So just to amuse myself i "liberated" a bunch of islands and gave them their independence. So besides making a huge mess of everything what do you actually gain from this option?

In my opinion this is a poor effort from Firaxis. (using vassal system for this just makes it look like they took the easy way without actually making something)

Oh and why can't i disable this option? (disable vassal states would fix it i guess... but again lousy effort from Firaxis on this part)

If you have several cities on another continent the maintenance can drown you because there is an added cost for overseaes cities. Making them colonies relieves that cost.

I think of it as a way to deprive my rival civs of land colonizing space, without having to support a bunch of fledgling cities myself.

I think of it as a way to deprive my rival civs of land colonizing space, without having to support a bunch of fledgling cities myself.

That actually sounds like a GREAT strategy. You could spam settlers, have them all drop cities on the same turn, and make yourself a AI-power-ally, depriving the other civs the plots/resources.

You wouldn't even need to pack garrison units for the new cities, since they gain that when they change hands.

If you have several cities on another continent the maintenance can drown you because there is an added cost for overseas cities. Making them colonies relieves that cost.

That is why I saved my Forbidden Palace for that extra continent of five cities. Even without FP the cities were still making a profit. So there is not a real need to turn them into a colony, is there?

That is why I saved my Forbidden Palace for that extra continent of five cities. Even without FP the cities were still making a profit. So there is not a real need to turn them into a colony, is there?

Think of colonies as another feature, or an option. If you can mitigate the maintanence, great. If you can't, grant them independence.

I try to do the same thing with Forbidden Palace and Versilles. But the concept was to better illustrate the cost of a cross map empire.

Colony = +10 relationship + free resources :p

That is why I saved my Forbidden Palace for that extra continent of five cities. Even without FP the cities were still making a profit. So there is not a real need to turn them into a colony, is there?

I don't personaly know becasue in my games I have never yet had to move to a new continent. But I would say that if you still turn a profit then I would keep them. But when corps roll around and jack up inflation it might be another story

I kind of hoped that the colonies might have agitated for their own independence without me actually having to grant it of my own free will.

It would be kind of a 3 stage thing.

You found the cities. Give them colony status for some kind of bonus (reduced maintanence perhaps)

They are semi autonomous but you can interfere like they are your own cities. So if you want you can let the AI build them up BUT you can equally go 'nope, don't build that, build this and also for good measure give me that Iron/Saltpeter' etc.

Do this enough and the AI can demand independence and you can say 'yes ok' (diplomatic bonus with the newly created nation) or 'no get ready to get your ass kicked' and you would have to send the troops over.

It is a great way to eat up land though.

Colony = +10 relationship + free resources :p

The point is that if you properly manage overseas possessions you'll have the resources and make a profit too. Though in BtS the profit is harder to get due to the colonial expenses, so if you're colony gets too big, you might be forced to grant it independence.

It's not necessary for you to have founded the cities though. Colonies are also a nice way of handling conquered territories.

That is why I saved my Forbidden Palace for that extra continent of five cities. Even without FP the cities were still making a profit. So there is not a real need to turn them into a colony, is there?

Not in that case, sure. But the option is now there for those cases that can't be fixed like that. If you're not needing it, sure you don't need to make a colony. If you do, now you can. :)

Colonies are also a nice way of handling conquered territories.

That's a big one. It's nice to be able to, say, replace furious Monty with friendly Washington, as I did in my most recent game.

Do your colonies count towords the domination victory? As in, does the territory count as yours?

They're vassals, so you get to count 50% of their territory and population, just like regular vassals.

Do your colonies count towords the domination victory? As in, does the territory count as yours?

Vassals count, so yes. I haven't tried the colonies option yet, but I'm sure I will do so in the future. It looks quite intriguing.

