New settler system?

Anyone else unhappy with the present settler system? I know its a long time feature of civ, but I think its just so unrealistic that you train someone specifically to create and new city... I dont have any real concrete ideas to rpelace it, but heres a vague one

when a scout comes across good food sources (in the early game) he can stay on a certain tile nearby for, say 5 turns, and there is a 75% chance he will found a new city. there is only a 75% chance that city will be part of your empire; it might form a new civilization all of its own. But if it is near your capital, there is a further 75% chance it will flip to you shortly, or of course you can conquer it. I think the main benefit of this is it would stop the unrealistic situation where someone sends a settler thousands of miles away from the capital in 2000BC to found a city, and yet it still retains the culture and politics of its origin city. It would mean civilizations would spread out naturally form a centre as in real life. It would make city location planning require more strategic thought, would add realism and nullify the boring and unrealistic REX tactic. In the later game, maybe after the discovery of Astronomy, settlers as we know them could become available, for settling foreign shores. Even then I think there should be a chance they will break away like the US or Brazil.

any thoughts?

Overseas colonies are already implemented, you can place another leader in charge and the new state becomes a vassal and they can then try to declare independence, so this is quite well done, although not perfect.

As for your suggestion, I think a settler unit makes sense, a scouting party is not capable of building and populating a city, they do not have tools and probably don't have women with them to breed, they are supposed to be travelling light! It would be nice to see new ways cities can be founded, and perhaps barbarian cities should flip to join you if they think you are suitably successful. There should also be a way where villages outside of a fat cross, if well supplied with food, commerce and materials can grow into a city.

Well the ideal situation would be that EVERY tile already has a population, and "founding a city" is just sending a sherriff to get control of the local population.

What I would do is allow you to build an "outpost" in a tile, and depending on the environment it might turn into a city.

Another alternative is to have Cities only founded from Barb huts (and have those Barb huts respawn in the fog)... then give the option to "relocate" a city one or two tiles.

Historically, the Greeks, Romans and Phoenecians did pretty much what we do in Vanilla Civ IV -- they recruit a bunch of citizens, promise them a new life in a new place, and send them out to a pre-chosen location. Most times, the colonies retained their language and culture. Sometimes the colony gets absorbed by cultures around it, like the Greek outposts around the Black Sea. Even to this day, some areas there still speak Greek. Other times, the original culture gets vassalized or destroyed, and the colony is the only bastion of that culture and language. Carthage was Phoenecian in origin, but when the Phoenecians disappeared, Carthage carried on the language and traditions.
Still other times, you're right, the colony seeks independence, like America from Great Britain. That's one thing I miss in Civ IV, at least the Vanilla version.

It's actually very realistic. Nations have been sending out settlers since ancient Greece or even earlier. When a city would grow to large, they'd recruit families to settle elsewhere. Rome would give land to groups to settle to expand their territory and strengthen their hold. And of course, we can't forget about the pilgrims, they were definately "settlers".

RedRalphWiggum said:

when a scout comes across good food sources (in the early game) he can stay on a certain tile nearby for, say 5 turns, and there is a 75% chance he will found a new city. there is only a 75% chance that city will be part of your empire; it might form a new civilization all of its own. But if it is near your capital, there is a further 75% chance it will flip to you shortly, or of course you can conquer it.

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What's with all these random chances ? Seriously, undermining your ability to be certain in the first and most important step of building an empire kind of makes a mockery of the whole point of the game. More randomness = less control = less strategic flexibility, and I do not see how that can be anything other than less fun.

I think the main benefit of this is it would stop the unrealistic situation where someone sends a settler thousands of miles away from the capital in 2000BC to found a city, and yet it still retains the culture and politics of its origin city.

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Why is "unrealistic" a problem ? I'm not interested in Civ becoming SimHistoryExactlyAsItWasInReality, because that massively reduces the space of possibility for the game.

Sending a settler a long way away at the beginning is a tactic which has a cost - a different sort of cost depending on which Civ you play in some ways, granted, but whichever one you are playing, that settler has to be protected, and every turn it takes moving is a turn it's not building a city, and the earlier in the game you are the more significant those turns are towards what you are eventually building. That cost seems to me enough to go with the benefits there might be to founding a distant city that way. If I am playing on an Earth map, for example, in Civ 1, 2, or 3, pretty much wherever I start, knowing the shape of the continents, putting cities to serve as canals at Panama and Suez as soon as I can reasonably get them there is a sensible strategic goal; that's quite an investment of time and production in the early game.

It would mean civilizations would spread out naturally form a centre as in real life. It would make city location planning require more strategic thought, would add realism and nullify the boring and unrealistic REX tactic.

