Ahoy Mateys!
Finally, the Roadmap item known as the Enhanced Mayors & Captains update has finally gotten the TLC it needed! For so long this update has been the answer to many questions from this wonderful community that has been growing since even before release. After all of the preparations and patches since release, I felt the game was in a stable enough state to tackle this one.
The Mayors/Captains quickly became known as the Leaders Update as it covers off so much more than originally conceptualized pre-early access. Legitimately almost every piece of the game has been affected by these changes. From the tiniest pieces of UI, to the cannon fire and fleet building systems. This update is something that I've wanted to add to Rise of Piracy for the longest time, and I'm delighted to finally be able to present it to you.
There is still plenty to add and iterate on with regards to the leaders themselves and alongside your feedback, we'll get started on those right away.
Its worth mentioning at this point that although the upgrades are available and implemented for Tactician tree, but the ability to Deploy one of your leaders to ground is not yet there. I don't want to delay the release any further whilst I wait on art assets, and the ground RTS combat needs heavy rework (Starting Today) before that would be too risky / frustrating anyway, so for now - the leaders update is limited to the Campaign Map and onboard Ships within the battles.
There is plenty of scaffolding already in place for the ground deployment of Leaders, so you can expect that to arrive soon alongside a bunch of RTS rework and improvement.
A reminder that Early Access is a stepping stone on our way to v1.0 and to expect some issues from time to time, especially with brand new features of this scale!
Here's a quick summary of the many major non-leader related changes also included in this patch - I'll go into more details on each one further down the update:
- Boarding system
- Wind
- Pooling
- Movement
- Avoidance
- Clouds and Visuals
- RTS troop Movement / Improvements / Formations
- Load times improvement
- Line of Sight / Bombarding issues.
- And a bunch of bug fixes. Language support (Portuguese)
Backwards compatibility
This was difficult this time, so please folks, make sure if you have any initialization issues let me know. New campaigns fully regenerate a leader list and populate the world with them, existing saves will attempt to do the same. Everything should work, but as with all active development, and despite my best efforts - you can expect some hiccups along the way so heads up!
A brief history of the update itself
The leaders update has always been something I wanted to add, and many of the questions that came after release pointed towards that feature as I had imagined it. Its always great getting that kind of feedback from you fine folks as it reaffirms that we're on the same page, and I'm on the right track with development so thank you for that!
An overview of why so many systems are affected
As this update touched so many systems, I was fixing things as I went through - especially legacy systems that have been in place for 5+ years. This was the perfect opportunity to improve on older systems that had some redundant and bug prone areas, modernizing as I went through.
New Naming & improvements to old systems
Something seemingly quite simple was the starting point! No more "Hawsehole Jacobs" or "Five Eye Sally" or silly names like that, I've replaced the names with actual names from real 1700-1900 ship manifests, so you can expect greater accuracy with the names of leaders appearing in the game - relative to their origin factions!
Relationships
The player actions during the game already effected the faction relations to the player. With this change, these systems have changed and each leader has a relationship that effects how likely they are to join your faction, as well as the costs. The governors mansion upgrades finally have an effect!
Traits
All leaders have traits. Some good, some bad. Their hiring cost and wage depends on these. Leaders level up just after battles and activities. As they level up, you'll be able to assign and upgrade over 30 traits to them, from pools of 3 distinct archetypes - Governor, Tactician and Captain.
Carpenter | Repairs Fleet Ships during Combat |
Tradesman | Cheaper Ship Upgrades. |
Navigator | Campaign Movement Speed Increase. |
Quartermaster | Reduced Crew Payments. |
Spotter | Campaign Vision Range Increase. |
Historian | Higher chance of finding Treasure Maps. |
Researcher | Higher chance of finding useful Flotsam. |
Diplomat | Higher reputation gain when completing missions. |
Negotiator | Better options when conversing with Leaders. |
Doctor | Heals Crew and Leaders on Campaign Map |
Engineer | Repair Cost Reduced |
Mayor | Passive Island Income Increased |
Field Medic | Heals nearby units during ground combat. |
Unflinching | Enemy Grape Shot effectiveness reduced |
Unwavering | Less Chance of Surrender |
Threatening | Higher chance of Enemy Surrender |
Cruel | Happier populace with High Tax. |
Iron Will | Hull Damaged Reduced |
Stevedore | Increased Cargo Space |
Sailor | Movement speed during battle increased |
Anemophile | Less movement reduction when sailing into Wind |
Ancraophobe | Fear of wind! Higher penalty when sailing into Wind |
Impetuous | Will engage automatically and break formations. |
Nervous | Doesn't always follow orders. |
Risk Taker | Increased risk of Friendly Fire. |
Restless | Breaks formation and retreats when 50% damage taken. |
Mercenary | Higher Upkeep. |
Loyal | Lower chance to defect. |
Gunnery Master | Reduced Reload Time. |
Clumsy | Higher Cannon Reload Time. |
Inexperienced | Slower Ground Movement. |
Independent | No "Min Crew" requirement. |
Greedy | Takes a higer share from loot. |
Farmer | More income from Farms. |
Armoursmith | Higher quality Leaders available at Tavern. |
Blacksmith | More Sailors available at Tavern. |
Weaponsmith | More Musketeers and Pistoleers available at Tavern. |
Logger | Reduced Shipyard build Speed. |
Tavern Keeper | Faster Tavern Replenishment Rate. |
Brewer | Higher Population Happiness. |
Banker | Higher Max-Capacity of Financial Power. |
Soldier | Ground Combat Proficiency. |
Brig Specialist | Upgrades doubled when assigned to Brigs |
Frigate Specialist | Upgrades doubled when assigned to Frigates |
Galleon Specialist | Upgrades doubled when assigned to Galleons |
Ships Of The Line Specialist | Upgrades doubled when assigned to Ships of the Line |
Troop Transport Specialist | Upgrades doubled when assigned to Troop Transports |
Builder | Island buildings complete faster |
Tavern
The tavern has received a major overhaul to accommodate the new hirable leaders. New leaders of varying "rarity" will be added periodically for hire. It works very much the same way as the old hiring system for standard crew, but the more leaders you have, the more expensive they become.
