Col II is a Sloppy Product

[Dale]

I never noticed Bolivar, but it's more than just that. The King of Spain is Peter with black clothes, the King of the Netherlands is William of Orange pimped out and on heroin, And obviously anyone who was in Civ4 reappears almost exactly as they were before (Louis, Washington, Montezuma, etc.). I don't know about the other french guy, but at the very least he uses Charlemagne's animations.

King George (English King) is a heavily modified Elizabeth BTW.

Bet no one picked that eh?

 

[SilverGrowler]

....and that they remove some of the clutter that infests Warlords and BtS. (Vanilla Civ is much superior to the expansion packs.).......

Half agree......

Warlords was an improvement (more fun to play) but BtS was too much for me as it made it less fun to play.

First expansion packs are usually improvements because they contain what might have been in to start with if only the developers had more time before being yelled at to get it out the door. The second expansion to a game sometimes seems like scrapimg the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I must correct you, there are horses to start with: You need 50 horses to build a stable. These horses are the "breeding base".

Ah, I never thought of that. It makes a sort of twisted sense. Like so many things in Firaxis games.

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

Half agree......

Warlords was an improvement (more fun to play) but BtS was too much for me as it made it less fun to play.

First expansion packs are usually improvements because they contain what might have been in to start with if only the developers had more time before being yelled at to get it out the door. The second expansion to a game sometimes seems like scrapimg the bottom of the barrel.

I agree, but BTS and Warlords were the exception. BTS completed Civ, and there's no way I can stand trying the Warlords mods now, without Espionage, Events, Quests etc.

Back ON topic now, ColII is surprisingly frustrating. It's hard to get new colonists from immigration now. There's no Custom House, so trade is horrendous micromanagement. Re-equipping pioneers every now and again is nothing compared to the complete lack of the ability to automate trade. With education so quickly out of reach, and lumber mills also so damned expensive, there's not too much incentive to store food for new colonists.

I'll keep trying, but I just don't know how to play THIS Colonization. Do I make it so that every colony specialises in one thing only, since it seems so tough to get a complete set of specialists for a series of independent towns? Do I then need lots more colonies than the 4 or 5 that were appropriate for the first Col? How do I defend all of those?

 

[Dralix]

I'll keep trying, but I just don't know how to play THIS Colonization.

This is a problem with sequels/remakes, but it's a human problem. People are used to how they played the old game and when the same play styles don't work, it is frustrating. The difficulty is working past the initial frustration to learn how to play the new game. The same was very true of either the change from Civ2 to Civ3, if memory serves (or maybe it was from 3 to 4). People had a hard time embracing the new game because they were tied to the old strategies, and they just didn't work. The same is true here.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

This is a problem with sequels/remakes, but it's a human problem. People are used to how they played the old game and when the same play styles don't work, it is frustrating. The difficulty is working past the initial frustration to learn how to play the new game. The same was very true of either the change from Civ2 to Civ3, if memory serves (or maybe it was from 3 to 4). People had a hard time embracing the new game because they were tied to the old strategies, and they just didn't work. The same is true here.

That is quite correct of course, but they have also dumbed down the game and removed a lot of the depth and fun that the original one had. Not to mention all the careless programming and the things they did on the cheap.

 

[player1 fanatic]

There's no Custom House, so trade is horrendous micromanagement.

I beg to differ. With proper use of export/import buttons micromanagement is lower then in Col1.

 

[Civsassin]

I'll keep trying, but I just don't know how to play THIS Colonization. Do I make it so that every colony specialises in one thing only, since it seems so tough to get a complete set of specialists for a series of independent towns? Do I then need lots more colonies than the 4 or 5 that were appropriate for the first Col? How do I defend all of those?

I never played Col I, so I am unbiased. I've found that if you found two early high yield food producing colonies, then all you need are a couple of specialized colonies to harness the raw materials, have them shipped to the high food colonies, and process them there for trade. The side benefit to that strategy is all of the colonists your high food colonies will produce. Later in the game as your populations rise, you can turn those food producing colonies into huge war production colonies, producing a large number of guns, horses, and tools to fuel your revolution. I am in the process of working that strategy in a current game, but it seems to be working very well.

 

[Dale]

^^^ That's how I play.

 

[Kronoz]

Yes this answers many questions I had about the game...and I think I will sit this one out. Thanks OP.

 

[Thonnas]

I kind of find the base game a bit boring, but this is no different than CIV. I can't even play a game of vanilla CIV. It's really the mods that make CIV great, and I expect C4C will be the same way.

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

I never played Col I, so I am unbiased. I've found that if you found two early high yield food producing colonies, then all you need are a couple of specialized colonies to harness the raw materials, have them shipped to the high food colonies, and process them there for trade. The side benefit to that strategy is all of the colonists your high food colonies will produce. Later in the game as your populations rise, you can turn those food producing colonies into huge war production colonies, producing a large number of guns, horses, and tools to fuel your revolution. I am in the process of working that strategy in a current game, but it seems to be working very well.

Hmm... interesting, Civsassin. It's worth a shot. Thank you. The Civ/Firaxis/Microprose series have built up too much faith in me for me to give up on one just yet. I'm gratified to have a method pointed out. A bit more colony interdependence needed.

 

[Shurdus]

I agree, but BTS and Warlords were the exception. BTS completed Civ, and there's no way I can stand trying the Warlords mods now, without Espionage, Events, Quests etc.

