Whats with these 'colonies'

[dainbramaged13]

hehe yeah im just kinda excited about civ3.

[Theben]

I think a lot of you are jumping to conclusions about losing resources. It's not that they'll all disappear by endgame (IMHO), but that the player may wish to have several such resources under his belt. That way if you DO lose one or two, you still have the resource available to use.

And I don't see anywhere that Firaxis says resources will return after some are depleted. Dan did say you could prospect for more, tho'.

[dainbramaged13]

By the way, I don't think its too realistic not to be able to see resources if you haven't developed the tech yet. Maybe they should come in levels, you know? like you should be able to see bronze and iron deposits from the beginning. You should be able to see other things in the middle ages, maybe oil in the industrial age, whatnot. I don't know what resources will be avaiable, so i can't tell you when to put them, but i do think there should at least be SOME resources that you can see from the beginning.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
By the way, I don't think its too realistic not to be able to see resources if you haven't developed the tech yet.

I don't know what resources will be avaiable, so i can't tell you when to put them, but i do think there should at least be SOME resources that you can see from the beginning.

Sorry, but in real world mankind saw raw resources on ground, sometimes, but don't appreciate their use until discovered by science and tech advance.
In Civ III game we'll know in advance the usefulness of a resource, giving us a great starting advantage from the first era.

No, the idea of Firaxis seems the most balanced to me. I also added in another thread that I suggest resources slowly depleted, but new tech advance can let another source (of the same kind) appear later as in offshore oil after the proper sea advance.
I also suggested that some new discoveries can reduce the rate of depletion of existing resources, e.g. as with Recycling, but also with less obvious tech, as an economic advance reducing the use of gold resources

[dainbramaged13]

I know that, what i was saying (rather unintelligibly, i admit) is that certain resources be available from the beginning.

but you're probably right anyway

Originally posted by Harlan

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.

I agree, otherwise the cost/benefit factor of cities compared to colonies is greatly exagerated. With things are currently being explained I can see maybe one colony being built (needed) for every 10 cities max.

Originally posted by Pingu:

Anyway, on a different tach, when a colony is consumed by the expanding city, I think it would be good if some sort of tile improvement was left. This is purely decorative, and should have no effect on the game whatsoever. I just think it enriches the feel of the game, when you look at the map, and can see that the current landscpe has been influenced by the History within the game, giving your civ a more epic sort of feel.

Similarly, when you win or lose a Major battle (lots of troops killed, or saves a major city nearby), then perhaps the map should be marked with a battlefield, with a little sighnpost saying 'Battle of Cambridge - 1345AD'. This should be nothing too big, or too ostentatious, just a little reminder, you can click on it to read the details....

I know it's eye candy, but it'll give the game a really epic feel to it...


Pingu:

This seems like an excellent idea

[MrFun]

I like Pingu's idea of having some kind of landmark icon where IF you wanted to know more about some past event, you can click on it to read more.

Might be a cool idea!
But can any of you professional pessimists find something wrong with it?

[java4me]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
hehe yeah im just kinda excited about civ3.

Aren't we all!!!

[Myronides]

I 've got another question about colonies, sorry if it's allready answered, I just can't find time to read the hole thread these days:

Say I 'm the greeks and I 'm situated near the Romans. Say I build a colony closer to roman borders than mine. I keep it carefully guarded and I keep an eye at the road (or port) connecting it to my capital as well. Eventualy the roman borders expand and they come to include the area where my colony is situated. What happens then? 1)The roman city closest to my greek colony absoreves it? (I hope not). 2)Having a greek colony with greek army units defending it inside roman bordes, makes romans angry, so they ask me to disband the colony and move my troops out, or else they attack it? (wich would be reasonable). 3)Something else? Dan? anyone?

[Harlan]

Despite the comments of Firaxians on this thread, I still don't get the usefulness of colonies vs. cities. True, there may be situations where there's a very valuable resource in a spot that you wouldn't ever want to put a city on. So one might build the occasional colony, but if I have a choice between building two colonies (and losing two population) or building one new city (and also losing two population) I would chose the later almost all the time.

Unless, of course, there's more we don't know. For instance, we know now that resources can be depleted, which would make a colony even less attractive. Imagine building a colony over a spot of Iron, only to see the Iron get depleted, and now you have a colony of nothing (does it actually disappear at this point, or remain as a painful reminder of the population point you wasted?)

