Col II is a Sloppy Product

I'll generate bells from turn 100 to 200 (sometimes earlier depending on my mood) before DoI.

Do you build political points to gain FFs? To get a good score, the best strategy seems to be:

1. Sell guns to the indians
2. Buy carpenters and lumberjacks
3. Build political points (More FFs)
4. Spawn small inland cities (More land)
5. Produce bells for a few turns
6. Declare independence

Frankly, I don't think that's what Colonization is about.
 
I'll generate bells from turn 100 to 200 (sometimes earlier depending on my mood) before DoI.

Even so, I can't help feeling that it's weird to have to consider at which point one dares to make one's colonies more efficient by using statesmen and generating bells. I regard the bells as symbolizing the mental preparedness to declare independence when the king's taxes become too oppressive, not an active desire to become independent which could bother the king.
 
In the original game, rebel sentiment would increase every time you turned the king down. For example, having a tobacco party would greatly increase rebel sentiment. I don't think that's the case in the new game.
 
Öjevind Lång;7349055 said:
Even so, I can't help feeling that it's weird to have to consider at which point one dares to make one's colonies more efficient by using statesmen and generating bells. I regard the bells as symbolizing the mental preparedness to declare independence when the king's taxes become too oppressive, not an active desire to become independent which could bother the king.

Those turn numbers I mentioned aren't a hard and fast rule by any means. I don't mean at turn 100 I put statesmen in.

I work in thirds:
- Colonise
- Prepare
- War

The way I tend to play the game is broken down (on normal speed) into 100 turn blocks. But that doesn't mean if I'm ready I won't start getting bells at turn 50, it's just around turn 100 my focus changes as I have all the infrastructure I need.
 
Do you build political points to gain FFs? To get a good score, the best strategy seems to be:

1. Sell guns to the indians
2. Buy carpenters and lumberjacks
3. Build political points (More FFs)
4. Spawn small inland cities (More land)
5. Produce bells for a few turns
6. Declare independence

Frankly, I don't think that's what Colonization is about.

Generally as a rule, I won't. Sometimes I will for a particular purpose, but I don't NEED to build political points.

And I don't play for score, I play to make a colony to win the WoI. That'll change though as I add different victory types into Age of Discovery though. :)
 
Generally as a rule, I won't. Sometimes I will for a particular purpose, but I don't NEED to build political points.

And I don't play for score, I play to make a colony to win the WoI. That'll change though as I add different victory types into Age of Discovery though. :)

I enjoy(ed) the original game better, because in Col I you have ample time to build up your colonies, try to get on with the Indians (or not), trade and fight your qute formidable European competitors until you have to start to prepare for the WoI late in the game. I never cared much about the score either; it is the game before the WoI that I enjoy. That hasn't changed with Col II, but now that period is much shorter. That means that the fun lasts for a much shorter time too.

I'm looking forward to your adding different victory types. Could you also consider making the game last longer?

I know we disagree about this, but I much prefer Col I because of the way one builds political pouints in one's colonies without having to worry that it affects the size of the REF. The REF is very big from the beginning, and then the king adds to it from time to time whatever you do or don't do, making an early rebellion a pirority but not something one desperately has to aim for. Of course the size of the REF, and how swiftly the king adds to it, differs depending on difficulty level in Col I. One could tweak that so one's compliance or noncompliance with the king's wishes is also a factor.

I have seen complaints that one could always win Col I even on the highest difficulty levels. No doubt that is true for really dedicated mountaineers, but I couldn't care less, since, as I said, I'm not really interested in the score. The score panel in Col I is fun, though.
 
Öjevind Lång;7356154 said:
I'm looking forward to your adding different victory types. Could you also consider making the game last longer?

I don't want to spoil Snoopy's thunder, but the next version of PatchMod may be up your alley. :)

I know we disagree about this, but I much prefer Col I because of the way one builds political pouints in one's colonies without having to worry that it affects the size of the REF. The REF is very big from the beginning, and then the king adds to it from time to time whatever you do or don't do, making an early rebellion a pirority but not something one desperately has to aim for. Of course the size of the REF, and how swiftly the king adds to it, differs depending on difficulty level in Col I. One could tweak that so one's compliance or noncompliance with the king's wishes is also a factor.

