Colonies: strong and weak point

[Adm.Naismith]

I must admit introduction of Colonies, announced in last Firaxis official update, surprised me.

I like to note some of announced concept seems very similar to idea debated last feb. under the name of villages .

Please note I don't want to subtract any merit to original concept mentioned in The List and other posts, I simply mentioned the last I remember.

I think that Colonies are one of the best substitute of Supply Crawler, introduced in SMAC to get resources outside city area.

I understand that introducing a need for a continuos line of road, while a bit unrealistic on history side, is needed to add good strategical elements. I suggest that rivers are counted as road, to better represent early large use of them as road substitute (what's the point to build a parallel road just to exploit a potential colony square?).

I think that absorbing it inside City area is good (I suggested the same for village in my proposal mentioned in above link ). I think it's unfair to loss the population point doing it, and I think I'll use the option to edit this from my second CIV III game

Colonies overseas rules seems a bit less clear, because of the need of a sea line between two ports, not as easy to interrupt as by pillagin roads.
I suppose we need at least a proper town oversea to host a port (or is Firaxis adding port as improvment of shore tile built by workers/engineers as fortress/airfield?).

Then I ask: can we blockade ports stationing outside it enough military ships, as a naval kind of ZOC?


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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Colonies=cool idea
This post=a way to climb the rankings (big grinning face here)
Colonies will definatly present a new way of playing the game, especially at the beginning. When you found your first city, do you keep your worker close by and develop, found a colony close by, or make a colony in some far away place. Whenever you want to expand then, you will need a worker and a settler. ICS is out the window, horsemen rush is out the window, my strat is out the window. (yellow smiley face here)
Check it out: new signature too.

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One death is a tragedy; One million is a statistic
[This message has been edited by Lawrence of Arabia (edited May 15, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Lawrence of Arabia (edited May 15, 2001).]

[Maxxes]

Isn't that one of the few famous quotes of Stalin, you signature? (Sorry Off-topic)

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Yes it is. Key word: few.

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One death is a tragedy; One million is a statistic

[Theben]

That's a good sig, unfortunately it's already overused.

RE: colonies- I like the idea, and my understanding is that the loss of the colony is to help combat ICS. I do believe Firaxis has something in mind regarding blockades, but don't know what it is yet.

And it actually sounds very close to what I wanted for villages back in the List days; it depends on whether or not the colony (village) brings in all production from the tile, one type only (like a non-mobile crawler), or only the special resource (I asked for everything).

[Maxxes]

And now on topic:

I'm a little afraid that propably we are not gonna make a lot of colonies because surely we will place our cities in the neighbourhood of those valuable resources.

Oke, some resources show up after your discovered a certain technology but ironworking (the example on the website) comes very early, especially if your the playing the roman because it's enables their special unit. A lot of resources of course show up much later in the game, but generally I built my cities so close together that all the tiles in my 'mainland' are in some cityradius. And if a valuable resource is somewere in a uninhabited region, wouldn't you rather found a city than a colonie?

[Maxxes]

btw, I think the term colonies is a little misleading, a lot of people are wondering if they can be upgraded to cities (which they apparently can't) they are rather harvesting sites.
[This message has been edited by Maxxes (edited May 15, 2001).]

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by Maxxes on 05-15-2001 12:18 AM I'm a little afraid that propably we are not gonna make a lot of colonies because surely we will place our cities in the neighbourhood of those valuable resources. Oke, some resources show up after your discovered a certain technology but ironworking (the example on the website) comes very early, especially if your the playing the roman because it's enables their special unit. A lot of resources of course show up much later in the game, but generally I built my cities so close together that all the tiles in my 'mainland' are in some cityradius. And if a valuable resource is somewere in a uninhabited region, wouldn't you rather found a city than a colonie?

It depends on what other game mechanics are involved. FE, we know that a settler will cost 2 pop points now, so it may not be as easy to churn out settlers. We also don't know the cost difference between the 2, which could be significant. And keep in mind that all settlers do now is settle, while a worker can upgrade the land AND then make a colony.

There's also personal style of play: perfectionists will want more colonies to supplement their main cities, and even those who tend toward large # of cities (but still not ICSing) may switch tactics. It will also ease micromanagement.

[Adm.Naismith]

I agree with Theben: anyone can have his/her playstyle, but game rules can force us to build lot of colonies.

