Colonize!

Gunner said:

1. It looks like the Dye Manufactory requires spices instead of dyes.
2. The Tobaccoist doesn't have the 'goods must be in city radius' flag checked.
3. Most of the building are messed up in some way because the game crashes when you right click on them once they have been built in the city. The ones I specifically remember doing this off the top of my head were the harbor and servant building.
4. I think this was said before, but the government descriptions are wrong. Just making sure that this is on the list of things to do.
5. I really like the choice you are given with the initial three governments. It seems that the computer only chooses Conquest though. But I guess thats good because it makes Spain build its conquisdador building (I know that because they invaded me with 3 of them at one point!)
6. I don't think that crossbowman should upgrade to Arbequesters, I like it how it is. Even if they could though, wouldn't we have to wait for Muster fields before they could be upgraded?
7. This game really does a good job of capturing the spirit of Colonization for me. The magically appearing colonists, all the great buildings, searching for that problem that just made you crash, they all come together and I love it.

Click to expand...

1. Twill be fixed.
2. I noticed this in a game I played immediately after releasing the beta; twill be fixed.
3. This problem does not appear to be building specific; I tested it in a couple games, and after reloading it appeared that I could successfully right click on different buildings at different times, but 1 in every 5 right clicks resulted in a CTD, regardless of building clicked. I have absolutely no idea what this crash is.
4. Yes, I have brief descriptions done, and I will put all the statistics up in the patch, as well as fixing an icon problem with GOVT entries, which will probably be done by later today, after class.
5. I suspected this, but couldn't be sure. I do not know why, but the AI seems to be ridiculously aggressive, even the AIs I set to minimum aggression. Sometimes this will result in the AI going after the natives, which is intended. Sometimes it will result in a turn 15 halberdier suicide blitz on a neighbouring European, which isn't really intended.
6. Good point. I forgot I had muster field so much later. Think of it this way: the AI is too stupid to be able to upgrade its units early on, so you shouldn't get to either
7. I'll post on the main forum about the mystery right-click-building crash; I haven't heard of that before, but it wouldn't be the first time Civ mysteriously 'sploded with no explanation.

I'm excited about this mod as I loved Colonisation from many moons ago.

Just DLed the mod and have started to play as New England ...

Have only had time to play 2-3 turns

Civilipedia requires work ...

1. Resource Section - none of the icons match with the descriptions.
2. The Native Tribes Description - text is too large to be accomodated on 1st page, it requires the 'more information' button to open next page.

Am enjoying ... good mod

fe3333au said:

1. Resource Section - none of the icons match with the descriptions.
2. The Native Tribes Description - text is too large to be accomodated on 1st page, it requires the 'more information' button to open next page.

Click to expand...

1. Haven't had time to fix the resource icons yet. For all the terrain and resource civilopedia icons, I'm going to be emulating the "9 square road/river/forest" from Colonization with in-game screenies of Colonize!.
2. Thanks...I tend to forget that. I'll check the other GCONs to make sure they aren't too long. I'll have some other minor text stuff fixed too.

Ok, here are some more things I have found:
1. The stockade, frontier fort, and fortress can't be built once a city grows beyond population 4 (like Jamestown since its on a river). Because of that those cities will never be able to build muster fields which is a real shame.
2. The defense bonuses for the defensive buildings seem all wrong to me. The default for walls from regular civ was 50, but the stockade is something like 12, and fort 8, and fortress 10. That means the by building all of them you get a huge bonus of 30% to your defense in that city. Seems like a waste of shields.
3. The fortress doesn't require the frontier fort, but that could be intentional I think. Getting more of the original colonization feel would require you adding the frontier fort into the requirement, yet that makes it harder for the AI to build and fortress and therefore the musterfield. So how it is is probably fine.
4. I also noticed that none of the technologies enabled the building of bridges which can get pretty annoying.
5. I really love the custom city graphics for the various indian tribes. It really adds alot to the scenario.

I think that will look really cool with using the original Colonization graphics.