You might be interested in the REF changes I made for Age of Discovery then. I used the PatchMod changes (linking REF to all King interactions, not just LB's) and then tripled the starting forces, doubled the starting threshold and increased the rate change. So effectively, similar to ColI in a large initial REF but slow growth to enable catchup in your forces whenever. :)
 
I don't want to spoil Snoopy's thunder, but the next version of PatchMod may be up your alley. :)



You might be interested in the REF changes I made for Age of Discovery then. I used the PatchMod changes (linking REF to all King interactions, not just LB's) and then tripled the starting forces, doubled the starting threshold and increased the rate change. So effectively, similar to ColI in a large initial REF but slow growth to enable catchup in your forces whenever. :)

Dale, you are making me drool. You are also making me neglect my work. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? ;)
 
You might be interested in the REF changes I made for Age of Discovery then. I used the PatchMod changes (linking REF to all King interactions, not just LB's) and then tripled the starting forces, doubled the starting threshold and increased the rate change. So effectively, similar to ColI in a large initial REF but slow growth to enable catchup in your forces whenever. :)

This sounds awesome, I can't wait to try it!

The thing is, if you don't play for score and can win every time, it's more like a simulator than a game. Hopefully this fixes it!
 
My only disgruntlement is that Liberty Bells are acting as Cultural points that we cannot see how much is being generate till the next level...
And the way Indians are affected by those borders... :crazyeye:
"We offer you this village... but there won't be any citizens or converts... Or any kind of goods or cash... heck in fact there'd be nothing but ruins..." :lol:
"We accept you gracious offer!" :sad:
 
Hold mouse curser over the city bar and on the left information it will tell you the culture level: 25/50 (stored / next level amount)
 
I can't resist one additional beef: blockade-running to Europe can be an important strategical and eonomical tool. However, the king's ships can enter native villages and kill your trade ships, which must be due to yet another negliogence by the programmers. Not only that, but although the king's diplomatic relations with other European powers are nonexistent (another glaring omission), his ships can apparently do what they wish in their waters -sail through them, attack you, whatever.
 
I believe nobody, Sid Meier included, ever planned CivCol to gather so many followers like it did. Maybe that is the reason that the game became an underdog from the word go. I played (a lot!) another Sid's remake: Pirates! And i enjoyed the remake even more than the original back then, even if the remake was heavily 'consollized'. It was a great game, with many new fun features that the skinny original game never had. Not so for CivCol. I absolutely love the graphics, the improved Civ4 engine, the animations, sounds, everything. Only the 'normal' game seems quite un-fun to me, mostly because of certain silly parameters one must obey to have at least some chances of winning the end-game slaughter. I find it irritating that i must plan my whole game form turn 1, and if i miss an appointment ot three, i must consider myself screwed for that game... I am new to the game, i suck so badly, that i need 100 turns only to organize my colonies and to start making guns and cannons, for example. 140 turns later, i am *supposed to* be able to declare independence. It's like a big friggin Damocle's sword hanging from the ceiling above my head all the time killing a vast portion of 'fun-factor' from the game. Given enough patience, time, and many many games later, i will probably find it cool and amusing to play the game in that 'hectic' way, but by then, i might well migrate to some other, noob-friendlier game. Don't get me wrong: the game has terrific potential, but i fear more than one new player will scorn the game because of that 'zomgTheREFisComingImSoDead!' gloomy feeling..
 
Öjevind Lång;7315073 said:
13. The new school system, where you simply send the trainee to school and then decide which profession he will have; you don't have to take anyone else out of production. All you need is to pay a fee for the education, the size of the fee depending on how advanced a training you choose. Cheap for a farmer, expensive for an elder statesman. You decide and pay when the trainee has been treained.

Acutally I really liked the old system of education. Especially when you were low on wood, you had to put your best wood producer in school. It made you think ahead an plan your education. With the new system it's posible to determine at the end of your of collega what degree someone went for.

