New Scenario - Curse of the Blue Parrot

[CafeDave]

I have finally completed my first scenario for Tropico 2:  Pirate Cove.  It is called The Curse of the Blue Parrot, and is based on part of the story for the move Pirates of the Caribbean.  I think you will find it a challenge to get gold on this one.

Good luck any who try!

[Hayreddin Barbarossa]

 
I've just downloaded and will give it a try after completing the firmware campaign.
 

[Coffeebean]

Well after a bit of a break from playing PC I was inspired by this scenario to play again.

I've just given up on my first attempt and am about to start again.
This time I will try to start getting money a lot earlier on.
It is very exciting though trying to find the gold pieces!

[Coffeebean]

Wow! This is an awesome scenario.
Great fun - I've never done so much exploring and cruising before. I found that getting the right building order at the begining was vital for a quick start and boy do you need a quick start! Pressure's on the whole time.
I've been working my little socks off trying to beat it and I've finally done it!
Only a bronze medal, but I wear it with pride.
I'm going to be having another shot at it as I have seen a few ways where I can make improvements.

[CafeDave]

Well done Coffeebean!  That's a good score.  I had to check your happiness against mine and of course yours was much higher than my 51% on my gold game.  I only got gold once and it may have been cheating since I was modifying some events along the way so I'll have to try from scratch again.

How many years did it take you to get there?

[Coffeebean]

I did it in 10 years - it gave me the winning message just after the 10 year anniversary - if I'd only had another 9000 in my hoard I'd have got a silver!

If you do get gold again let me know.
In my bronze game I had 2 Brigs and 3 Schooners, what ships did you have?

[Coffeebean]

Yay! I'm getting better, I got a silver medal.
The temptation to replay the same game when I know where all the pieces of gold are is great, but I'm resisting it at the moment.
In this game I had 3 brigs and 3 schooners. I ended up having to assasinate quite a few lazy good for nothings as they were taking up housing and entertainment space that I needed for my hard working crews. I wish you could order your ships not to bring back more crew.
My poor geographical knowledge has given me some difficulties on this scenario - so I've made a printable b&w map showing the areas, I'll attach it if anyone wants a copy.

[CafeDave]

Very good 'Bean!  Sounds like you're getting onto it.  I can sympathize with wanting to replay a game but it does take all the fun out of it.  My favourite ship fleet is 4 brigs and 2 frigates.  If you send 2 brigs and a frigate into an unexplored zone all at once, it will be like the back of your hand when they're done, so that's how I like to explore.  You can cover 4 new zones a year that way if you send them out twice.  Other combos likely work too, but the brigs work well because they stay out so long.

Good idea on the map.  I think TJ or someone also posted a map early on in the scripting board showing all the zones.  I could give more hints on how the hidden coins are setup but that might spoil it for you.  Just make sure you explore all the map, since coins will not likely be all close to one another.

[CafeDave]

Well, I gave it a try again last night 'Bean and I got gold again and a score of 128829!  The only cheating I did was to reload after ships sinking.  Without that I'm sure my score would be lower and maybe even not have got gold.  I'll have to give that a try next time I suppose.  

I lifted the curse by March 1677 and decided to go for one more cruise to up my score.  I lost a brig but didn't reload and built a snow quick to replace it.  I also threw some parties and the end and realized I hadn't even built a brewery yet, so I built one quick and gave them free beer.  No wonder my pirates were so thirsty.    In September I ransomed my 107 wealthy captives and some skilled ones to get a total over $50k.  

[Coffeebean]

Well done Dave - I still can't get more than a SIlver medal.
107 wealthy captives!!!!!!
LOL - how on earth do you supply enough entertainment so your pirates get a look in if you have 107 wealthy captives?
Getting enough in my hoard is always the big struggle for me. Do you use the spy at all?

[CafeDave]

I don't usually let my captives build up that high, but I had so many that I could not click the ransom page to find out who was worth the most, so I just kept them all.  Somehow my pirates didn't complain too much and their happiness stayed high.  At the end, I had 4 wench houses, 2 dives, 2 eateries, 2 dens, 3 taverns, 1 brothel and salon, 2 inns, 2 casinos and 1 hotel.  The inns made the most money, at $27845 combined, followed by the casinos at $22965 combined.  These were at gouge 'em, but most of the mid-level entertainment was at middling rates.  So you really don't need that much in a short game.

[CafeDave]

Arggh!  I tried it with no reloads and only got silver in May 1678.  Couldn't find that last coin in time and I hired my spy too late so he never showed up.    But I had over 100 captives that I didn't even need to ransom for silver, so I could have got gold for sure.    

[Coffeebean]

Well I'm still trying to get the Gold and am getting closer but collecting the hoard is still taking too long.
Then last night I was invaded by the English!!!
That's never happened to me before, in any game, so it was quite exciting!
I didn't even kidnap Will Turncoat, I picked him up on a cruise in an area different from the area my spy had told me he was in!!??
It's worth getting invaded though, just to see the video, unfortunately I got absolutely slaughtered.

[CafeDave]

Congrats on your first invasion 'Bean!    I enjoyed my first invasion too.  The video of those ships heading your way is a scary sight.  

And yes it is possible to obtain Will without kidnapping.  The script only checks for an increase in the number of skilled blacksmiths after you get the message that he's found. So a hint is to leave it until the end of the game so you don't get the English even more riled up.  But for each coin you discover, your relationship also drops, so even a single escape may be enough to let the English know your island location.  Once I had to free all my English captives to appease them, fortunately it was near the end of a game.  

[Coffeebean]

And yes it is possible to obtain Will without kidnapping.  The script only checks for an increase in the number of skilled blacksmiths after you get the message that he's found. So a hint is to leave it until the end of the game so you don't get the English even more riled up.

