/10(1/5 w/fort).

Pirates are also relatively good at hiding themselves and certain ecological types will lend themselves to the pirates benefit. Forestry allows pirates to remain hidden from military patrols. Any unit moving into an adjacent square on the map or remaining in the same square has a 50% chance of detecting them if the pirates are concealed in sparse forest, 25% if they are concealed in medium density forest and 10% if they are concealed in dense forest.
In addition, pirates are only detected 25% of the time in swampland and mountainous terrain (many areas not easily seen until up close). Hilly terrain also gives a comparative advantage, pirates hiding successfully 50% of the time.

Military units searching for pirates may therefore pass by their hiding places several times before the pirates "make a mistake" and are detected. However, military units blundering through dense forest searching for them are likely to fall foul of an ambush. Ambushes on military units occur when a military unit moves into a square occupied by a pirate unit that has not been detected and "seen" beforehand. This gives the pirates a boost to their strength to represent the element of surprise and the fact that they are fighting on ground familiar to them.

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However, there are three ways to reduce piracy pro-actively and reactively. These are:

a) Encourage govt. commissioned merchants to have a high defensive level.
b) Garrison military units along major trade routes.
c) Employ pirate hunters.

Pirate hunters are effectively bounty hunters. These individuals, or more likely teams can be contracted by the govt. to recude piracy. Pirate hunters are initially ordered to a map square. They will then scour the area for pirate activity and engage any pirate units they discover independently, with no player input. The search will continue indefinitely until the player cancels their contract. However, to prevent the player hiring and firing bounty hunters at will, the inclusion of a 10-turn notice period to ending their contract exists. Since pirate hunters are paid on a per-turn basis plus a bounty on any pirate unit killed (the size of the bounty reflecting the strength and morale of the unit killed), this ensures that they are far from being a cheap alternative to halting piracy. They are, in fact, likely to be prohibitively expensive except in times when the military cannot be spared for action against pirates, or for when the military needs assistance in running out pirates from a well-established "zone".

Pirate hunters benefit from the ability to always detect pirate units themselves (although this information is not passed on to the player. By the time the bounty hunter had informed the military of their location, they would have moved on...). However, pirate hunters are not picky about engaging pirates. They will engage any and all they find, regardless of their strength and other benefits locational factors might lend to the pirate force. Bounty hunters have fixed strengths and morale and operate tactically on a do-or-die policy. If a pirate hunter is defeated by pirates, future pirate hunters will demand higher contract prices. This reflects the fact that even the most daredevil hunters don't like dicing with death that much...

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Pirate groups may, under special circumstances, become privateer units/groups. Privateers act just like ordinary pirates, but will never attack merchants of the nationality of their allegiance. Privateers may only ever be hired from groups, and this depends upon the Captain's attitude towards the Civ. If the Captain strongly dislikes the Civ, then no option for privateering will ever exist. If the Captain doesn't have strong feelings one way or the other, it will be possible for the Civ to hire group members as privateers. These privateers are hired on a contract basis, where the Civ pays a fixed sum over 10 turns and gives the pirate a location to travel to. Depending on the attitude of the Captain to the Civ, trade value in the target square and the proximity of the location (close is cheaper. Also, the nearest unit to the location that is not the Captain's unit will be sent), the contract may be relatively inexpensive, or very costly. However, although the unit will carry a privateer tag, this doesn't mean its operations will be strictly privateering. There is a chance that the unit will ignore its supposed allegiance and tackle merchant units from the employing Civ anyway. This is known as contract breaking. If a privateer unit doesn't break its contract (no transgressions either en-route to the location, or in 10 turns after reaching it) then this is recorded as a contract mark for the group. After 3 contract marks have been gained, the leader's attitude to the Civ will become more positive. Any contract breaking will reset the contract marks back to zero as trust between the Civ and group will have been lost.
Once a Captain has a sufficient respect for a Civ (either through character bias or through previous privateering missions) then it will be possible to hire the Captain's unit as a privateer. This is considerably more expensive and also results in the Captain's unit getting an increase in strength and tech level (if possible) from dealing with your military. Pirate Captains will only ever undertake privateering work themselves if a pirate village exists. This is because once their contract is terminated, they will return to the village/fort before becoming pirates once more. The Captain's unit will never break its word of honour to the Civ and acts as a true Privateer should. It only attacks merchants and military units of a Civ with poor relations to its employer (in contrast to group privateers, who are not so selective). Its contract is also laid out like a Pirate Hunter's - being indefinite and requiring 10 turns notice to break. Pirate Hunters also will not attack privateer tagged units.