I think the only thing the old system needed was that a teacher would only educate someone doing the profession. So if an expert lumberjack was teaching, a free colonist (of criminal) which was lumber jacking (?) would get educated.
 
I beg to differ. With proper use of export/import buttons micromanagement is lower then in Col1.

Just started to play COL2 and I found that managing the wagons is a nightmare after you have some of them, like 10 or more. If you click on one of the wagons it immediately forgets the assigned trade routes and how do you remember which one was assiged to it? I tried to deal with this problem by naming the wagon to something (like the city it is coming from) and then writing down on a piece of paper what it is carrying and to where. Typical sloppy programming to rush out an unfinished game to suck up $30-40 bucks a piece. It would better if you hover the mouse on wagon to see the assigned routes and most important never forget that assigned routes. This is easy to program. There should be also a way to ask the wagon to do some specific errand, when completed, it should popup a "what is next, sir" question and you would either send it back to its assigned route(s) or to another one-shot errand.
 
Just started to play COL2 and I found that managing the wagons is a nightmare after you have some of them, like 10 or more. If you click on one of the wagons it immediately forgets the assigned trade routes and how do you remember which one was assiged to it? I tried to deal with this problem by naming the wagon to something (like the city it is coming from) and then writing down on a piece of paper what it is carrying and to where. Typical sloppy programming to rush out an unfinished game to suck up $30-40 bucks a piece. It would better if you hover the mouse on wagon to see the assigned routes and most important never forget that assigned routes. This is easy to program. There should be also a way to ask the wagon to do some specific errand, when completed, it should popup a "what is next, sir" question and you would either send it back to its assigned route(s) or to another one-shot errand.

In the original game, you created a trade route, and when you did that, the game suggested a name (New Amsterdam Run, for example.). If you didn't like it, you just typed in another name. And then you assigned a wagon or a ship to the route. Simple and easy to remember.
 
It took me a while to get used to the way trade routes work but now I much prefer it to the original game. In Col 1 you were restricted to one wagon train per colony and it never seemed to be enough. Now there is no limit and no maintenance to pay so you can have as many as you want.

Another advantage is that any food surplus is not lost. Previously you had to try and manage your food to exactly 200 because any excess food was dumped after the new colonist was created. Now you can have auto-routes collecting food from all your colonies and dropping it off in one place and none of it is wasted.

And of course the trade route bug no longer exists (this was where your trade route stopped unloading any goods in your own colonies that were boycotted in europe).

I rename my auto wagons for the goods they are carrying (eg 'tobacco/cigars', 'food' etc) so it is easier to find them if I want to add a new colony to the trade route. I also keep spare wagons available for 1-off jobs so I don't have to interrupt a trade route. Everything seems to work really well throughout the game - until the REF arrives and screws everything up. That is the first part of the trade route system I would want to see improved.
 
It took me a while to get used to the way trade routes work but now I much prefer it to the original game. In Col 1 you were restricted to one wagon train per colony and it never seemed to be enough. Now there is no limit and no maintenance to pay so you can have as many as you want.

Another advantage is that any food surplus is not lost. Previously you had to try and manage your food to exactly 200 because any excess food was dumped after the new colonist was created. Now you can have auto-routes collecting food from all your colonies and dropping it off in one place and none of it is wasted.

I'm a little puzzled. I don't remember any maintenance costs for wagon trains. That may be my sloppiness, of couse, but I am quite sure that with my game, surplus food was not dumped after the birth of a colonist.
 
Öjevind Lång;7428122 said:
I'm a little puzzled. I don't remember any maintenance costs for wagon trains. That may be my sloppiness, of couse, but I am quite sure that with my game, surplus food was not dumped after the birth of a colonist.

I'll have to take that back. I was so sure there was food lost but when I went back to a saved game in Col 1 to test it I found that is not the case. My comment on maintenance was related to the current game. Removing the restriction on one wagon per colony might have been balanced by a maintenance cost but fortunately it wasn't.
 
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