This is a supplemental guide for modding .ini files for Patrician IV. This guide Includes a zip folder with .ini files since they are not naturally included when you install the game. The files are not my own work, and much of my knowledge of this topic comes from scouring the Kalypso Patrician IV forums[forumarchive.kalypsomedia.com], most of which are now archived.

My intention in writing this guide is to keep the information alive and accessible for current and future players when the Kalypso P4 forums might be completely unreachable. If the original creator(s) of these files or members of the Kalypso forums (especially Daan Hugo and Falko) read this, please speak up so I can give credit where due!

If you are looking for a guide on basic gameplay and strategies, please see my other Patrician IV guide. https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682751098

Downloadable zip folder available here[drive.google.com].

Folder contains an English and a German FAQ txt and a subfolder, INI, which contains 51 .ini files.

To install, unpack the folder into your patrician install directory so that the INI folder appears as a subdirectory under the Patrician IV folder. In other words, it should look something like "...steam/steamapps/common/Patrician IV/ini "

*It has been brought to my attention that the 'missions.ini' file was not included in the original zip file. If you want to mod this file, I have added it to the Google Drive separately. Download that file as well and place it in the 'ini' subfolder along with the other ini files. A further word of note--I don't know if the file is the 'original' mod file or it if contains my own edits.

So here's where it gets messy. The files I've been able to find are mostly in German and the Kalypso forums covering modding are largely archived, unavailable, or disorganized. That being said, I have personally made several successful adjustments to my game. As always when modding INI files, make a backup before making changes and use common sense.

First thing I do when modding the files is I try to translate the German into English. For that, I've been using Google's translation software. The easiest way I've found to use it is to go into Google Docs[docs.google.com], then drag-and-drop the ini file in question into a new document. You'll be given the prompt to translate the document (if not, right click the screen and there should be a "translate to english" option). Sometimes, the ini files are 'English-enough' that the prompt to translate to English doesn't show up, though. In those cases, or if you do not have a Google account, you can still use Google's translation software through Google Translate[translate.google.com]. Here, you can either cut-and-paste sections of the ini file into the "detect language" window (5000 characters-at-a-time limit), or you can drag-and-drop the entire file into the window and you'll be presented with the same prompt to translate as if you were in Google Docs. For whatever reason, you cannot upload the ini file through the Google Translate "Documents: Browse your computer" option. Go figure.

[NOTE: I use Chrome as my browser; I just tested Firefox and it seems you aren't given the prompt to translate to English in Firefox. You can still do the cut-and-paste option in Google Translate, though. You may have to find your own way to translate depending on your browser.]

Once 'translated', the documents still require a bit of guesswork as to what everything means or does. For example, seabattle.ini has a section on ammo trajectory, and Google translates a portion of it as "ScatterMin = 0.98; minimal disturbance factor for velocity components" and "
ScatterMax = 1.02; maximum disturbance factor for velocity components." I think this is in reference to the range of variation in speed the shots leave the cannons, but your guess is as good as mine. If I really cared to figure it out, I would adjust the values significantly and test it out in the game.

As it is now, most of the features of the ini files are obscure to me. I have no idea what the 40 townmap files do other than they appear to control the layout of the various towns, and even in the more user-friendly files, there are many features I haven't touched.

Again, when modding, make backups and use common sense.

Many of the INI files will use numbers instead of words as references. Most notably, the game's commodities each have a numerical value, listed below:

In this section, I want to point out some adjustments to the game that I've found enjoyable. I may add to this section with suggestions from the community, so please comment below!

expedition.ini

• You can change the imports and exports of all of the Mediterranean cities. Have too much brick and not enough spice? Change the cities to import bricks and ensure they give spice!
  
• You can change which region a Mediterranean city belongs to. This might be useful if you want to manipulate which cities show up in your game, as there can only be one city per region.
  
• The file says that there can be only one Mediterranean city per region, and the file lists which region each city belongs to as well as it's coordinates. While the expedition map does not show it's coordinates in-game, you can guesstimate where a city would be based on the 537x251 size, with the top left corner being (0,0). So, for example, if you have already found a city in every region except region 3, I would go through the region 3 cities in the ini and start searching near those coordinates. Expedition city 19 has an x-coordinate of 244, which is just shy of half of 537, and a y-coordinate of 202, which is 80% of 251. So to find the city, I would start exploring halfway to the right of the map and 80% up the map. If I didn't find the city, I would try the next city listed in region 3.

gameplay.ini

• Science: you can change the prerequisites and the research points required for each of the developments.
  
• StandardPaymentValue: these spv numbers affect the game's inflation rates for things like quest rewards, costs of establishing new counting houses, etc., I think. I would advise leaving these alone as they affect so much of the game, but at the same time, since they have such a big impact on the game, perhaps you would want to.
  