However, there are problems with employing privateer units other than the cost. Privateers, upon attacking a unit, disclose the nationality of their employer. This can lead to international incidents occuring and may break up even the strongest of peace treaties. Also, even though the Captain as a privateer will try to avoid this, his information is not necessarily up to date. Diplomacy changes will filter through to the Captain's unit, taking longer if it operates far from your Civ. This means that privateer units could unintentionally foul up newly-signed treaties of peace...

While employing the Captain, it is still possible to employ further units from the group. However, should a group unit break its contract, the Captain's unit will automatically start the 10-turn countdown to its contract termination. However, if the Captain's opinion of a Civ is exceptionally high, which can only be attained through personal privateering, it is possible to pay a large sum to convert the entire pirate group into privateers for your nation. These privateers will then become true privateers, just as the Captain's unit did. The amount paid reflects average unit strength, morale and also number of total units. A privateer fort or village has no negative impacts to your Civ and privateer units may pass freely through your provinces with no adverse effects. However, privateers may not recruit or merge with units and terminating the Captain's contract will cause them to become pirates once more after the 10-turn countdown. Privateer units may not be attacked by the military of the employer.

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I think that covers the main concepts in the pirate model proposition. Any comments on the model itself, its basic concepts, quibbles with my reasoning or ideas to build upon will be welcomed. However, I reiterate that I don't want negative criticisms of the assumptions made at the start. Simply stating that "this doesn't fit 100% into the current Clash model" is of no use to me at all. However, pointing out exactly where/why it doesn't fit or, even better, suggesting how I could adapt it to make it fit would be far more helpful.

In general the model looks very good. Here are some specific comments though:

1. I really like the idea that the pirate leader can negotiate with the civ (although I don't know how historically acurate that is).

2. The zones are a good idea to reduce calculations, however checking the piracy in each and every square is very costly. There are 64,000 map squares, which means 64,000 calculations in a single turn, just for piracy! I suggest you do these checks by the zones instead, although some may still say that is too costly. Also, you may not want to do these checks every turn, but rather every 3 turns, using the aC and aD from the previous 3 turn "cycle".

3. QUOTE "Generating pirates will occur in one of two ways, split between either generating physical units on the map, or by generating an invisible force that "occupies" the square. Both will be considered later."

I didn't see anything about the invisible force, that you mentioned, though I may have just missed it.

4. One thing I'm not sure if you know or not, is that Clash will have population in every square. Effectively a village in every square. So I would suggest pirates can only be created in "village" squares, using the following as a guideline (though I'm not sure if the others will agree with these numbers):

village= 1000 or less
town= 1001-5000
city= 5001+

5. I would suggest that a pirate's tech could increase on its own. Though they would always be 10-50% behind the area they are in when they get these increases, simply because a few pirates can walk into a town and buy guns, if they didn't have them before.

1 - Not necessarily totally historically accurate, but how else do you account for pirates and their letters of marque in the Caribbean, etc. Because the Civs cannot negotiate with individual pirate bands, which did frequently occur throughout history, they must negotiate with the leader.