Which leads to the question: can you convert a colony back into a Worker, so it can go off and put that colony somewhere else? If so, then I would keep track of when a colony of mine would be almost overrun by a city boundary, and disband it before it becomes useless. I don't imagine that would be so, since it would give a huge advantage to the human player (not to mention the big hassle of trying to figure out the exact moment to convert the colony back), so that probably means once you build a colony you're stuck with it.

The depletion of resources make colonies unattractive in another way: the value of the one trade resource a colony is built on will eventually become useless. But a city gets the trade value of any resources within the growing city boundaries. So as new resources pop up in unexpected places, chances are good a city with a big range will get some. Whereas, what are the odds of another resource coming onto the exact same spot as a depleted resource?

The other question is how do colonies relate to ICS? If there are natural limits in the game to having too many cities, then colonies might be more attractive. But if the game works like Civ2, and your empire becomes only slightly more unhappy as new cities are built, my strategy would be rush out as many cities as possible until I hit some barrier to growth, and only then make colonies.

One possible solution to this whole colonies thing: if a city boundary does come to overrun a colony, or the resource the colony is on becomes depleted, have that colony automatically turn back into a Worker (and allow one to convert back to Workers whenever you want). This solves a number of problems. One, it solves the problem of another civ's city overrunning your colony (you're peacefully cleared out cos you're too close to their heartlands). Two, it makes colonies sufficiently attractive. Three, it makes more sense. People will go for a close by resource before they go for one far away of the same thing, because they won't be so afraid of someday having the resource get overrun by a city. Four, an investment in a colony is no longer a dead end. The Workers on the edge of your empire will always be picking up and moving, pushing forward your civ's boundaries, instead of mysteriously disappearing. Five, this system would be equally fair to the AI civs, since it would happen automatically. (perhaps have a number of turns elapse between when a worker turns into a colony and vice versa, just like it takes turns between starting to build a road and finishing it. This would limit people from moving colonies willy nilly, and give a few turns to bring troops up to defend the soon to be moved Worker)

What do people think of this suggestion?

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Harlan
Despite the comments of Firaxians on this thread, I still don't get the usefulness of colonies vs. cities. True, there may be situations where there's a very valuable resource in a spot that you wouldn't ever want to put a city on. So one might build the occasional colony, but if I have a choice between building two colonies (and losing two population) or building one new city (and also losing two population) I would chose the later almost all the time.

Hypothesis:

You find a great spot for your first city. Its even on a special resource square. Whoopee. You build a temple and between that and your special resource you have enough wealth and culture to get your border to push out to 1 tile distance. Two tiles distant is another special trade resource that if utilised would help your culture to grow further or faster. You could wait 20 turns and consume 2 population to build a settler that will found a new city right on top of it to gain the resource. In the long term though the cities are so close they will be squabbling for usage of all the other tiles. Alternatively you could spend 5 turns and 1 population to build a worker that can give you access to that resource and let you settle your next city in a far better spot, perhaps even on a third resource type.

Until we actually see the game all this is going to be speculation based on smoke and mirrors. I am confident that if the playtesters discover that colonies are utterly pointless then Firaxis will do something about it. It is surely absurdly pessimistic to write them off as useless already?

[Myronides]

I 'm sure that suggestions or "solutions" regarding gameplay features proposed here cannot be included in civIII. We allready know that the code of the game is ready and the game is currently in the beta testing fase.

I had a good time playing Sid's games for years and I trust I 'll have even better time with civIII when I 'll have it installed in my computer. So, since it's practicaly ready, I think I 'll give myself a chance to study and understand the game first. I 'll start nagging about gameplay features, or demand a civIII expantion, if needed, later.

I hope firaxians wont make the same mistake all over again. They wont serve me a game full of bugs this year (see SMAC), so they can sell me an incomplete fix with a couple of minor ad-ons next year (see SMAX) that they 'll ironicaly call a game. No use to blame them for what could be a publishers mistake, of course. On the other had, I feel I have to make clear to them what would make me, the gamer, happy, and them, the developers, rich: Offer me a complete game fun to play whenever they are ready to, and listen to my proposals after I play it, to offer me an expantion after a couple of years, if nessesary, that I 'll pay for it as an expansion, not as new game. This is the only way I 'll have the currage to propose my friends to buy civIII as well, because SMAC(X) tested their trust in my judgement.

PS: I 'd gladly write an article for the column out of these things that worry me about civIII, but I lack time. Mark G. or Dan Q., couldn't you do it better than I would anyway?

