Since you locked the official thread so we cant discuss in there, i've opened this one here.

first, thank you Walt for the information, nice to know a lot of the bugs/shortcomings are being adressed.

/* Quote
Update 1.2 (Preview)
Update 1.2 will be released approx. in the first week of july - here is the changelog:

Plenty of small fixes, e.g.
• Fixed several rare crashes
• Several problems with the manager and trade routes fixed
• Several missions fixed
• Advisor: less common and more useful
• Various display and text errors fixed

Lots of improvements desired by the community implemented, for example:
• Rising of reputation with nations by hunting pirates and destroying their hideouts
• Increased amount of gold when plundering towns
• Increased rewards for some transportation missions
• More missions (including sabotage missions)
• Storage administrators will be allowed to buy goods
• Clicking on citizens (gives voice feedback on the current situation)
• Increased town revenues for own cities
• Required construction goods for new building now increases the demand in the trading window
• In single player mode the user now can choose his own colour
• More startup options in "free game"
• game speed can be set to 0.0
• New trade routes strategy for balancing stocks
• The trade route strategy "empty warehouse" clears now only the first stock on the route

Improved sea battle
• explosive barrels last longer before they explode
• explosive barrels get a larger range
• explosive barrels can be dropped with middle mouse button
• Greater impact of sail damage (also facilitates boarding)

New Features
• The feature "treasure fleet" will be expanded a bit
• More animated portraits, e.g. messages from the city administrator and Viceroy
• Small gamble game in the tavern
• The game will be fully playable with Xbox controllers
• User can access most building from the sea chart without entering a town
*/ Quote

Now im left with a few questions.

What about Harbour/town Defence, is that planned or not deemed worthy for a revamp since not in 1.2?

Nice to be able to change colors of flags, but how about opening up for all the flags also? (like the one in my avatar, which is already in the game for the pirates)

When initiating battle, sometimes timestep jumps to 10x and stays, is that one of the minor fixes?

When attacked, will there be some sort of indicator WHERE or a jump-to-action button (without entering the fight) you could just make the crossed swords double the size so its easier to see it when zoomed all the way out.

When looting ships/fleets will you be able to capture all of them like they can capture all my ships.
Also the white flag is highly annoying, its impossible to capture/plunder tiny ships, they throw the white flag as soon as combat begins.


all in all im feeling happy about this game being worked on, and hope it will be fun playing as a merchant as well as a pirate.

br
Cover

Cover,

Thanks for porting this over so players can throw stuff around.

You sound disappointed about Harbor Defense ... I feel that simply turning that feature on without looking at other mechanics would be too soon.

I've been playing the game for a month and I've been observing the town attacks and they (devs) would need to look at other conditions, otherwise a harbor defense would be a waste.

I'll give you an extreme example of the current situation running in my free play campaign ...

The Dutch are in checkmate (2 towns), and their military convoy strength is 139 ... Holy crap, who pissed the Dutch off where they took their entire world fleet and brought them to the area? I don't stand a chance against them so I'll let it gel and adjust. When the Dutch declared war on England, they attacked one of their towns. I looked at the Dutch towns to check the number of fleets still in port ... there were only a handfull left. OMG, they sent around 100 fleets to take a town? Perhaps, but since their convoys were so many, the ships were overlapping each other so I couldn't verify an exact number.

Would your Harbor Defense stop this? ... Unlikely, and wasting convoys to protect a town isn't a viable strategy (IMO). I prefer to smash them in the open seas ... but, that's how I play. Also, I have 30 towns and 15 convoys (liner) to wage war with. I can't afford a harbor defense (in every town) if they gave me the ability to use it. If I had a few towns, I could use it, but since it's not available to use at the moment it's all speculation on my part. I encourage the other nations to take my weak towns because I can take them back on the next war. Players have already mentioned that particular towns change hands many times, those are the ones I use as bait.

Anyway, they need to look at other mechanics and tweak them before implimenting a Harbor Defense for us. That's my opinion as to why it's not a feature at the moment ... And I hope that's the reason.

Thanks again for allowing us to discuss any changes in your thread.

Rob

The 2 things I'm mainly missing are:
-A possibility for the player being a pirate to get more sailors!

-Ability to buy/construct ships in your own towns and/or an easy way to find out where ships are for sale (for example a list of all ships for sale in any town you have a steward)

(17-06-2012 03:40 PM)Gratak Wrote:  -Ability to buy/construct ships in your own towns and/or an easy way to find out where ships are for sale (for example a list of all ships for sale in any town you have a steward)

I have to admit this is really starting to be an appealing want as well, even if the cost was *significantly* higher then buying them straight from the docks it would be something I want. At this point in the game I'm going through I'm spending half my time just manually poking the various english docks hoping to spot a liner for sale...meanwhile I'd happily drop a few million even on the ability to just straight up order them.

