Attention Ratbeard and Players:

The purpose of this thread is to open up dialogue & discussion, about ways to make doubloon summoned minions, at minimal, less interfering. Being able to summon some "squishy minions" is a great idea & often plays a pivotal role in victory or defeat. Many a times doubloon minions have taken focus fire away from us & enabled captain & crew to regroup & bounce back from possible defeat. But...there is also that darker side of doubloon summoned minions.

I was in battle against the Nefarious 5 & my #1 Power, Blood Flames came up several rounds after the battle started. That same round 2 doubloons popped up-- both of them of the summons variety, one a LVL 45 Mooshu & the other a LVL 25 Cool Ranch. Now, I prefer to not let a chance at placing extra distractions on the battle board go by, that might take the enemies steely gaze away from me & my crew. So, in that particular instance I chose the Mooshu doubloon & selected to use my Blood Flames.

Note- I was also on the last round of hidden at the time as I ran for cover, from facing eminent DOOM. I moved my pirate to a corner the round before & was prepared to place the Blood Flames as cover, because a nefarious looking Swashbuckler was breathing down my neck. I had a Full Retreat Doubloon active while I was hidden, so things were looking up a bit & I was hoping to turn the tide in battle by placing my BF to protect me & hopefully finish of the SB, who was in the yellow. Well, things took a turn for the worse & mostly due to those 5 doubloon ninja pigs that decided to spawn in the exact 5 squares that I had decided to place my Blood Flames.

Soooooo, you guessed it, no Flames appeared that round, I came out of hidden & the dastardly SB was able to march right at me & "undo" the health that I "worked" so hard to replenish while hidden. I probably would have met my maker soon after anyways, but the undesirable, randomness placement factor of DB summoned minions made certain of it.

Now we all know that the randomness of these summoned doubloon minions can be quite interfering & completely derail our strategies at times. This is understood & we have come to play "hit or miss" with these types of doubloons-- but that doesn't mean that it isn't any less irritating at times or more importantly that it can't possibly be "fixed" or altered.

So, I would like to throw out some suggestions & questions to Ratbeard & also would enjoy thoughts from other players out there.

1] Can the programming be "reworked" to determine the placement of these Doubloon minions after all pirates hit the DONE button?

2] If so, could all squares to be occupied or "used" by pirate, crew & powers be considered "taken", which would negate these minions from spawning there. We wouldn't be able to control where they appear, it would still be random...but we would know that our moves wouldn't be negated, by them occupying areas we planned to "use".

Drats, out of characters-- more questions/suggestions coming!

ValkoorTheVictorio... on Dec 31, 2014 wrote:

Attention Ratbeard and Players:

The purpose of this thread is to open up dialogue & discussion, about ways to make doubloon summoned minions, at minimal, less interfering. Being able to summon some "squishy minions" is a great idea & often plays a pivotal role in victory or defeat. Many a times doubloon minions have taken focus fire away from us & enabled captain & crew to regroup & bounce back from possible defeat. But...there is also that darker side of doubloon summoned minions.

I was in battle against the Nefarious 5 & my #1 Power, Blood Flames came up several rounds after the battle started. That same round 2 doubloons popped up-- both of them of the summons variety, one a LVL 45 Mooshu & the other a LVL 25 Cool Ranch. Now, I prefer to not let a chance at placing extra distractions on the battle board go by, that might take the enemies steely gaze away from me & my crew. So, in that particular instance I chose the Mooshu doubloon & selected to use my Blood Flames.

Note- I was also on the last round of hidden at the time as I ran for cover, from facing eminent DOOM. I moved my pirate to a corner the round before & was prepared to place the Blood Flames as cover, because a nefarious looking Swashbuckler was breathing down my neck. I had a Full Retreat Doubloon active while I was hidden, so things were looking up a bit & I was hoping to turn the tide in battle by placing my BF to protect me & hopefully finish of the SB, who was in the yellow. Well, things took a turn for the worse & mostly due to those 5 doubloon ninja pigs that decided to spawn in the exact 5 squares that I had decided to place my Blood Flames.

