Col II is a Sloppy Product

player1 fanatic said:

This is general Colonization forum:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=213

And all other Colonization forums are subforums of it.

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I didn't know that forum was down there, I just went via the list of forums on the home page, doh! Learn something new every day! Thanks!

A whole new forum to waste my time reading...

JonBrave said:

Isn't it funny! I came here --- having just bought game --- to complain about your #10 as a bad point. And your #13 I think is a real shame!

For #10, I liked that you had to produce tools to re-equip, balanced agian what work you asked pioneer to do, plus time to march home & back out. Made you think about improves.

For #13, again, I loved that you had to choose to sacrifice professional for a while if you wanted to (hope for) that education on a pleb. Again, nice strategic choice.

WHY do you think those are "GOOD", I think they're "BAD"!

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Having to bring the pioneer into a city every few turns for reequpping was a piece of micromanagement I really detested, and it didn't make any sense either. You could as well demand that all dragoons be periodacally recalled to have the horses fittd with new shoes.

And having to sacrifice production for education was also rather annoying. Of course, I have know realized that these changes are there primarily because the game designers have streamlined Colonization into a scenario which must be played in one way, and one way only, with no distractions. The original Colonization was a game with one ultimate goal - independence - but it could be played in different ways. There was the period of settlement and exploration, the period of building uop your colonies, then probably wars with your European rivals and finally preparing for the war for independence. You could play at a rather leisurely pace, having some fun during each period, and the king did not rack up taxes at such an insane pace. You also you had until 1850 to win. But now, from the moment you land, the king is the enemy and you don't even have time for much in the way of warfare with other colonizers because you must focus on the rebellion at once. And you have to use the strategy used in the American War for Independence, that is to say, abandon the coastal cities, retreat inland and fight a guerilla war.

I think this is a change for the worse, and I don't like to buy a "game" which is actually not even a mod of Civ IV but a scenario. How many times can one play a scenario?

I'll post about my realization that this is not even a mod, just a scenario, in the forum I have been told is the proper one for that.

Öjevind Lång;7321151 said:

And you have to use the strategy used in the American War for Independence, that is to say, abandon the coastal cities, retreat inland and fight a guerilla war.

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Why abandon your cities? I find it easier to fight the war on the landing beaches and wipe out the King's troops as they arrive.

dalgo said:

Why abandon your cities? I find it easier to fight the war on the landing beaches and wipe out the King's troops as they arrive.

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Let me guess. You spend all you money on troops and declare independence very early. I suppose that's possible, but how much fun is that?

Thx to the OP for the review. It answered a number of questions I had regarding the game changes. I think I will wait to get this one.

I agree with JonBrave about #10 and #13.

Öjevind Lång;7321268 said:

Let me guess. You spend all you money on troops and declare independence very early. I suppose that's possible, but how much fun is that?

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On the contrary, the only troops I buy are those that I get cheap from the king and I declare very late (my first game went to turn 292).

dalgo said:

On the contrary, the only troops I buy are those that I get cheap from the king and I declare very late (my first game went to turn 292).

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Wow. I'm impressed. Would you mind telling me a little about what happened, how it went? I find the REF absolutely murderous.

Edit: I have seen many claims that one should actually avoid generating liberty bells so as not to enourage the king to increase his army, and that the best strategy is to not defend one's coastal cities too hard but instead retreat to inland cities and wipe out the king's soldiers in the rugged terrain, so I'd be very interested to hear your take on this.

Öjevind Lång;7321505 said:

Wow. I'm impressed. Would you mind telling me a little about what happened, how it went? I find the REF absolutely murderous.

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I started playing the game on release and just went ahead and cranked out liberty bells as I would have in Col 1. That strategy resulted in a lot of goodies (more Founding Fathers, quick border expansions taking over Indian land, increased production through the Independence %) and one single negative - a huge REF. However my dragoons benefitted from FF enhancements and the Independence % bonus after DOI and I was able to stop them on the beaches.

That was at Explorer difficulty but the same strategy worked at Conquistador and I'm now trying Governor. For more details see:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293343

Good constructive criticisms. Does anyone have an idea when we can expect an official patch that will address some of the problems?