There is a governance trait that will increase the chance of attracting higher "rarity" leaders to the tavern also, so keep an eye out for that one.
Drydock
The drydock also needed quite a bit of work this patch. Hired leaders appear here as with everything else purchased/hired from the island. Depending on the order that you add leaders to the ship, they become either the Captain, or various other roles.
The captain provides 100% of their bonuses to the ship they're assigned to, the leader in the 2nd position will provide a smaller percentage of their bonuses, and so on. This means that if you have 8 captains with stevedore (enhanced cargo space) traits, each leader on the ship will contribute to the cargo space of the ship.
I believe this system brings some fun and unique ways to play, as well as enhance your current fleet - so let me know what you think :)
Missions
Some of the missions have been changed heavily. Most importantly, physical leaders have been added to the transfer missions - if you lose the ship they're on, you fail the mission, so sail a bit safer nowadays!
More mission types are coming as we continue to develop out these systems.
Leader overviews
Double clicking on a leader portrait usually will open a detail dialog of the leader, with some exceptions. Inside this dialog you can see a detailed breakdown of all the pertinent leader stats, exp, traits and other useful information.
If the leader is not already aligned to you - you can offer to coerce them. But be careful with this one - if you've taken a mission to transfer a dangerous prisoner to some port somewhere by England, and you coerce the prisoner, that faction will hate you for it and may send someone to recover that leader by force. The cost for coercion is Renown - which has been rebalanced slightly.
Capturing
In the event of a defeat, or high risk retreats - your leaders may be captured by the island or fleet you've been fighting. This means that if your favorite leaders have been taken, you can gather strength elsewhere and return to rescue them!
You can also capture enemy captains and later coerce them or sell them for ransom.
Governance
You can assign leaders to govern your captured islands! There's a bunch of traits for this but the upgrades touch on most of the systems, and integrates with the Manage Settlement update nicely!
Wounding / Killing / Hardcore
After a battle, depending on the outcome, your leaders can lose Hitpoints. If a leaders hitpoints reach 0, they die and are removed from your fleet. Don't worry - there is difficulty options for this already added! Leader Can be Wounded / Captured and Killed respectively.
A wounded leader lowers its effectiveness. Leaders with above 80% HP have a 100% effectiveness, but below that they fall off and their bonuses are lowered.
Leaders can be healed by having a leader with a "Doctor" trait in your fleet, or by visiting the "Apothecary" in colonial Islands. The button for this only appears if you have wounded leaders.
Leaders also passively heal by a small percentage of their HP daily on the campaign map.
Hardcore isn't fully wired up just yet but it would end the campaign if your faction leader was to die.
Achievements
Some new achievements have been added to the game for both the Manage Settlement, and Leaders update!
Heads up! I may be changing these next update - Steam announced some nice new features in a recent post so I may be taking advantage of those. A few of the achievements may change as a result. Those of you that have already unlocked them will keep them though :)
Upcoming/unfinished/Future updates to the leader system
The pathway into the campaign still needs a bit of work - I'm not entirely happy with the flow there and will be looking to change it quite heavily over the coming weeks - with your feedback of course!
A captain unit that can be deployed with the crew, and bounty boards are also high on the priority list. Until I have these available, tactician tree is effectively mostly useless - but some of the bonuses do apply to deployed troops.
Non-Leader specific updates in this patch:
During development, the amount of changes that were coming through drove a bunch of changes across the board.
Boarding system
This has had a major overhaul. There was a bunch of bugs in this system already, ships becoming unselectable, sailing off into the distance, boarding operations never finishing, ships drifting too far from eachother - just to name a few. The system itself got a big upgrade, and the crew upgrades purchased through the drydock upgrades screen now contribute to the boarding calculations, as well as the assigned leaders!
