Col Bug Fixes / Feature Enhancements Patch

[Franks]

Trade Goods is a fine example of this. Without any profit in transporting them from Europe to sell to the Indians, they are a completely pointless item, and cannot be produced locally.

I agree, what is the purpose of Trade Goods?

 

[snoopy369]

Trade goods I suppose would also qualify (along with horses and guns), I've never used them to a profit and honestly have no idea why they're in the game. But finished goods (rum, cigars, etc.) most definitely should not generally be able to be sold for a profit when bought from europe.

In any event, this is DEFINITELY not a bug, and should be addressed in a separate mod by whomever cares about this issue. It is working as designed, regardless of whether you feel it should work this way or not.

 

[mboza]

It's also an economic simulator. Transport of foreign goods across an ocean to a people without the technology or means to produce them themselves is what is known as "Value Added". I should be justly compensated as the middleman.

Trade Goods is a fine example of this. Without any profit in transporting them from Europe to sell to the Indians, they are a completely pointless item, and cannot be produced locally.

And the reason you would sell from Europe to the Natives, especially early on, would be to make money, since you are highly unlikely to be pumping out much in the way of high-demand salable goods.

In other words, you absolutely should be offered more from the Natives than what you paid in Europe.

This assumes
1. the natives are able to afford more than Europeans,
2. are without the technology to make the goods themselves in a more efficient manner than employing you to ship from Europe.
both are true for trade goods, horses and muskets at the start of the game, but no reason to always be true for other goods or at all times.

Still waiting for my copy, but in the original you could only sell/gift 3 resources to a settlement at any point ("We are in need of Rum and tobacco, and even sugar would be of some use"), and had to sell/gift something to be able to buy anything from the natives. Trade goods were often requested by Aztecs and Incans, and could turn a profit. Sometimes you just needed to sell at a (comparative) loss to be able buy something else for more profit, or simply to keep the natives happy.

If natives always paid more than Europe, you could just spend the entire game trying to shuttle exponntially increasing amounts between the natives and Europe.


Re damaged arty and dragoons->soldiers->colonists:

That was deliberately taken out very early on, though for the life of me the reason escapes me.

I was hoping that this game would finally allow you to repair damaged artillery. I guess it does because everything has hit points Presumably hit points made this unnecessary, and gets away from the endgame being all about having galleons full of horses to repair your soldiers to dragoons.

 

[ACEofHeart]

Build times are just too high for the game... some buildings take 50 to 100 turns , in a game of just 300 turns that seems ridiculous.. Cutting all of them by a minimum of 25% would be a good start..

 

[Dale]

Build times are just too high for the game... some buildings take 50 to 100 turns , in a game of just 300 turns that seems ridiculous.. Cutting all of them by a minimum of 25% would be a good start..

That's more a request to make of a different mod. This one should be for bugs only. Any build time problems isn't due to any bug.

 

[dr_AllCOM3]

with some specialists you can build very fast.
plus you don't need many buildings in a city.

 

[deadliver]

Trade goods I suppose would also qualify (along with horses and guns), I've never used them to a profit and honestly have no idea why they're in the game. But finished goods (rum, cigars, etc.) most definitely should not generally be able to be sold for a profit when bought from europe.

In any event, this is DEFINITELY not a bug, and should be addressed in a separate mod by whomever cares about this issue. It is working as designed, regardless of whether you feel it should work this way or not.

What are you talking about? Trade goods represent high quality items that are cheaply manufactured in Europe but a rarity in the New World. These goods can include things like axe heads to sell to Indians (gee guess no market there?) furniture, glass all sorts.

 

[Polobo]

* "Not Enough Tools Bug PART #2" - The only possible way to not lose your hammers on the building you want to have build, is to "Examine City" and then exit back out, where the option to build the Lumber Mill, or whatever, reappears with a 1-turn completion time beside it. You have to do this over and over and over, every turn, until you have enough tools to complete it. This is very annoying.

Each time I've had a building complete (hammers) without the necessary tools I get a box telling me the building cannot complete and giving me the option to choose the next building I want to put hammers toward. When I finally get tools to the colony another box pops up letting me choose which incomplete building I can direct the tools toward for completion. The game remembers which items are already completed and will automatically prompt you once the tools become available while you building something else. Given the 2nd prompt I would guess you could queue up 2+ items without tools and then complete them all once you get a wagon-load of tools to the colony.

 

[smoke9999]

The balancing of the rounds u can play is soooo off. Sorry but whoever betatested that should never touch a PC again.

