Ability to abandon colony

Treasure can only be automatically shipped in colonies with a dock (to avoid exploit)

Either leader attributes or FFs which gives +1 movement and/or +1 defense to treasure

Treasure should not be able to explore or move into uncharted territory, nor have first contact with natives. If treasure uncovers a goody hut, the goody hut produces nothing and there is a possiblity that the treasure is destroyed

Attacking/stealing unescorted treasure should not be considered an act of war and the AI programmed to know this. This idea is redundant however, if the bandit unit is introduced into the game (see below)

More variety in goody huts besides promotion and treasure such as:
free unit - a free colonist or even possiblity of specialist or converted native (lost tribe)
new colony founded automatically (with one colonist inside)
unleashing hostile natives
discovering a "lost" founding father (such as Doctor Livingston) giving unique attributes
being knocked out by bandits and dragged somewhere new (equivalent of jumping through a wormhole)
ambushed and having horses stolen (if a scout) or guns stolen (if armed)

Replace bSingleInstance with iNumberInstances for buildings.xml

The Bandit - new unit equivalent of privateer except on land. Seen as neutral by other nations thus can be used to harrass Europeans and natives and capture treasure. The nationality can be exposed, however, by being in the vicinity of an expert scout from another nation and will cause a diplomatic incident.
Suggestion for how to create a bandit - a petty criminal armed with 25 horses, 25 muskets, and 25 tools. The petty criminal can either be armed at the European dock or in a colony. When exposed, demoted back to petty criminal (loses horses, muskets and tools).

I merged tha abandon colony mod to aodII already and it works just fine.
The abandon colony only edits one file and is commented to mark it's own code. I just copied the appropriate sections (there are 4 marked 1/4 2/4 3/4 and 4/4) into the aodII file of the same name. Whenever you press ctrl x you get a confirmation screen asking if you want to delete the colony. If you say yes ut is gone and no resources or colonists are recovered. This is good as it prevents gaming the system for gold treasures.

I disagree that you should lose your colonist if you abandon the colony, that's too rough. You may have created it by mistake or should be allowed to change your mind later. In col 1 I think a colony was only considered permanent once a stockade was built and had a population of 3. You abandoned the colony by putting the last colonist outside it. I personally think that requiring a dock for treasure shipping should be enough to deal with the exploit.

The problem is that people will use an old game exploit to create a colony ship back their treasure and abandon the colony. If Dale could implement a way to prevent the exploit it would be a great idea to then get back your colonist.

Fix the "Europe" labels to read as "Asia" where appropriate for New Russia/New China/New Australia.

It should still be Europe for Australia. Australia is really just another set of English colonists.

Even if it did represent some alternate history where colonists in the Americas were coming direct from Australia, that would be Asia either.

The problem is that people will use an old game exploit to create a colony ship back their treasure and abandon the colony. If Dale could implement a way to prevent the exploit it would be a great idea to then get back your colonist.
It's kinda annoying when people don't read the posts properly. I explained how to fix the exploit in the second line of the OP. Read it. If you had, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

As well as east and west sailing, how about north and south sailing? Some nations could come from those ends too. I mention this because I noticed an allowance for it in the code but it's never been used. It would add to the variety.

It's kinda annoying when people don't read the posts properly. I explained how to fix the exploit in the second line of the OP. Read it. If you had, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Yeah I noted it the first time, then chuckled later. ;)

Actually i did read it. I was just reiterating the problem with the exploit. There are many ways to fix the exploit not just yours. I left it open ended to allow for conversation. If you have a problem with accidental creation of colonies; I suggest you change the civilization.ini to save every turn. Then you could reload immediately after the incident with a minimal loss of game and real time. However I know this is not workable in multiplayer games. Therefore more conversation needs to occur and perhaps a better solution could be obtained.

Well, I thought my suggestion was a pretty good and logical one but if you've got any others, let's hear them.

Actually I think your idea of having a dock to ship treasure is a very good one. My idea is more complex, but attacks the exploit itself. Therefore allowing creation or destruction of a colony as a player desires. Historically, The Spanish fleets would sail to their various ports picking up gold, silver, and valuables annually and sail back to Europe. The fleets often become scattered so a variable size escort would be available at times. Resulting in increased pirate activity. So why not recreate this idea.

1) Eliminate the standard method of shipping treasure.
2) Have a galleon and 0-2 escort ships from each King sail to all port colonies for each player and allow the selling of treasure located in that colony while the galleon is in port.
3) The king pays you at that point for selling the treasure.
4) The kings galleon loads up and continues on.
5) The fleet must sail back with the treasure and therefore creates a potential pirate target.