2 - I'm aware that there are several flaws in the zone system. Therefore perhaps if aC is recorded for each square and if it is 0 over the 3 turn period, the square can be "jumped"...I'm not sure. The problem with checking by zone is that zones incorporate 100 squares. A lot of different trade routes could happen over those squares, but pirate generation in the area would have to be randomised, which wouldn't be very realistic. Making it every 3 turns would make pirate generation very static and predictable, but might be a solution.
In short, I don't really know what to do about the zone concept. Suggestions about it will be very welcome indeed as I'm all of of ideas at the moment.

3 - Yes, I expect Lord God Jinnai will also point that out. I didn't actually separate them in the end. I think they'll work in the same way in the end, the only difference being whether they are a physical unit on the map or a tag attacthed to a map square. The term pirate "unit" refers to a pirate band, which could be of either type.

4 - I wasn't aware of that, thanks for pointing it out. That seems unusual...even the "uninhabitable" polar caps and islands deep in the ocean far from all main human existence will automatically contain population? Well...not for me to argue. Anyway, I agree with your suggestion, the figures depending on how population density is going to work in Clash...

5 - A fair view. I just didn't want pirates shadowing a Civ's tech level. Yes, they could go and buy new weapons, etc. I just thought it might add more to the model to have them improve by plundering units from high tech Civs. It doesn't matter. Including a function where pirate tech increases wouldn't be too hard.

6 - I don't have a totally justified reason for "indefinite hiring". My only current argument is that the player may not know how long they want the privateers to work for them. By setting an indefinite contract, they can terminate at any time (10 turn clause making decisions harder in that respect), without being forced to re-negotiate. Also, pirate hunters are disbanded upon their contract being terminated and privateers must return to their home village/fort. This would be irritating if a player wished to use them far away and had a fixed contract length as by the time they had got there, they may only be active for 2 turns before the contract terminates and they must return...

However, the contract is only indefinite in theory. Privateers may make transgressions or mistakes and break the contract by their own actions (either contract breaking or causing international incidents). Also, if the leader unit is killed, the contract is terminated. In addition, the player may terminate at any time. However, mainly due to the cost of hiring privateers, I doubt their contracts ever would be indefinite...

2. Zones are a good idea, however we may need to rethink the way they are drawn up. You say right now they are simply 10x10 squares, no other factors taken into account. I think that's wrong. There will be places where smaller zones and larger ones are nessasry. Zones should be considered either via population density or trade frequency in given squares. I'd say anything from 10-500 squares is enough. There will likely be more pirates where there are more people and more trade and thus more zone should be created to help separate them. However in some places, like artic regions, things will be virtually no population and little trade.

4. Yes, each square will have a chance of having population, however, during the begginning of the game (ie 5-7000 BCE) we should have many squares with no population (or atleast none worth calculating). As time goes on, populations should spread. Also, some areas shouldn't ever have too much population, mainly artic regions, some desert areas, etc. Populations are almost always centered around sources of rivers, orceans or trade routes throughout history, and in modern times, highways.

5. I don't ness see them as always being behind. They may not always be up to par, but they can usually catch up quickly. However, they should never be able to develope technology on their own.

6. I'm with TK, Privateers shouldn't be forever. However, privateer contracts can be renewed if they worked before with you and u treated them well for a little less perhaps, ie they know they can trust you and they've come to like your government somewhat. Also attacking merchants ships shouldn't always revoke a letter of marque. Instead the player can opt to let it slide.
Another idea if you want them to become more permenant, ie indefinate hiring, is to give them military titles. This was done often, esp when there was no other form of military around. This gave the pirate, er privateer, more socail standing within the civ so he was looked upon better. He wasn't seen then as just a pirate ness. So he may act a little better towards the government. Further promotion would strengthen these ties and make him want to do even better to get higher promotions.

Quote" Yes, each square will have a chance of having population, however, during the begginning of the game (ie 5-7000 BCE) we should have many squares with no population (or atleast none worth calculating). As time goes on, populations should spread. Also, some areas shouldn't ever have too much population, mainly artic regions, some desert areas, etc. Populations are almost always centered around sources of rivers, orceans or trade routes throughout history, and in modern times, highways."

