BtS: Colonisation port

[Dale]

Hi all!

I'm going to give you all a chance to put on designer's hats, and tell me your answer to the following question:

If you were given the project Colonisation II, what would you change from the original?

For instance, I would do away with slaves and indentured servants, and just have colonists. In my games I either used those types for early scouts or cheap infantry to kill off the Aztecs and Incas.

 

[mtagge]

Great idea for a mod. I don't think there were any blaring problems with the original besides some balance issues. For one thing I don't consider all of the founding fathers to be very balanced. The political FFs were almost a necessity to actually winning the game, while some of the others were very weak.

 

[cephalo]

Colonization was a very solid game. One problem it did have, was that the AI would fill up your territory with it's units and try to pretend that it wasn't an act of war. Not only that, but the only reason the AI could afford to do this was due to the usual AI cheating to get lot's o extra units.

I can't imagine that a Civ4 mod would have that problem though.

 

[Ninja2]

You get back to DCM/RtW/AoD, you!

Slaves (don't recall them?), Indentured Servants and Petty Criminals were also my first "Army"/Scouts. But that was pretty neat, I think, no need to get rid of that.

Colonization, as I recall, suffered a bit from ICS, didn't it? So I'd change that for sure.

 

[seZereth]

You get back to DCM/RtW/AoD, you!

Slaves (don't recall them?), Indentured Servants and Petty Criminals were also my first "Army"/Scouts. But that was pretty neat, I think, no need to get rid of that.

Colonization, as I recall, suffered a bit from ICS, didn't it? So I'd change that for sure.

what is ICS ?

 

[cephalo]

what is ICS ?

Infinite City Sprawl. In some of the old civs it turned out that the best strategy was to forget about developing your cities and just try to build as many as you can.

I played some Colonization on my lunch break today. Wow, there are alot of differences that would take quite alot of work to bring to Civ4. You need tons of new commerce types for one thing, one for every kind of raw material.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I don't think you're going to want to use commerce types for that though...

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Hi all!

I'm going to give you all a chance to put on designer's hats, and tell me your answer to the following question:

If you were given the project Colonisation II, what would you change from the original?

For instance, I would do away with slaves and indentured servants, and just have colonists. In my games I either used those types for early scouts or cheap infantry to kill off the Aztecs and Incas.

Add slavery (the original Colonization never had any ) and retain indentured servants as a mechanic. You could tie it into civics if you wanted to streamline the system, but they need to be represented somehow.

Get rid of the resource micromanagement, especially the need to move individual units (wagon trains) around for the trade network to be efficient. Of course, this will require a type of Quantitative Resources so presumably you'd need that, too.

Absolutely retain the Founding Fathers and the SoL system. I especially liked the Declaration of Independence scene.

Make the Indian-European relations more dynamic and more relevant. I basically just ignored or killed off most of them in my normal games, and things were not that simple in the real world. There were shifting alliances.

Consider extending the time period to include post-Colonization and post-independence mechanics, such as Westward Expansion.

Those are just a few ideas I had off the top of my head.

 

[cephalo]

I don't think you're going to want to use commerce types for that though...

Yield types I mean.

 

[jefmart1]

I think you need a system to purchase colonists and specialists like in Broken Star. I think that GP points could produce specialists as well, and one of the GP could be a Founding Father. Move them to the Capital and they can create a "building" which has the same effect as the Founding fathers in the game.

I actually have a whole mod more or less created for this, but I suck at actual modding so I did nothing with it. I can send you a tech tree, units, buildings, etc. If you like or I can post them for discussion.

 

[GoodGame]

Colonization was about perfect for what it was. The only thing I might enhance would be the combat and unit diversity, and allow unlimited number of colonists to be educated at the natives, if you bribed the natives enough.

EDIT: Having a realistic slavery that reflected the triangle trade, and also the shifts in policy among the European nations (regarding importation of slaves, and then abolition) would actually add to the scenario, especially if there was a real choice to be made there. Production vs. politics/religion.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

In colonial Virginia, indentured servitude was hugely important during the early years (1600's) and stopped later in the century for a number of reasons. At first, life expectancies were notoriously low, which is why the practice persisted so long: it was easier to import somebody who would work, say, 5 or 10 years than to buy a more expensive slave for life if they both ended up living about the same time! Just pure economics.

I'd say they need to be kind of mutually exclusive, or at least "progressive," with one leading to another. It gets kind of tricky because things were different in different places, but considering slavery's ubiquity later in the colonial era I'd say it needs to be represented somehow.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, indentured servitude also was something rather specific to the North American colonies. There, African slavery gradually developed out of a sort of indentured servitude (although indentured servitude obviously included whites as well). But in other parts of the Americas, there wasn't really that kind of gradual transition.

 

[Jeckel]

I can't really think of any big things I would like to change. I don't think you should start with so many buildings. The town hall should start as a smaller version and give you bigger buildings to upgrade it to. The Civ4 spy mechanic would be fun. Maybe add catapults and/or trebs that can be built with with lumber and no hammers. Units that can require any combination of resources.

There are lots of little things, but the only big thing in Colonization is Quanitative Resourses. I don't know if this is just a discussion thread or if you have somthing up your sleeve Dale, but that is the one area that is most desperatly needed of a Col mod.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

There are lots of little things, but the only big thing in Colonization is Quanitative Resourses. I don't know if this is just a discussion thread or if you have somthing up your sleeve Dale, but that is the one area that is most desperately needed of a Col mod.

I'll see if I can oblige in a few weeks.

 

[Jeckel]

I'll see if I can oblige in a few weeks.

I will be looking forward to it. I have quite a bit of the xml work done, just added another new building graphic.

EDIT: Added an attachment that is the current state of my CivColonizaton XML Mod. It has all the buildings, civs, leaders, and most of the units. I didn't balance all the numbers, but the entries are in there and that is the really tedious part.

 

[avain]

I hope this project gets completed!

 

[Dale]

My version is months off.

 

[avain]

My version is months off.

It's never too late for a quality mod.

 

[Roads]

Most people will say they don't like micro-management but really I think what most don't like, including me are repetitive actions. Moving a unit from one city to another for trade is hugely monotous after it is done once. If sufficiently complex, setting up trade routes can be both interesting and rewarding especially if you can casually look to see if your ships and wagons are moving and they are susceptible to piracy or vulnerble to enemy attack. By sufficiently complex, I mean one city with land suitable for growing cotton, another with hammers sufficient to build a cotton gin and produce cloth (skipping a few manufacturing steps here). It would take hammers for production as well as building the plant. Cloth would then become a luxury item.

Actually I wouldn't mind a third step for clothing production which would require less hammers and produce an additional luxury. What I'm really getting to here is a variety and complexity which would require thoughtful strategy and planning. Being able to set the route a ship or wagon would take to avoid dangers on the trips would not be a bad idea either.