It should still be Europe for Australia. Australia is really just another set of English colonists.

Even if it did represent some alternate history where colonists in the Americas were coming direct from Australia, that would be Asia either.

Australia is part of Europe? Wow, I must really be a Yankee when it comes to geography, I could have sworn Australia was about as far from Europe as you could get! heh.

Australia is more accurately the name of the colonies not the name of the homeland. Australia was colonised by Europeans, specifically the British.

I personally think Australia was a weird choice for a nation in this mod, since during the timeframe of American colonisation, Australia was inhabited entirely by native populations. Some of whom are thought to have never discovered fire.
This is why I say they are just another set of English colonists.

...Australia was inhabited entirely by native populations. Some of whom are thought to have never discovered fire...

Boy they're sure making up for it now though! ;)

But really, this is a game; it's more about fun than realism. So have Australians, even Kiwis! And why not even have modern leaders founding the American colonies such as George Bush? Of course, all his attributes would be negative.. :D

Australia is more accurately the name of the colonies not the name of the homeland. Australia was colonised by Europeans, specifically the British.

I personally think Australia was a weird choice for a nation in this mod, since during the timeframe of American colonisation, Australia was inhabited entirely by native populations. Some of whom are thought to have never discovered fire.
This is why I say they are just another set of English colonists.

The Portuguese and Dutch discovered Australia in late 1500's/early 1600's. So it's not ridiculous to consider that had things gone a different way Australia could've been Portuguese in early 1600.

True, and this is why I'm not openly advocating it removal (also I am a little honoured you chose to include it at all), but I think my earlier point remains that if you were to change the text to say "back to Asia" or similar for China and Russia, that such a change would be inappropriate for Australia.

Considering I'm an Aussie it was only a matter of time before I put the Aussies in. ;)

Yeah, Aussies are nice -they are my personal favourites!

The Queen of Australlia is a bit strange though, I think it probably means Britain.

Perhaps Aussies should get their mother nation fixed - and then gain independnce from it.

I also find Australian leader portraits a bit dull. Also three leaders are a bit excessive.

The truth is nations and leaders vary strongly. Some are overpowerer, some underpowered. One day, we should fix them.

Saying that I would love to see proper royal British, French and Spanish flags one day. Ingame early australlian flag sucks. Royal flags are awful.

The only flags which I like are the DoI flags Dale implemented.

Whole issue is not a priority at the moment in my opinion.

It should mean Britain, and I think I changed that text in my mod so that the nation could be Australian colonies rather than British colonies yet still have Queen of Britain. (If anyone here has played my mod and noticed this not to be true in any location, tell me.)
However, such a change is less practical in this mod.

The leader portraits are dull because I need to learn how to use Blender before I can change them. (I can use 3dsMax, but I need to do this on my computer and using legally owned programs to be able to use my mod in folios and mod competitions).

And three leaders is because my mod doesn't have nay other playable nations. So instead of vanilla's 8 leaders, I have three. It would not be unreasonable for Dale to remove one (I recommend Deakin)

PiMan well said. Your job was excellent!

You have brought forward Colonization by a step by adding Australians. Most of us have not done anything. :)

Do you think it would be possible to improve early Australian flag?

Considering I'm an Aussie it was only a matter of time before I put the Aussies in. ;)

Considering I'm a kiwi, it's only a matter of time before I take the Aussies out! :D

Considering I'm a kiwi, it's only a matter of time before I take the Aussies out! :D

But I thought you'd leave Australia in since you're the eastern-most state of Australia. :D

Nah, you're the most northern states of New Zealand.

What is about diplomacy with foreign kings? :)

PiMan well said. Your job was excellent!

You have brought forward Colonization by a step by adding Australians. Most of us have not done anything. :)

Do you think it would be possible to improve early Australian flag?

I will eventually change the flag in my mod to a version of Great Britain's flag, rather than the version of England's flag that it is currently. This seems like a good thing to do after I have finished update 0.40.01 (resources).

I for one would like to see more resources. Potatoes would be an interesting one, possibly +1 extra food in the tile over corn normally, but -2 when farmed(so unfarmed potatoes are better then unfarmed corn, but farmed corn is better then farmed potatoes).

As far as luxury resources, you could add in three 'complimentary' resources: Coffee, Dye, and Chocolate. Each one would have an inverse relationship with the price of another resource, for example selling lots of Dye would raise the price of Cloth in Europe, selling Chocolate would raise the price of Sugar, and selling Coffee would raise the price of Cigars. I'm not sure what would be a compliment for Fur - perhaps it could just be worth slightly more from the start to balance it?