[C. Gerhardt]

Comment:

according to the things earlier you only have to build a colony on a special recourse outside your borders and if the recourse is inside your borders you should connect it with a road, Right


What will happen if you build a colony on a road-connected resource inside your enemies terratory and guard it well

Will you get the resource?
Will the enemy get the resource?
Do both players get the resource?

new question:

If you build a new city with your settler will you start this city with just one or two inhabitants?

trick:

If you build a new city in your allies terratory this is an act of war.
Build your city just inside your own border and you:

1) still be allies
2) you push back your allied border and gain it for your own exploitation (an small SMAC feature)

[dainbramaged13]

One possible solution to this whole colonies thing: if a city boundary does come to overrun a colony, or the resource the colony is on becomes depleted, have that colony automatically turn back into a Worker (and allow one to convert back to Workers whenever you want). This solves a number of problems. One, it solves the problem of another civ's city overrunning your colony (you're peacefully cleared out cos you're too close to their heartlands). Two, it makes colonies sufficiently attractive. Three, it makes more sense. People will go for a close by resource before they go for one far away of the same thing, because they won't be so afraid of someday having the resource get overrun by a city. Four, an investment in a colony is no longer a dead end. The Workers on the edge of your empire will always be picking up and moving, pushing forward your civ's boundaries, instead of mysteriously disappearing. Five, this system would be equally fair to the AI civs, since it would happen automatically. (perhaps have a number of turns elapse between when a worker turns into a colony and vice versa, just like it takes turns between starting to build a road and finishing it. This would limit people from moving colonies willy nilly, and give a few turns to bring troops up to defend the soon to be moved Worker)

1st of all, its not goign to happen anyway, and 2nd of all, its not realistic! colonies just dont get up and move, the same thing with cities! I don't get why people think disbanding cities and colonies is in any way realistic?


A question that i do think is very important is what happens when a colony is consumed into ENEMIES borders?


Also, I'm pretty sure that borders of civs do not automatically meet. Only when the civs get close enough can the strategy of building a city close to the border increase your border advantage, but from the screenshots we've seen, borders aren't much beyond your cities, so...

[N35t0r]

I think that the colonies, if absorbed in your enemes' territory, should remain yours, but you should have to keep the road connection it to your cities 'clear' (ie, friendly troops being the last ones to have crossed there...


Also, will you be able to conquer land?

I mean, geting some units to fortify on the first squares of your enemie's land adjacent to yours, and getting that land for yourself...

and, will you be able to trade land in diplomacy?

[Grumbold]

It looks to me from the screenshots that unlike SMAC building a city does not push the enemy border back. Once a tile is inside someone's cultural border it stays there until war changes the border. So one city could be almost entirely surrounded by another culture if it was founded later or did not build the culture expanding buildings as fast as its neighbour.

In a similar way to a normal new city I imagine a colony has a culture border of its own square so it will never become part of another cultures country. It could end up being entirely surrounded though, like West Berlin in the cold war days. Then the enemy could legally stick a unit on the connecting road inside its border and there would not be anything you could do about it except declare war.

I am looking forward to seeing if either of these scenarios become a problem in real games. I can certainly see difficulties with competing cities appearing close together where cultures meet since there is no ZoC to stop settlers pushing past where you want your borders to eventually be.

[Ralf]

To those who thinks that colonies easily can be replaced by founding cities only, please read this:

A: In order to expand your culture-borders, you must build shield-expensive cultural & spiritual city-improvements.

Its not that any old city-improvement expands the culture-borders. You are also forced to build other, perhaps more highly prioritized city-improvements that DONT expand your culture-borders. In other words: spirit & culture (= border expansion) must wait.

B: In order to support combat-units you must empasize trade-tiles (not shield-tiles) and special resources.

C: In order to build city-improvements you must empasize shield-tiles (not trade-tiles). Counter-acting priorities.
D: In order to build city-improvements and combat-units reasonably FAST, you must avoid sending pop-draining settlers all over the place.

As you can see: Expanding your ever-growing array of cities with culture-borders isnt necessarily such an easy-going and quick process as you might think. I say: make use of those colony-founding workers - you cannot afford to wait too long.

[Footie Mad]

If you build a new city in your allies terratory this is an act of war.
Build your city just inside your own border and you:

1) still be allies
2) you push back your allied border and gain it for your own exploitation (an small SMAC feature) [/QUOTE]

I sure hope they wont include this dumb way of gaining land and im pretty sure they havent.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Wille
I sure hope they wont include this dumb way of gaining land and im pretty sure they havent.

