Things we'd like to see in future versions

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?

Dale said:

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

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

The Rusty Gamer said:

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

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

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

What is about diplomacy with foreign kings?

PrinzMyshkin said:

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?

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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.

The Rusty Gamer said:

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

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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.

The Rusty Gamer said:

Why not go all the way and become king?

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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 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.

The Rusty Gamer said:

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

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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?