• Newgame: you can alter the starting population of towns as well as the number of starting cities. I have used the latter feature to start with 8 cities (which is the minimum) so that every other city has to be founded via guild quests, thus giving me full building privileges in as many cities as possible. To have a valid start: 1. Each region must be represented by one of the starting cities [which is why 8 is the minimum: there are 8 regions]. 2. At least one has to be a hanseatic town. 3. Each commodity must have a city where it is produced. 4. At least one town needs to be a spice import.
  
  You can control which cities are included at start by adjusting the order of cities in townlist.ini under "[Initial]: List; x,y,z...". If you want a 15-city start, the game will start with the first 15 cities listed. Note that the numbers correspond to the list of cities in the same townlist.ini file, e.g. 3 is London, 28 is Riga, etc.
  
  Between townlist.ini and townpos.ini, you can find and edit all the information you need to start with anything between 8 and 40 cities.

missions.ini

• This displays the various different quests: guild quests, tavern quests, city quests, gate/sovereign quests, etc.
  
• "DisplayDuration" controls how long the quest is available from its respective quest giver.
  
• "MissionDuration" controls how long you have to complete the quest once accepted.
  
• "IdleTime" is how long before the mission is offered again.
  
• "MaxCount" is the maximum number of instances this specific quest can appear.
  
• "MinRank" is the rank required before the mission becomes available.
  
• Particularly helpful in this is that you can ADD OR REMOVE quests if you like. For example, if you want to remove the "cause a famine" quest, then delete the corresponding entry in the mission list (sorry, don't know which it is at the moment).
  
  If you want to add a duplicate quest, create a new entry. For example, one of the biggest end-game challenges is getting 100% land ownership in the eight regions, which requires at least 90% reputation with the sovereign before you can buy a share of the land. So what I've done is create multiple instances of the "give me gold to make me happy" quest, as this is the easiest to complete to raise reputation. That quest is LF09. To make a duplicate, I copy and paste multiples of the LF09 entry to the bottom of the ini file and give each entry a new name, e.g. "LF17", "LF18", "LF19", etc. Leave everything else alone--the logic, setup, and text should still be "LF09"--just change the name. Furthermore, since these are technically different quests, you do not need to change the "MaxCount" value either.

seabattle.ini --oh yes, this is a godsend!

• Battleship: you can adjust the turning rate, acceleration rate, cannon reload time (Reloadtime affects the rate of reloading overall, Reload Factor affects how much of an impact crewmen have on reload speed), as well as other, less-useful aspects.
  
• AmmoData: Here's where the miracles happen, folks. As you know, the game has three types of shots: solid, chain, and grapeshot, listed in the ini as 0, 1, and 2, respectively. The AI ONLY uses solid shot whereas the player can use all three. Since the combat is generally seen as more of an annoyance by most players, what many, myself included, do is completely nerf the solid shot. Easiest way to do that is to change "DmgHull_0", "DmgSail_0", and "DmgCrew_0" all to a ridiculously low number: I use 1. This will mean that solid shot does practically no damage to hulls, sails, or crewmen, respectively. I then set my Hull, Sail, and Crew for chain shot insanely high: this is my one-shot ship-killer ammo. Finally, I reserve grapeshot for capturing the last ship in an encounter. I do this by setting sail and crew damage very high, but I keep the hull damage at only a moderately high value (I currently have it set to 8000, but that might be a bit too high for some people's comfort). With this setup, I will start by killing all but one of the enemy ships with my chain shot, then cripple the final ship with grapeshot. The first grapeshot hit will obliterate their crew and sails, making them defenseless and largely immobile. I will then continue to use grapeshot to weaken their hull until they surrender, resulting in me gaining a new ship.
  
  Oh, and you can also adjust the velocity of each shot. A higher velocity has greater accuracy as the target has less time to dodge.

seamapdata.ini

• Flotsam: you can adjust the probability for those random events that happen at sea: floating goods, floating gold, pieces of a treasure map, and castaways. You can also adjust the reward you get for bringing castaways to shore. Side note: I didn't realize until editing the ini that you actually get a different reward for bringing them back to their hometown.

shipdata.ini

• Google Translate doesn't do a good job with the ship names here. For reference, "Schnigge" is the snaikka, "Kraier" is crayer, "Kogge" is cog, "Holk" is hulk, "Hansekogge" is hanseatic cog, "river kogge" is river cog, and "Kraveel" is caravel. The ini file has a "special edition ship", but I can't remember what that is in-game at the moment.
  
• There are a lot of helpful and easy-to-mod values here, most of which are described under the "Schnigge" entry.
  
• Capacity is the max amount of cargo a ship can carry
  
• Vmin and Vmax are the ship's minimum and maximum naval speeds.
  
• Agile is how quick a ship turns in combat
  
• Flow determined whether a ship can go up a river or not. 1 = sea only, 2 = river only, 3 = both river and sea-capable. (I simply set all ships to 3--the whole "you need a special convoy to be able to supply these specific cities" thing is a pain, in my opinion)
  
• Expansion is how many times you can upgrade a ship with more cannons. I haven't tried using this to turn non-combat ships (e.g. Caravel) into combat ships. I suspect you can't, as you are told by the ini file not to edit the gun position values, and the non-combat ships don't have any default gun positions.
  
