(4-10c) Pioneer and Colonist Tweak - Part 3: Make Colonist Found Puppets Instead

[N.Core]

Part 3 of the 3 proposals around Pioneer and Colonist.
Inspired by @balparmak's mod here and also @Stalker0's draft here. (sorry, I'm borrowing your work here)

Proposal: Make Colonist settle puppet cities instead, and add a new instant building for Colonist called Colony with a similar ability like Courthouse so you can annex it immediately if you want.

Colony
No maintenance
Never Capture
Eliminate extra Unhappiness from an Occupied City

Rationale: By changing Colonist to settle puppets, you don't need to worry about extra city penalties (Culture, Science, Tourism) at the expense of Unhappiness from puppets (which you easily offset by working on Public Works). It makes late-game settling much more viable as you don't have to micromanage those new puppet cities as much as regular cities.

"Why not just use Courthouse instead of adding a new building?"
There are many mechanics around Courthouse which could cause balance repercussions. I won't delve too much into that.

Note: The downside is if the city is somehow got captured and then returned to the owner, you must build a Courthouse to remove extra Unhappiness and you can't build the Colony building. It's certainly interesting but it's an edge case.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Is the goal to make wide even stronger than tall?

The current extra city penalties are very low and make hardly an impact. This change will make it possible for wider civs to expand even more aggressively with little consequence. Then, they can annex the new cities at their leisure to get even more ahead. While tall civs can use Pioneers and Colonists, wider civs can do it better and actually have a military to defend those new cities. It feels like we're shifting the meta to favor wide more and tall becomes harder and harder to play.

 

[N.Core]

My goal is to be able to secure some strategic locations without having to worry about extra penalties.
You have a point that wide civs can do it better than tall civs. But this change also gives tall civs a choice to expand to secure their core cities without ruining their tall play. Let's say you play tall and have an aggressive wide neighbor, and you have to secure your core cities by settling a burner city.

This is why this change only affects Colonist. Because at that point in the game, most of the tiles are already covered up. There might be some tiles that can be settled but because no one wants the penalty, it's just left unsettled.

The other option is to remove Colony building from the instant building and make the player have to build the Colony building after they annex the city.

 

[Stalker0]

The current extra city penalties are very low and make hardly an impact.

I think this statement doesn't take into account the nuance of mid and late game expansion. First, the penalty is significant to the cost of a new colony (I know because I did lots of math over several examples on these boards to find out). But the other big factor is the time it takes for a new city to build up.

You can say, "well all the new city needs to do is make X amount of science and culture, and its already overcome that penalty!" but it takes a long time to get there, and lots of gold investment. Meanwhile, your core cities are constantly getting better, always moving the bar of what that new city needs to make to make the investment worthwhile.

Puppets especially at colonist give a way to take strategic areas of the map (either for resources or strategic locations) without tanking your economy, because otherwise if you don't invest a good amount in that new city, it absolutely will be a drain on your economy long term.

 

[amateurgamer88]

My goal is to be able to secure some strategic locations without having to worry about extra penalties.
You have a point that wide civs can do it better than tall civs. But this change also gives tall civs a choice to expand to secure their core cities without ruining their tall play. Let's say you play tall and have an aggressive wide neighbor, and you have to secure your core cities by settling a burner city.

This is why this change only affects Colonist. Because at that point in the game, most of the tiles are already covered up. There might be some tiles that can be settled but because no one wants the penalty, it's just left unsettled.

The other option is to remove Colony building from the instant building and make the player have to build the Colony building after they annex the city.

Securing strategic locations should come at a cost. Otherwise, it confirms my concern that wide becomes stronger than tall due to wide taking advantage of this a lot more than tall.

If a tall civ takes until colonists to secure core cities, that civ should've went wide for sure. In addition, you don't get military supply from puppets. Therefore, that extra city will just make it harder for you to defend against an aggressive wide neighbor due to more territory to defend and not enough units.

If most tiles are covered up, then a tall civ definitely won't be settling core cities at that point of the game. Therefore, this will only benefit wide since they have the military to hold onto the other strategic locations.

I think this statement doesn't take into account the nuance of mid and late game expansion. First, the penalty is significant to the cost of a new colony (I know because I did lots of math over several examples on these boards to find out). But the other big factor is the time it takes for a new city to build up.

You can say, "well all the new city needs to do is make X amount of science and culture, and its already overcome that penalty!" but it takes a long time to get there, and lots of gold investment. Meanwhile, your core cities are constantly getting better, always moving the bar of what that new city needs to make to make the investment worthwhile.

Puppets especially at colonist give a way to take strategic areas of the map (either for resources or strategic locations) without tanking your economy, because otherwise if you don't invest a good amount in that new city, it absolutely will be a drain on your economy long term.

