Whats with these 'colonies'

[El hidalgo]

I wonder if it's possible for colonies to turn into real cities? Obviously New Orleans and Montreal don't act like size 1 cities anymore. It seems kind of weird to me -- you have this colony producing goods. People have to live there to produce the goods. They have children. Ships from other cities/colonies come by to trade. The colony becomes more and more prosperous, more people move there, and it gets larger and larger. Of course some colonies fail, as some cities do. But I don't know if the distinction between a colony and a city is that clear cut.

[MrFun]

All of this discussion reminds me of the French and Indian War between France and Great Britain with their respective North American Indian allies.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Darkknight
Does this mean forts will defend themselves when attacked even if there are no units in it??

No, dont thinks so. If a coastal fortress C.I upgrade needs a unit in the city-square to be effective, then you can bet on that a land-fortress also need a unit in it. The "and/or" comment from Dan Magaga was a grammatical mistake, I believe. He should have wrote "with or without" instead. An empty fortress is an emty fortress. But, of course - im not 100% sure.

Originally posted by Harlan
However, given what we now know about colonies, I'm puzzled why I would want to build one. Why on earth wouldn't I wait a bit longer and build a new city where I'd build the colony? A cost benefit analysis doesn't make the colony look that appealing, though admittedly we don't know all.

With colonies you can pick-and-choose resource-tiles from barren places otherwise unsuitable for city-growth. Also, I believe that Firaxis have some nifty anti-BAB (Bigger-Always-Better) measures built into the game, so founding and evermore growing array of cities is not only and advantage, like it was in Civ-2. There is now and incentive to go for a "quality before quantity" approach, then it comes to the number of cities you want to found - depending on lots of factors. A thing to consider, is that in order to grow your culture borders you must build city-improvements and grow your indevidual city-pops - and you cant do that if you keep on sending -2 pops settlers all over the place. Finally, remember that resources depletes over time, anyway - and new resources (both old and new types) pops up gradually here and there through the entire game. At least thats how I have come to understand it.

Something extra needs to be given to colonies, esp. something to remain if a city border overtakes the colony. Its so strange that one would have a thriving resource extraction operation, and then a city gets close to it, and all of the sudden, nothing. Tumbleweeds. Not even a working mine remaining in the case of mined goods or farming in the case of food goods. Strange.

Tumbleweed? No, thats and misunderstanding. As long as that resource-/ luxury tile is roadconnected, it STILL produces its tile-output to your empire each and every turn - even if the visible colony-graphic disappears, once its swallowed up by your culture-borders. The thing to look out for is instead the disappearing of special resouce-graphics (because of depletion).

Originally posted by El Hidalgo
I wonder if it's possible for colonies to turn into real cities?

No. Read Dan Mahagas response on page one in this thread.

It seems kind of weird to me -- you have this colony producing goods. People have to live there to produce the goods. They have children.

OK, then - send a settler and found a city on top of your colony, or 1-2 squares away from it!

Asking for colonies that automatically can mature into cities, is basically asking for backdoor for ICS-style city-spreading all over again. A colony-founding worker only cost you 1 pop - just like the setter did in Civ-2. ICS is now dead - please, let it stay that way.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Ralf
Asking for colonies that automatically can mature into cities, is basically asking for backdoor for ICS-style city-spreading all over again. A colony-founding worker only cost you 1 pop - just like the setter did in Civ-2. ICS is now dead - please, let it stay that way.

I agree, let's fight ICS. But to me this seems to be fighting reality. I understand that Civ is a strategy game, not a sim, but part of what people enjoy about it is its relation to the real world. In the real world colonies (as well as forts, trading posts) become cities. Carthage, a city itself, not to mention capital of an empire, was originally a colony (of Tyre). There are many examples of course. I know one can't faithfully model reality in every aspect, but this to me seems to detract from the realistic aspect of the game.

It seems like it would be great fun, though, and in other respects it does model reality. Citizens of Houston might control oil fields far from Houston and not at the same time found new cities by those distant fields. Maybe my problem is just with the name "colonies" for the concept being proposed. They seem to be just a way of controlling resources some distance away, and not actually colonies in the sense that New York was a colony.

[Chronus]

"I agree, let's fight ICS. But to me this seems to be fighting reality. "

Hmmm . . . I'm not sure I agree with this statement . . . the reality portion, that is.

In the last few hundred years, we've seen a number of "small" countries take on and conquer huge chunks of land and other civilizations: Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, etc. They didn't have a bazilion cities, but rather, had "quality" cities, as I would label them.

But realistic or not, I agree with toning down (or eliminating) ICS.