The idea behind this would be adding incentives for expanding your colony beyond a small resource-rich area. For example, Cotton for Cloth grows on Plains while Indigo for Dye would grow in Jungles. In order to get maximum effectiveness, you would need to have colonies both on plains and in jungles. Obviously the goods would still go down in value over time just not as much. For example, someone selling Cigars and Cloth regularly might see both drop by 4 gold, while a player selling Cigars and Coffee would see both drop by only 3 gold.

Have a "technology" victory, in that you dominate with FFs over the other nations, the perecentage determined by how many other nations are involved.

Have a "technology" victory, in that you dominate with FFs over the other nations, the perecentage determined by how many other nations are involved.

Hmm... What about a Diplomacy victory? Remember the line "No taxation without representation"? Well there could be a victory condition based off having a good relationship with the king. To pull this off Dave would obviously have to put in a way to raise your diplomacy score with the king, and players would nearly always have to pay the king when he asks for money.

Just having a good relationship isn't enough though - you need to convince the aristocrats and Parlement members that you're worthy of representation, and this is where the Founding Fathers come in. You could temporarily(permanently?) forgo a Founding Father's bonuses when they join you, and send them to Europe on your behalf instead. The more valuable the FF, the more they convince others to side with you. After, say, 80% of Parlement supports you and the King is Friendly, you win.

Why not go all the way and become king? Better yet, insteasd of being a coloniser, play the king instead. Not quite sure it would work, quite a different interface I would imagine, just about a new game in fact.

Why not go all the way and become king?
Isn't that just declaring independence and selecting "Monarchy"? The point of the Diplomacy Victory would be you're still part of your nation, but you're more of a province then just a colony.

Allow for 21 working squares in limited cirumstances.

Options may include enabling by a founding father, a leader attribute, a building which can only be built once every so-many colonies or only has a specfic number of incidencies, or needing a higher cultural level than normally expected for Civ 4 to get the extra squares.

See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=315048

I think it's overpowered. Let's play colonization. ;)

I like if there was barbarian like unit (not attach to any civ) and a Ghost pirate ship controled by AI. This special ship could generate fear, making it difficult to attack.

Also, I tried the pirate recently and have to kiss king 30 times before being able to actually doing any thing :blush: Anyway, my tough are that they could have some more building available. They are also very limitated in ship choice, maybe there could be a way to capture ennemy ship ? or is it already possible ?

Allow random wind direction change which may alter the speed of ships, depending on which way they are going.

Dale, do you think it would be possible to add a script to make the AI shy away from old colonies that have been destroyed? For example, in a recent game I found a nice patch of grassland filled with tobacco and fish. Soon however, I no longer had it to myself. The French settled right next door, so I did what would be expected - I killed them. 3 turns later, they settled in the exact same spot and I killed them again. 3 turns later, they settled there again. Then the Portuguese showed up. Whereas the French were to the north, the Ports were to the south, and I took turns wiping them out, over and over and over. They never moved - they kept settling in the exact same spot, and I kept killing them. If the same spot wasn't available, they would move one to two spaces away and settle there.

Not only was it an abusive exploit(well over 20 pioneers by turn 50), it was rather annoying and really unrealistic. In real life, either the civilizations would simply move to a different area or they would bring military and retaliate. Neither of the above ever happened. I ended up quitting that game out of annoyance.

Perhaps you should've installed a governor instead of razing the colonies.

Perhaps you should've installed a governor instead of razing the colonies.

I did if the colony was in a good location. Even when I did though, the AI would only settle several tiles away form the old city, so it doesn't change much.

I would agree that the AI is extremely "stupid" in terms of what a strategically sound choice by a human player would be.

Yes, the AI is much improved over vanilla: they expand more effectively, and when attacked can very often mount some limited form of defensive counter-attack, fielding one or two dragoons. That is something they never did before. Never. I've even seen an enemy dragoon darting out in the early game, when I attack a nearby competitor on or shortly after turn 21.

The AI also seems far more aggressive with scouts, who will often attack my scouts if they're at war - something I don't ever recall seeing before. I've also seen roving dragoons out killing my scouts, though rarely more than 4-5 squares from an enemy city.

