Colonial city settling - Brainstorm Thread

[Rustonreddit]

I really dont like that game philosophy. It doesnt matter that is single player: they are bad mechanics if they are not fair and consistent. Will you have fun with overpower and cheesable abilities and stomping the AI? Sure. People will find the fun wherever they like. But that doesnt make a good game.

 

[CppMaster]

I really dont like that game philosophy. It doesnt matter that is single player: they are bad mechanics if they are not fair and consistent. Will you have fun with overpower and cheesable abilities and stomping the AI? Sure. People will find the fun wherever they like. But that doesnt make a good game.

The whole point of games is to have fun. OP or cheesable stuff is a secondary matter unless it's a competitive game.

 

[Rustonreddit]

OP or cheesable stuff is a secondary matter unless it's a competitive game.

Thank god in general no game designer thinks like that tho

 

[CppMaster]

Game designers considers cheese to be more important than fun for casual single player games? That would miss the point and it's not the case at all.

 

[Recursive]

Why do people forget that I already proposed this one in VP Congress and it didn't get passed?
Don't bother trying to convince the community once again if the idea isn't well received.
I have something in my mind to expand this one further, as a modmod.

As the balance of the game changes over time, community opinions might as well. Or perhaps someone might put forth a more convincing argument.

 

[hokath]

The whole point of games is to have fun. OP or cheesable stuff is a secondary matter unless it's a competitive game.

Not if it is centralizing. I.e. not if it makes other "normal" strategies "bad".

I would point out that changes to the game that the AI do not understand are explicitly out of scope. That is, to sponsor any change you must commit to making it AI-friendly.

 

[balparmak]

Thank god in general no game designer thinks like that tho

Wow, thus spoke the high priest of game design. If you weren't so keen on being a contrarian for the sake of it, you would understand that we're talking about players who go well out of their way to exploit mechanics -- something possible in literally every game and rarely addressed by developers in single-player. There are more important concerns than addressing to the gameplay of 0.01% exploiters. I'm very curious to hear your examples of games that can't be cheesed, though. I'm sure you can send some to the spiffing brit and so on.

 

[CppMaster]

Not if it is centralizing. I.e. not if it makes other "normal" strategies "bad".

I would point out that changes to the game that the AI do not understand are explicitly out of scope. That is, to sponsor any change you must commit to making it AI-friendly.

If it'd make other strategies bad then it'd make the game less fun, because of less strategic choices, which is the point of strategy games.

Still, for that particular proposal, in many situations setting a city normally is better. The proposal would make settling a city normally a bad choice in some situations, because settling as a puppet is better then. That's the case for all strategic decisions. This is a good thing, because what a strategy game is without strategic decisions?

And yes, it is always implied that any changes we do to VP should also include making AI to use it. It doesn't need to be stated.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Still, for that particular proposal, in many situations setting a city normally is better. The proposal would make settling a city normally a bad choice in some situations, because settling as a puppet is better then. That's the case for all strategic decisions. This is a good thing, because what a strategy game is without strategic decisions?

There is no single scenario in which using a colonialist to settle a puppet city would be worse than settling a normal city; as someone who has rarely used colonialists (upgraded left over settlers), almost always it's to acquire a resource i do not own, get a monopoly (which is a terrible strategy imo), or have a military base for my ships to heal.
In None of these scenarios a normal city would ever be better than a puppet and in no way would someone want to settle a nice city in industrial era for a bunch of cattle, wheat and sheep tiles.

 

[CppMaster]

Yep, puppets mainly for colonies, regular cities as main cities or when you want to rush defense buildings for colonies.

 

[KungCheops]

I, for one, would like it if the whole map would be settled. Just because I think it's nice. I don't think we're removing any strategic decisions by adding this option.

 

[msw1]

There is no single scenario in which using a colonialist to settle a puppet city would be worse than settling a normal city; as someone who has rarely used colonialists (upgraded left over settlers), almost always it's to acquire a resource i do not own, get a monopoly (which is a terrible strategy imo), or have a military base for my ships to heal.
In None of these scenarios a normal city would ever be better than a puppet and in no way would someone want to settle a nice city in industrial era for a bunch of cattle, wheat and sheep tiles.

