[MOD] The Authentic Colonization (TAC)

[thadian]

great mod, but i still need to find the english version - my install broke twice from my net connect, but i like it a lot. mostly the pace of the game - i no longer feel like i have to rush to end.

 

[stljeffbb]

Hi Jeff,

I'm glad that you like to play our modification. Perhaps a hint: When the time of waiting will be too long during a party, please go to desktop and start the game again.

Thanks much for this tip....oddly, the middle of the game had longer turns than nearer then end where I'm at now....

Jeff

 

[Writing Bull]

great mod. ... mostly the pace of the game - i no longer feel like i have to rush to end.

Hi thadian! And thank you ...

Yes, this was very important for us. Our users like to colonize the New World slowly. When you start a party und found your first settlement, you have to build the buildings - you don't get them automatically. And it's necessary to use pioneers. You need them to get improvements like farms and plantations which are essentials to get enough food, lumber and other raw materials.

Thanks much for this tip....oddly, the middle of the game had longer turns than nearer then end where I'm at now....

Yes, the Vanilla-version of Colonization (and therefore TAC, too) has an important bug: When you are playing Civ4Col for a long time, the program is working more and more slowly. But there is a simple solution - back to desktop and starting the program again.

 

[Vorpal+5]

Hi,

I tried TAC and things did not went well for my first game.

I played a few turns, then landed. No pop up on colony foundation.
A few turns latter, I notice that unit cycling is not working anymore, even if I have unit cycling on as an Options. I tick off then on to see if the behaviour restarts, but nope, so I quit to desktop.

I reload the game.
I get immediatly a pop up about what I want to do of a lumberjack? huu? I don't have a lumberjack... I say 'to soldier'.
Then I get 11 times in a row the choice about the basecamp bonus. I end up with +22 food bonus.

At this point I quit the game. This is rather buggy behavior. I have the saved game. Load it, you'll get 11 pop ups too!

 

[Writing Bull]

Hi Vorpal, am I right that you have enabled the tutorial? We haven't adapted it to TAC. Please disable the tutorial at option-menu, and you won't have any problems yet. That is a general problem of Colonization-mods, it is too laborous to adapt the tutorial to all changes which had happened. Sorry!

Our German manual contains the advice to disable the tutorial, and our following TAC-version will be released without the tutorial-events. Besides an English manual is projected.

 

[Eloque]

One question, you said MP might be problematic. Is it playable or is it 'broken'?

And is there an English content list?

 

[koma13]

One question, you said MP might be problematic. Is it playable or is it 'broken'?

Multiplayer is broken. You will get a lot of OOS-errors. Hotseat should be ok. We want to fix those multiplayer problems in the final release version of TAC.

 

[Writing Bull]

One question, you said MP might be problematic. Is it playable or is it 'broken'?

You will get a lot of OOS-errors. Hotseat should be ok. We want to fix those multiplayer problems in the final release version of TAC.

Besides PBEM-Modus is playable without any problems. It isn't possible to trade directly with other players, but that is an error of vanilla version.

And is there an English content list?

No, sorry. We have this documentation of all changes. It specifies our new features at 18 (of 25) pages. It is only available in German. But we wish to public a second manual which will be a summary, and that manual will be translated then.

 

[agaro]

Hi guys,

I've been playing this mod for a few weeks. Obviously lots of work has gone into it .. it really is a great leap forward.

Since you are still working on it, and it is being expanded into the R+R mod I thought I would make a few comments. A lot of these comments deal with transport units as this is something I have taken a specific interest in.

Firstly to other initial users be aware it looks like it crashes back to desktop when you load ... but it comes up in about 30 seconds, just hang in there.

There are some significant changes in balance here. One is that cotton has become a strategic resource. You need it to make cloth which is now an input for wagon trains and ships. So no cotton = no transport. The "prairie" squares have either exposed or hidden cotton (I wasn't aware of this before… I had my pioneers walking around for quite a while looking at every square to see if there was cotton under the forest). Be careful to consider this when locating your settlements. You need lots of cloth and I rarely sold any to Europe, only when my warehouses and treks were full.