1) Probably workers are really less expensive than settler.
2) The need for more city perfectionism, to raise civ culture points, will force players to build less cities but more developed; you can't afford to build a new city any time you discover a special resources tile.
3) SMAC introduced Supply unit (crawlers) and they were too much powerful to raise city development. In fact the trouble with SMAC was the easy flood of Supply units: the need of connecting roads and the need of proper defense should solve the latter problem.

I don't think gaining back population absorbing colonies is a source of ICS problems (but of course playtesters know better ).
It seems to me more fair to bring back population you put at work, as it was in CIV II gaining back population if you disbanded a 1 point population city building a settler.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia on 05-15-2001 12:01 AM (big grinning face here) (yellow smiley face here)

OT: Lawrence excuse me, do you have anything against the use of standard smiles?
I mean : and D to have a
or : and ) to have a

Just in case is not your religion taboo you can find the smilies legend here where I digged and learned them.
Hope it helps you as it helped me.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Grumbold]

It sounds like the balance of play will favour the use of colonies to get your special resources up and running asap. If cities still prove to be too cheap and easy despite the extra pop cost then the balancing should show it up.

I certainly hope Civ III will allow port blockades. I don't expect it to allow mid-sea interception like the CtP trade routes but you never know. The major pain with those was not being able to explicitly draw them yourself to allow lots of trade to follow one protected route.

[SerapisIV]

I really like colonies, it addresses three issues

a) the unbalanced strength of SMAC supply crawlers by making the colonies disappear once within your borders and consuming the worker
b) allow resource expansion even though rapid early map expansion was killed with the 2pop settler as an anit-ICS strategy.
c) assuming there can be overseas colonies, it allows Civ3 to actually model the imperialism and colonialism of the americas and asia by European powers in the later half of the past millenia. A strong sea power with little territory, like Great Britain used to be was not possible in Civ, now it might be, however this is assuming that oversees colonies are possible.


In addition I think that it is a pretty good possibility that overseas colonies will be in Civ3, connecting goods by harbors was mentioned in earlier previews before we even were told about colonies, and half-assing the colony idea, especially with its big unveiling in a tutorial on the website would be a mistake by Firaxis

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Thanks Adm.Naismith

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Lauraina Bobbit moved to Russia and renamed herself Ivana Kutyocockoff.

[dennis_caver]

Colonies are an interesting addition, but at the begining of the game
forget colonies. You will have your workers irrigating as fast as you
can because of the pop penalities for settlers and workers. Not only
do we forget about horse charges but forget about
any type of offense until you can build up your civilization. I sure
hope I can reprogram these pop penalties. I am not talking about ICS,
I'm trying to bring back part of the fun at the games beginning.

Look, we(civilized people)were barbarians at the beginning of this game.
We attacked or subsigated anyone we came in contact with that was nearby
and weaker. 200-4000BC cannibalism and rape were common and we traded
everything including slaves and women. So if realism is your goal I suggest
we initially go back to the original pop requirements for settlers and
than when we become civilized we slow the growth.

You know, fixing ICS is really a false issue. If everyone is doing ICS
then it is automately fixed.

Cavin forever,

Dennis

[Seeker]

I'm sure you can be an early warmonger in Civ3 if you do it right....I bet many of us have been surpised by an early 'barbarian horde' offense in Multiplayer Civ2....if the other player is busy building wonders and settlers and caravans...wonder what will happen if 8 vet horseman enter the picture against some unwalled, phalanx defended cities??

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by dennis_caver on 05-15-2001 02:34 PM You know, fixing ICS is really a false issue. If everyone is doing ICS then it is automately fixed.

This is the first time I stumbled into someone who truly and openheartedly embraces the ICS-problem as something nice and positive.

My viewpoint? Well, erasing ICS was a top priority. I hope (and I believe) that the team now have succeeded in methodically squashing even the slightest possibility of it to ever rear its ugly head back-and-forth again.

[Grumbold]

It sounds like you are going to really want to connect your cities together by road and to exploit at least one tile of each luxury special and later iron. That is a significant amount of extra road building at game start and the removal of a few population points in colonies too. With the double cost of a settler it has to help discourage ICS even if it does not remove the incentive to expand as rapidly as possible. Once we see the actual costs the statistically minded can analyse them in detail.

[MrFun]

I have one thought. In the previous Civilization games, many of us built roads everywhere because it gave a bonus in trade. We did the same with railroads.

