Feature Request: The Scottish Colony

[Vincent]

Right, I wanted to submit this request separately from the second list of new feaatures I’m currently working on, since I’m pretty enthusiastic about this one subject.
In the game, we do have a Scottish RPC (not Tavish Greaves, the other one, can’t recall his name) who hails from a Scottish colony in the Caribbean. I did a quick look at sources online, and I believe that the text entry for this character refers to the Scottish colony founded by the Darien Plan, near the Isthmus of Panama. Personally, this was very intriguing to me, as I’d never known of this colony before, and it was exciting – primarily because I have Scottish ancestry myself (I’m related to the Baxter clan) and really enjoy hearing about the countries culture and exploits.

So, my request is thus; can we try to include the Scottish colony in our game? I’d really like to see it included, and I think it could be a very fun project with great results – it’s a piece of nearly forgotten history that would really stand out in this game, and including it could open up a window for new stories to be told. As an example, a main quest could be built for the character I mentioned previously, where the player is tasked with trying to support and defend the colony – this could either end as it did in real life, or it could be worked so that a player who does well and makes the right choices can change history and make the colony succeed. It could also be used in a more limited role by other characters during free play, such as having members of the colony hire a player to smuggle goods past English blockades/patrols, or to carry the colony’s goods to a market and return with the profits; other options could be to defend the colony against Spanish incursions and pirate bands, fetching medicine to help treat tropical disease outbreaks, carrying a load of new colonists to the town from an island at the edge of the Caribbean where they arrived, etc. The colony can probably be listed under the English flag, since Scotland was nominally allied/a part of England at the time (at least I think it was), and then simply program the town and its inhabitants with a unique set of friend and enemy factions if necessary – and it could possibly act as a haven for characters who have pissed off the English, give that the Scottish colonists would likely enjoy tweaking the English noses.

This would be a somewhat hefty undertaking if I’m understanding it right, so I certainly don’t expect it to be done pronto (or even be at the top of the to-do list) if you guys do try to include it, but I think it would be a great piece of history to include in our game, especially since it had a major effect on the course of events between Scotland and England (Scotland officially became a part of England mainly because this whole venture failed, based on what I’ve read). Besides, we’ve already got a reference to it in one of our character bios, so why not go all the way and include the actual colony? That would open up a new avenue for quest possibilities, and a chance to include a new main quest with a unique character very few people have ever heard of before.

What do you guys think? I’m prbably biased because of my Scottish ancestry and my own personal love of that country, but I still think this sounds like a great idea. Any opinions or thoughts?

[Capt Qbert]

Cool idea Vincent!

Was the RPC you are thinking of Stiofan O Siadhail? I’ll need to check his backstory tonight when home, can’t recall @ the moment.

[Vincent]

I believe that’s the one Capt QBert, yes. I did a quick look online to see what I could find about this place, and the only Scottish colony in the Caribbean was the one that was part of the Darien Plan – it was called either Darien or New Caledonia, and the main settlement was New Edinburgh. It’s located right where the Latin Americas connect to the northern edge of South America, so you can see why the Spanish might take offense to that. Not only that, but Scotland was at least nominally independent during this time period, so the English (who were practically the only ‘allies’ the Scots had) also saw them as a threat, and forbade their ships to trade with the colony. This, combined with disease and other factors, spelled the end of the colony, which was unfrtunate for Scotland itself. Much of the nation’s money had been sunk (and lost) in this venture, and this failure played a big role in the union act that brought Scotland under the complete rule of England near the turn of the 17th century.

That’s why I want to try and include this place, as it’s mostly forgotten, yet it’s still an important piece of history, for both the Caribbean and Scotland and England. I truly feel it could be a cool addition to our game just based on the story behind it.

[modernknight1]

Actually its Colonel Thomas Drummond you are talking about.

