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Ship Of The Line Solved! (New Theory)
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Mailman
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 10:04 pm    Post subject: Ship Of The Line Solved! (New Theory) Reply with quote

Ships Of The Line, SOTL's (New Warships) are tied directly and only to Treasure Ships. Treasure ships are tied to wealth. Targeting Treasure ships exclusively, yields New Warships from their nation. All other lost ships cause loss of wealth. Wealthier cities yield heavier New Warships. A New Warship is assigned for each Treasure ship lost regardless of nation. (English, French and Dutch yield Brig of War, Frigates & SOTL's, Spanish yield Royal Sloops and others. Target an area, feed them New Governors and Sugar Plants and take only Treasure ships, Pirates and Indians,
EDIT: It appears Indians are good for the economy. (your call). Confused
Then set your face to: Stunned Shocked

Edit: Watch my video demonstration. Save Gave file from video available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3k9QNEpn_8



Last edited by Mailman on Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:18 pm; edited 6 times in total
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Mailman
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 2:28 am    Post subject: Re: Ship of the Line Solved Reply with quote

It would seem that taking a minimum number of vessels per month will trigger a New Warship. Assuming that you're able to bring many new governors, block invasions and take enough Treasure Ships you will trigger one. Also assuming that Treasure Ships lost don't reduce the economy the same as most other lost ships, do.

Last edited by Mailman on Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Roland
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 3:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesing! So fans of royal sloops now have an added incentive to take on the Treasure Fleet.
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Mailman
Powder Monkey
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:22 pm    Post subject: Interesing! So fans of royal sloops now have an added incent Reply with quote

I'm not sure how the Treasure fleet dynamics play into the economy but they're tough and pay little. I ignore them. I help the Spanish with governors and each one, once wealthy, triggers a Treasure ship. You just need to be near enough to see them so I work the Spanish main starting at Trinidad until I get the Royal Sloop I want, then I conquer them for the English to get my mail runner and/or Ship of the Line.
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Mailman
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Ship of the Line Solved Reply with quote

It appears Sugar Plants count as Governors and also yield Treasure Ships. If you eliminate a nation such as the Dutch, you can use their nearby settlements for Sugar Plants.
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Mailman
Powder Monkey
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:51 pm    Post subject: Ship Of The Line Solved! (Theory) Reply with quote

The big tip off for me was noticing that Named Pirates can't always engage Treasure Ships. I've seen them trying, often. Only rarely can they take them. The rest pathetically orbit the Treasure Ships in futility. Why? I suspected because the Treasure Ships are linked to something. I theorized that the Treasure Ships are linked to New Warships. To verify this, I stuffed the cities with Governors on the Spanish Main and targeted only Treasure Ships. Lo and behold, New Warships began being issued. The richer I made the cities, the more and powerful New Warships came out. I have since used the Trainer to maximize the wealth and zoom out. Caution: I might be suffering from confirmation bias so please help verify this theory. Thank you. Wink
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Mailman
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 5:19 am    Post subject: Re: Ship of the Line Solved! Reply with quote

Further. The game conspires to achieve certain circumstances. One of those is Poor Wealth (of cities). It accomplishes this in a number of ways: Invasions such as Enemy nations, Unnamed Pirates, Indians and Enemy Raiders as well as named Pirate ship attacks on fleets. (I also noticed that my attacks on Merchantmen were impacting their economies.) If you prevent these attacks and settlements are close then the wealth will be stable at counting time. If so, the city issues a Treasure ship.
In my experiment I isolate one Pirate Haven and one Indian settlement only, way out by Campeche. I convert all the other settlements using the Phalzyr trainer. This means that once I sink a Pirate Raider it takes awhile for it's replacement to arrive. This alone stabilizes the economy and additional Governors/Sugar Plants keeps them filthy (rich). I like to install the English from Trinidad to Santa Catalina. This forces their ships along the shore and into the line of sight. The cities are close and there are usually many settlements.
I hope this new theory, once confirmed, will be exploited by a map maker to make the Ultimate Killing Field.
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jlangsdo
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I looked into the pirates_savegame_editor.pl, and there is some evidence in favor of this theory.

The "Treasure ship" designation is stored in the Quest section - like wanted criminals, ships with ultimatums, peace treaties, immigrants, invasion forces, new warship, etc. It's not like the ship dispositon of privateer, raider, smuggler, etc. The Quest section also stores the starting city of the ship.

