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Quote from: Coconut Kid on 01/30/10 at 12:41 PM
Now I wonder whereare defined. Well, I guess I should say I wonder if both local and trade are rich prey for cruises.Quote from: Charlemagne on 04/16/03 at 02:04 PM
(1) At the start of the game each region has a rating from 0 -9 for [each of] local traffic\trade, long distance traffic\trade, and naval\war vessels. This is a total of 9 numbers for each region because the different nations have different numbers.
(2) When a game starts there are some [assume a random number which may be anywhere between 0 - 9] number of points of unallocated naval\war traffic for each nation. Every month the nations move 1 point into the currently most plundered (gold and captives) region, until they have no unallocated points. Also, they move a long distance trade\traffic points out of the most plundered region.
(3) Once they are out of unassigned points, they start reassigning based on the same criteria. Moving points out of non-plundered regions into plundered regions. [It seems that this illogical statement has to do with naval\war points rather than all three types.]
(4) The points are used to figure out what you encounter when a target is sighted on a cruise. The highest level possible is 9 naval, 9 long distance trade & 9 local traffic (for each nation). Obviously if a region has reached the 9 level for naval and has moved down to 1 on [both] the merchant levels, almost all of the encounters you have in that region (with that nation) will be with naval ships.
(5) Settlements [farmsteads, trading posts and military posts] provide a boost to these point tallies. A farmstead gives a boost to local traffic and so on.
I regret that there will be no authoritative reply to these questions:
>> 1 Does "merchant level" mean both local traffic and distance trade? I suspect it does, but why should the algorithm treat them both the same? While distance trade will drop to 1 ; local traffic should never drop below 4 because it should always be very poor pickings (even at 9) indeed. Meanwhile - it is like bait on the hook for the naval forces.
>> 2 That's interesting. Now one has to discover the classes of settlements. 1. Indeed, I also see the contradiction in Charlemagne's words - in the 3rd paragraph he only mentions long distant merchant traffic, while he talks of "merchant levels" in the 5th paragraph. Unfortunately, I have played T2 over the last years only very occasional and superficial and have lost a lot of experience from the days I played it regularly -- but I'm pretty sure that this question can be answered empirically by testing it out.
2. The strategy guide [published only in German] states that farmsteads will boost local traffic of small vessels, a trading post will bring more big Merchant Ships and that a Military fort means that you always encounter some warships in a seazone.
Sadly Charlemagne has not posted anything on the
4th type of ships you can encounter -
other pirate vessels. They can be quite interesting targets, as they tend to bring you certain skilled captives you can't get from ships of the European nations and - of course - lots of new recruits.
WOW! What a good guide for selection of map regions for crusing. The various shore settlements indicate:
- Farmsteads = more small ships for local traffic.
- Trading Post = large merchant ships on longer trips.
- Withdrawn if looting is intensive.
- Military Post = greatly increased chances of encounter of naval\war ship.
You really need to expend some time and effort on exploration, eh?