Soooooo, you guessed it, no Flames appeared that round, I came out of hidden & the dastardly SB was able to march right at me & "undo" the health that I "worked" so hard to replenish while hidden. I probably would have met my maker soon after anyways, but the undesirable, randomness placement factor of DB summoned minions made certain of it.

Now we all know that the randomness of these summoned doubloon minions can be quite interfering & completely derail our strategies at times. This is understood & we have come to play "hit or miss" with these types of doubloons-- but that doesn't mean that it isn't any less irritating at times or more importantly that it can't possibly be "fixed" or altered.

So, I would like to throw out some suggestions & questions to Ratbeard & also would enjoy thoughts from other players out there.

1] Can the programming be "reworked" to determine the placement of these Doubloon minions after all pirates hit the DONE button?

2] If so, could all squares to be occupied or "used" by pirate, crew & powers be considered "taken", which would negate these minions from spawning there. We wouldn't be able to control where they appear, it would still be random...but we would know that our moves wouldn't be negated, by them occupying areas we planned to "use".

Drats, out of characters-- more questions/suggestions coming!

All of these questions are based on my lack of programming knowledge and having never experienced the inner workings of what makes a game and it's systems, combat & programming mechanics tick. I would just like to know more about these aspects and any questions and/or suggestions are not at all a questioning or critiquing of your expertise in this department. Just merely want the goods.

3] Does selecting a Doubloon before or after making your moves in combat, have any effect on where the minions will summon to? So basically, if you pick your crew's moves first, will the programming take into account "open and/or taken" squares before randomly placing the Doubloon minion on the board? It appears to be completely random with all tiles, not currently unit occupied, being available to place the summons, regardless of how you play out the round.

4] Were the Doubloon Summons meant to be more of a "hit & miss" and "use at your own risk" type of strategic piece that could greatly help but also possibly hinder as well, and so therefore we just run the risk of having them interfere with our crew and power deployment? If that's the case...cool, nice twist!-- just wanted to actually get verification that's how they were intended to work and make sure to properly plan for it in the future.

5] If the above is how they were intended to work, would it be possible to have the programming "show" us where the minions are going to randomly appear, once we click on the Doubloon...or perhaps is that not doable or does that just make it too easy for us and we still need some of that roulette factor to keep us on our toes-- again, perfectly cool.

Thanks a lot for any info and insight! And Happy New Year!!!

ValkoorTheVictorio... on Jan 2, 2015 wrote:

Oh yes, pushy indeed! It's great when you have selected your entire crew to move to attack some an enemy or a couple of enemies, and 9 Ninja Pigs show their bacon and decide to occupy every single tile you deployed your troops too. Negating an entire crew's attacks in one round can often be very tough to bounce back from and can often make or break a battle.

I wonder if the programming could be tweaked for doubloon summons only. Meaning that instead of appearing at the beginning of the next round, before your crew moves, they can be placed at the end of the ensuing round after your crew makes it's moves. Or maybe there could be 2 types of Doubloons to choose from. With an icon showing before battle summons and after battle summons, so that we can choose what may work best...or interfere less.

That we they can still appear random, but not interfere with any of your moves or strategic planning. I did the arena yesterday, and those doubloon minions interfered so much with my crews moves, that I may just not even use them at all. I did finish the arena (and get 504 Scrip) but the summons made it extremely difficult at times. They also could be a tad smarter too! One left an adjacent enemy just to walk through 3 bombs to try to take on another enemy-- needless to say it took a nap instead! At least when they make their moves and undesirably occupy a tile we wish to use the next round, we can adjust for it and plan accordingly because we will move first the next round. They still interfere, but we have a chance to adjust for it.

The random tiles they summon to, however, are beyond our control and can completely wipe out our strategy, crew movement and power(s) usage-- and there's nothing we can do about....at least I think? To have 5 ninja pigs cancel out over 6000 potential damage from Blood Flames, in one round-- OINK, that hurts!

Ok, so I've complained more than I'd ever wish to....now back to the wanting to learn how all this magic works.

Well said again Valkoor. I am sure that Rat beard would love to sit and talk shop with you. The rest of us will just sit back and enjoy the conversation while we drink in ev
ery word.