This suggests a test for someone familiar with the savegame editor. Unpack the pst file. Pick a ship (perhaps a ship close to yours), find its ship number. Then fill in an unused Quest section like this:

Quest_15_0 : V4 : 12 : 30 for wanted criminal, 10 for escort
Quest_15_1 : V4 : 31 : City (San Juan)
Quest_15_2 : V4 : 0 : Ship number of pirate
Quest_15_3 : V4 : 57 : Ship number to be escorted
Quest_15_4 : V4 : 21775 : DateStamp (Apr 21, 1660)
Quest_15_5 : V4 : 12 : Purpose (Treasure ship)
Quest_15_6 : V4 : 0 :
Quest_15_7 : V4 : 0 :

_0 is set to 12
_1 is set to the starting city (Ship_*_3_7)
_2 is 0
_3 is the ship number
_4 should match the ship DateStamp (Ship_*_4_4)
_5 is set to 12
_6 and _7 are 0

Then repack, load the savegame, and take the ship - and see if a new warship is spawned. Also, I would guess that the new warship might get the same start and destination cities as the taken treasure ship, that would make it sure to pass through the same waters.

Also looking through a saved game file, the DateStamp on the new warships does not exactly match anything in the log - it would be a smoking gun if the new warship was spawned with the same DateStamp as the log of the offense.

Arguing against the theory, I have two savegames file with a new warship in it with no offenses near the DateStamp of that new warship. Other cases do show a ship taken in the Log just before the new warship was spawned.


[/u]
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Roland
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jlangsdo wrote:
Arguing against the theory, I have two savegames file with a new warship in it with no offenses near the DateStamp of that new warship. Other cases do show a ship taken in the Log just before the new warship was spawned.

In those two instances, could the treasure ship have been attacked by an enemy nation or a pirate, rather than by the player?
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Mailman
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:52 pm    Post subject: Ship Of The Line Solved! (New Theory) Reply with quote

Roland wrote:
jlangsdo wrote:
Arguing against the theory, I have two savegames file with a new warship in it with no offenses near the DateStamp of that new warship. Other cases do show a ship taken in the Log just before the new warship was spawned.

In those two instances, could the treasure ship have been attacked by an enemy nation or a pirate, rather than by the player?


My observations support the idea that enemies are sometimes responsible for lost Treasure ships and therefore, New Warships. In fact, I tried to use Named Pirates to assist in blockading an area after I noticed 'auto' New Warship production. Working with them, it wasn't long before I had to face the diminishing economy. Parallel to these observations was the Treasure ship/New Warship suspicion. So I eliminated the Named Pirates in my target area, refrained from taking Merchant vessels and focused on Treasure ships. I still believe that taking Merchantmen might trigger a New Warship, but I suspect the loss of that merchantmen undermines the Wealth factor. Sad

Here is my video demonstration of the Mailrunner-Royal Sloop (Made Easy) strategy. At approximately 13:22 Stede Bonnet is drawn by a Treasure ship but fails to stay interested and just wanders away. Confused

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdNWc2mMxQk&feature=youtu.be
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have been trying hard lately to duplicate what you are saying and so far it has not worked. I built up all four French towns in Haiti (Leogane, Petit Goave, Tortuga and Port-de-Paix, made all 4 of the wealthy. Then I attacked every ship I could find, including several Treasure ships. No luck. This was the year 1687 so there should have been some but no way.

BTW, some of the ships I knocked off caused the cities to lose their wealth. I understand you do NOT want to take out a Governor ship if you are hunting SOTLs but many of the other ships also caused loss of wealth, especially the guarded Merchantmen. So, what precisely causes the SOTLs to spawn? I played a game to age 80 one time and finished with 8 SOTLs but it was just general mayhem that seemed to cause the new warships.

One time, a barmaid even told me a SOTL was coming, that was fun.
Of course, I always used my war canoe to take them out, it is easy, just dodge the cannonballs, board and turn them into hamburger!
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 4:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is NOT working! I made Tortuga and Port de Paix wealthy and pounded their shipping but no SOTLs or even Large Frigates come after me. I better move on to the English!
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Rusty Edge
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 4:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Has anybody else had results to share from this approach?
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 4:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I second that question! I spent about 20 hours of my time setting up and beating the dog poo out of the French and they just WOULD NOT send out any SOTLs! What the heck causes it? Then I sail a ways away and look back and there is a SOTL sailing near where I was! This is perplexing! Confused
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