FYI the other character you were referring to – was one which my own youngest son (Stephen) actually asked me to create for him (that’s actually my son’s face on the character which creeps his mom out everytime she sees it LOL. He is not actually a real historical figure but based on many of the stories of the Wild Geese – who left Ireland in 1603 and throughout the next fifty years as part of what’s known now as “The Flight of the Earls”. Basically most of Ireland’s nobles abandoned it at the end of the wars of English conquest. With the island barren and depopulated and a giant cemetery for the English army with one of every two English soldiers of the era buried in Ireland – there was nothing left. Many went to France, Spain and Austria and became Gallowglass mercenaries. Quite a number were even given high level commissions and some even awarded titles of nobility in their new countries. In my next installment on Puerto Rico you will learn about the famous Irish engineers who built the great fortress there now and expanded it and learn also about many key Irish personalities in Puerto Rican history and why there are so many old Irish street names in San Juan – FASCINATING! Most people have no idea.

So Drummond genuinely wanted to build and increase his fledgling start-up colony of New Edinburgh but everything was against him. The Darien Scheme as its called now was a disaster much like the Freddy Mack housing bubble collapse in the US in 2008. That would be the equivalent in the 17th century. People lost their whole fortunes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme

It was an actual colony for a short time, but I think it would be unnecessary and too much work to make a Scottish faction in the game. However, I am not against making New Edinburgh a pirate colony that we add to the others going in the game. It would be a great idea for future quest lines. Hopefully some of you can get acquainted with how the quest dialogues work so that you can begin helping with the building of the questlines. I have been thinking for sometime I need to import a bunch of Jack Rackam’s old posts from PA and start a modding thread on how to make a questline – then as we learn how to build them better we add to the tutorial.

Thanks for the great suggestion.

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by modernknight1.

[Capt Qbert]

LOL, that’s so cool MK…I’ll need to look @ Stiofan’s avatar tonight when home. I like the New Edinburgh as pirate colony idea as well.

Helping with questline stuff sounds cool! I keep thumbing around in the Program and Resource files to get lightly antiquated with how stuff works….mostly around font sizing/positioning on battle and Land interfaces as some of the longer months or colonies were getting cutoff on the right side (and also cause me eyes are not as keen, arrrrgh).

Cheers fellas,
John

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Capt Qbert.

[modernknight1]

Our unfriendly site was not being nice to Vincent and he had to send me his reply via PM because he couldn’t post it here. No worries friends. We wont be here much longer.

Right, now I fully know that WordPress sucks – hard. So, since apparently I can’t post my response to your post in my Scottish Colony request, here it is – we desperately need a new forum…
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Thanks for taking the time to look at this suggestion MK – and for actually accepting it (I think) as a future addition to the game!

I like the idea of using New Edinburgh as a pirate colony as well – I wasn’t suggesting we add a Scottish faction to the game in the first place, since even I can see that with them being a pretty minor player in the Caribbean with only a single colony to call their own, it would be a lot of work for a rather small payoff in terms of added value. Making it a pirate colony might just do the trick though, since it still allows us to make use of the unique opportunitys the colony offers, without requiring undue efforts to implement it. Besides, it would also be a helpful addition for pirate players, since that would give them a friendly port close to the Spanish cities that historically exported much of Spain’s New World treasures.

While I’d love to help with questlines, I’d have to wait for a proper tutorial to be posted on our forums, since I have no previous experience with any kind of coding (except for a bit of entirely forgotten HTML work I did way back in my youth); as a result, I would just create a royal fuck-up, pardon my language, if I tried to build a quest with my current skills and knowledge. In the meantime though, I have been working on coming up with a variety of quest storyboards/outlines that you might find interesting – I’m hoping to post them once I’ve designed enough of them, so that other people with more skill at making quests can use them, either wholesale or just as inspiration for their own adventures.

[modernknight1]

Agreed on the potential. I think we can give it a good Scottish flavor though. I found images of the fort as well as a map of the colony. The fort looks almost identical to the Scottish forts back in Scotland. Pretty cool. The town is laid out in a triangle with a wall around it and mainly has houses inside.

Its also a good spot and won’t be far from our new Cozumel pirate/indian colony I am planning as well.

No worries on learning the questline piece – we are all learning.

MK

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