I've found the overseas maintenance costs to be fairly grueling, especially if you're on a war rampage and take a lot of cities very quickly. Creating a colony from my captured cities was pretty useful-- I got to cut maintenance costs, keep the resources (woohoo vassal), and the free garrisoned infantry allowed me to keep my front moving since I didn't have to worry about defending cities in the back.

i used a colony in my last game. I had probably 8-10 cities in the old world, a couple island cities out in the ocean, and then 4-5 cities in the new world. I developed the new world cities a bit, and reinforced them with a small army. After I felt comfortable, I granted independence to the colony. It actualy helped out my main empire, and since I was well developed and I developed the new world a bit, my colony became 2nd most powerful in the world. Not bad having someone so loyal to your cause and being very powerful too.

Colonies are a great way of gaining access to surplus resources which can boost the effects of corporations without needing to actually run the cities or (especially) pay maintenance. Once corporations come into play, there is no limit to the fish, copper, etc. , for which you can trade. So it becomes useful to plop four cities down on that ice-ridden island with 3 fish and 2 clams, make it a colony, and be able to reap the benefits of the resources without any of the burdens of cost and attention. This is especially important considering the large maintenance costs of corporations - anything you can do to lessen the cost is good. For me colonies also make the game more versatile because state property is no longer the automatic default for an intercontinental empire.

Colonies=easy over seas conquering. just replace a civ wiht a friendly vassal/colony ;)

Will granting colonial independance always lower your score?

Will granting colonial independance always lower your score?

I think that's a factor of the land area and population are no longer in your score. However, since they are in your vassal control, you get half of the land area and population score. So, theoretically, yes.

I have only played a game so far but haven't had the chance to enhance it very much really.

Anyway, how do you "grant" the city the "colony" status? From which screen?

thnx

What I don't like is that if you give independence to a colony you get a -1 Rep hit with all other civs. I understand that working with regular Vassals, but why should it be the case with colonies?

I have only played a game so far but haven't had the chance to enhance it very much really.

Anyway, how do you "grant" the city the "colony" status? From which screen?

thnx

You need at least two cities on a land mass different from the one your capital is on. Then go to the the domestic adviser (F1) and press the fist icon in the bottom right (next to "EXIT") a pop-up will appear allowing you to grant colony status to cities, or liberate them.

You need at least two cities on a land mass different from the one your capital is on. Then go to the the domestic adviser (F1) and press the fist icon in the bottom right (next to "EXIT") a pop-up will appear allowing you to grant colony status to cities, or liberate them.

TWO cities needed... I wasn't aware of that.... thnx

What I don't like is that if you give independence to a colony you get a -1 Rep hit with all other civs. I understand that working with regular Vassals, but why should it be the case with colonies?

Jealousy? It's their way of saying "Hey! No fair! We had designs on those reesources, too ! Now you've got a foot hold on that juicy continent and are using colonists to pull garrisons out of your butt! Now you Portugeese can afford to move your puny little army from one barb city to the next giving the captured cities to your colony as you go!"
;)

So far, I haven't had a use for them - however, I was playing a game vs. Pericles of the Greeks and he created a colony. The trouble was, that the colony turned out to be Alexander of the greeks!

I was thinking at first - no big deal, but a few turns later The dutch ask me to cancel my trade deals with the "Greeks." I was thinking "which ones?" But then I realized it doesn't matter because alex was a vassal of Pericles, so if I canceled deals with one, I would be cancelling deals with both right?

Then I was thinking - what happens if Alex eventually gains independence (It's possible with regular vassals, why not colonies?) Then what? Two separate greek civs - My head is spinning!

you mean cities flipping from culture right? I was asked ten dozen times to flip my city on the shoreline of india (or whatever) to the malinese. is that turning it into a colony? if yes, doesn't the city belong to the malinese then? how'd that be a colony? hm it's probably not.

again, I fail to understand what you're talking about because I'm a noob.

you mean cities flipping from culture right? I was asked ten dozen times to flip my city on the shoreline of india (or whatever) to the malinese. is that turning it into a colony? if yes, doesn't the city belong to the malinese then? how'd that be a colony? hm it's probably not.

again, I fail to understand what you're talking about because I'm a noob.