1 - Which way round the negotiations occur has little relevance, really. The point is that Captains allow diplomacy between Civs and pirate groups.

2- I agree that zones need to be thought out again. One plan that I had was to breakdown zones further. The concept of a "zone" may have possible uses for other models, but 10x10 is too "average" for any specific or generic uses. Therefore, I propose the following:

Blocks are 3x3 squares. Trade value is calculated for blocks, not individual squares. This should speed things up. Pirates can be randomly assigned a place in the block as the pirate will be able to see into or attack any other square in the block, regardless of its exact placement. Zones are therefore now comprised of a smaller area (3x3 square of blocks, meaning 9x9 for a zone). Just a thought.

LGJ - I understand why you want zones to be variable, but this would involve recalculating them every (x) turns for population density, etc. This would probably involve more calculation time than it would free up. Also, what happens when a zone expands and engulfs a pirate village from another zone? 2 villages in the same zone...might cause a few bugs to occur.

4 - Nothing further to add.

5 - Agreed. Pirates cannot develop their own technologies. They will always be roughly up to par with tech. It's only a case of exactly how they are allowed to gain tech increases.

6 - Okay, some interesting points here. Privateer contracts can obviously be renewed, the problem is what to do with the pirate group in the meantime. Lets say, FE, that all privateer contracts are 20 turns long and that the employing Civ is on good enough terms to convert the pirate group to all privateers. In 20 turns time, they'll all become pirates again and the player will have to wait for the leader unit to return to the village/fort before they can be re-employed.

That doesn't make privateers particularly desirable if the group will turn happily against its employer after a contract is terminated. I'm aware that while employing the Captain's unit alone, the remainder of the group are still pirates and may be hostile. I'm thinking of revising that idea and giving them a reduced chance of attacking units of the employing Civ (because their Captain may be displeased if they do...).

Military titles, patents of nobility, etc. A good idea and historically accurate in some cases. However, under the current system, this would add nothing to the game. If the system was revised to include a stage between the Captain working for you and employing the group, then this could work, be historically accurate and add to the game (perhaps promoting the Privateer Captain to work in the govt. or military for you? Although who would replace him is anyone's guess).

7 - Ah. I was wondering about that. I wanted pirates to be independent and never form or detract from Civs. However, I see that they might settle down. Although my suggestion for that would be through privateering. As long as they remain pirates, they are unlikely to settle down. They may travel in search of new trade routes to plunder, but not much more. However, as privateers who cannot attack all merchants, things are different. Because of their good relations with a Civ and the increased trade for the village as a result, they may choose to retire from their ways and settle down peacefully or become traders, etc.

Still, I don't really want pirates to grow into other Civs at all. Although that's just my opinion.

TK - I agree...not having population guaranteed in every square is good.

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(kick myself for being so stupid point)

Diamond
Pirates settling down: We should have some way for things to change w/o ness direct military intervention. This isn't really a military game and there are other ways of winning than just brute force. That's why i added this. Perhaps the way i did wasn't the best, but it is historically accuracte.

Thing is, I don't want pirates to work for the player particularly. As entities, they are detrimental to all civilised cultures. If they were to settle down, they would form a very belligerent, militaristic cultural group. I just don't want there to be an "easy way out" for Civs to ignore piracy and wait for the pirates to settle down. I want them to be outcasts that thrive on the inactions of a Civ. A pirate fort is supposedly the worst thing that pirates can obtain, as it strengthens them so much that they become a direct military threat to a Civ, such as pirates did in the Caribbean. The answer there was not waiting for them to settle down, but patrolling the islands with warships and stamping out piracy as it occurred.