Ah I see. I did work out not to pick up Will until the end, but you can't control who you pick up on cruises - can you?
Order to Captain "Throw any captured blacksmiths overboard, ARRRGGHH!"

[Fampa]

i'm not sure if this is scenario related - but this is the first time it's happened to me.

shortly after i captured will, all my captives disappeared.  even my undead.  i'm now left with an island full of unhappy pirates and no workers or haulers.   is this a scenario or tropico bug.  i did receive an error message as well, something about an unknown name....

sorry about the grammar - shift key isn't working  

[CafeDave]

Wow, Fampa!  Thanks for letting me know.  It is most likely a scenario bug but I have never had it happen to me.  It is programmed to rename the captive when you get him to the proper name, but perhaps that process got messed up and it turfed everybody.  

By the way, Frogcity have uploaded this scenario to their own site.  You can see it here on the December 12, 2003 entry:

http://www.frogcity.com/index.html

Thanks for the recognition!

[TJ]

CafeDave,

I think I noticed a problem with your win/lose conditions in your scenario.

What happens if after the 12 years, you have not broken the curse but you do have a hoard value more than 20000?

If I am reading the script right, the game never ends. I believe you just need to remove the condition on hoard size.

[CafeDave]

Ah well, yes, that would be part of the curse, to be a living skeleton marooned on Isla de la Muerta forever.    

Actually, you're right TJ.  I should remove the hoard condition on the defeat event.  Attached is an updated text file if anyone wants to update their scenario.  Thanks for pointing that out.

[Severous]

Ive switched this comment from another thread where i was responding to Captain C...

Captain C

In the Blue Parrot Curse scenario...ive been on my first go for the last week or two.  

3.7 years in. 4 coins found.  5 ships (2xBrig, Schooner, 2xSnow). Just lost my 6th ship.  A good performing Schooner comanded by Teach.  Building third Brig.

Scammed hard on the Tavern customers for two months ($30k of ransoms) and cashed in $10k of that.  Not having cash problems anymore nor thanks to a couple of big scum hauls am I short of pirate manpower.  Short of captives and needing to do loads of 'two job' micro management to keep all the entertainment working.

Making regular decisions about should I cruise or should I explore. Undecided on whats best and seem to settle for Snows exploring and fast well crewed schooners cruising. Brigs with longer range doing a bit of each depending upon weapon availability.  

Calico's Brig just lost all its hand weapons. (Subject in another thread). It maybe exploring next time out in order to try and completely explore/finish off one of the zones currently at level 6 out of 8 on the knowledge scale.

Found that sometimes I discover a settlement on the first explore of an unexplored zone - whilst another took an explore of an already 'back of hand' zone to find the settlement.

Ive just sent a short handed Snow on a boardem cruise into a dangerous sea zone...by mistake.    I forgot to change orders from Cruise to Explore.  Fingers crossed.

[Severous]

Done it.

Got up early to finish this prior to going off on holiday later today.

Heres the Gold. Finished 26Oct1673.

Had done more exploring in this than in any other game ive played.

Had no idea where the coins were as this was my first go (no peaking at script either) - no cheats on the coin aspects but otherwise used used all my scams including a new one where I earned $30k from 8 captives in the Tavern (another thread).  No saves when ships lost - 7 lost including a mistake when a Snow was sent cruising instead of exploring.  Made the same mistake with a Brig but that came back with $3600 and 24 people  

[Severous]

One of the island logs I dont look at much normally but in this case it shows the key events with a bit of info blocked out so as not to give away clues.

[Severous]

And how my island looked at the end.

So many ships docked is a rare sight for me.  I turn them around immediately except when repairing damage.  Here though 3 ships are seaworthy but ive let the crews off to relax whilst the capture of Will the Blacksmith was completed.

The ships were named with scenario and ship type in mind.  'Big Curse' being the highest earning ship to survive.

Entertainment had been busy until I ransomed off most of the wealthy captives in the last month. Had a few left to ransom mainly English (including some of my scam money) that I wasnt sure I could risk ransoming due to a delicate diplomatic status. That was another first in this scenario - having to worry about the major powers.  Avoided the fate of Coffeebean though - no invasion - but I had to work on it.  

All in all - a really good scenario.  And my advice - you do have to explore zones even when on 'back of the hand'.  Two zones where already in this status before I found the English Settlement.  It would be so easy to move off to search another zone and completely miss the English Setlement you need to find.

Thanks Cafe Dave  

[Severous]

One little quirk.

When capturing the Skilled Blacksmith which is part of the scenario victory conditions.  

He had three different names:

- Named Felipe Suarez in the log of the ship who captured him (thought I had the wrong bloke)...see below

- Named Samuel Grant when landed back home on the island (still wondered if I had the wrong bloke)

- Named Will Turncoat in the scenario victory conditions.(Yay..got him)

No wonder we can have a hard time tracking him down.  

[Severous]

Stats from my play of CafeDave Curse scenario.

The upper table shows the number and type of naval missions each ship undertook.

The lower table shows the total number of days at sea, whether moving to/from dock to the map edge,  moving to distant sea zones,  or on station cruising/exploring/raiding. Then the raid and cruise success.  

This scenario initially places your docks a fair way from the map edge.  Something I lived with rather than redevelop a new dock closer to the map edge.  You can see it meant a lot of sailing time during the duration of the game.

Exploring was the key requirement in this game - 47 explore missions was by far the most ive done in any game.

Lost 8 ships in all - shown in red. Most frustrating was loss of the starting Brig 'Blue Parrot'. It had sunk 9 ships on its maiden combat voyage before it was sunk in turn by an enemy unknown. It was crewed by Captain plus 5 others...a bit light handed but had meant it had been on patrol over two months.  It was soon due to return home but then its luck ran out.