However, amongst the stupid things the AI will do are:
- resettle in exactly the same place a few turns after their cities have been razed.
- keep moving defenceless pioneers and missionaries into harm's way, even though we are already at war and my military units *must* be within their visibility range.
- refrain from counterattacking with a garrisoned infantry unit when my lone dragoon has been seriously wounded and is sitting there totally vulnerable next to the city.

The AI still has no idea how to concentrate forces to make an effective defence, and even less idea how to project power and actually attack my cities. Colonization 1 often saw enemy units on my doorstep, threatening my cities, or even conquering them. Why this never happens *now* is really beyond me.

Sadly, I have no concrete suggestions to offer, and no idea how to modify the AI. I appreciate the few things that Dale has been able to tweak, but I hope that in future builds of the mod the AI nations can somehow be strengthened, to make them more dangerous adversaries.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

One of the worse problems with the AI is, it doesn't produce food => has not enough colonists and colonies.

If AI has food it plays well, and it counters hard.

I guess this is mainly because CIV4 and CIV4:Col have different priority routines.

Whatever it is, it seems we will be stucked with the same AI for long... anyone other than Dale knows how to fix it?

However, amongst the stupid things the AI will do are:
- resettle in exactly the same place a few turns after their cities have been razed.

- bring caravels in at exactly the same place where the previous ten were sunk

Their maps should show "Here Be Monsters."

- bring caravels in at exactly the same place where the previous ten were sunk

Their maps should show "Here Be Monsters."

Actually, I thought that pointad be addressed. The official patch lists something like a new random ship spawning point after a nation has zero ships. Dunnit?

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

But this isn't for their first ship/colony, it is for later colonies.

Changes I would like to see for 1.09

- Improved AI that grows the size of its cities, expands with more new cities, fields privateers and frigates and is a challenge. Maybe a production bonus for the AI cities is easier to implement without recoding the AI routine. Obviously a bigger production bonus at higher difficulties. Something like a new colonist at 100 food instead of 200 food at the highest difficulty. Or farmers produce more food per turn at higher difficulties. We need an AI to challenge us at the highest difficulty.

- reduce time for criminals, natives and indentured to become free colonists as they can't do a lot of the things that they could do before like dragoons or go to school. Or allow them to go to school and learn albeit slowly. A bad run at the docks can clog your cities badly atm.

- if you have a big country it takes a long long time to get to 50% rebel even with 3 statesmen + newspapers in each city. If a new colonist is produced (from 200 food) at a city it could inherit some percentage of that colonies rebel attitude. A city at 60% might produce a colonist at say 30% instead of always 0% as it is now. No problem with colonists from Europe arriving at 0%.

- when a colonist at 100% rebellion trains to veteran soldier it turns back to 0% rebellion. Im not sure if this is true for other vocations as well. This really slows down rebel sentiment if you have 3 students in university.

- slow down education speed. Turning out statesmen from colonists in 2 turns (even with no founding father help) is too fast. Farming, fishing etc can be fast but higher professions need to take longer. 4 year univesity degrees have been around for a long time. 4 years = 6 turns I believe.

- do cannons and ships in harbor really need to accrue rebel sentiment as part of getting the 50%? Late in the game when you are producing a lot of cannons prior to declaring revolution your rebel sentiment can actually drop consistently each turn.

- at higher difficulties maybe rebel sentiment needs to be higher than 50% to revolt. maybe something like 67% at the highest difficulty

if you read throughout the posts for 1.08 issues and 1.09 changes you would see that most of your RS suggestion are counted as bugged and suppossed to be fixed asap..

But this isn't for their first ship/colony, it is for later colonies.

not sure there tho but i think its impossible to code this. goes the same way for players.
the point whereas your ship return to new world is the point where the ships left for europe. a workarround would be eventually if the AI fields a frigate after the 2nd or 3rd caravell....

wouldnt really help a bit if there is some random spawn point and your SoL camps the only town of the enemy just adding further travel time if it starts at the other part of the world through random..

I just posted this in read me first forum in response to another poster there, but it's more appropriate here:


I always wanted a system where the king would start out at 'Pleased' relations with you, but as you grew in wealth his relations would sour and he would start demanding gold and raising taxes ("The crown wants a share of the New World's wealth" diplo penalty). Of course, if the king decided to declare war on another power and he instructed you to fight as well, you could gain a mutual struggle bonus that would permanently restore some of the king's confidence in your colony.

Basically, something more dynamic than the base system of Cautious -> Furious as you refuse his demands. I haven't gotten to play too much with the "REF" relief by acceding to the king's demands, as a disclaimer. If you think the game's diplo with the king is satisfactory with this addition, don't mind me.