Any time to settling down would take about 100 years before the pirate group would even begin to settle down, and that would only happen if conditions weren't good for pirating, but not outright deterimental (ie seek and destroy all them). Usually such settling down occured with the local government apporval in exchange for giving up pirating ways (although this can be changed to just against that civ) and a payment of some sort. The settling down, like you said, would not result in a "civ" and the "culture" that emerges would be predomintaly agressive. In any event this would offer no advantages since it is a long term solution for places too poor to pro-actively deter pirates, but well enough off to keep them from doing to much damage to their country.

Besides, I don't advocate a search and destroy policy for pirates. This is for a number of reasons:

Problem is, I'm not exactly sure where piracy would fit in. So I don't really know who I should be trying to talk to.

Also, are there no more ideas on the piracy debate...or could no-one be bothered to think at the last bump?

1. Check out F_Smith's Beast (The Object Editor). Follow the test case; play with it generally. Tell him what you think about it.

2. Take a look at my recent proposal for infrastructure (the spreadsheet will be online soon).

3. Give us an opinion about demo5 and the interconnection between tech, infrastructure and ethnic groups. This is the recent discussion that takes place in the tech 5.3 thread.

If, however you are only interested in rebels and pirates, then comprehending the riots model (and contributing to it's further development too) is a must for you. It is also good to be familiar with the changes in the govt model too. Then you can make a proposal of how to incorporate your ideas to the existing structure. We will have to agree upon the detail of the modelling and then start an OOA on the subject.

I have read your ideas a long time ago, and from what I remember of it, it seems to me, that you are adressing piracy in too much detail for the scope of the game. But, while the central models remain in document form, it has no meaning to discuss about the details of piracy, since many things will change until the end.

I agree with Axi. Currently some other stuff is more important. Although, I took some time to check your model and here are my comments and criticisms. Just please don't get frustrated if for the time being this model is not a centre of attention. It will be at some point. Guaranteed.

1)I think there're too many detailed rules for a number of things. I like the model, but I feel it needs to become more general and abstract rather than handling low level info such as if there's or not a military unit in a near by mapsquare.

2)You speak about "zones". I'd prefer to get rid of this and simply use provinces. Why didn't you use normal provinces?

3)I believe all calculations in this model regarding pirate generation should be referred to province info rather than mapsquare info. That is, aC, aD and N should be province level info. As for pirate movements, I believe they should simply wonder around the province and when in a random movement they find themselves in a new province, only then they check if in this new province expected bounties are higher, in which case the movement will be allowed and otherwise it will be overruled.

3)I don't know if the trade model will handle trade routs on a mapsquare basis that here you seemed to assume true. Is there any base for this assumption? I'm just ignorant on the subject.

4)Combat between pirates and other military units doesn't belong here IMO. Combats should be entirely handled by the military model rules using both pirates and military units as regular task forces. Therefore your concepts "Strength", "Defensive Reduction", etc seem out of place here. Anything like ambush capability or such should IMO be re-defined as modifiers to already existent variables in the mil model. Otherwise a complete combat system is needed only to deal with pirates and that doesn't feel right.

5)Pirate attack over merchants should be treated in a continuos fashion instead of the "Failure", "Partial Success", etc categories you're using. A % of the cargo should be stolen in an encounter and a % of damage should the pirate unit receive depending on the parameters of the merchant and the pirate unit.

6)I very much like how you treat pirate techs.

7)Piracy affiliation to one civ should be IMO treated in a more abstract way. A simple contract in which pirates are no longer attacked by the civ and in exchange they attack civ's enemy military units (including non contracted pirates, which includes your "bounty hunters pirates" concept).

8)I don't understand how "P" and "f" are related.

9)I don't see any good in terms of "fun" whit the "merging" feature. I'd get rid of it.

10)I don't like the idea of forts and villages for pirates.

11)Modeling the pirates captain is IMO too detailed. This model should allow for characters (from the character model) just like any other model. In this piracy model having a character in the pirates group should just increase its normal abilities. That is, just act as a modifier instead of opening a door for several other piracy capabilities and activities.