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I don't think your points here all pull in the same direction. "Spread out naturally from a centre as in real life" is forcing the player to expand in a certain way every bit as much as "REX is the only way to win" does, which to my mind is the absolute antithesis of "more strategic thought"; nothing at all prevents you from using a city spread pattern that feels right and realistic to you while playing an existing Civ game, and there are any number of mechanisms for hampering excessive REX (Bring Back Corruption !) that have already been tested and could be refined.

Even then I think there should be a chance they will break away like the US or Brazil.

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Only if the process of them breaking away is something a player can monitor, manage, and put resources into preventing.

Krikkitone said:

Well the ideal situation would be that EVERY tile already has a population, and "founding a city" is just sending a sherriff to get control of the local population.

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How exactly is this ideal ? I'm failing to see whatever point you are making here.

I kinda like the civ 3 system, where you can transfer pop from one city to another city. Just make it so you cant transfer pop after that new city have over 20 pop or starving.

What's with all these random chances ? Seriously, undermining your ability to be certain in the first and most important step of building an empire kind of makes a mockery of the whole point of the game. More randomness = less control = less strategic flexibility, and I do not see how that can be anything other than less fun.

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the entire combat system is based on chance. Since BtS random events can have a big effect on the game. you dont like chance being a factor? youre playing the wrong game.

Why is "unrealistic" a problem ? I'm not interested in Civ becoming SimHistoryExactlyAsItWasInReality, because that massively reduces the space of possibility for the game.

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there are already many huge aspects of the game affected by realism. In fact, this system greatly increases the level of possibility.

Sending a settler a long way away at the beginning is a tactic which has a cost - a different sort of cost depending on which Civ you play in some ways, granted, but whichever one you are playing, that settler has to be protected, and every turn it takes moving is a turn it's not building a city, and the earlier in the game you are the more significant those turns are towards what you are eventually building. That cost seems to me enough to go with the benefits there might be to founding a distant city that way. If I am playing on an Earth map, for example, in Civ 1, 2, or 3, pretty much wherever I start, knowing the shape of the continents, putting cities to serve as canals at Panama and Suez as soon as I can reasonably get them there is a sensible strategic goal; that's quite an investment of time and production in the early game.

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Yes I understand. I'm not saying thats a bad thing, but dont you find it a bit stupid when you sometimes see Germany, Russia or China having placed a city at Suez in the year 1000? wouldt it be better if the game was made so that couldnt happen until later years?

I don't think your points here all pull in the same direction. "Spread out naturally from a centre as in real life" is forcing the player to expand in a certain way every bit as much as "REX is the only way to win" does, which to my mind is the absolute antithesis of "more strategic thought"; nothing at all prevents you from using a city spread pattern that feels right and realistic to you while playing an existing Civ game, and there are any number of mechanisms for hampering excessive REX (Bring Back Corruption !) that have already been tested and could be refined.

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think of it in the Earth map, specifically on RFC. Early in the game, you stick to settling, developing and controlling your core area, the area in and around your capital. Later, as in real life, players go off and colonise many different parts of the world. the game is so much better for civs being more or less centred around their capital instead of having many cities dotted around the world. I'm all in favour of distant colonies later in the game. It presents more of a strategic challenge to develop improvements, your ceonomy, culture etc near your capital initially than it does to send a settler to the other side of the continent in the year 2000 BC because you spotted some Iron there.

Only if the process of them breaking away is something a player can monitor, manage, and put resources into preventing.

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Yes absolutely. I'd be in favour of a RFC type stability factor.

Infantry#14 said:

I kinda like the civ 3 system, where you can transfer pop from one city to another city. Just make it so you cant transfer pop after that new city have over 20 pop or starving.

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Why restrict it like that ?

RedRalphWiggum said:

the entire combat system is based on chance.

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Any individual combat is based on chance, yes. But winning wars is not, because players have so many ways of affecting the odds they fight, by developing more advanced units, by intelligent use of terrain, by building artillery, and so on.

Since BtS random events can have a big effect on the game.

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I underestand that there are people who like random events; I hated them in Civ1, and will hate any game where they cannot be turned off. [ Have not played BtS, largely because I do not like Civ 4 much. ]

you dont like chance being a factor? youre playing the wrong game.

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I don't like chance being a factor you can't act to minimise and work around.

there are already many huge aspects of the game affected by realism. In fact, this system greatly increases the level of possibility.

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If you mean "plausibility" there, I think this is a bad thing.