Back ON topic now, ColII is surprisingly frustrating. It's hard to get new colonists from immigration now. There's no Custom House, so trade is horrendous micromanagement. Re-equipping pioneers every now and again is nothing compared to the complete lack of the ability to automate trade. With education so quickly out of reach, and lumber mills also so damned expensive, there's not too much incentive to store food for new colonists.

I'll keep trying, but I just don't know how to play THIS Colonization. Do I make it so that every colony specialises in one thing only, since it seems so tough to get a complete set of specialists for a series of independent towns? Do I then need lots more colonies than the 4 or 5 that were appropriate for the first Col? How do I defend all of those?

I agree with moth of the OP.

You can auto-trade in ColII. The 2nd warehouses let you sell everything that you have in excess. I am not too sure if you can sell anything that is not over your max holding limit, but at least there is an auto-trade option.

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

I agree with moth of the OP.

You can auto-trade in ColII. The 2nd warehouses let you sell everything that you have in excess. I am not too sure if you can sell anything that is not over your max holding limit, but at least there is an auto-trade option.

I'm experimenting with the trade route thing now, and a bit worried about it - I get small units of goods delivered if the wagon train happens to reach the exporting settlement just as my limit is reached, and then sometimes I get large amounts delivered all at once that completely fills the destination's warehouse. Unless I remember to check every turn then I could be losing 50% of the gold I'd get from that overflow.

Seriously, this is in no way a replacement for the function of the Custom House of the original. It must have been a conscious design decision to not have this in the new game, but it makes for a lot more micromanagement; trade routes or no trade routes. I really think you should have the ability to manage how much of each good you export at a time rather than/as well as the option to keep a certain number in the colony. It's inefficient to transport 7 Cigars from one city to another, then on to Europe via Caravel. It should really be easy enough to transport in units of 50 or 100.

I'll wait and see how the trade routes go, but so far I'm leaning towards stopping them and just doing it all manually and keeping notes, like I do in my most involved complex games of cIV. Only those games involve 30+ cities, and here I'm dealing with 4 or 5 colonies. I don't like needless micromanagement for it's own sake, and there were specific steps taken with cIV to lessen it. Why is it increased in ColII?

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I'll wait and see how the trade routes go, but so far I'm leaning towards stopping them and just doing it all manually and keeping notes, like I do in my most involved complex games of cIV. Only those games involve 30+ cities, and here I'm dealing with 4 or 5 colonies. I don't like needless micromanagement for it's own sake, and there were specific steps taken with cIV to lessen it. Why is it increased in ColII?

Very little thought seems to have gone into the mechanisms of Col II, the reason being that everything (clearly including the attention of the developers when they produced the game) has been focused on getting to the War for Independence as swiftly as possible. I found even the original War for Independence a bit of a bore, and this one is about as exciting as fighting the Battle of Verdun. Just monotonous slaughter, and unless you have deliberately refrained from generating bells until late in the game, you are dead meat since the king adds fresh troops to his army practically every turn if you have good bell production. I have seen people claim the opposite, that they generated liberty bells from early on and yet won without any trouble, but I really don't understand how they can do it.

In the original game, the king's army was very big from the beginning, but he only added to it occasionally, and that happened whatever you did or didn't do. That meant that one got a fair amount of time to prepare for the WoI, and the time for that was due only after several other stages which were played for their own sake, not just for as a preparation for the endshow. Also, of course, one had until 1850 to become independent, not just to 1792. The earlier one rebelled, the smaller the king's army was, but it wasn't a mad rush against the clock as now. Also, the size of the king's army differed in proportion to the difficulty level.

Furthermore, In Civ II your European competitors are pathetically weak and don't stand a chance against their REF, and they don't have any money, so trading with them is pointless. The Indians have lots of money in the beginning but then run out of money completely. If that is a conscious game decision, it's a poor one.

And the way you discover treasures *everywhere* and can send them to your colonies unescorted without having to fear an ambush is silly. And something is wrong with the maps; even the "huge" one is barely as much land as in original Col; they just add more ocean. One has to choose "huge" and "low water level" to get a bit of moving space.

Despite the claims of certain players, this game needs a good deal more than some "polish". It would need a very drastic overhaul (which I don't believe will be forthcoming) to become enjoyable.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I agree with moth of the OP.

You can auto-trade in ColII. The 2nd warehouses let you sell everything that you have in excess. I am not too sure if you can sell anything that is not over your max holding limit, but at least there is an auto-trade option.

Where do you do that?

 

[Öjevind Lång]

^^^ That's how I play.

Do you generate liberty bells or deliberately avoid doing so until the end game?

 

[kazapp]

All I can say is that I hope they take their time and do a proper job with Civ 5, and that they remove some of the clutter that infests Warlords and BtS. (Vanilla Civ is much superior to the expansion packs.)

I strongly disagree. Civilization IV is a much better game with BtS.

Yes, they could have left out the new spy subsystem, but there are so many tweaks to balance (such as adding anti-Axes to Chariots and nerfing the Grenadier beeline) and other improvements I can't imagine playing the vanilla game now that I have BtS.

</ASIDE>

 

[Dale]

Do you generate liberty bells or deliberately avoid doing so until the end game?

I'll generate bells from turn 100 to 200 (sometimes earlier depending on my mood) before DoI.

 

[Chuggi]

I admit, the spy system is overdone. But there is no way in hell I would play vanilla over BTS.