- Need Specialized Schools - (25 workers each, can teach).
* Melee School.
* Gunnery Range.
* Nautical School (more sailors).
Who needs a teacher when I can train them myself!

- Ability to buy the Tavern. We can sell our rum at a very cheap price and increase the frequency of character appearances. Perhaps even build our own tavern with another work force of 25.

(19-06-2012 03:05 PM)Nageln Wrote:  - Need Specialized Schools - (25 workers each, can teach).
* Melee School.
* Gunnery Range.
* Nautical School (more sailors).
Who needs a teacher when I can train them myself!

- Ability to buy the Tavern. We can sell our rum at a very cheap price and increase the frequency of character appearances. Perhaps even build our own tavern with another work force of 25.

I don't think this is such a good idea, if money becomes a way to get everything you want then the game becomes unbalanced, certain towns already have frequent teachers and thats great, you don't need more. And the tavern idea is not so great either for the same reason

I'm looking forward to this patch, although I was hoping for a way around the maximum building limit in cities.

In my current game I've got 3 or 4 cities already full of buildings and a few more very close, while I would gladly build more businesses there if I only had the option. It's funny, because even when full of buildings, two of the cities in which I already hit the limit, can't sustain their own demands of some of the commodities they produce themselves, while I did try to spread the businesses more or less evenly between commodities. I had to specifically instruct the stewards to block selling to the town market, so my trade convoys could pick up stuff, either for raw materials or for sale on other cities.

I can't say anything for sure at the moment (requires more research), but I'm wondering how realistic the ratios between city population, demand and production quantity in the game are. I'd sure love to see the formula being used, but I doubt I could get access to that.

Anyway, does anyone else feel the same, regarding the building limit? Any thoughts?

Thanks,

K.

Hi Kelesis666,

Have you found Falko's dynamic map?
The "demand calculator" in this map may support your research.

Regards,
Cete

(02-07-2012 06:52 PM)Kelesis666 Wrote:  I can't say anything for sure at the moment (requires more research), but I'm wondering how realistic the ratios between city population, demand and production quantity in the game are. I'd sure love to see the formula being used, but I doubt I could get access to that.

Anyway, does anyone else feel the same, regarding the building limit? Any thoughts?

How realistic the ratios are? Well, does that really matter. As far as i'm concerned the only thing to know is, how do the demand (population) and production quantity relate to each other?

Let's take a look at wood & bricks. A single lumber mill produce 6 wood per day. Half of it is needed to produce iron, tools and rum (daily). There's only 3 wood left for the population to consume.
Now, a single brickyard produce 6 bricks per day, too, only difference is, that none is needed to produce other goods. That means 6 bricks can be consumed by the population per day.
Incidentally the population consumes twice as much bricks as wood per day.

A different example:
Meat & Ropes (if this is the term which is used in th game)
A stockyard produces only 1 meat per day (needs 2 corn) whereas a ropefactory (don't know how to call it) produces 2 ropes per day (need 2 hemp). Since the population consumes twice as much hemp as meat the numbers are even again.
By the way, 2 corn and 2 hemp are used to produce the meat and ropes. Those farms produce 4 per day and the population consumes as much corn and hemp per day as they consume ropes, which is 2 in this case.

That means:
If the multiplicator for a certain good to calculate the demand (population) is the same as the mutliplicator of another good, the factories/farms produce the same amount of goods per day after you substract the amount of the goods needed to produce another good.

I hope you get my explanation because i don't know how to do a better job on that, well except for a chart i made ... but that's in german:


Ahoy.

(02-07-2012 08:05 PM)Cete von Holstein Wrote:  Have you found Falko's dynamic map?
The "demand calculator" in this map may support your research.

I remember seeing that map before, didn't realize it had that feature, though. I'll check it out, thanks.

(03-07-2012 12:32 PM)legein Wrote:  How realistic the ratios are? Well, does that really matter. As far as i'm concerned the only thing to know is, how do the demand (population) and production quantity relate to each other?

Let's take a look at wood & bricks. A single lumber mill produce 6 wood per day. Half of it is needed to produce iron, tools and rum (daily). There's only 3 wood left for the population to consume.
Now, a single brickyard produce 6 bricks per day, too, only difference is, that none is needed to produce other goods. That means 6 bricks can be consumed by the population per day.
Incidentally the population consumes twice as much bricks as wood per day.