Wind
The wind system also received a major, much needed overhaul. There's been plenty of discussion around this and with so many leader traits effecting the maneuverability of the ships, this seemed like a great time to fix it up!
Be careful though - some of the negative traits do effect this quite heavily!
Pooling
Pooling is a sort of "development tactic" in games where a bunch of things are created and waiting in memory near the start of the game, ready to use quickly, without having to "create" them on the fly.
The pool system I had in place was from around 5 years ago. It was one of the first things I added! Since then, the engine itself has had some major improvements and tools released that I wanted to take advantage of. You should all see major performance improvements across the battlemap as a result! I see alot of screenshots from ye folks with your super late game fleets, with hundreds of cannons firing off at the same time - this should for sure help with that! As well as larger fleet battles and smothering an island with cannonballs!
Reminder, the #share-your-screenshots channel on the discord is a treasure trove!
Movement
As above with the Wind improvements, Ship movement itself has been overhauled. Both from NPC and player control standpoints. You should notice a much smoother experience.
The order-lines have also been improved slightly, although I still think they look super ugly and will improve on them iteratively.
Avoidance
The avoidance system has been the bane of my existence for a long while! Well, one of them! Its been completely reworked folks. The main issue here is I'm relying on some really sketchy path finding systems to work out paths, then using physics calculations to steer and move the ships along.
I'm hoping that you'll see much less "mistakes" by the ships nowadays. Its a very difficult problem to solve but this iteration is definitely a massive improvement to what was there before.
Clouds and Visuals
Some VFX and clouds have been added to the campaign map. Simply because I needed a short break from the code! I'll be adding more stuff like this to the campaign map over time, as well as some nice POI's and areas of fog/etc eventually.
When at maximum zoom, you can sometimes see clouds. These cast a shadow below also.
RTS troop Movement / Improvements / Formations
The RTS control improvements task is the next highest priority item after the Leaders. I've changed a few things here that should improve the responsiveness and formation logic, as well as fixing a few bugs here and there.
There has been a bunch of scaffolding for the future patches included in this one - it should be super easy for me to add order queuing and editing, and I've already started experimenting with it. The next patch will change these systems heavily as we move towards deployable Leaders.
Load times improvement
During my travels through the legacy code, I've saved around 5s of initial game loading. I'm hoping all configurations will see an improvement of some degree.
Line of Sight / Bombarding issues.
Line of sight has been improved heavily - I found a pretty major bug in the logic thats been there since forever that basically made some ships completely blind to terrains and some rock formations. This effected NPC's more than others, but you've probably noticed it if you've played enough battles!
Other bug fixes (summary)
You can see the full list of the crazy amount of bug fixes this patch on the discord under dev-updates. There are simply too many to list here! I may post the list and daily iteration notes on the leaders update in there too.
There was so many areas changed and tested this patch that a bunch of things were noticed - and items that were reported over the past few months have been tackled if they were in those areas also.
New Bundles!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/92552/Rise_of_Piracy_x_Repterra/
I've played a few hours of this and really enjoyed it, we've decided to bundle with Repterra! An awesome Survival RTS, a mashup of two of my favorite genres! Delighted to be invited to bundle by Chute Apps!https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/93872/Deck_and_Conn_x_Rise_of_Piracy/
And another awesome retro-style command game, Deck+Conn from MicroProse!https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/95586/Rise_of_Piracy_x_Sword_of_the_Samurai/
Retro Style Samurai Pirates? I'm in!Language support (Portuguese)
Portuguese has been added to the limited localization cover - keep in mind this feature is experimental, and coverage is not high yet.
Events
I was at Nexus last month! Fantastic event, plenty of Irish gamedevs. An exciting time ahead for sure.
I also went to KnaveCon in Limerick! I'd definitely recommend it for those of you in Ireland that enjoy boardgames!
The Roadmap Update
I don't wanna call the Expanded Mayors and Captains done until I hear some feedback on it, and I get them deployable to land, but we've made great headway over these past two months.
The next update will be a banger and should tick off a bunch of the ones I've just marked Partial!
Consider joining the Discord!
There's a spot on the discord called #ask-the-community where some gameplay mechanics are sometimes voted on :)
Also, a #dev-updates channel which I update almost daily as I progress through the workload.
Thank you!
A gigantic thank you to everyone that has been providing feedback and dropping kickass steam reviews on the game! It helps a tonne. As a solo dev its an incredible feeling to know so many of you are enjoying the game and seeing the vision.
This was a very difficult patch to put together & I'm delighted to get this iteration of it to you. Early Access is all about community and a constant feedback loop, so seeing you all react so positively to the update post, as well as the forum posts and discord has been fantastic!
It felt super weird not pushing out an update for so long, so thanks for bearing with me on this one!
Oíche Shamhna Shona Daoibh!