[Darkknight]

Why build a colony and not a city. Of course if there is a city limit no. ala CTP2 then thats why. But if not why not just build a city?

[java4me]

Originally posted by Darkknight
Why build a colony and not a city. Of course if there is a city limit no. ala CTP2 then thats why. But if not why not just build a city?

I would be better to build a city!!!

But say you don't have enough pop to build a settler, or you don't want to conflict with the borders of other cities, then you would want to just build a worker.

Another is just to have a temporary colony, until your city borders get large enough to mine that resource without a colony.

So, there are many different reasons why!!!

[manofthehour]

When resources are gone to they come back?

[java4me]

Originally posted by manofthehour
When resources are gone to they come back?

Yes they do come back, but somewhere else on the map!!!

[Darkknight]

according to Dan building a worker takes up a pop point so no different from settler.

EDIT: all right everyones seen the pictures I'll stop screwing with your download times:~)

[manofthehour]

The only problems are that early on they can really effect your growth. And a question. If you dispan a worker or settler in a ctiy do they get the pop?

And a question. If you disband a worker or settler in a city do they get the pop?

Yes. Dan M. said that back on page 1. Any time a settler or worker enter a city, you gain one pop point.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Darkknight

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
A couple of quick comments:




3) Colonies act like pop.1 cities in the sense that if an enemy walks onto an unprotected colony, it destroys the colony. So you need to fortify a couple of strong defensive units and/or build a fort on a colony, otherwise your opponents will just walk in and, blammo, no more Roman Legions can be produced.



Does this mean forts will defend themselves when attacked even if there are no units in it??

No, you still need to have a unit fortified in the fort. I should have written that to say that "you need to fortify a couple of strong defensive units and you might also want to build a fort".

Sorry for the confusion =)


Dan

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by joseph1944


Yes. Dan M. said that back on page 1. Any time a settler or worker enter a city, you gain one pop point.

Actually, settlers are 2 pop points, workers are one. As Jeff Morris alluded to in another post a while ago, workers and settlers now act as mobile pop points that you can move around from one city to another.

As to the issue of why you would want to build colonies, I can think of two very good reasons right off the bat that I build colonies:

-- Colonies are considerably cheaper to build than cities, all in all.

-- Unlike cities, colonies don't need to be kepy happy, just defended.

Also, colonies allow you to do things like access resources that are really far away from your nearest city or even quickly harvest resources that you know you'll eventually have inside your borders, but so close that you wouldn't want to build a city there (due to overlapping city radii, you'd lose a workable tile)

Dan

[java4me]

Thanks Dan!!!

That really clears some of my questions, and others too!!!

One more question though. How can you build a colony on another continent (which has none of your cities on it) and connect it with your capital city over seas? Also, does the colony need to be connected to your capitol city, or can it be connected to another one of your cities? Or can it connect to your capitol through one of your cities?

If you can answer thoughs, that would be great!!!

Keep up the good work!!!

[Darkknight]

Thanks Dan! I lkie the movable population. Does that mean settlers can join a city regardless of the city size?

Java: I think colonies can be connected by road/railroad to a port which then ships to a port on your home continent which itself is connected to your capital by a road/railroad.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by java4me
One more question though. How can you build a colony on another continent (which has none of your cities on it) and connect it with your capital city over seas? Also, does the colony need to be connected to your capitol city, or can it be connected to another one of your cities? Or can it connect to your capitol through one of your cities?

This is from Dan's post on page one of this thread:

The reason the goods need to be somehow connected to your capitol city is because it's a trade network. You can actually have many different subnetworks, for example, and each of them might be connected to the capitol in one way or another, but a crafty adversary could, for example, occupy your sole harbor city that links one subnet to another, effectively cutting off an entire continent's trade from the capitol city's continent.

So we can infer from that the cities on one continent will be connected to those on another via port cities. As to whether a colony can serve as a port... well, hard to say. I wouldn't think so, though. Then it would be too easy for port cities to take advantage of the resources along all the shorelines of the world. After all, to take advantage of a resource on your own continent you at least have to build a road. If colonies could be ports you wouldn't even need that.

[java4me]

Thanks for the answer El hldalgo!!!

[dainbramaged13]

so basically, the colonies are like tile imrpovements that consume the worker. cool. if you pardon the analogy to such terrible a thing as an rts (gasp) starcraft, theyre kinda like refineries. except instead of collecting the resources with units, you use roads. ok. i can live with that.

But I think I'll still build cities wherever I want resources. After all, you still have to provide protection and connect a colony with roads. The only advantage I see is that you dont have to keep the people happy in a colony, which can be a problem with building cities far from your capital... Well, my guess is that I'll still find ways to perpetuate my evil ICS instincts...