If you have zealotry you can use them to forward settle a civ and then faith spam units from that city. That's the only scenario I can think of.

 

[azum4roll]

A strategic city should come with a cost, and I don't think 1 population, a couple of city production turns, and a bit of maintenance gold is costly enough for the potential benefits it provides.

 

[paul_soryu]

The problem of not being able to settle colonies is that you can wait until other player/players settle there, and then just conquer it to get the same benefit of controlling the land with puppets, as if you settled a colony there. And other players also get nothing out of it, as most of such settlements aren't defendable, and enemies don't mind that much if you conquer those far away small cities.

Also, if you are conquering in the early game, there will be a lot of empty space around you, and if you want to settle it all in the future, you have to not annex freshly conquered cities, which are obviously much better than a fresh settler city. So you are incentivized to let the enemy first settle all the empty space, and then conquer his cities in order to cover those territories with puppets. Or even leaving them as a vassal with one city and waiting until they settle the empty spaces. So, in the end you achieve the same thing as with a colony, but in an awkward gamey way.

On the other hand, I noticed that if you settle a colony with an intent to annex it into a normal city, it is almost always better to first improve all of its surrouding tiles, and only then annex it, which is also kinda gamey.

 

[CppMaster]

A strategic city should come with a cost, and I don't think 1 population, a couple of city production turns, and a bit of maintenance gold is costly enough for the potential benefits it provides.

Permanent penalty to both science and culture and some happiness is a big cost for just some territory, even with strategic resources. Also, you have to defend it.

 

[msw1]

Could make it a bit more expensive by making pioneers/colonists cost more than one population, like maybe 2 and 3 respectively.

 

[paul_soryu]

To illustrate the situtation I described above:
Yellow and Blue Circles are my Capital and first 2 cities. After settling them I conquered Sweden to the South and the Aztec to the West, annexing their cities gradually. After that I settled Green Star cities, and if not for colonies, I wouldn't be able to settle Red Star cities. I would need to either not annex previously conquered cities (which are better than any future north cities), or to wait until other players placed their cities there, or to let Sweden and the Aztec live and settle these lands for me. Overall, this goes somewhat against the expansionist idea of Authority.

Spoiler map :

Again, the problem is not that without colonies I have to make a choice between quicker development now vs. controlling more overall territory later, the problem is that I can get both anyway if I play in a specific strange way, leaving enemies alive with 1 city, until they settle all the territory I need (in case of Rome 4UC it also goes against Fornix UB).

I will agree though that without colonies you:
- don't choose exact placement of cities
- need to wait longer
- recieve additional warmonger penalties
- a civ you plan to "let grow" and later conquer can get a Defensive Pact with someone you don't want to go to war against (but this also means this civ can be your vassal)
+ but you also recieve some XP and some free improvements/unique buildings/works of art

So maybe to balance their addition colonies could be nerfed (not sure in what regard) a little compared to puppets. I just wanted to show that making colonies is already possible, albeit in a strange way.

Also, the AI opponents would gain the ability to spam colonies just like the player, at the same technology. So it doesn't really matter who and where places colonies, it only matters if you can defend it. Undefendable colonies would anyway be conquered just like a regular AI city would (with the exception that you don't need to wait for them to come, you can place cities yourself if you are closer). I think it is easier to teach the AI to place colonies everywhere it can (covering empty spaces), than to abuse the system I described above. I think it could also add more dynamic to mid-late game, like more new tensions and reconfigurations of allies/enemies, shorter wars for colonies, not for the mainland.

 

[CppMaster]

In geneal, with this change puppet cities may need a nerf. Like a bigger hit to happiness, since it's a colony, not a main city.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

In geneal, with this change puppet cities may need a nerf. Like a bigger hit to happiness, since it's a colony, not a main city.

as If puppets are already good enough smh

 

[CppMaster]

as If puppets are already good enough smh

Isn't it the issue that puppets for colonies would be OP? If not then what's the problem?