Colonies? Are you kidding me?

[Jason Beaudoin]

Although colonies seemed like a good idea, in practice, it doesn't make any sence to produce these in the game. I never make them in my games, mostly because if the AI produces a city too close, you loose it. Makes more sense to just build a city.

Here are some ideas:

1) Grows like any other city
2) Can produce units and city improvements but not wonders
3) As the colony grows, unrest becomes more and more rampant until there is a chance it will launch a war of independence, taking other colonies with it.
4) Should not be able to build a city off your original starting continent. All cities founded far from the capital is a colony.


Any more? Disagree Agree?

[SpencerH]

Some more good ideas that are unlikely to ever be implemented by firaxis.

[Ethelred]

Colonies are best for special cases. Otherwise they are useless.

The only time or place to build one is when a resource is JUST outside your borders and you don't want to wait twenty or so turns for your border to reach the third level.

1) Grows like any other city

Why? Then its a cheap one pop city for 10 shields.

2) Can produce units and city improvements but not wonders

Same thing. Few citys ever are used for wonder building anyway. Again you trying to create a cheap settler.

3) As the colony grows, unrest becomes more and more rampant until there is a chance it will launch a war of independence, taking other colonies with it.

Freaping creaturism. Good game design should minimize features and maximize the way they interact. The problem with colonies is that they themselves fail this goal. You seem to be adding fiddlybits for little play value. No one would bother building that kind of colony. Its even less desirable than the present version.

4) Should not be able to build a city off your original starting continent. All cities founded far from the capital is a colony.

You are playing Civ III aren't you? The idea is to create a civilization not a copy of Colonialism. It would also make Archipeligo maps a worthless feature.

Colonies in Civ III are not that kind of colony. They are mere encampments for unmarried men to go make a buck like in gold mining in Alaska. When civilization comes the men pick up and leave or learn to eat with utensils and start bathing again.

Think of them as PENAL colonies. How many of those things would you want around the women and children?

The AI uses them. Thats one thing going for them. About the only thing. I gotta be desperate to build one. Haven't done it in a long time. I am all for taking them out of the game. They add little. Your idea wouldn't add so much as completely change the game. Maybe in an Age of Exploration mod it would be worthwhile.

[Thrawn05]

When ever I need a resource, it's usually in another continent. Therefore, I might as well build a couple of 1 shield cities (one for the harbor, the other for the resource).

[Mongoose]

I think that colonies ought to have an inherent port for trade network purposes. Thrawn05 touches on what is probably the biggest reason they're so useless. If you build them where it makes RL sense to...far away from your core, where a city would be problematic to build/maintain/defend, there is no game mechanism for using the resources you put the colony there to exploit.

'Course that still leaves Big Issue #2...another civ plops down a city right next to your colony and POOF, it's gone.

[benjdm]

The one time I saw colonies as useful was in a big mountain range where noone could plop a city close enough to get the iron within their borders.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by benjdm
The one time I saw colonies as useful was in a big mountain range where noone could plop a city close enough to get the iron within their borders.

That is perhaps the only reason to use colonies. But it still woundn't hurt if colonies still had a harbor ability.

Perhaps this, you can buid three type of colonies. The first type is the same as it is now, you build it from the start, and not very expensive.

The second type requires Map Making, and can only be built on a neutral cost line, it has a harbor, and you can connect it to other colonies or cities with roads/rail roads (just like if that harbor colony was a city). This type requires a little more shields, and does not require you to have this placed on a resource like the first type. This would be great for those 1 tile islands with that major resource you need.

The third type requires Flight. And, you guessed it, it has an airpot ability just like a city. Same as the second when it comes to connections. As well as the increased cost and the ability to place it on a tile with no resources. Only this one can be placed on any neutral land tile. This would be great if a rival civ took over all the costal land nearby. Now, I'm not sure if it would be fair to the AI to airlift units in and out of this type of colony, but who knows.

Comments? Suggestions? Death Threats? (Sorry, the last one is reserved for Firaxis' programmers only )

[Shadowstrike]

Those are really good ideas Thrawn. Maybe colonies could be used to increase the size of trade networks, so if you build a harbor and a road leading to the cities on that continent, you could be connected with your capital city. That would make colonies somewhat useful.