But wait - this is crucial i just thought of something - u can build cities outside your borders right? i know u can build colonies, but im not sure about cities. u can tho, right?



off subject:
what about offshore resources? will there be any special resources in the ocean? i mean, like whaling stations in the very far south. you dont want to build a city there, but... anyway, small question.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
But I think I'll still build cities wherever I want resources.

We dont know yet how much cheaper the production-cost is for the worker, compared to the settler. Probably only half. Also, always remember that settlers cost 2 pops, which is pretty much early on. There so many priorities in the beginning - you must build city-improvements in order to establish your borders. You need access to resources - fast.

With colonies you can pick-and-choose resource-tiles from barren places otherwise unsuitable for city-growth.

But wait - this is crucial i just thought of something - u can build cities outside your borders right? i know u can build colonies, but im not sure about cities. u can tho, right?

Of course - how else could you populate far away islands beyond the reach of your current culture-borders?

what about offshore resources? will there be any special resources in the ocean? i mean, like whaling stations in the very far south. you dont want to build a city there, but... anyway, small question.

Nobody knows. No info and no screenshots covering ocean-resources have been released yet.

[java4me]

FIRAXIS still has to expain on resources in the sea, but i think that the only resources that you could us in the sea are the ones that are in your cities borders!!!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by java4me
FIRAXIS still has to expain on resources in the sea, but i think that the only resources that you could us in the sea are the ones that are in your cities borders!!!

Not necessarily! Shallow ocean can also appear far from land. There you can very well found northsea-type oilrigs on top of ocean-based oil-resources.
The worker-unit can move around anywhere outside your culture-borders on land, and it can move with help of ships, and (perhaps) also build ocean oil-rigs, for example. You cannot build road-connections on the ocean, of course - but, Im sure Firaxis figures out a solution. Likewise, they perhaps have added stationary "fishing-factories" on whale & fish-tiles far away from land. How knows?

[java4me]

Originally posted by Ralf


Not necessarily! Shallow ocean can also appear far from land. There you can very well found northsea-type oilrigs on top of ocean-based oil-resources.
The worker-unit can move around anywhere outside your culture-borders on land, and it can move with help of ships, and (perhaps) also build ocean oil-rigs, for example. You cannot build road-connections on the ocean, of course - but, Im sure Firaxis figures out a solution. Likewise, they perhaps have added stationary "fishing-factories" on whale & fish-tiles far away from land. How knows?

Very interesting!!!

That would definetly solve the problem!!!

[tniem]

Dan still has not explained to me why cities would not be preferable to colonies in many situations. In my opinion it is much easier to defend a city that can build troops than a colony that cannot.

Second, a cities borders can expand so that it can take in more and more resources. All of which only need to be linked by road to be added to the trade network. While, a colony can only use resources in the square it was built in.

Finally, a city has the potential to form more cities/colonies, build units to take over the world, build spaceships, build up culture, add money to treasury, etc. Meanwhile, a colony cannot do any of the following.

Unless conlonies are significantly less to build, I will be building cities to add to the trade network, the rest of you can build colonies. At least this is still how the issue seems to be to me. That very much could change if colonies/workers did not take away pop points. I think that Firaxis should try this in play testing and see how it works. How I picture it, it would work much better than what seems to be currently being proposed.

[dainbramaged13]

good ideas. another factor to consider is that i think the ocean tile improvements were a good thing in ctp, and if there were to be a sea-going worker unit, or at least the ability for the worker to function while on a transport, they could have them in civ3 too, also allowing the option for an oil rig or a remote whaling station, etc. then it could assume that the closest city at the time of construction to the rig/station would get access to that resource. or maybe, the rig would have to be within a certain number of tiles from a city equipped with a harbor. all these are good ideas, in my mind anyway, that are probably way too late to be implemented. but i think that its a good thing just to say them, whether you'll be even noticed or not, and since there does happen to be someone from firaxis looking at this forum, they do have a bit of an odds advantage

[dainbramaged13]

hehe sorry i kinda lack grammar skills when i type

[java4me]

There is probably oil rigs, and fishing rafts or something similar!!! I think that FIRAXIS will tell us later in more detail!!!

[Grumbold]

Unless you build your city slap bang on top of the special resource regardless of all other considerations then it will take time to expand your culture to utilise the resource. That, and the extra build time for settlers may be time you can't afford to lose when a quick colony could secure it for you faster. Cities are still going to be the game winners but colonies look like useful tools too.

[dainbramaged13]

Cities are still going to be the game winners but colonies look like useful tools too.

LONG LIVE ICS!!!!!!

[java4me]

Geez you are very happy!!!