As this is a remake of a classic it should feel like the classic. Ok if i got 300 rounds to play u have to use every turn perfectly, dont waste time , dont go off your originall way or your screwed and before u got a propper econemy up u get "100 turns left"

If u change the game speed cost of everything goes up, so theres no better game experience, theres just prolonging ....

Colonization is about building an empire in the New world, for an empire u need a good economy massive military and build up cities. Its not (!!!!) about using every turn perfectly and rushing to independence lategame cause the REF system is §$§"$ up.

Again in the old version u could enjoy building your empire and preparing for independence. In this remake i feel like im settling in a new world and only aim is to rush to independence or im screwed.

I finished my first game in some hours, i was shocked when the "100 turns left" counter came, just killed all indians near me and wanted to start finally building my eco.

who defends this game killing bugs and bad balancing, im sorry but u never ever enjoyed a good round of Col 1.

The Values for game length have to be tweaked.

 

[Dale]

Actually I've played Col1 for 15 years.

One thing I think a lot of people are confused about, you keep saying "I want to build an empire" which implies 20 cities like in Col1. You can't do that in Col2 due to the smaller map size. Sorry, but a fact.

I can have a strong economy running within 100 turns, 6 cities, 3-4 missions and steadily increasing populations etc.

It's not a matter of balance per say, it's a case of realising this is a different game to Col1.

 

[jinxdone]

I've been annoyed by the fact that in the new colonization if you want to move less than 100 of something you have to press and hold shift beginning from when you press down the mouse button to drag the item. In the old game I think it was so that you have to press and hold shift only during the time you release the mouse button.

Just makes the game UI a little bit less flexible to use than the old one.

 

[smoke9999]

Ok Dale if this new Col is ment for quick games with 4-8 citis max. , yeah then its a new game but i think its bad then.

i liked the fact that u played days or even weeks on 1 game, made it feel really intense. If u can rush an independence in work brake, personally for me it feels bad.

I was expecting the same feel of Col. 1 as it was allways said its a remake and not a follow up. Sure a game has to be changed, but changing the whole feeling of a game in such necessary points is wrongly done for me.

Im sorry im just so disapointed to not have the old gaming experience with new grafik and easier interface.

 

[Dale]

Hey don't blame me, blame the 3D Civ engine. Memory limitations, smaller map sizes blah blah.

I'm just telling you how it is. You should be able to fix it by increasing mapsizes.

If you're interested I could post the Col1 map that is in my AoD2 mod. Now that's nostalgia for ya.

 

[smoke9999]

sorry dale im not blaming u for anything as long as your not working for firaxis!

im just upset cause i had so high hopes, well they are not down totally due to the game easily being modded.

 

[Javewa]

Stuff I was most annoyed by:

1) When you met someone new, the second response should default to Exit. In Civ4 it did and in Colo you can't double-tap Enter to make it go away quickly.

2) Main UI is missing a quick glance at the relationships with other factions.

3) Trade Interface should be available in the city screen. Right-click to get drop-down and select Import, Export or No Action.
Same should be possible in the Domestic Advisor's Trade Screen. Just click the corresponding column and row to cycle through actions.

4) Move Continental Congress Menu inside Founding Fathers and add a direct link to the trade interface.

5) Double right-clicking colonists in city screen sometimes causes the units not to cycle anymore.

6) Ability to assign Jobs to colonists in the 'Outside' section.

7) Make promotions more diverse to increase tactical depth.

8) Note-taking in colonies that are then displayed in Europe.

9) Totally destroying ships makes early Privateers far to powerful.

10) Some indication of what natives want to trade in their settlements.

11) Bring back the aggression flags for the natives.

 

[thelibra]

Trade goods I suppose would also qualify (along with horses and guns), I've never used them to a profit and honestly have no idea why they're in the game. But finished goods (rum, cigars, etc.) most definitely should not generally be able to be sold for a profit when bought from europe.

In any event, this is DEFINITELY not a bug, and should be addressed in a separate mod by whomever cares about this issue. It is working as designed, regardless of whether you feel it should work this way or not.

Okay, I say this with all due respect to a fellow CivFanatic, but who exactly are you to decide that finished goods should not be sold for a profit, and that it is "DEFINITELY not a bug," that it is working "as designed"?

Are you a Firaxis employee? Are you a dev for the game? Are you one of the concept writers? Unless one of those is true, please do not presume to give any sort of definitive answer as if you were speaking Rote. There is evidence to support my assertion that this is a bug, or at least a serious oversight.

* The previous two iterations of Colonization (Col1 and FreeCol) both exhibited a profit when selling finished goods to the natives, especially ones that they wanted, and especially trade goods.

* If Monty wanted Rum really badly, then I should see a profit selling him Rum from Europe. If they "really want" a finished good, there should be a profit in it.