Now, because we need roads to resources that we wish to exploit, we will have to continue building roads in too many places. We'll have networks of meandering roads with dead ends.

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Never submit to social double standards.

[ChrisShaffer]

quote: I'm a little afraid that propably we are not gonna make a lot of colonies because surely we will place our cities in the neighbourhood of those valuable resources.

Yes, but if it takes building a temple and a library and waiting 50+ turns for your culture borders to expand to encompass the special resource (which is inside your city radius but outside your culture border), and you could build a worker for 20 (???) shields and 1 population point and claim access to the Iron Resource in 5 or 10 turns....

A lot depends on how much Workers actually cost to build, but I don't think you'll get very far without using at least a few colonies.

[SerapisIV]

If you look at the screenshots, the resources are just about everywhere, much more dense then in any previous Civ game, so optimum building site still wouldn't get every resource. Combine that with the ICS limiting 2pop settlers and 1pop workers and it's tough to get everything you need without colonies, or at least that is how it appears.

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by MrFun on 05-15-2001 06:27 PM Now, because we need roads to resources that we wish to exploit, we will have to continue building roads in too many places. We'll have networks of meandering roads with dead ends.

Considering how strategical is to cut roads between colonies and cities (and if I understand right, connecting them to the Capital City), I think that we can have pillaging taking care of extra roads pretty well

At least roads gain a scope, added to previus "fast troops movement" path.

[Rainbow_warrioR]

Could someone please tell me (newbie) what is ICS is?

[Adm.Naismith]

I can do a better hint:
click to this thread link to jump to the "Related Threads (ver.II)" link collection (always sticked up first places in this Civ III forum).

There you can find (down under City title). Browse until you find ICS explained.

In short, is a tactic useful in Civ II to maximize a Civ early production building lots of size 1 cities. It kill the game, hence lot of player complained and asked for a solution.

Hope it helps

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A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground, the stuff in between was just noise.
- Admiral Naismith
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited May 16, 2001).]

[dennis_caver]

It did not kill the game, it enhanced the beginning game. It enhanced the
play-ability on both the warmonger and the peaceful Civ builder sides.
Get ready to push the 'next turn' button - exciting!

Cavin forever,

Dennis

[beyowulf]

quote: Originally posted by Rainbow_warrioR on 05-16-2001 09:33 AM Could someone please tell me (newbie) what is ICS is?

Infinite City Sprawl - A tactic in where one built a lot of cities so as to get lots resources, science, luxuries, etc.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by beyowulf on 05-17-2001 01:03 AM Infinite City Sprawl - A tactic in where one built a lot of cities so as to get lots resources, science, luxuries, etc.

Also: One 10-pop city produced city-square + 10 surrounding squares = 11, while ten 1-pop cities produced city-square + 1 surrounding square = 2 x 10 cities = 20 producing squares. And with no counter-acting anti-ICS measures & features to deal with this effect.

The latter was the main problem with ICS. Founding buckloads of densely packed, but weakely developed cities was too rewarding. Also semi-ICS in early eras; producing mostly settlers, settlers and nothing but settlers until you got at least 15-25 founded cities - THEN you started to road-connect them and build some city-improvements. Historically unrealistic way to progress the empire-development.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 19, 2001).]

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 05-17-2001 01:17 AM (...) producing mostly settlers, settlers and nothing but settlers until you got at least 15-25 founded cities - THEN you started to road-connect them and build some city-improvements. Historically unrealistic way to progress the empire-development.

Right! And it's with my pleasure it seems Firaxis really correct this with Civ III culture (cities needs improvement to have culture and borders) and roads are necessary to exploit special resources ant to develop trade.

I was very angry, when early news about cost of population for settlers and workers seemed the only corrective Firaxis would take.
I proved wrong, and all the Team gain my apologies about that. I hope they accept them

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A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground, the stuff in between was just noise.
- Admiral Naismith

[Urban Ranger]

"A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground, the stuff in between was just noise.

It seems to be that if you can cut your enemy's head off, there's no need to change his mind since you have wiped his battleground clean.

But I digress

[Ralf]

Arrrgh! Not again - doublepost.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 19, 2001).]

[Nikolai]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 05-19-2001 04:38 AM Arrrgh! Not again - doublepost. [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 19, 2001).]

Dublepost...and only ONE post! Where is the other one?
(couldn't resist! )

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Who am I? What am I? Do we need Civ? Well....