Let me assure you - they havent! At least not in the same way as in SMAC. In that game, your borders got pushed back, immediately after that foreign base was founded (directly outside your borders, of course).

In Civ-3 however, if a foreign city does that: nothing at all happens to your established borders at first, because that city havent built any cultural & spiritual city-improvements (which pushes the borders) yet. Now - since you founded your city first you have an advantage in the "building cultural & spiritual city-improvements" race, comparing to that newbie foreign city. So that city might never be able to cach up and race ahead (and by that push back your borders to he own advantage). Much better border-system!

[dainbramaged13]

i cant wait!

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by 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.

Spot on, Grumbold. As I see it, colonies are investments, just like roads and mines, that serve a very specific purpose. In some cases they're a quick and dirty way to stake a claim to resources or luxuries, in others they're a hassle-free way to get those goods in "faraway lands" where developing a city from scratch could be hazardous. But they certainly aren't meant to replace cities.

Personally, if I need to get iron that's far away from my capitol, I'd rather put one pop and a spearman on the line than two pop and a spearman plus the potential loss of some of my treasury if my city is taken. Furthermore, if that city is pop 2 or larger, theoretically an enemy could take it and really reap the benefits of my city, whereas if I just lost a colony, an enemy gets no immediate benefits other than denying me access to that good.



Dan

[Jeje2]

OK,
How expencive is it to produce a new settelr whaen comparing to a worker/colonist?
Is it more than *2?

Currently I see it as if a recource is far from a city - it's a suitable place for a new city most likely. (I hate it, when cities are too close)

And if the recource located so that it's not suitable for a new city - then it is quite close to an excisting city and I can just increase it's borders.

OK, this was based on my SMAC-strategy, were I normally built quite fast 15-25 cities. So maybe later on when let's say oil becomes available I might use colonies.
But right now I would like to now the costratio.

THX Dan

[korn469]

Ok the talk so far has been about gathering resources and not about how resources actually work. We all know that we iron is a prerequisit for roman legions but how does this work exactly?

ok according to the firaxis civ3 website

. For example, if there is an iron tile anywhere within your borders, all of your cities that are connected to that tile via road will have access to iron

The presence of this luxury quells one unhappy citizen in any cities connected to it by roads.

so does this mean that one little iron mine can provide enough iron for 30 cities to build legions simultaneously? or that one silk tile can provide luxery (quell one citizen) in 40 cities?

what i can infer from this is that maybe (hopefully) if it only takes one resource to power your civ, that more cities drawong on that resource will make it deplete faster...if not then why even include resources, when one simple little colony will provide all of the iron the entire world needs (through trade)

Now that we have iron, we can build fearsome Roman Legions, which are the special unit of the Romans. We can do so as long as our colony remains intact. Our enemies will want to destroy our colony because this will prevent us from creating new Legion units.

ok what i can infer from this is that resource squares do not have numbers associated with them, they are just abstract yes/no keys on the map

i think the actual building of a roman legion will be something like this

you have one size four city with a shield output of 10 and you are connected to a colony that provides iron...a legion cost 40 shields (for easy of calculations) so as long as you have that colony you can continue to build legions and every four turns you will produce a new legion

now for example an enemy destroys your colony...i am assuming that either you have to immeadiately switch production to something that doesn't require iron or that your shields no longer accumulate as long as you are producing and that if your city isn't connected to iron either you will not be able to select legions at all or your shields just won't accumulate when you do select them

also i infer that a legion would NOT cost 40 shields and 20 iron bars (ie the iron tile has a production value in terms of so many iron bars per turn) because numbers do not exist for the resources, just if they are in your borders and connected by roads

Also if a resource tile is in your borders and connected to your city by road, would the resource tile need to have a worker on it before it provided benefits to your civ?

Dan, or anyone at firaxis can you clarify the points i brought up in my post and shed more light about how resources will work when it comes time to actually build a unit

thanks!

[Harlan]

Dan obviously knows a ton of info that none of us do. Just the same, I'm going to disagree with his recent post, because it doesn't seem to jibe with other info we've been told.

Grumbold says "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," and Dan says "Spot on" in agreement. But doesn't a city start taking advantage of the squares within a radius of one immediately upon being built?

Dan says colonies are a "hassle-free" method to get goods, and are less of a military risk than cities. But earlier, Dan said "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". In Civ2, cities provided a natural defensive bonus to units within them even without city walls, and I'm assuming until I hear otherwise that its the same in Civ3.

Furthermore, we've been told elsewhere that one can have relations with other civs where they can't attack anything within your borders, but anything outside the borders are fair game. So many times it would seem colonies would be much riskier than cities.

