2K Games Reveals Plans for Colonization Remake

[Tullaris]

That there are so many portugese speakers is only for the fact that the Spanish defended the Portugese colonies in Brazil.

I did some research and in 1630, about 100.000 people lived in Portugese Brazil, of which about 30.000 ethnic Portugese, the rest slaves and indians.

The Portugese only controlled the coast really, the backland was terra incognita.

I'm just pointing out, you shouldnt look at populations and power balances today. You should look at the balance of power at the beginning of the game and for a big part of the time frame Portugal was ruled by the Spanish and when they weren't they were weak and under constant threat of losing all their colonies.

In contrast the Dutch had the strongest fleet in Europe, they were the richest nation and constantly threatening the Spanish empire. Although their land army was rather weak and small. The only reason why their aren't as many Dutch speakers today is because the Dutch thought colonizing wasn't profitable. Additionally because the Netherlands were so rich no sane Dutchman would think of leaving his home country. In contrast many poor Spanish, Portugese, French and England were only too happy to leave their motherland for the new world.

If you read reports of the Dutch trading companies they often discuss the need for immigrants in their colonies to make them permanent settlements. As a solution they tried to attract German farmers to go to the Americas. However this wasnt as succesful. German monarchs did not like their subjects leaving.

Ofcourse you could add the Portugese to the game. I'm just saying, it wouldn't be very historically accurate for them to challenge the power of the other nations. Additionally how are you going to implement the Portugese and Spanish crown uniting?

 

[Jason T]

Ofcourse you could add the Portugese to the game. I'm just saying, it wouldn't be very historically accurate for them to challenge the power of the other nations. Additionally how are you going to implement the Portugese and Spanish crown uniting?

Well, the easy answer is that you wouldn't. I say that entirely seriously and without wanting to sound snarky towards the 100% correct point that you are making.

I am not trying to dispute any of the historical facts that people are using to defend points - not even when some of those points might contradict others. I don't see the need, considering that (as I observed in a previous post) that even in the context of a historical game, game play should trump absolute historical accuracy.

Was [insert nation here] a "major" seafaring, Age of Exploration participant who was engaging in colonization during the era depicted in the game? Then I say put 'em in, and don't worry quite as much about every single circumstance of the time.

Two things occurred to me during the writing of this post:

1. One way to address a lot of the historical issues that people are having might be to introduce national weaknesses along with strengths. I loved them in Tropico, the factions in SMAC had them, the Civs in Final Frontier have them, and Civ 4: Col could use them to account for the real differences between the "major" seafaring nations in a way that powers don't.

2. I don't know how easy it is to mod Civ 4, since I've never tried. People seem to say that it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Something that concerns me about modding Civ 4: Col to add nations might be the way that those nations' powers are expressed. If Firaxis holds true to the original game, it won't be as easy as calling a nation "spiritual" or "financial," unless they use those traits to encapsulate "50% fewer crosses to produce a colonist" or "commodity prices are less likely to collapse and faster to recover."

With that in mind, unless someone can code up new civ powers de novo instead of relying on predetermined traits, any nation not already in the game will at best be a rehash of a nation already there. The longer the list of possible national strengths (or weaknesses) is, the more customizable a new nation becomes in a mod.

So, should I start a new thread to engage in a discussion of possible powers and weaknesses, or is this a good place for that? (Imagine that, hijacking a thread in a way that keeps it on topic...)

National Powers (current, with some modern interpretations)

-X% crosses to produce a colonist in Europe. Currently, X = 50 for England.

+X% attack bonus versus native settlements. Currently X = 50 for Spain.

Improved relations with native settlements. With the new version's improved diplomacy, I can see this resulting in a +X modifier for France on the Friendly to Furious" scale with all native nations.

More reliable trading prices in Europe. In the original game, prices in the 4 nations were different. If we take the historically inaccurate step of making prices in Europe the same, then perhaps the Dutch might get +X gold/unit for sales of raw commodities, and +Y gold/unit for sales of finished commodities. They would pay the same amount as other nations when buying commodities from Europe - the prevailing price.

Start with a veteran X instead of a regular X. Depending on the difficulty level, some nations start with veteran soldiers. The Spanish always do. The French always start with a veteran pioneer.

Start with [ship X] instead of [ship Y]. The Dutch start with a merchantman instead of a caravel.

National Weaknesses

Many of these would be reversals of national strengths, to reflect historical problems for those countries.

+X% crosses to produce a colonist in Europe. Appropriate for a nation who couldn't get colonists to immigrate. Whether or not this would affect the cost of paying to rush a colonist in the queue or to hire a specialist directly is up in the air.

-X% attack bonus versus native settlements. Perhaps you could give this to the French to offset the diplomacy bonus?

-X diplomacy modifier with native nations. This could be overkill, since the Spanish are going to be getting the "You razed one of our cities/settlements/camps." modifier all over the New World once they really get cracking.

I'm sure that this list will grow over time.