12)Pirate units should also attack settlements. The unit could randomly attack abstract towns in the province they're wondering by. In game terms this means some small population is killed in the province and some destruction of infrastructure is made.

Ok, I know there're more criticisms than congratulations, but don't get me wrong... I do like your approach. I just feel it needs to be more abstract and less detailed, hopefully using also all what already exists in Clash and taking advantage of it.

I like the piracy model overall. It should add a new dimension to the game. The system should work pretty well. The Diamond has made a good start on the model IMO.

I also agree with roquijad. All of his points are good. The system will need to be refined.

But we really shouldn't be working on this now. We need to be building the basic models. Piracy is one of those things that will be put onto the game framework later. Right now we need to set up that framework.

Anyway, I'm happy to leave piracy to one side for now and enter discussion on the other game concepts. Although continued discussion on piracy as and when time is available will, of course, be greatly appreciated.

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1) There are a lot of detailed rules. However, most of these rules will take into account features existing within the game anyway. FE, a military "unit" in Clash will have to be aware if there is an enemy unit in the adjacent square for the military model. All I'm doing is extending this to get pirate "units" to look for military units/merchants in the area around them and respond accordingly. I suppose this would come under pirate AI.

The bottom line of this is that I don't want pirates to be random units that wander aimlessly around the map. I'd rather that they were a menace to society because of their ability to seek out merchants yet avoid direct military confrontation. The fact that pirates can become groups, etc. gives them teeth and makes them a factor that the player cannot afford to ignore forever...

2) The zone concept was one of the main original criticisms of this model. Here is my reason for using it:

Pirates should be independent of Civs. The player should not be able to directly influence pirate units and behaviour by beurocratic measures, ie, changing province sizes. This would also screw the model as it would be possible to force two pirate villages into the same province by skillful border manipulation.

Also, there are other reasons for zones. What happens if merchants are making long trade routes over unoccupied lands? If provinces are used, they will be invincible to pirates, who can only be generated within provinces (and therefore amongst military units, etc. making them all but a useless concept). In short, pirates who stray from provinces are useless, random, wandering units which I drastically want to avoid.

3) See the above point. I stress again that randomly moving pirates will be only a mere nuisance as opposed to a realistic, "intelligent" threat. Trade routes don't matter so much. The value of a merchant caravan and the strength of its defence are the only things that matter for piracy with regard to merchants in the new model.

4) The pirate combat system should be governed by the military model in general (the way attacks are calculated and carried out). what I referred to as strength is already a concept in the military model, I was just illustrating how it fits in with pirates. The morale and defensive reduction ARE modifiers that fit into the existing system.

Again, the only reason for their existence is to make pirates act differently to normal military units. Bear in mind that pirates are not controlled by Civs and under your suggestions have no "aims" and therefore do not react as normal to the presence of military units - ie, they will attack military units if they accidentally stumble into their square on their random movement. Otherwise, they are apathetic.

The system I outlined makes pirates avoid military confrontation unless they're in the belief that they're invincible (morale 9-10), in which case they try to kill everything that moves. It is designed purely to make pirates act in a dynamic way so that they have some form of AI, which I believe to be a positive factor.

5) In other words, what you're saying is that every pirate attack is successful. That was argued out at the beginning of this thread. FE, even the best ambush could go horribly wrong - and sometimes the worst planned attack can pull off a stunning victory. The concept of partial success, etc. is just an idea, though. Subject to change.

6) Thanks.

7) No. You mean a Civ can automatically negotiate with pirates...I disagree. Pirates don't actually want diplomacy. Many pirates would laugh at this kind of offer. It's only if the group had already proved to itself that a nation was friendly (leader-Civ relationship) that they would consider such a deal to be in their interests.

However, assuming that you could, would this be of any use? Since you can't order pirate units around - their random movement would be unlikely to ever bring them into contact with other pirates/enemy military units not in their direct area. The privateering model allowed the player the ability to send privateers to where they would be most needed.