We also have been told by Dan that the colony needs "a couple of other workers building a road to your distant colony" plus military escorts for them, cos without the road you don't get the benefit of the resource. Whereas, for any resource on or one tile away from the coast, I could build a city then build a port in it, and get use of that resource without having to build a long road and keep defending it.

Dan also worries about the loss of treasury money if a city is conquered, but if Civ3 is like Civ2, the treasury is equally divided amongst each citizen, so the loss of a size 1 city in a large empire is virtually meaningless from a money point of view - less than 100 gold when I have thousands.

Dan is obviously a colonies booster, looking at it with a glass half full attitude, whereas I'm looking at it with a glass half empty attitude. I'm sure there will be times when I will want to build colonies, but I'll probably try to minimize them as much as possible, since I see them as ultimately a dead-end, while building a city is the start of something big. I want to play for the long term, and not go for the short term "quick fix" unless I absolutely must.

I guess to each their own styles, but the question is: will players who avoid building colonies consistently beat those who do, in the same way that players who build tons of cities consistently beat those who build a "reasonable" number of cities - the ICS problem.

There's a lot of questions about colonies floating around this thread, and until/if we get answers to them, we won't really know how useful colonies are.

[korn469]

But doesn't a city start taking advantage of the squares within a radius of one immediately upon being built?

as far as i can tell once you build a city you have the normal civ 21 aquare radius, which you can assign a worker to any square. However as far as i can tell, it doesn't matter if you have a worker on a resource tile, because that worker will only harvest, food, shields, and trade...the worker will not be able to add the resource to your civ, you can only take advantage of that resource by connecting that tile to your city by a road and having that resource tile fall within your cultural borders, which at least at the start of the game start out at zero...so i think that Grumbold is completely right about that

but this brings up another question...late in the game when you have a high cultural rating, will all new cities start off with a zero cultural border until they build cultural improvements?

i'm just wondering if resources will be a very important game consideration...really if all it takes is one oil well to provide a huge civ and all of it's trading partners with oil then colonies and resources might only have a very very small impact (if any) on the game...this could mean maybe one or two colonies per game which doesn't really make them worth all of these posts does it?

[Grumbold]

the worker will not be able to add the resource to your civ, you can only take advantage of that resource by connecting that tile to your city by a road and having that resource tile fall within your cultural borders

That is certainly the way I comprehend it from the resource tutorial and Dan's posts. Collecting standard resources and special resources from the same tile are done differently. The former requires a point of population to be assigned to work and must fall in the 21 square radius. The latter requires only a road connection and must fall within the expanding cultural radius. That is why a colony can vanish to leave only a road when absorbed within your cultural border.

but this brings up another question...late in the game when you have a high cultural rating, will all new cities start off with a zero cultural border until they build cultural improvements?

Again my impression is that each city starts at zero. Obviously later in the game you should already have a network connecting to or trading for most of the beneficial special resources. You also should have money for rush purchase of key buildings. That should see the culture radius inflate much faster in the same way that providing a new city with a supermarket quickly could enable it to grow fast in Civ II.

The excellent news that resources deplete certainly suggests to me that there will be attempts to rate the drain on a resource site. This may only be for mineral resources that cannot easily regrow. Some abstractions need to be made because the last thing most players will want to be doing is micromanaging how many cities get spice or units get horses just to keep renewable resources from depleting. It would certainly slow down MP games even for players like me who would enjoy expanding crops and stock farms

[Provost Harrison]

One concept I am interested in as an oversees colony, which I remember there was some mention of somewhere. Would it be possible to set up a colony on some island off the coast and somehow 'ship' this resource back to your city? I am curious.

[Sava]

Dan M... question

If you build colonies overseas, can they eventually turn into cities? Or do I have to send a settler's unit to convert a colony into a city? Or do colonies only change into cities if your border engulfs them?

Please explain how colonies turn into cities again, I'm a little lost. I'm naughty also

[senowen]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
Dan M... question

If you build colonies overseas, can they eventually turn into cities? Or do I have to send a settler's unit to convert a colony into a city? Or do colonies only change into cities if your border engulfs them?

Please explain how colonies turn into cities again

I didn't think colonies COULD turn into cities. You can build a city on top of a colony. I don't think there is any conversion method, and a colony doesn't turn into a city once your border engulfs them, from what I read somewhere the colony just disappears once the border overtakes it.

Is that right, anyone?

[dainbramaged13]

yeah thats right