I did some testing with the mystery building crash and it seems as if it is specific-building related. I right clicked on all of the building I had built, and only the capitol, servants flops, town square, and stockade didn't crash. I tried each of those at least five times and each time there was no crash. The ones which did cause a crash were the builders hall, chapel, harbor, port, store house, tobbacoist, trade office, trapper's hall, wharf, fortress, and muster field. I did most of them twice and each time they crashed. I really know nothing about the civlopedia, so I can't offer any suggestions about why it may be caused.

One other thing I was thinking about was how resources dissapear. I know it does happen in real life, but in an historical scenario like this I think it shouldn't happen because it can really have a huge effect on how the game turns out. In my current game I have lost one metal ore and two prime timbers, very annoying.

The intention for forts was that inland cities not next to a major river could only ever build stockades and frontier forts; coastal cities, however, should be able to build their fortress whenever and recieve a flat defense bonus, like the civil defense from regular epic C3C. It might be because the fortress has a bombard defense; I will rename the coastal battery and attach both bombard defenses to it, and see if that fixes it.
The defense bonus I screwed up on; I must have been blazing through entering values and entered them all as if they were bombard defense (IE combat value instead of bonus percentage). You know, I probably did the same thing on my Middle East scenario. It shall be fixed.
I'll fix the bridge thing, as well as the resource disappearance; I intended to do both before the beta.
Thanks for taking the time to test all those buildings; I suppose I jumped to a conclusion on em. I'll update the main forum question, but nobody seems keen on answering it.

I modified the map a bit to make the St. Laurance river open to the sea so that Quebec could be more historically located. I moved the Hurons to the Amazon and changed them to religious and agricultural to give the Portugese more competition. Also scooted the Arawak over one square to make cuba better for two cities and moved Jamestown down one square to allow move room for expansion for it and New York. Let me know what you think.


edit: correct map attached to my following post

In my game the Huron were taken out very quickely by the French, so I don't think that much would be lost by sending them to South America.

The cacoa mill doesn't require any resources.

I think this has been said before, but the Manhattan Purchase is an improvement instead of a wonder. A pretty bad wonder at that, I woundn't build it.

There's a problem with the picture for one of the units because there is an error when you scroll down the civlopedia. The picture is attached.

The Huron and Iroqouis are somewhat intended to cause early scuffles in the Northeast; if its too much for a 'medium' map I'll fill out a space somewhere else; perhaps use the Mapuche in far south america, and move the Tupi up a little closer to the interior.
Manhattan Purchase, and all the other 'culture' wonders, give quite a lot of culture. Keep in mind that there are scant few buildings that give any culture at all in this mod, and that culture doubling will never come into play. Plus, you would not normally be able to build a "commercial port" type wonder in the epic game until the end of the third age, and only a scant few wonders and a small wonder give that benefit in this mod. The Manhattan Purchase is one of them.
That error is caused by a missing "x". It shall be fixed momentarily.
Also, that posted map is of the "tiny" americas, not the medium one you modified. If you edit in a modified Medium version to that post I will go ahead and link it from the front page.

Edit: Patch 1 posted. Icon issues have not yet been fixed, but any and all known .biq and .txt issues SHOULD be set. No guarantees, it is a Beta after all

Just DL'ed Patch

Cononize! Beta.1
> Map ColonizeAmericasT
> Servant level
> New England

Comments so far ... Date 1523 Turn 3

1. PLAYER SETUP
Civ choice screen
>No Descriptions under LH

2. Starting Location = Jamestown near obelisk
* I'm thinking the obelisk is an on-screen icon which orders AI to colonize that particular spot ... yes?

3. ECONOMY - Reason for Posting
I founded Jamestown where the settler unit is initially positioned.
Even with 0% Science I am at negative economy is this ment to be so
Not sure if this is relivant - the spare settler and guard units are on ship heading north.

Regards

@ GRM7584
Any particular aspects of game u want tested?

2. I think that obelisk thing means that you checked victory point scoring by accident. I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be there...