Broken Hawk said:

Good constructive criticisms. Does anyone have an idea when we can expect an official patch that will address some of the problems?

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The patch thread is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293253

I agree with almost everything in the OP, though three comments in particular caught my eye:

GOOD THINGS

5. Being able to play on after your victory. That may actually be more fun in some ways than preparing for the showdown.

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I'm not sure that in its current state you can classify this as a good thing. After your victory, you pretty much go back to being a colony. The King can still sell you troops, you still trade under tax and embargo conditions, etc. You could play on in the original game and things instead stayed as they were during the war, but with the ability to see all other nations' reports. Plus you got a nifty new flag.

BAD THINGS

11. The fact that the leaderhead for Samuel de Champlain (one of the French leaders) is simply the leaderhead for Joao of Portugal with his hat removed and his clothes and beard dyed a different colour. And the leaderhead for Simon Bolivar is Brennus with a haircut and 18th century clothes. Take about trimming costs!

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I never noticed Bolivar, but it's more than just that. The King of Spain is Peter with black clothes, the King of the Netherlands is William of Orange pimped out and on heroin, And obviously anyone who was in Civ4 reappears almost exactly as they were before (Louis, Washington, Montezuma, etc.). I don't know about the other french guy, but at the very least he uses Charlemagne's animations.

17. The disgusting heads of the European kings. They are over the top, just like Ragnar flinging the snot from off under his nose in Civ IV. Bring back the fat, funny, bugeyed old king from the original Colonization!

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Eh, I liked the over the top nature, especially the English King's ring sequence, and the way he otherwise looked like he was trying to become the seventh member of the Village People. Chalk that one up to personal taste, I guess.

Reveilled said:

II'm not sure that in its current state you can classify this as a good thing. After your victory, you pretty much go back to being a colony. The King can still sell you troops, you still trade under tax and embargo conditions, etc. You could play on in the original game and things instead stayed as they were during the war, but with the ability to see all other nations' reports. Plus you got a nifty new flag.

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They should alter that in a patch so the king doesn't bother you any more, and remove his remaining warships from the New World map. What are the Village People, by the way?

Chuggi said:

I stopped reading here:

(some comment about vanilla civ4 being better than the expansions)

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In some ways it is, more content is typically NOT better and the addition of many of the things has not entirely been good for the game. Yes the game overall is perhaps better especially when combined with the community patches, but vanilla Civ4 was a pretty tight game design wise, and they have since cluttered it up rather badly. The only elements you should have in the game are ones there for a clear purpose.

More features is not always better. Most all of the national wonders add nothing to the game, half the real wonders should be deleted, the great general system adds nothing to the game, I could go on and on.

As Leonard Nimoy says ENGINEERING - "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupry

in my mind all vanilla civ4 need was a few tweaks and MASSIVE work on the AI. That would have been worth an expansion and not cluttered the game up with a bunch of useless content.

(Full disclosure I still love BTS, but I am really really sad to see how good TBS GalCiv2 and Civ4 has given in to the more is better design theory which is so clearly wrong, but allows for easy expansion money).

Öjevind Lång;7315073 said:

1. The rancher system, as presently implemented. I think that feature is absolutely moronic. I much prefer the old model where the horses would naturally increase but where a stable helped. By all means, one could have ranchers to make them breed faster, but the present system is insane. Without a stable or a rancher, the horses sit around for a hundred years without thinking about the birds and the bees, so to speak. Horses *should* be able to multiply without a human to help them by explaining the realities of life to them.

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Bizarrely, its possible to have a ranch and gain horses per turn, without having any horses to start with.

Öjevind Lång;7315073 said:

25. They should make the Indians more aggressive, sometimes having some braves attacking one of your settlements and destroying something or stealing something just for the fun of it, as in the original game. Or because the Indians are becoming restive and need to be appeased with some trade or a gift. At present, the Indians only exist to attack your rivals and raze the settlements of your European rivals and train your colonists, including their own converts. And the rival European civs should be made less pathetic militarily.

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The natives should have more tribal warfare between each other.

Becephalus said:

As Leonard Nimoy says ENGINEERING - "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupry

in my mind all vanilla civ4 need was a few tweaks and MASSIVE work on the AI. That would have been worth an expansion and not cluttered the game up with a bunch of useless content.