I think this increases the disadvantage to Nations who happen to first land near the colder parts of the map because there is less cotton there.

As you've noted already in this thread the European AIs are much more competitive. I'm always surprised how quickly they expand and grow. They seem to initiate lots of small settlements and then attack the local native tribe to get them out of the way. They are also much more aggressive towards humans ... even if you are not near them they will decide to declare war on you for not opening your borders or trading maps. Of course you don't find out about it until a large army appears outside your colony 15 turns later. You've been warned ... they don't play nice.

I suggest appeasement is the best policy early in the game i.e. just give them what they want (or being the attacker yourself). I think the balance is even more with the attacker early in the game in this mod. I'm very surprised the AI can put together such a big force early in the game (if they aren't cheating). In Col Vanilla you could defend an early attack against your city with a fort, plus 2 to 4 sentries, plus about 100 horses and 200 guns. In TAC that’s not enough.

Later in the game, city defence is a more realistic option - particularly since all the bombarding % have been reduced a lot in this mod. But defence it is pretty hard early in the game.

Natives also seem more aggressive and better at mobilising more of their braves together to attack rather than just the contents of one or 2 villages. Also be careful of defensive pacts now ... you will automatically be in any war with your allies. You don't get a choice now.

In fact I got so annoyed with being attacked when I was trying to investigate the other economic changes to the mod that I would usually just start a new game. Eventually I had to start a game with the no war box checked.

Wagon trains have some significant differences. You now need cotton + tools + horses to make a wagon whereas previously you just needed wood / hammers. Get used to having a lot less wagons. Apologies for promoting my own work but you should adopt the shuttle strategy when playing this mod. It is the best way to get the most goods moved with less wagons. See this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=382590

The excellent route assignment system in this mod makes it simple to set up and modify shuttle wagons routes. It is also one of the few ways you can get a real advantage over the AI and its automated wagon approach.

While there is much more to this mod than the new transport routing system, even if you had just done that the mod would still be a great and useful development.

One thing I didn't like about this mod was the removal of the ability to load empty wagons onto ships - and I know other mods have done this as well. I actually thought it was realistic and useful to be able to ship empty wagons. If you can load 100 horses or a unit of armed dragoons, why is there an issue with putting 1 empty wagon onto a ship? It would be even more useful in this mod to be able to ship wagons because they are now much harder to build on site.

I am OK with horses being required for wagons. Previously it was a bit unrealistic to only need horses for war so you could have one mega ranch and then ship horses with guns to battle sites in wagons as required. Now you need a lot more stables, dotted every 4 or so settlements, just to get your wagons and treks.

However, needing cotton as well seems a bit too hard and unrealistic. Surely settlers would have used uncovered wagons or pack horses to move goods around if their wagon couldn't be covered with cloth. Perhaps a better option might have been to have a lower capacity uncovered transport unit (e.g. 1 cargo, 1 move unit per turn) as an alternative build option.

Moreover this material idea isn't carried though the higher transport levels in this mod. The stagecoach doesn't need any cotton or even extra wood, and the carrier doesn't need any cotton either. It's just the basic wagon that is effected.

I was also a bit surprised to have other nations' wagons running through my closed borders and vice versa. What is the rationale for only having people and ships stopped but not wagons?

In terms of economic / technical development the biggest change is the government palace, and how multiples of 4 of these in 4 settlements release various great buildings. This was a bit tricky to understand without an English manual. It makes it a bit more important picking what to build in which site, as you won’t get another one until you build 4 more palaces in 4 different colonies.

To finish a few random questions:

- I can’t recall capturing ships before, is this new in this mod?

- Are you able to explain the victory conditions? I’ve never understood them even in Vanilla.

- With the Customs House do your lost goods still get taxed?

- Are you supposed to be able to build the Statue of the Governor? It always seems much too many turns. Or am I missing something?

That's all for now ... great job again.

 

[Writing Bull]

Hi guys,

I've been playing this mod for a few weeks. Obviously lots of work has gone into it .. it really is a great leap forward.

Spoiler :

Since you are still working on it, and it is being expanded into the R+R mod I thought I would make a few comments. A lot of these comments deal with transport units as this is something I have taken a specific interest in.