3. Well it really doesn't matter if you are losing a little bit right at the begining. Your income will skyrocket once you build that second city (which will give you some more free support) and grow some addtional people. It does seem pretty drastic though at 0%, whats costing so much? I never encountered that in the games I started.

I would also recommend that you play the larger map, it seems alot better and more accurate to me without being huge and unmanagable.

Gunner said:

2. I think that obelisk thing means that you checked victory point scoring by accident. I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be there...

Click to expand...

Thanks Have never played with victory points before I will check initial game settings as I don't recall changing any.

3. Well it really doesn't matter if you are losing a little bit right at the begining. Your income will skyrocket once you build that second city (which will give you some more free support) and grow some addtional people. It does seem pretty drastic though at 0%, whats costing so much? I never encountered that in the games I started.

Click to expand...

I agree with it being too excessive

I would also recommend that you play the larger map, it seems alot better and more accurate to me without being huge and unmanagable.

Click to expand...

Good point will start again on larger map.

Cheers

There are currently no descriptions for Civs or Leaderheads; I'll make interim entries soon, but they won't be more than a paragraph, especially since Leaders aren't final.
Income will indeed be negative; the 20 gold at the start is just enough to get your second settler to a decent spot for a new city. The massive negative income is unit support; and unit support is a bigger issue in this mod than the regular epic game.
Theres nothing in particular I need tested; what I am interested in is A)dates of era advancement, for tech balancing B)more specific historical information, from new world history enthusiasts, if any exist C)error reports, unless there aren't any errors. In which case, yay.

oops!!!!!!!!!!!

GRM7584 said:

Income will indeed be negative; the 20 gold at the start is just enough to get your second settler to a decent spot for a new city. The massive negative income is unit support; and unit support is a bigger issue in this mod than the regular epic game.

Click to expand...

OK, good not a game problem.

GRM7584 said:

Theres nothing in particular I need tested; what I am interested in is A)dates of era advancement, for tech balancing B)more specific historical information, from new world history enthusiasts, if any exist C)error reports, unless there aren't any errors. In which case, yay.

Click to expand...

Took the liberty of testing every link in the Civilopedia as I was frustrated with game crashes

Civilopedia

Load Error message "...\Pedialcon.txt":_LARGE Occurs with the following -
>Governments - Chiefdom, Colonization, Confederation, Monarchy

Units Icon for Artillery has a blue background not white.

Descriptions
Patent: Steamboats and Patent: Cotton - to remove the issue of comma starting a new line, could I suggest that you remove the comma which follows ... The Patent Office,

Technology Tree
>Can You nudge the Tech Tree up so that the boxes fir the new window graphic.

>English Imitation what is this tech, does it imply a secret society? If so can I suggest the name chaged to Illuminati or something similar. Infact somewhere in CFC Graphics Forum designed a wondersplash and associated graphics for Illuminati Pyramid (US $1 bill) maybe this could be used?

Wonder Suggestions
Babbage Machine - early computer worked on cogs and levers created by Charles Babbage 1791-1871. Effect - possible increase in science where built and requires a university to be built. This would be a very late wonder.
Link http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/babbage/index.asp

City Improvements
Can I suggest that Ball Court be changed to Royal Tennis which is an early tennis (if not earliest) from England, it is the tennis of the aristocracy and played indoors.

Stockade - (and following related improvements) you don't state the defence bonus in the description.

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Wow just re-read ... sorry about the analness of it Oh well hope it helps

Keep up the brilliance

Regards

I ran into trouble as the Spanish as there are no readily available sources of prime timber. What I did was make the Caravel not need prime timber as a resource and reduced its movement by one. To be honest, I really didn't understand that given the fact that both it and the Carrack had the same costs, same movement, same attack and defence and both available with ship building why you would ever choose the Carrack as there is very little sea movement. I changed the Carrack to ignore movement of ocean only and left Caravel with igonore sea movement.

I also added a prime timber resource next to Mexico City (known for its huge cyress trees), north of New Orleans and around where Maracaibo and Caracas would be.