Of course, why can't calonies act as a 1/2 a point of population city, which has a 1 in 16 chance of growing into a full fledged city 16 turns past its creations? It could provide a cheap alternative to wasting 2 population on a settler. (The numbers aren't important only the idea)

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Shadowstrike
Those are really good ideas Thrawn. Maybe colonies could be used to increase the size of trade networks, so if you build a harbor and a road leading to the cities on that continent, you could be connected with your capital city. That would make colonies somewhat useful.

Of course, why can't calonies act as a 1/2 a point of population city, which has a 1 in 16 chance of growing into a full fledged city 16 turns past its creations? It could provide a cheap alternative to wasting 2 population on a settler. (The numbers aren't important only the idea)

Well, you do build a colony, you lose a worker (1 pop point). I don't feel colonies need to be cities in any way, since you might as well build cities. Because if you have a colony half a world away, it would be better as a "populess" colony that can't build anything and riot then a city too currupt and potentially rioting all the time. I do see your point, but I still feel that all that Firaxis needs to do is add a couple of colony "flavors" to help spice up Civ3.

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
3) As the colony grows, unrest becomes more and more rampant until there is a chance it will launch a war of independence, taking other colonies with it.

Generating a lot of independent states it would need a different game engine. The human player has to bother and to deal with a high number of other nations which will require new interfaces.

My idea would be to really not produce any food in tundra and arctic areas. Regular cities will just die in these areas. At the moment settlers milk food out of nowhere. I'm aware that this concept would cause a severe depression among the A.I. players.

[Beren]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
3) As the colony grows, unrest becomes more and more rampant until there is a chance it will launch a war of independence, taking other colonies with it.

This I would like, but it should count for normal cities as well and you would get the idea which you have when you're playing a tiny map with 16 players.

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
4) Should not be able to build a city off your original starting continent. All cities founded far from the capital is a colony.

It seems you don't know the original intention of colonies. Colonies are used in the way the Greeks used them: exploiting resources. Not to be some kind of post-middle ages imperalistic settlement. I think it is barely used in such a way at all, because, when you play a game, by that time all interesting parts of the world have already been settled.

[The Rook]

I think they could be improved a bit. Make them junior pop 1 cities.

A) They don't grow, but can build select improvements like harbors.

B) You can add another worker to the colony and it becomes a normal city.

C) The colony is subject to swallowed by any city placed next to it, but not automatically.


Doing these things wouldn't off balance the game, and they would make colonies more useful and behave like they did in historic times.

[GeneralTacticus]

B) You can add another worker to the colony and it becomes a normal city.

This might be a little unbablancing. A Worker costs 10 shields. A settler costs 30. So two workers are cheaper than 1 Settler. Therefore, if you could use 2 workers to build a city instead of 1 settler, there would be no reason to use settlers.

[The Rook]

Hmmm, make it so that you can add a settler then, but you get the worker back.

[Whoha]

disable obtaining settlers of any kind, then colonies become important. only then do they become important(and truth be told thats kinda fun for a couple of games)

[Coracle]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Some more good ideas that are unlikely to ever be implemented by firaxis.

Indeed.

Send your complaints to http://www.firaxis.com/contact_gamefeedback.cfm

Colonies?? The idea that your colony vanishes if a rival civ builds a town nearby (or their border flips) is one of the more stupid aspects of Civ III. In reality, doing something like that should be considered an act of war.

[Ethelred]

Nothing is stopping you from considering it an act of war. Just take the nearst city.

Colonies disapeared all the time during the Age of Exploration. The Spanish made a lot of them disapear. The only question was any country willing to start a war over it. Are you?

The Spanish themselves didn't go to war over the attacks by Francis Drake on their Pacific Colonies and shipping and they certainly knew exactly who was responsible for it.

Sounds to me like you have the anger but not the will. Sometimes I have both sometimes I decide its better to look the other way.

I know what you need to do. Launch a preemptive strike on Firaxis. You could burn your complaint into their sidewalks with thermite.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Ethelred
I know what you need to do. Launch a preemptive strike on Firaxis.

And I just got a great leader to build an army just for that.

[The Rook]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Nothing is stopping you from considering it an act of war. Just take the nearst city.

Colonies disapeared all the time during the Age of Exploration. The Spanish made a lot of them disapear. The only question was any country willing to start a war over it. Are you?

The Spanish themselves didn't go to war over the attacks by Francis Drake on their Pacific Colonies and shipping and they certainly knew exactly who was responsible for it.

Sounds to me like you have the anger but not the will. Sometimes I have both sometimes I decide its better to look the other way.