Firstly to other initial users be aware it looks like it crashes back to desktop when you load ... but it comes up in about 30 seconds, just hang in there.

There are some significant changes in balance here. One is that cotton has become a strategic resource. You need it to make cloth which is now an input for wagon trains and ships. So no cotton = no transport. The "prairie" squares have either exposed or hidden cotton (I wasn't aware of this before… I had my pioneers walking around for quite a while looking at every square to see if there was cotton under the forest). Be careful to consider this when locating your settlements. You need lots of cloth and I rarely sold any to Europe, only when my warehouses and treks were full.

I think this increases the disadvantage to Nations who happen to first land near the colder parts of the map because there is less cotton there.

As you've noted already in this thread the European AIs are much more competitive. I'm always surprised how quickly they expand and grow. They seem to initiate lots of small settlements and then attack the local native tribe to get them out of the way. They are also much more aggressive towards humans ... even if you are not near them they will decide to declare war on you for not opening your borders or trading maps. Of course you don't find out about it until a large army appears outside your colony 15 turns later. You've been warned ... they don't play nice.

I suggest appeasement is the best policy early in the game i.e. just give them what they want (or being the attacker yourself). I think the balance is even more with the attacker early in the game in this mod. I'm very surprised the AI can put together such a big force early in the game (if they aren't cheating). In Col Vanilla you could defend an early attack against your city with a fort, plus 2 to 4 sentries, plus about 100 horses and 200 guns. In TAC that’s not enough.

Later in the game, city defence is a more realistic option - particularly since all the bombarding % have been reduced a lot in this mod. But defence it is pretty hard early in the game.

Natives also seem more aggressive and better at mobilising more of their braves together to attack rather than just the contents of one or 2 villages. Also be careful of defensive pacts now ... you will automatically be in any war with your allies. You don't get a choice now.

In fact I got so annoyed with being attacked when I was trying to investigate the other economic changes to the mod that I would usually just start a new game. Eventually I had to start a game with the no war box checked.

Wagon trains have some significant differences. You now need cotton + tools + horses to make a wagon whereas previously you just needed wood / hammers. Get used to having a lot less wagons. Apologies for promoting my own work but you should adopt the shuttle strategy when playing this mod. It is the best way to get the most goods moved with less wagons. See this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=382590

The excellent route assignment system in this mod makes it simple to set up and modify shuttle wagons routes. It is also one of the few ways you can get a real advantage over the AI and its automated wagon approach.

While there is much more to this mod than the new transport routing system, even if you had just done that the mod would still be a great and useful development.

One thing I didn't like about this mod was the removal of the ability to load empty wagons onto ships - and I know other mods have done this as well. I actually thought it was realistic and useful to be able to ship empty wagons. If you can load 100 horses or a unit of armed dragoons, why is there an issue with putting 1 empty wagon onto a ship? It would be even more useful in this mod to be able to ship wagons because they are now much harder to build on site.

I am OK with horses being required for wagons. Previously it was a bit unrealistic to only need horses for war so you could have one mega ranch and then ship horses with guns to battle sites in wagons as required. Now you need a lot more stables, dotted every 4 or so settlements, just to get your wagons and treks.

However, needing cotton as well seems a bit too hard and unrealistic. Surely settlers would have used uncovered wagons or pack horses to move goods around if their wagon couldn't be covered with cloth. Perhaps a better option might have been to have a lower capacity uncovered transport unit (e.g. 1 cargo, 1 move unit per turn) as an alternative build option.

Moreover this material idea isn't carried though the higher transport levels in this mod. The stagecoach doesn't need any cotton or even extra wood, and the carrier doesn't need any cotton either. It's just the basic wagon that is effected.

I was also a bit surprised to have other nations' wagons running through my closed borders and vice versa. What is the rationale for only having people and ships stopped but not wagons?

In terms of economic / technical development the biggest change is the government palace, and how multiples of 4 of these in 4 settlements release various great buildings. This was a bit tricky to understand without an English manual. It makes it a bit more important picking what to build in which site, as you won’t get another one until you build 4 more palaces in 4 different colonies.