A different example:
Meat & Ropes (if this is the term which is used in th game)
A stockyard produces only 1 meat per day (needs 2 corn) whereas a ropefactory (don't know how to call it) produces 2 ropes per day (need 2 hemp). Since the population consumes twice as much hemp as meat the numbers are even again.
By the way, 2 corn and 2 hemp are used to produce the meat and ropes. Those farms produce 4 per day and the population consumes as much corn and hemp per day as they consume ropes, which is 2 in this case.

That means:
If the multiplicator for a certain good to calculate the demand (population) is the same as the mutliplicator of another good, the factories/farms produce the same amount of goods per day after you substract the amount of the goods needed to produce another good.

I hope you get my explanation because i don't know how to do a better job on that, well except for a chart i made ... but that's in german:


Ahoy.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. While you bring up a good point, your formula only works in a simplified environment. In addition to the condition you mentioned (the same consumption rate for all commodoties by the population), the formula works only when:
1) The city produces both a raw material (such as wood) and all of the commodoties that require that specific raw material (which is hardly ever the case, if at all).
2) There's an equal number of businesses for each type of those commodities (which is possible but usually impractical, due to build missions, lack of control over the AI's choice of buildings and other trade or finance related decisions made either by the player or the AI).
3) You factor outside trading out of the equation.
4) You factor out the effect of disasters or nature-related phenomena, such as fires, draughts, famines and so on, which tend to affect either the demand or the supply of only specific commodities and not others. I'm not sure about how the game works about this, but it would make sense to me that a draught would cause a major decrease in production of wheat and sugar, for example, while bread keeps being consumed by the population at the regular rate. This would either make less wheat available for consumption by the general population, or it would significantly slow down bread production, due to a shortage in raw materials (probably both).

By the way, I do expect the ratios to be somewhat realistic. It's obvious to me that the real-life market can't be simulated and predicted by 100% (evident by the mistakes being made even by the best analysts and businessmen in the world), but it can be simulated up to a certain degree of accuracy. If that degree is 70%, 80% or 90% - I don't know, but I do expect something in that approximate range. Otherwise, what's the point of the simulation element of the game?

Kelesis666,

I haven't reached the building limit in my games yet (running a piracy camp now), but one suggestion to overcome the limit would be to have different "levels" for the businesses. Each level increases productivity and worker cost but it wouldn't be on a per/building basis, more like an overall increase in level across one business in the town.

Also, something I noticed and I don't know if you've seen this at all. When the bar level is at 2, our business stops producing unless it's filling the warehouse. To increase supply, have you tried lowering the stewards selling price? Unfortuantely we're stuck with selling everything at a lower price (argh!). We make a lot of money (even at 120%) but I haven't researched a lower price (104-105%) yet.

I don't know what the ratios are, but I feel like demand is higher than supply (in both aspects, town and world) If it wasn't higher, then we'd be out of business, I suppose.

- Rob

(03-07-2012 03:14 PM)Kelesis666 Wrote:  Thanks for the detailed explanation. While you bring up a good point, your formula only works in a simplified environment. In addition to the condition you mentioned (the same consumption rate for all commodoties by the population), the formula works only when:

Actually i didn't say that. I said that IF the consumption rate for ONE good matches the consumption rate for another good, the output of the factory/farm per day is the same... if you subtracted the amount of goods needed to produce ohter goods from that output (total).
I am not talking about the consumption rate of a single city because you can only produce 5 goods in a city but there are 20 goods avaible in the caribbean.
I tried to explain that with the wood/brick-example. I simplyfied the example by concentrating on only one factory/farm because that's what you do when making an example - you use the simpliest version of it by cutting out variables (draughts, hurricanes, etc.) that makes it too complicate.
Those two factories (lumber mill/brickyard) have the same output but different consumption rates. Why? The answer is that wood is needed to produce rum, iron and tools. After you subtract the amount of goods needed per day you'll see that the output matches the consumption rate again... or say they're on the same level again. The consumption rate of bricks is twice as high as the rate of wood so is the output (after substraction of the amount of wood used as resource).

Again, i am not talking about a single city. I just tried to show the relation between consumption rate and the production output. I did this beacause i thought that's what you're interested in:

Quote:... but I'm wondering how realistic the ratios between city population, demand and production quantity in the game are.

To the following points mentioned by you in you latest post:
1. since i was nat talking about a single city i'll book it to "misunderstanding" if you're okay with it
2. i'll counted out the AI entirely to keep it simple and by the way... in the "end" (game), you'll going to possess all businesses anyway
3. i'll guess point 1 applies here, too
4. in a way point 2 applies here, too, because i counted out disasters to keep it simple
Again, i just tried to show the relation between consumption rate and production oputput of factories/farms.