-I'll fix those government icons, thanks for the comprehensive testing, as it will probably save everyone a good deal of headachery.
-The tech tree is on the backburner for being fixed up; ultimately, I will be putting nice little dotted arrows connecting the techs, and set them all in a reaonable configuration. I'll try a more "final" set up in the next patch, so they look a little better.
-Babbage's difference engine is invented in 1822, and done so in England. I'd like all the included patents to be exclusively New World; the timeframe isn't quite as important, though. If it had been invented in, say, Pennsylvania, I'd include it in a heartbeat.
-The Ball Court and Great Ball Court are exclusively native improvements, as they require rubber which only the natives can see. The Europeans don't currently get any games, sadly. Maybe I'll have a gambling parlor or something
-I will type in the defense bonuses if I remember; I was focusing more in my descriptions of telling what the relation between different defenses was.g
-The "English Imitation" tech is there to represent just that...the imitation of the old world English lifestyle that was considered fashionable and popular in the new world English colonies. One of the effects of this was that when Masonic Guilds became popular in 17th and 18th century England, they were almost immediately imported to North America; the North American continental grand lodge is one of the first formed, I think; although I don't know terribly much about specific history. Also, despite some conspiracy theories and a few silly games and novels, the 'Illuminati' are either a purely fictional NWO sort of organization or one of several brief low-level secretive political organizations of continental europe during the 17th century, whereas freemasonry is a fraternal order more along the lines of an Elk Lodge or some such; it just happens to be utterly steeped in religious symbolism and secrecy. As for the pyramid symbol, it has nothing to do with the illuminati, it is merely symbolic of the providence of God and the ideals of a democratic republic; the symbol is actually composed of two seperately created symbols, a simple pyramid design by William Barton and the "eye of providence" which was a motif used in Pierre Du Simitiere's concept art for the bill. AFAIK, neither one of them was a mason or an illuminatus. Sorry for the drawn-out-edness of that, but I despise conspiracy theories of any sort outside of fiction, even something so minor as an image on currency.
-Ocean Move Cost: 2
Sea Move Cost: 1
Coast Move Cost: 2
Thus, "Ignore Sea Move Cost" means nothing; Caravel moves quickly in coast areas, and Carrack moves quickly in open ocean, which there is quite a lot of; nearly half the map is made of it. Unlike other vessels which are confined to the sea lanes, carracks can safely venture out on the open ocean. Also, all vessels move quickly on the middlin "sea lane". I'll double check it in CivEdit to make sure I didn't mess anything up, though, as I'm certainly one prone to silly errors.
-Your timber logic is certainly applicable, so I will add timber resources in those areas. However, I will not put any in the caribbean. The point of a strategic resource is, after all, that you must connect to and defend it, so not everyone can have every resource right from the start. The Spanish seem to have a nice start in other ways: they are isolated from the other civs and have a head start on the lucrative caribbean isles, northern coast of SA, and CA, as well as the gulf of mexico (which is particularly useful as they start with a caravel).

Do you guys think that maybe the Aztecs or Maya should start with a few more cities? In both of my games they were conquered fairly quickely and no one colonized there.

Also, I wonder if you could give the Native Palace some culture, then their capital at least wouldn't always be destroyed when you capture it.

Once again it could be just my imagination but are you using the same graphic for arqubusier and musketman? I've been working/play testing the various civ's and I just noticed it while playing the French. The musketman graphic in civ really looks like some one using a matchlock rifle so I was glad you added the a graphic for a flintlock armed soldier to depict the difference.

As to the timer resource I agree that there shouldn't be any in the Carribean islands. What happened was that as the spanish, pirates sunk my intial ship pretty quickly and all I could build after that was coracles which had an even shorter life span leaving me stranded on cuba and haiti thus my suggestion that the more shallow draft coastal ship not need prime timber as a resource while the more sturdy ocean going one would.

Oh, I think that happened to the Spanish in my game also. That explains why they expanded a little bit and then just stopped. I guess it would be good to let them build a boat somehow in the begining after all.