A colony is when you break off two or more cities ( captured &/or settled )
which are on another island or continent from your capital and create a kind of vassal. You do it by hitting the F1 key, and then clicking on the fist on the bottom of that window. It offers you options. Gifting a city to another civ is not creating a colony. Liberating a couple of cities is.

Colonies cost a whole lot of money when you get quite a few, such as by conquering an AI on another continent. I've had colonies that cost me 90 gpt each. Needless to say, I had to break off a colony or face bankruptcy.

However, it seemed that I had to make all of my captured cities on that continent into a colony, is there a way to choose which ones to use?

what are the requirements for creating colonies? A certain amount of cites/culture?

How can we give independence?? it will appear in the game?

Colonies can be formed when you have 2 or more cities on a separate land mass to your main one.

Then go into the domestic advisor and look in the bottom right for the red fist icon.

In there you will potentially have a lot of options, depending on the circumstances.



For me, they are better than vassals because I can control where their cities are....

And anyway, I don't really feel like everything needs to be hyper-powered, the simple fact is that creating off-shoot colonies is fun.

How hard would it be to mod it so you can turn any group of cities into colonies, such as for Pangea maps?

I've yet to play BTS so this may sound like a dumb question: Are the colonies just turned over to a random (new) AI player? If so, are they the same country as you? Say you create a colony as MM, will the colonies leader be Ghandi?

Some of the civs have a "derivative" civ in their XML files - when you make a colony, it will make a new civ with that derivative Civ - if you are Byzantine, you'll make a Greek colony first.

The rest of the civs (i.e. with no "Derivative") may well be random, but in practice they all seem to make America.... it may be just that they select the first on the list, I don't know.

Can you have several colonies?

ie, you "liberate" cities Flour & Chips (sorry for the names) in one continent to become vassal "A" and then in some other turn "liberate" cities Corn & Clam to become vassal "B"

is that possible?

Yes it's possible, but only if you don't break the 18 civ limit.

I had a test game with portugal where I just b-lined to optics, then went round the world creating colonies.

They didn't really do anything particularly useful aside from some resources, but later wars were much more interesting as I tried to protect them from a raging Monty.

what are the requirements for creating colonies? A certain amount of cites/culture?

How can we give independence?? it will appear in the game?

I had trouble figuring that out, too. With regard to Colonies, the Civilopedia says to "press the button" in your "Diplomatic Advisor" to grant independance. (I believe that's what I read there). I finally found it in the Domestic Advisor [F1].

It turns out that the City Liberation entry gives you more correctly worded instructions for creating a Colony: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=155958&d=1184737326

hummm thanks for the help ;) I will try it

if you are invading another continent, granting independence can be a powerful new tool. I am slowly taking over China's mainland but the unhappiness from "fighting the motherland" is making these cities basically worthless to me until I eventually reach peace with China - the culture is just too strong against me and the game is near the end so they will never really produce anything for me - they are just giving me some land and taking it away from China.

so once I get a few more cities, I am going to grant them their independence. this will be great, because I get their resources, I get credit for 1/2 the land, and I get a +1 happiness in my home cities for influencing another civ (and that +1 happiness back home is much-needed during war weariness). furthermore, some of the cities are formerly Saladin's which Qin had conquered. I get the option to liberate these cities back to Saladin if I want, on a city-by-city basis. So I am selectively giving some of those back to him because he is my other vassal and let him deal with the maintenance.

I am only keeping Bejing and a few more ... Bejing is the prize because it had the Statue of Zeus, Great Wall, shrine, etc...

I think the colony system is great. Think of them in terms of when you are conquering overseas land and you have a bunch of small junk cities. But you might not want to raze them for fear of the land being resettled.

One final point and this is key: airships are so powerful for overseas assaults early on... but you need them to be based near the front lines. And guess where you can base them? in your vassal's or colony's cities!

Do you get lucrative intercontinental trade routes with your own overseas colony?