I know what you need to do. Launch a preemptive strike on Firaxis. You could burn your complaint into their sidewalks with thermite.

You're overlooking the point. It's not whether the player see's it as an act of war, it is whether it is part of the game that it IS an act of war. If my good friends the English build a city next to my colony and gobble it up. If I attacked them, it would be like I was the bad guy. The English would have no clue as to why I went to war against them. The AI, knows not to attack my troops, because that is an act of war. It doesn't know not to gobble my colonies up.

Stop defending colonies like they aren't broken. It's a half-assed effort to impliment something from history. Real life colonies, even "work camps" could bring goods to the main countries that owned them, even without ports and other niceties. Some colonies, grew into cities, some even banded togther and became countries. Why can't we have this same functionality with colonies, but within the scope of the game?

[Ethelred]

I didn't overlook anything. You are the one doing that. The AI doesn't care why you start a war. They will always become furious just as you would.

Stop defending colonies like they aren't broken.

Stop attacking them as if they were broken. They do what they are supposed to do. They are a stop gap.

They are not the English colonies in the New World. They are bunch of political prisoners collecting turpentine in a penal or work colony. The only thing wrong colonies is the name which is causing you this obsessive confusion and unwilliness to accept what the colonies really are.

They HAD to send the stuff to real towns that had ports. Any that didn't weren't cost effective. It takes a lot of time and effort to fill a ship by carrying stuff to it with rowboats.

Build a city. The city will be exactly like the kind of colony YOU are thinking of. Only you will call it a city because that is the label it comes with. You need to quit thinking in labels.

Why can't we have this same functionality with colonies, but within the scope of the game?

We DO have that. Its called building a city. You seem to be unwilling to accept that.

Edited because I left words out. Typical of me.

[Jonny]

Check out this thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=45618

Lots of ideas here. Be sure to look at mine!

[Ethelred]

Answered over there. Of course I really allready answered it here anyway.

[The Rook]

Penal colonies, huh? You can rationalize it away, but you're still wrong.

You say colonies have a usefulness, but you really really have to have the perfect situation for that. As it stands, if you find a resource on an island way across the world, there's no point in building a colony. You have to first build a city, then build a harbor. It could take you awhile to do that. Historically, the Spanish, English, Dutch, French, and others could set up a colony and have goods reaching their shores in less than a year.

So you say the game colonies are just prison camps. OK, fine, we want colonies. Something that inexpensively gives us the goods without the hassle of building a city. We are not asking for a freebie though. Put restrictions on it. Charge us for upkeep. Do whatever it takes to make colonies useful more often or why have them?

They named them colonies; because, they are supposed to be colonies, not work camps.

[Ethelred]

You say colonies have a usefulness, but you really really have to have the perfect situation for that.

Actually I said they do what they are supposed to do. I don't find them very usefull. They are just a stop gap. The AI uses them and they would be somewhat hamstrung without them. That may be main reason they survived testing.

Humans almost never need the things.

Historically, the Spanish, English, Dutch, French, and others could set up a colony and have goods reaching their shores in less than a year.

By building a city. Take a look at Lima Peru. In significantly less than one mans lifetime it went from nothing to an important port city. The lifetime in question was Pizzaro's and he was middle aged when he founded it and was only a little past middle age when he was murdered. It was paid for by gold. Tons of it. Rush built.

OK, fine, we want colonies.

You DO have kind of colonies you are asking for. They are called cities in the game and are exactly like the ones you just called colonies in the real world. A city on a far shore is identical to what you are demanding. Just relable it in your mind and you have exactly what you are asking for. Your thinking apears trapped by the labels.

They named them colonies; because, they are supposed to be colonies, not work camps.

They named them colonies because they didn't think to call them work camps. Firaxis is not exactly perfect. They botched the Civalopedia entry for Corruption also. That has spread needless confusion about how corruption and Police Stations and Courthouses work.

[The Rook]

Both you and I are arguing over what firaxis was thinking and there's no way either of us can prove that. However, I don't agree with the work camp idea. I think you are just rationalizing.

Firaxis made it harder to expand with Civ 3 by making Settlers cost more. They also threw in resources that are necessary for a Civ's survival. In order to balance this out, they put in colonies. Maybe you are right, maybe colonies are meant to help the AI more than the human. I can't argue that, but because of how crappy they are, if the AI uses them, it's putting itself at a disadvantage.