To finish a few random questions:

- I can’t recall capturing ships before, is this new in this mod?

- Are you able to explain the victory conditions? I’ve never understood them even in Vanilla.

- With the Customs House do your lost goods still get taxed?

- Are you supposed to be able to build the Statue of the Governor? It always seems much too many turns. Or am I missing something?

That's all for now ... great job again.

Hi agaro! I'm glad that you like our project.

So many questions ... ... I will ask the German-speaking community of our project to answer them step-by-step.

 

[raystuttgart]

- I can’t recall capturing ships before, is this new in this mod?

Yes, it is one of the many new features of TAC.

There are many more new features in TAC:

• Learning By Doing
• Whaling
• Natives Stealing and Equipping Horses and Weapons
• Native Mercenaries
• ...

I once tried to make a complete list of all features and changes in TAC I could recall.
(For Robert, when we started working on Religion and Revolution.)
It was really a lot ...
(I guess the TAC team will explain the most important ones here in the near future. )

 

[Ronnar]

Hi guys,

There are some significant changes in balance here. One is that cotton has become a strategic resource. You need it to make cloth which is now an input for wagon trains and ships. So no cotton = no transport. The "prairie" squares have either exposed or hidden cotton (I wasn't aware of this before… I had my pioneers walking around for quite a while looking at every square to see if there was cotton under the forest). Be careful to consider this when locating your settlements. You need lots of cloth and I rarely sold any to Europe, only when my warehouses and treks were full.

I think this increases the disadvantage to Nations who happen to first land near the colder parts of the map because there is less cotton there.

I am OK with horses being required for wagons. Previously it was a bit unrealistic to only need horses for war so you could have one mega ranch and then ship horses with guns to battle sites in wagons as required. Now you need a lot more stables, dotted every 4 or so settlements, just to get your wagons and treks.

However, needing cotton as well seems a bit too hard and unrealistic. Surely settlers would have used uncovered wagons or pack horses to move goods around if their wagon couldn't be covered with cloth. Perhaps a better option might have been to have a lower capacity uncovered transport unit (e.g. 1 cargo, 1 move unit per turn) as an alternative build option.

Moreover this material idea isn't carried though the higher transport levels in this mod. The stagecoach doesn't need any cotton or even extra wood, and the carrier doesn't need any cotton either. It's just the basic wagon that is effected.

I was also a bit surprised to have other nations' wagons running through my closed borders and vice versa. What is the rationale for only having people and ships stopped but not wagons?

- Are you supposed to be able to build the Statue of the Governor? It always seems much too many turns. Or am I missing something?

That's all for now ... great job again.

Hi agaro,

I have picked a few of your questions and will try to answer them here:

Material requirements for wagons:
We had a goal of slowing down the initial spread of colonies in TAC. Adding additional requirements to wagons was one of the steps towards that goal.
Not having any cotton in your local area however is not a blocker for your expansion: You can either buy cloth in Europe and ship it over to the colonies or you can just buy any missing material from the city screen. That's what the AI is doing as well.

So yes: cotton/cloth in your starting city is an advantage, but so is having a source of silver which allows you to more or less buy anything you need. Or having good food resources, which allows you to spread your colonies faster. You will need different strategies dependant on your starting position.

Wagons can ignore closed borders, as it will mess up automated wagon routes completely if they couldn't. The AI will be helpless if borders are closed and goods cannot be transported. It is for the benefit of the AI (and maybe your benefit as a player as well, if you have an isolated inland city somewhere)

You are not supposed to ever finish the Statue of the Governor in a normal game. It is a construction project if you have completed all other buildings and do not need any more founding father points. Instead of building many useless units you will now have the option to build the Statue instead. I have done the translation for the pedia some weeks ago, so the statue will have an English explanation in the next version.

 

[Ronnar]

In terms of economic / technical development the biggest change is the government palace, and how multiples of 4 of these in 4 settlements release various great buildings. This was a bit tricky to understand without an English manual. It makes it a bit more important picking what to build in which site, as you won’t get another one until you build 4 more palaces in 4 different colonies.