(Full disclosure I still love BTS, but I am really really sad to see how good TBS GalCiv2 and Civ4 has given in to the more is better design theory which is so clearly wrong, but allows for easy expansion money).

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I thought abiut that quotatition too. I like the corporations and the Great Wall, but I don't much care for the other innovations. Particularly not for the espionage slider and the cheap spies who swarm like locusts, blowing up things and poisoning wells without you being abe to find out which country was behind it and having the option to start a justified war without diplomatic fallout.

Öjevind Lång;7315073 said:

4. Being able to found cities after you declare independence, and also trade with Europe if you choose the "Monarchy" option at the declaration of independence. You might call it "the Canadian solution", or the Brazilian solution, for that matter; Brazil declared its independence with the son of the Portuguese king as their emperor, known as Dom Pedro I; this happened with the father's approval. (When Napoleon was rampaging through Europe, the Portuguese court resided in Brazil, for safety, so the prince had plenty of people to pick for his own new aristocracy and court. He and his son, Dom Pedro II, ruled Brazil rather ably for a total of 80 years. Then Dom Pedro II was deposed because he abolished slavery, poor honest man.)

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There is so much wrong on this little bit of your post that i don't know where to begin. It is not even worth trying to correct you. I don't know where you got this information but it is just wrong. Why did you bother to include this little piece of history in your post i fail to see but it really annoyed me to see so many wrong affirmatives.

Although the declaration of brazilian independance is very unique in it's details it obviously wasn't done with Lisboa's approval just because there was no war doesn't mean it was done with the King's consent.

Napoleon was not a threat anymore, the Portuguese court had already gone back to Lisboa which is one of the facts that made it possible for the independance movement.

D. Pedro II was NOT deposed because he abolished slavery. Where did you get this from? It is not true and makes no sense at all. The republicans that deposed the monarchy were not pro-slavery.

I'm sorry for responding to this since the thread is not about it. The inclusion of this information in the opening post was not very usefull and the fact that it is just plain wrong really bothered me.

Carry on.

I found it fun, but that is mainly because I have never played Colonization. It is true, however, that the kings look awful. That is why I only play Britain.

However, the King of the Nederlands should be William van Oranje. Maybe it wasn't accurate, but, well... I like it. So there.

Europe seems to simplified. It's just a screen. And, later, just a group of warships that come and sack my cities. There should be a lot more interaction with Europe and the Indians.

kayapo said:

There is so much wrong on this little bit of your post that i don't know where to begin. It is not even worth trying to correct you. I don't know where you got this information but it is just wrong. Why did you bother to include this little piece of history in your post i fail to see but it really annoyed me to see so many wrong affirmatives.

Although the declaration of brazilian independance is very unique in it's details it obviously wasn't done with Lisboa's approval just because there was no war doesn't mean it was done with the King's consent.

Napoleon was not a threat anymore, the Portuguese court had already gone back to Lisboa which is one of the facts that made it possible for the independance movement.

D. Pedro II was NOT deposed because he abolished slavery. Where did you get this from? It is not true and makes no sense at all. The republicans that deposed the monarchy were not pro-slavery.

I'm sorry for responding to this since the thread is not about it. The inclusion of this information in the opening post was not very usefull and the fact that it is just plain wrong really bothered me.

Carry on.

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I told the same story that you tell, but in condensed form, precisely because, as you point out, this thread isn't about Brazilian history. I didn't say that Brazil became independent with the king's approval; I said that once it happened, he didn't mind that his son was made emperor. I didn't say that the king was still in Brazil, but his son and many members of the court were. The son and many of the court chose not to return to Lisbon, which probably indicates something. Perhaps I should have been clearer about this, but I found it unnecessary in the context of Col II. And finally, Dom Pedro II was overthrown because when he abolished slavery, he lost the support of the conservative landowners, which made it a piece of cake for the liberals to depose him. That is elementary history, as you no doubt know.

brianshapiro said:

Bizarrely, its possible to have a ranch and gain horses per turn, without having any horses to start with.

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I must correct you, there are horses to start with: You need 50 horses to build a stable. These horses are the "breeding base".