Yes I understand. I'm not saying thats a bad thing, but dont you find it a bit stupid when you sometimes see Germany, Russia or China having placed a city at Suez in the year 1000? wouldt it be better if the game was made so that couldnt happen until later years?

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No and no. If the AI can grasp that benefit and go for it, it's a batter AI.

I'm not interested in a game that simulated civilisations playing only with historically accurate notions of what they might or might not do at any given time, because it's just too predictable. I'm interested in a strategy game where the opponents can play differently, and better, than their real-world counterparts.

Early in the game, you stick to settling, developing and controlling your core area, the area in and around your capital. Later, as in real life, players go off and colonise many different parts of the world. the game is so much better for civs being more or less centred around their capital instead of having many cities dotted around the world.

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I honestly don't get how that is "better". I think having both options is a lot better than being restricted to one of them; particularly if different civilisations have different strategies for how they prefer to colonise, and this leads to different ways to win.

I'm all in favour of distant colonies later in the game. It presents more of a strategic challenge to develop improvements, your ceonomy, culture etc near your capital initially than it does to send a settler to the other side of the continent in the year 2000 BC because you spotted some Iron there.

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Why should these be mutually exclusive ?

You're proposing an approach that forces expansion to work one way. I'm proposing one that does not at all prevent you from playing the game your way if you prefer, but that allows other options as well; which strategy I would use myself would depend on circumstances.

rysmiel said:

Why restrict it like that ?

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Because back in civ 3, ppl can cheat their scores to very high by joining tons of workers into a city. Back then, more specialist = more points.

This restriction is also for realism. Would new settlers join city that is already overpopulated (well maybe immigrants or migrant workers), and starving city will probably not be appealing.

Infantry#14 said:

Because back in civ 3, ppl can cheat their scores to very high by joining tons of workers into a city. Back then, more specialist = more points.

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Define "cheat". More specialists have a lot more uses than just for points, and it's not creating people out of nothing, those workers have to come from somewhere and be made at some point.

This restriction is also for realism.

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Realism alone is not an argument, not unless it also benefits gameplay to apply it. I am generally opposed to anything that restricts player freedom and flexibility any more in the name of realism.

Krikkitone said:

Well the ideal situation would be that EVERY tile already has a population, and "founding a city" is just sending a sherriff to get control of the local population.

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I suppose that within your own (cultural) borders, founding a new 1 pop "city" should require much less effort than sending a settler.

The whole civ concept of being able to de-populate any tile (even if it's towns) and move the populace around within a cross of 20 tiles, is already a far stretch.
So for example, taking 1 pop out of the fat cross and make them settle somewhere within your empire, isn't so crazy by comparison.
Maybe throw throw in a few hammers and coin or require that the tile be roaded first.

I can see how settling outside the borders should require a bit more preparation though (settler unit).

What I would do is allow you to build an "outpost" in a tile, and depending on the environment it might turn into a city.

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I wouldn't want the player control be taken away and buried in some game mechanic.
You could already regard 1 pop cities as being little more than outposts influencing 8 surrounding tiles.

rysmiel said:

Define "cheat". More specialists have a lot more uses than just for points, and it's not creating people out of nothing, those workers have to come from somewhere and be made at some point.

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Well, ppl back in civ 3 can have cities w/ tons of farms and each turn they can amass like 20 workers w/o losing population pts. They then dump it into one city and that city can accumulate a very huge pop. Since starvation only removes one pop point each turn, that city can get giant and all specialists in that city will contribute to a huge pop score to the game. I think the civ 3 HOF defines this as cheating as well.

Infantry#14 said:

Well, ppl back in civ 3 can have cities w/ tons of farms and each turn they can amass like 20 workers w/o losing population pts.

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Every worker you make in Civ 3 costs a population point from the city you make it, no matter how much food it has, unless I've missed something basic. This sounds like a garbled version of the Civ 2 food caravan hack rather than anything I recognise from Civ 3.

They then dump it into one city and that city can accumulate a very huge pop. Since starvation only removes one pop point each turn, that city can get giant and all specialists in that city will contribute to a huge pop score to the game. I think the civ 3 HOF defines this as cheating as well.

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It sounds to me like the kind of milking you're only going to get to do when you've pretty much won the game anyway; I have no problem with mechanisms that can be used to pump your score while waiting through the last few turns before your spaceship lands or your culture hits the victory threshold or whatever, if in the usual run of the game when it's not yet totally won nobody's really going to be free to do that.

How about being allowed to just decide how much of a city you want to get out. Say that you have a city with a pop of 7, you can choose up to 3 to move out. Than when they settle down, the city starts with a pop of three (plus maybe three random buildings already built in the city the settler was created.)