• MaxHp is the ship's hull strength. MaxSailHp is the ship's sail's strength.
  
• Goods is the type and quantity of commodities needed to build the ship at the shipyard. For example, the snaikka starts with "0, 40, 3, 10..." which means it needs 40 wood, 10 hemp, etc.
  
• Costs is the gold cost to construct the ship
  
• MatCosts is the gold cost for the materials, but this is variable based on the supply-and-demand of the commodities in the city where it is being built.
  
• Daily Costs is the cost to maintain the ship while at sea. Reduce this value to increase profitability.

townbattle.ini

• You can adjust the damage, min and max range, knockback strength, firing rate, and hitpoints for your city defenses. I like to change these values so that a city siege ends basically as soon as it begins.

townlist.ini

• Data: There's a lot of powerful values here you can change that effect the game's economy. This list first gives us the number that the ini files uses to represent each city, then it gives its name, it's region, and it's production (see the commodity to # value table above). Note that "-1" means that the city doesn't produce anything for that production slot, which explains why some cities only produce 4 commodities instead of 5.
  
• Initial: This list controls the initially-available cities when you start a new game. It also controls the order of new cities that will become available through quests. If you want to start with the minimum 8 cities at start, you must change this list to meet the requirements listed in the above section of this guide (or change the values of the first 8 cities in the list to meet the requirements, either way).
  
• Importtowns: affect which cities import spice naturally.

townpos.ini

• I wouldn't change too much here, but you can view or change the region a city belongs to.

tradesystem.ini

• Data: You can adjust the daily wages of your factory workers, your guards, and your counting house administrators.
  
• You can also change how many citizens live in a single housing unit.
  
• "Factor" affects how quickly the cities' citizens consume goods. In other words, if you increase the value, a city will have a greater demand for all commodities, depending on the number of citizens in that city. A city will thus fall into famines easier, but it will also result in better profits when you supply the city.
  
• "Warehouse rent" affects how much gold per day you have to pay for storing more goods in your warehouses than you have space for.
  
• Production: Controls how many workers a factory can employ for each type of commodity as well as how much of that commodity is produced per day.
  
• Goods consumption: Controls the rate of consumption per citizen of each commodity.
  
• There are a lot of further sections in this ini that control construction costs, both in gold and in goods needed, sections that control demand, sections that control production costs, and a section that controls regionally-available commodities. I won't list all of the functions--there are many of them, most of which are either self-explanatory (if you've understood the guide so far), have a minimal impact on gameplay, or are irrelevant (e.g. I doubt that "regional goods" has much effect on where regionally-available goods are actually produced, as that is controlled by the townlist.ini file. Perhaps this section is for freeplay: random starts instead of historical?)
  
• Cart: Controls the values for the wagons that are needed for carrying goods via land routes, specifically their cargo capacity, the daily cost of operation, and construction costs. I like to crank up the capacity since it is otherwise challenging to keep land-bound cities adequately supplied.

From Shaun the Deng,

[Concerning the missions.ini file]
From this[www.patrizierforum.net] page (still accessible by 2021-Dec-17), as posted by cigue , we can learn:
LF04 Tribute mission: if the prince mood falls
LF07 Unlocks new city mission:if mood of the prince over 90%
LF09 Gold demand mission: if the prince mood falls
LF13 Lowering prosperity mission: if the prince mood falls
LF14 Causing a famine mission: if the prince mood falls
LF15 Land selling mission if mood of the prince over 90% and cash assets at least over 30 million gold
LF16 Enabling a land route mission: if mood of the prince over 90% and two cities founded that can be connected by land

I cannot find any info about LF17 to LF23 mission.

Just want to mention a few info about the LF mission. For me, this is the most annoying part of P4. It turns out the LF13 and LF14 are lowering prosperity and causing famine mission respectively. Just change like this then you should be released from these two missions.
[+Mission]
Name = LF13
Category = MCAT_SOVEREIGN
Logic = MissionLogic_LF09
Setup = MissionSetup_LF09
Text = MissionText_LF09
DisplayDuration = 7
MissionDuration = 30
IdleTime = 70
MaxCount = 2
MinRank = 6

[+Mission]
Name = LF14
Category = MCAT_SOVEREIGN
Logic = MissionLogic_LF09
Setup = MissionSetup_LF09
Text = MissionText_LF09
DisplayDuration = 7
MissionDuration = 30
IdleTime = 70
MaxCount = 2
MinRank = 6

Thanks for reading this guide. Patrician IV vanilla is such a strange game; it has some really annoying aspects to it, but it also has a type of magic that draws me back to it time and time again. One Youtuber (DDRJake) describes it as a game that he, "loves to hate, and hates to love...it is one of the most boring games imaginable, and I love it." My hope is that the information here helps you play the Patrician IV game you want--not necessarily the one Kalypso handed you.