That's a concept taken from CIV BTS. You need a multiple of X numbers of building A to be able to construct building B. In CIV it was e.g. you need two temples to build one cathedral. I hope you like the choices this offers when you get used to it

 

[Writing Bull]

Thank you, Ronnar. I will continue to answer agaro ...

Firstly to other initial users be aware it looks like it crashes back to desktop when you load ... but it comes up in about 30 seconds, just hang in there.

I guess that this depends on the map-script which you have choiced. FaireWeather needs more time than other scripts to generate the world.

I'm always surprised how quickly they expand and grow. They seem to initiate lots of small settlements and then attack the local native tribe to get them out of the way. They are also much more aggressive towards humans ... even if you are not near them they will decide to declare war on you for not opening your borders or trading maps. Of course you don't find out about it until a large army appears outside your colony 15 turns later. You've been warned ... they don't play nice.

Yes, we have spent a lot of time to improve the AI of the other European nations. Now the AI will transport goods and expand faster and bolder. The AI also use cheats. But our focus was to improve the intelligence of the rivals. At vanilla version it was possible to ignore the competitors. Now it is necessary to create a strategic plan for the foreign affairs.

Later in the game, city defence is a more realistic option - particularly since all the bombarding % have been reduced a lot in this mod.

Yes, we have reduced the bombarding-rates of the artillery so that it is more senseful to build walls.

 

[Robert Surcouf]

Hi everyone,

Again, I must say I'm quite impressed with all the work you've done.
Agaro's remarks are quite interesting.

Wagons can ignore closed borders, as it will mess up automated wagon routes completely if they couldn't. The AI will be helpless if borders are closed and goods cannot be transported.

Ai is always that stupid? Can't someone do something about that?

May I ask another question? Why did you change the Leader traits? Some traits seem quite interesting, but isn't three too much? I really liked the idea of having one nation trait and one leader trait...

 

[agaro]

Yes, it is one of the many new features of TAC.

There are many more new features in TAC:

• Learning By Doing
• Whaling
• Natives Stealing and Equipping Horses and Weapons
• Native Mercenaries
• ...

I once tried to make a complete list of all features and changes in TAC I could recall.
(For Robert, when we started working on Religion and Revolution.)
It was really a lot ...
(I guess the TAC team will explain the most important ones here in the near future. )

Yes one of the main experiences of this mod is you are regularly seeing new little things and thinking that's new and good and well executed - even down to the little blue lights that highlight the buildings or units you have already started on but not finished. But there are too many to mention them all.

I got a shock when my dragoon was defeated by a brave and then an armed mounted brave suddenly appeared. Then it made sense when I got the message he had captured my horses and guns.

 

[agaro]

Hi agaro,

You are not supposed to ever finish the Statue of the Governor in a normal game. It is a construction project if you have completed all other buildings and do not need any more founding father points. Instead of building many useless units you will now have the option to build the Statue instead. I have done the translation for the pedia some weeks ago, so the statue will have an English explanation in the next version.

Yes that is what I thought, and I ended up using the statue as you suggest as a holding project while I was waiting for more tools or other resources to build up, after all the founding fathers had been exhausted. You need something like this since you can't just build wagon trains without using resources anymore.

As a further development it would be good to have the option to build the Statue communally - since all the coding and imagery for the statue must already exist it's a shame not to get to see it. Perhaps if all the partially built statues reach 10,000 hammers in combined total (or whatever the number is) then you get the option to put 1 completed statue in 1 of the developed cities (either your choice or the city with the most progress towards a completed statue?) and all the other part statues get put back to zero hammers. Having seen what you are doing with the palace and great building options I think this statue development should be achievable. Then the colonies can start working jointly on another statue, even the city that has the first statue (although you can't put the next statue there as well).

On a similar topic: At one point I heard a hissing sound and saw a message that a Spanish AI city had been upgraded to some form of elite status. How did they achieve this and did they get any benefit?