The penalty is pretty significant. I agree that you need time to build up a new city. However, you only settle that new city if you think it's worthwhile due to the resources or it can aid you in a future war. Like late-game buildings, you only build them if you feel they can make a return. Otherwise, you work on processes. Making these Cities puppets results in them being less of weighing the pros and cons due to pros outweighing the cons. You get some unhappiness and some maintenance cost but those are so minor compared to what you get in return. Eventually, this puppet city would have developed enough that you can annex and get a decent City. I can see the game go from "Should I settle this as it may not make my investment worthwhile?" to "I should settle this as it has very few downsides and many positives."

And would you do the same sort of expansion if you were playing tall? That was my first question which I would like to hear your thoughts. I currently don't think wide needs more help in general.

 

[Stalker0]

And would you do the same sort of expansion if you were playing tall? That was my first question which I would like to hear your thoughts. I currently don't think wide needs more help in general.

I think this is the wrong mentality. It's absolutely true that wide may be strengthened by this, and it might require some adjustments elsewhere. But the fundamental note here is.... are we happy with late game expansion? Because mid and late game expansion is very thematically "civ", its a factor of history, and it should be a factor in the game. If people aren't expanding in the late game because it's not worth it....that's a real problem.

So that's the real question that's being asked....does late game expansion need help? If you think yes, this is a solid way to help address it. And if means that we need to make some tweaks elsewhere, so be it.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I think this is the wrong mentality. It's absolutely true that wide may be strengthened by this, and it might require some adjustments elsewhere. But the fundamental note here is.... are we happy with late game expansion? Because mid and late game expansion is very thematically "civ", its a factor of history, and it should be a factor in the game. If people aren't expanding in the late game because it's not worth it....that's a real problem.

So that's the real question that's being asked....does late game expansion need help? If you think yes, this is a solid way to help address it. And if means that we need to make some tweaks elsewhere, so be it.

Does late game expansion need help? I don't think so. To expect cities to be worth it before the game ends doesn't seem reasonable.

Does mid game expansion need help? I look at the rationale and am leaning towards no.

Pros: No extra city penalties, less micromanage
Cons: Unhappiness (easily offset from Public Works)

We have two big pros and a con that can be easily offset. In addition to the con, a non-puppet city will also produce unhappiness, likely more due to how underdeveloped it is. We no longer have a weighing of pros and cons. It seems like there aren't any downsides with this.

If we implement colonies that can break off and become independent, that would be great. However, that's out of the scope of this and more of a nice to have.

 

[N.Core]

Offsetting Unhappiness from Public Works really benefits tall, IMO. Because they tend to have the best cities, hence a decent happiness ratio.
Don't expect to offset the unhappiness if you play wide, you need to offset your already existing unhappiness before offsetting the puppets.

 

[N.Core]

This is one weird way to counter wide play by tall players. Yes, by being a wide-wannabe settling puppeted cities.
Someone could make a counter-proposal if they disagree with the Colony building part that could benefit wide.

 

[Recursive]

Colony
No maintenance
Never Capture
Eliminate extra Unhappiness from an Occupied City

This isn't necessary. If you founded the city, it'll never be considered occupied.

 

[N.Core]

This isn't necessary. If you founded the city, it'll never be considered occupied.

It is necessary, just try it.
If you found the puppets and try to annex them, then you get unhappiness from being occupied.

I dunno if it's changed after 3.1. But I've tried it on 3.1.1 and you need Courthouse to eliminate the unhappiness.

 

[Recursive]

It is necessary, just try it.
If you found the puppets and try to annex them, then you get unhappiness from being occupied.

I dunno if it's changed after 3.1. But I've tried it on 3.1.1 and you need Courthouse to eliminate the unhappiness.

That's a bug then.

 

[N.Core]

That's a bug then.

If the fix requires a big work, then better just to go this way. It'll make some potential unique mechanics.
Also, the potential of easy city flipping for Colonist's puppets, but that's out of this proposal's scope, and the function doesn't exist on CP.

 

[alchx]

It looks like an attempt to get strategic resources (uranium at the north pole) and additional territory. without receiving penalties for additional cities.

In the late game, expansion happens by capturing other cities, CSs with the right resources, or building Citadels.

It is also some kind of abuse of the mechanic that puppets in case of war will start building fortifications. After some time, we will have a city with 1000+ hp in this area, capable of receiving aircraft, and shooting at 2-3 tiles, instead of the Citadel, giving only 100% protection to a unit or a fort with 50% protection.

It turns out that in this area we have an incredibly strong unit that always replenishes its health and does not impose any penalties on us in science or culture at all. On the contrary, it will bring gold.

 

[N.Core]

Sponsored, but I do need help with the Colony icon.

 

[N.Core]

Ok, @gwennog is helping with the building icon. So it's good now.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by N.Core and gwennog.

 

[gwennog]

Proposal for Colony Icon :

 

[Slyceth]

I'm in favor of a system like this, because it's a huge headache to have to rebuild a city from scratch after settling late-game.

By the time you unlock pioneers, most of the map is settled already.

The only problem is you can't invest with gold, so:
Allow pioneer puppeted cities to invest gold in cities

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.