You're totally right about draughts, they'll - of course - have an effect on
the production. When a hurricane hits a city, there's no production possible at all.
I also want this game to be realistic or more realistic but i do not focus on the consumption/production-ratios. I think there're other things in this game that need a change to make it make more sense.

If you or anyone else don't get what i'll explained, it could be my fault beacuse english is not my native tongue and i don't know how to explain it differently.

Ahoy!

Any new information when you see the next patch? I would now start to conquer the city and take control over the map

Almost the end of the first week of July...so...how's that patch coming along?

Got any good means of players defending thier own towns?
A solid fix for those builder quests when you haven't got a permit?
Fixing mouse scrolling post naval battle?
Anything?

we are working on it and will release as soon as the update is tested and ready for release.

A small, closed beta of the 1.2 patch was announced by Dennis, a Kalypso employee, in the German forum in celebration of July 4: Independence Day in the United States. Such a nod carrying international recognition was subtle, surprising, and will be the subject of a toast the next time I have drinks in Frankfurt.

For the beta, Kaylpso was looking for a couple dozen volunteers to receive the distribution and vette the change list. They were chosen first come, first serve. I thought I was a shoe in for responding 5 min after the post, but I hadn't logged into the forum and the posts weren't showing my local time. My request to be included on the team actually came about nine hours after the offer was posted, which doesn't seem to have made the cut.

As detailed in Dennis' post, the volunteer beta team itself is working under the typical non-disclosure procedure of this type of effort, so I wouldn't anticipate any details anywhere in the forum from them. You might, however, monitor the German forum for more details since that's the local language of the Kalypso team, if you are anxious.**

This all has the look of final Quality Assurance of the patch and distribution channel before release. While that doesn't give a better date whan what we have already, it is at least an indicator the countdown is in it's final moments.

I recognize the urgency for this patch born of equal parts anticipation of change and frustration with existing issues, but I, for one, will be refraining from holding my breath until the patch is done downloading.

** If you don't speak German, join the club. I speak Texan, English, Japanese, and Spanish, but I have to use translate.google.com to read the German board.

probably because the international retail (!) release is in August/September...(Steam is a seperate point! )...usually they are testing the retail version of the patch and not the version for Steam.
so i would bet, that international testers get a warm welcome, but wouldn't be able to help at the moment.

Lebe jeden Tag, als wäre es Dein Letzter! / Live each day as it would be your last!

(09-07-2012 02:00 PM)Dorimil Wrote:  ... the international retail (!) release is in August/September...(Steam is a seperate point! ...

Where is this information coming from? The only information I've seen has referenced the first week of July in both forums, and a "when it's ready"-style response to a request for an updated date.

Thanks!

(11-07-2012 04:25 PM)Slaymeister Wrote:  Where is this information coming from?
Thanks!

http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/showthread.php?tid=13862
Post #8 from Walt

Lebe jeden Tag, als wäre es Dein Letzter! / Live each day as it would be your last!

It's a numbers game as well as technical.

Technically STEAM do pre-release BETA, so have one set up with one pre requisite to load it on to your machine. The purchase key or the product code. Once that goes Alpha or is released that pre-release becomes "live". So to set up a test area for a game that has gone live is an overhead that would require a separate install routine for the testers otherwise everyone gets it.

However you look at it STEAM has many more users than the Kalypso Launcher and the launcher is slightly different for each game. It seems that the Launcher validates on email address and can be restricted to a sub set of the whole.

That doesn't mean that I think it is a mistake not to test the international version prior to release. I'm guessing there will be those annoying things like mis spelling, text overrun, and contextual issues. I don't see those has game breaking, but they just detract from game experience.

Anyone have an update on the patch? Ever since it was announced I have been reluctant to play, no point in not enjoying the game now and losing desire to play by the time the patch does arrive.

At the German board a post appeared saying they were looking for Beta-testers for the patch.

My guess is they're still testing the patch, hoping to solve as many bugs as possible.

So it seems you have to wait a bit longer. As do many of us.


Thorin

(14-07-2012 10:25 AM)Thorin Oakshield Wrote:  At the German board a post appeared saying they were looking for Beta-testers for the patch.

My guess is they're still testing the patch, hoping to solve as many bugs as possible.

So it seems you have to wait a bit longer. As do many of us.

Thorin

Unlike many others, I consider that good news. I don't mind waiting longer, if it means a better and more enjoyable game.

Hrm, second week of July is almost to an end.

FFS when are you guys releasing the damn update... its driving me insane!