 

[agaro]

Hi agaro,

Wagons can ignore closed borders, as it will mess up automated wagon routes completely if they couldn't. The AI will be helpless if borders are closed and goods cannot be transported. It is for the benefit of the AI (and maybe your benefit as a player as well, if you have an isolated inland city somewhere)

After I finished my wagon shuttle strategy article, I started another article attempting to cover everything related to movement and transport. It got pretty big and I didn't finish it.

However, while I was writing this I did a lot of research on automated transport units mainly to see why they were significantly less efficient than my shuttle wagon system.

I would define efficiency as something like the overall number of goods units moved per transport unit per turn. The research involved test games where I set up a number of colonies and automated wagons and ships and documented what each individual automated transport unit chose to do based on what goods and inport / export commands were in the various colonies at each turn (yes I need to get out more!).

Firstly, if there is any possible land or sea route between its cities the automated AI will find it and go around any closed borders. In fact one of the reasons the auto transport units are inefficient is that they don't value proximity or trip length and will give equal priority to a settlement very distant from the unit itself (even if the unit is empty on one of the legs).

Secondly, the AI never sets up isolated settlements as a strategic choice. This only happens if their scout or mission / converted native is isolated and then can't get back to the AI's main cultural area. Eventually this person will start a settlement because the AI can't or won't send a ship to collect them. If this new remote settlement is on the coast the AI auto ships can support it as if it were an island. I can't recall ever seeing one of these guys start an inland settlement if a coastal option was available.

Third point. You only really have an issue in the rare situation where the isolated unit is landlocked and starts a landlocked settlement. But this was a settlement the AI didn't really want in the first place and was probably started by one person and will grow very slowly. Preventing the AI from being able to support this 1 remote settlement probably doesn't hurt the AI at all, and in fact it might help them in terms of overall efficiency. The AI can manage a completely isolated settlement on its own without any real problem - it can't trade unless there are natives nearby so its warehouse will be all red but everything else will be fine.

Whenever I've had one of my scouts or converted natives isolated I just wait, rather than start a settlement. Often the opponent's cultural boundary expands underneath you and closes the no-man's land so you get thrown to another location that is more accessible, or eventually you change to open the boundaries and the unit can pass through.

So finally getting to my main point. I don't think the AI really has any significant disadvantage or problem here that needs a change to Vanilla. Having one guy isolated isn't that much different from having their mission taken over or scout killed. The ideal solution would be to teach the AI to come and collect its people with ships, or have some sort of diplomatic visa to allow this one person to pass, or perhaps stop the AI from starting the isolated settlement in the first place - but I've got no idea if this is possible. However, again I doubt the actual disadvantage to the AI would justify coding any of these changes.

I think your solution, allowing all wagons to run through all closed borders, even using foreign roads, gives them too much of an advantage and changes the game. Although the change is open to everyone, it takes away an important strategic tool players have (and probably human players are most able to exploit this) - that is using deliberate settlement placement, closed borders and cultural boundary expansion to restrict the growth of your rivals. This becomes much less effective if their wagons can cross your barriers and use your roads.

I would also like to emphasize that I am very respectful and in awe of all the work you've done. It is the nature of change that we end up talking about the small few things we differ on, rather than the large number of things that you've done that are great. I think I should say this because perhaps my comments are being translated into German and I hope they do not come out as impolite.

 

[Ronnar]

I know that we did some tests with closed borders and wagons, but it has been more than a year ago. I can't remember all the details

You can easily change this for your game:

Open the following file:
Sid Meier's Civilization IV Colonization\MODS\TAC 2.02b_inoffiziell\Assets\XML\Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Search for e.g. UNIT_WAGON_TRAIN and change the follwing entry from 1 to 0:

<bRivalTerritory>1</bRivalTerritory>

Your wagon train will no longer be able to ignore closed borders.

 

[Ronnar]

On a similar topic: At one point I heard a hissing sound and saw a message that a Spanish AI city had been upgraded to some form of elite status. How did they achieve this and did they get any benefit?

I have no clue what this could have been. I am not aware of elite status for cities in TAC. A quick search through our text files did not show any message about elite status of a city.
You will have to wait for one of the other TAC members, maybe they have an idea. With the exact text of the message I could have a look through our files to see where it's used.