The whole main issue with colonies is that they are gobbled up too easily. If Firaxis made it so that the game see's colonies as territory belonging to another Civ, and only gobbles it up when it wants to declare war, then instantly colonies become useful for both human and AI player alike.

[Ethelred]

However, I don't agree with the work camp idea. I think you are just rationalizing.

I think your just ranting. The phrase 'work camp' fits what the colonies actually do. Since it is clear that a city ALLREADY does most of the things you want and the other things aren't part of any version of Civilization then I am definitly not engaging in mere rationalization.

Firaxis made it harder to expand with Civ 3 by making Settlers cost more.

Yes they did. They also made it uneccassary to upgrade workers. Seperating the very different functions makes sense to me. I think they raised the expense and the population cost to cut down on the ICS nonsense.

If you look at Marla's World Map Mod you will see that she made them twice as expensive as Firaxis did. Why I don't know. Makes warmongering the best way to start her map.

Most of your complaint seems to be about the colonies not haveing a border. Well that is why I said they are work camps and they are very clearly nothing like one of the Thirteen Colonies that founded the United States. They are barely at the level of the Roanoke colony.

The Pilgrims for instance did not go to America to develop resources. They went to found a CITY of their own where they could reestablish religous oppression like they had in England under Cromwell. If the French or Spanish had tried to take their colony over the Protestants in England would likely have considered it an act of war. After all it was a town not a bunch of trappers trying to make buck on the fur trade. The US later absorbed a lot of those guys.

Taking a colony by culture is not an act of war although you may choose to treat it as such. If you want some sort of model for it, then it is a neglegted group of starving people that weren't wanted by the home country and decided they will be better off with some nation that cares enough to build a city. Attacking the colony with troops IS an act of war both in the game and in life.

Even then there several historical instances of badly planned exploitation type colonies being attacked and slaughtered by others. Not just Roanoke where the people appear to have been killed by a local Amerind tribe. The Spanish did it to the French. Some conquistadors captured a small group of French. After promising not to harm them they took them behind a hill and murdered them one at a time. Nice folks, the conquistadors.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Stop attacking them as if they were broken. They do what they are supposed to do. They are a stop gap.

They are not the English colonies in the New World. They are bunch of political prisoners collecting turpentine in a penal or work colony. The only thing wrong colonies is the name which is causing you this obsessive confusion and unwilliness to accept what the colonies really are.

Outposts, in other words.

But it's all Firaxis's fault, of course.

[SpencerH]

Whether they are penal colonies, outposts, or work camps etc is somewhat irrelevant since they dont work in the game. Two faults (at least) are obvious. Human players dont build them because after the first time the AI puts down a city near one or the AI's civ boundary engulfs the colony we realize that they are too vulnerable. In the early game land grab its better to put down a defendable city to grab up a resource than build roads and a colony. The AI cant figure this out and so the human player can use this as an exploit. If I see the AI expending the effort to put down roads and build a colony over a resource that I want I allow it to do so. Its easier for me to put down a city when I choose to and grab it up (including the terrain improvements) than to fight a war in order to take a city.

Colonies are an interesting idea that dont work (as is) but might work if improved. As I see it though, there are simply too many other facets of CIV3 that need fixing first so I doubt that we'll see any changes

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Sinapus


Outposts, in other words.

But it's all Firaxis's fault, of course.

Well of course it is. Who else?

I like your term. Better than work camp.

I originally had a longer reply but when I tried the preview it went to the Void. Perhaps for the best. Reason is not wanted when someone is ranting.

Heck I have even had people tell me I couldn't argue with what they said because it was a rant. They didn't know me very well. I can argue government with libertarians. Whether I get anywhere is another question. Sometimes.

[The Rook]

Originally posted by Ethelred


I think your just ranting. The phrase 'work camp' fits what the colonies actually do. Since it is clear that a city ALLREADY does most of the things you want and the other things aren't part of any version of Civilization then I am definitly not engaging in mere rationalization.

That's just it, a city is overkill for what we want. The 2 citizen cost for settlers, and the time/money needed to build a harbor is too much. It's not historically correct. You don't need a city to exploit a resource. In the game, namely in the event the resource is on an island, a colony is useless without a city and a port. The problem in game is cities don't come any smaller than 1. That's why colonies are a good idea, but they need a 1 square cultural radius, and the ablity to build a harbor. Then, they would actually be a useful part of the game.