* And again, without any profit, trade goods become absolutely worthless as a game element. You cannot make them in your colony, and since zero profit can be made from selling them at the moment, then there's no point in buying them and transporting them from Europe.

* Trade with the natives was a major strategy element in the previous two iterations. Across the board zero profit sales to them means this strategy is largely removed from the game and they serve only as a source of training schools and obstacles to be removed. I do not believe this was the intent.

* And for the record, no, the Indians did not have the technology to produce Rum, as it requires a distillery. They could produce cloth in small local amounts, but nothing like the quantity and size that weaving mills could produce and far more cheaply. The technology and materials to make cigars and coats did exist in the New World, however, there was no nation-wide trade route or regular transport of goods from, say, fine Canadian beaver pelts to South America, nor did the hand-made Meso-American cigars find their way up to Innuit lands with any regularlity.

As such, the transport of a finished good to the Natives should be value-added. It worked that way in history, it worked that way in the previous two games, and the same gameplay element "tradegood" even exists in reference to those systems. Col2 itself has every other element tailored around real-life history. So please, Snoopy, do not be so quick to dismiss it out of hand unless you are a Firaxis employee. I maintain the position that this is a bug/oversight by the devs.

 

[snoopy369]

I say it is 'working as designed' because it is working as designed. You are not supposed to always be able to buy finished goods from europe and sell them to the natives. The only exceptions to that are Horses, Guns, and Trade Goods, as noted earlier; those are things that are only available in Europe at first, and very valuable to the Natives. Otherwise it is simply a matter of things having differing prices; sometimes you can afford to do it that way, but most of the time you can't.

Regardless of the 'realistic' element, even though buying cigars in Europe to sell in America is probably the most absurd thing I've ever heard of ... it is not interesting from a gameplay perspective. If you can buy everything from Europe and always make a profit selling it to the natives, why would you ever build things? You're describing a pure merchant game, like Machiavelli/Merchant Prince, which is fine and interesting (and a wonderful game, for anyone who's not encountered it).

However, Colonization is not a pure merchant game. It is Merchant Prince crossed with Civilization. What that means is that it is not a game solely of arbitrage, it is a game of producing things and selling them. This is how the gameplay works, and how it should work, as a longtime fan of the game (and I've played it on and off for 13 years). If you want a game where you buy things from one place and sell it in another at a profit, go play Machiavelli or Merchant Prince II - an excellent game, whichever version you play - but that is simply not how Col works as a rule.

I have no idea what you're talking about with regard to Col1; you could not buy cigars or rum and sell it to Monty except when the price had collapsed to the point of absurdity. Most certainly not at the start, when the finished goods cost a small fortune.

In any event, this discussion is inappropriate for this thread. This is not a bug, regardless of your opinion on it; it does not stop the game from working properly, and does not significantly hinder anyone playing it (it's not a showstopper balance bug, like the REF size). Thus, it is not appropriate for this thread.

 

[thelibra]

I say it is 'working as designed' because it is working as designed. You are not supposed to always be able to buy finished goods from europe and sell them to the natives. The only exceptions to that are Horses, Guns, and Trade Goods, as noted earlier; those are things that are only available in Europe at first, and very valuable to the Natives.

And as I have repeatedly mentioned, Trade Goods are not working. Forget all other finished goods for the moment then. Trade Goods are not working as even you have described.

it is not appropriate for this thread.

I respectfully disagree. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but the name of the thread is "Col Bug Fixes / Feature Enhancements Patch", not "Things that Snoopy agrees are Bugs". The correction (or at the very least, official clarification) of transcontinental trade is at the very least, a feature enhancement request, and at most, a bug or oversight. Regardless I'd like Firaxis's assessment on this.

However, in the interests of moving on, I'm done stating my case on the matter. They'll either fix it, leave it, explain it, or all of the above.

 

[mboza]

I've been annoyed by the fact that in the new colonization if you want to move less than 100 of something you have to press and hold shift beginning from when you press down the mouse button to drag the item. In the old game I think it was so that you have to press and hold shift only during the time you release the mouse button.

Just makes the game UI a little bit less flexible to use than the old one.

This. Please.

And the double right click for menus.

Everything else is balance changes that I can get used to, but these are annoying UI.

 

[Tonheuru]

The trade route menu. When setting up an automated trade route all you get is a list of possible goods exported from one place and imported in others that doesn't seem to be in any useful order at all.

Being able to click on a wagon train and then look at possible routes grouped by destination, original location of goods and type of goods would be really handy once you get a load of routes going. Even alphabetically would be better than what they have at the moment.