That said, I like the idea of a more general non-aggression. I don't think pirates would want to attack ANY military units without a very good reason, hence privateers taking a lot of work to acquire. That said, I don't see a problem with adding Buccaneers to the model. IE, the Civ pays the pirate group a small fee per turn to convert group units into buccaneers, who will not attack friendly merchants or units (this already happens if the Civ is highly regarded by pirates, so this allows a diplomatic precedent). However, buccaneers will not necessarily keep to that treaty - they'll be less likely to stick to it than privateers. It just becomes another part of the civ-group early relationship (before privateers can be hired).

That said, its a picky detail to add.

Incidentally, I never want pirates to attack each other because of the merger concept. Group vs group could occur, but does this add anything to the game? I doubt it.

8)

P is the probability of pirate generation in a specific square in a zone randomly assigned by the game after the zone has calculated that a pirate will be generated.

F is the proximity of a military unit to that designated square. F is a value given from the number of squares to the nearest military unit. F values range from 0-4, indicating that nearby military units actively discourage pirate generation nearby as well as in the overall zone.

* P=1/F *

So, FE:

A pirate might be generated in square A. There are no military units nearby, therefore f = 1. So,

P=1/1 = 1. A pirate will be generated.

A pirate might be generated in square B. There is a military unit next to square B, therefore f = 4.

P=1/4 = 0.25. There is a 1/4 chance of a pirate unit being generated.

9) Merging allows for the creation of groups. Without groups, the 'n'th pirate must be given a character leader automatically. This would be both unreal and confusing. Besides, the leader unit has no influence over any other pirates, unless you order all pirates in its zone (or whatever) to become part of the group. In that instance, there are no independent pirates, which makes pirates easier to deal with on purely diplomacy - ie, deal with the group - forget about all piracy forever.

With merging, groups can be created only in areas where there are/have been at least three pirates close enough to meet and merge. Merging allows for distinction between group and independent pirates and allows groups to grow realistically. It isn't a fun concept, but a realism one.

10) Sorry, but I think you're alone on this one. I get the impression that piracy, in your opinion, is a set of random units causing dissidence...rather like rebels without a cause. I disagree. I want to separate pirates from rebel units. Whether that is a viable option in Clash (now or ever) I don't know, but for now I'll try.

Pirate villages and forts give pirates extra leverage in diplomacy, etc. To get a village, they have to be pretty strong. The village is a testimony to that strength and encourages the pirates to become stronger and more of a threat to the player. Forts are effectively the pirates staking their claim to a zone. Once a fort exists, it's going to take a lot of military power to oust the pirates, hence they are now a serious problem...not just an irritation.

11) I see the character leader as opening a door in the sense that once he exists, there is a pirate "group" to negotiate with, rather than, FE, 15 individual pirate units. It is the group, not the leader, which opens the first door. However, the leader's relationship with other Civs opens further doors. Basically, if you curry favour with the Captain, you can forge a diplomatic temporary or even permanent solution to the pirate threat. If the Captain hates you, the only answer is war.

12) Fine by me. However, since every square is populated, there'd need to be a further equation for working out if a pirate attacked and how bad the attack was. Again, as the group liked the Civ more, there would be fewer attacks on villages, etc.

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The problem in this trade-off is that to make pirates more abstract is not a continuous variable. Either they are abstract, or they are detailed. There is no possible fudge as I can see it. I can't see a way to generalise them without turning them into purely random units...which I don't want.

Hmm...Piracy could be a model of its own. That depends on the overall feeling of how important it is to Clash. I'd say rebels are more important than pirates, FE. When I started this thread, I was looking at working on a model to account for both. Early on I found that was impossible and so specialised on pirates since the govt. model was dealing with rebels.

Well, it depends on general opinion. If Clash just wants pirates to be there for historical accuracy rather than game interest, then general and not specific is the answer. If Clash wants pirates to make the game "trickier" or just add something else to think about, a detailed model is more appropriate.

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