Colonial city settling - Brainstorm Thread

[azum4roll]

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.

You're assuming you can easily take a colony from another player AND defend it from being recaptured while it's a puppet. This doesn't come without a cost.

Plus, this thread is suggesting a better kind of puppet that can be annexed at any time you want.

 

[CppMaster]

Can't all puppets be annexed anyway? (Except Venice). I agree that there shouldn't be a free Courthouse.

 

[paul_soryu]

You're assuming you can easily take a colony from another player AND defend it from being recaptured while it's a puppet. This doesn't come without a cost.

Plus, this thread is suggesting a better kind of puppet that can be annexed at any time you want.

I mean, conquering a colony isn't any harder than conquering a normal city. I was talking about how the situation is now, and from my experience, if you have unsettled land around you, AIs will settle it and defend it with like 1-2 units, which is indeed easy to take and defend afterwards. Even if you let it live for some time, AI won't transfer their mainland army to this place on other continent or island. In case of your vassal settling around you, you probably have a decent technological lead on them.

Are you talking about situtations like using a colony as a forward military base (with good ranged attack) in some harsh terrain? I do not support the idea of allowing colonies from turn 0, and by the time Colonists arrive I think there is little place to use such a tactic. Or am I not getting something?

 

[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 :

View attachment 696898

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.

This message was being approved by the moderator for some time, and was now left on previous page, so I'll reply to it as if I posted it now.

 

[hokath]

Yes I think your argument about waiting for the AI to settle the land "for you" and then taking it from them is a compelling reason as to why Colonist should be able to found a Puppet city.

At first I was against it, but upon reflection more Cities is probably more fun. Especially since you are entering the late game when this comes online. On many maps it makes no difference (Pangaea for example), but for larger more "exploration heavy" maps I think a lot of people would like to go a bit crazy with the settling. All power to them on non-standard play imo.

 

[azum4roll]

It's fine to be able to found a puppet city, but not a better version of it with better yields. You'll need to choose between a normal city and a puppet one.

 

[FinMc]

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.

If you later lose the city does the scaling penality to science/culture/happiness decrease or does it remain?

 

[CppMaster]

If you later lose the city does the scaling penality to science/culture/happiness decrease or does it remain?

It remains, but if you conquer another city, it would not increase, because total stay the same. Although, if you lose 2 cities and then conquer one then the penalty decreases by 1.

 

[azum4roll]

If you later lose the city does the scaling penality to science/culture/happiness decrease or does it remain?

It'll decrease.

 

[Trumtram]

Just chiming in: I don't feel that idea and think it would be better if the AI stops settling horsehockey (haha, nice censoring ) city locations. The mod is going through a lot of transformations because of the congress and while old bugs might get fixed, new ones are creeping in (naturally) because of big changes. With the proposed change of being able to settle puppets the AI would need to "learn" this, too. The problem described in the initial post is such a minor thing (to me at least) and I would totally be for more optimization instead of including something like this which will entail major changes to the AI being made. And there are still problems with the AI that need solving.

 

[CppMaster]

With the proposed change of being able to settle puppets the AI would need to "learn" this, too.

Of course, as with any such change.

 

[Trumtram]

Of course, as with any such change.

Yeah, of course . What I meant is that I would welcome the focus on the current mechanics instead of causing chaos with such a minor thing. I don't have insights on how complex the programming of the AI is, but I can imagine that implementing this mechanic would come with a tail of problems for the current AI behaviour (which needs a bit of sorting). It feels like an unnecessary complication of things.
Like I said: Let's fix the settling behavior of the AI (not settling in "bad" areas) and the problem would be solved.

 

[CppMaster]

What I meant is that I would welcome the focus on the current mechanics instead of causing chaos with such a minor thing. I don't have insights on how complex the programming of the AI is, but I can imagine that implementing this mechanic would come with a tail of problems for the current AI behaviour (which needs a bit of sorting). It feels like an unnecessary complication of things.

You don't have to worry about it. If you think it's not worth then just vote no. The proposal needs to be sponsored by a dev anyway.

 

[detroitrex]

I like the proposal, but it doesn't go far enough

I think that founding cities an ocean away which you have full control over immediately is (until the late game) technologically infeasible. History tells us as much: New world colonies were set up as some form of subject. The specifics varied from colony to colony, but what you didn't see was direct micromanagement from madrid or lisbon or london.

ALL new cities a certain distance-over-water from the capital should either be puppets or incorporated into some sort of vassal state, whether that's identical or not to current vassals I'm not conversant enough in the finer points of vassalship to say.

The option that shouldn't exist is to get astronomy and immediately go drop a fully-controlled city literally half a world away. That's not how it worked.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I like the proposal, but it doesn't go far enough

I think that founding cities an ocean away which you have full control over immediately is (until the late game) technologically infeasible. History tells us as much: New world colonies were set up as some form of subject. The specifics varied from colony to colony, but what you didn't see was direct micromanagement from madrid or lisbon or london.

ALL new cities a certain distance-over-water from the capital should either be puppets or incorporated into some sort of vassal state, whether that's identical or not to current vassals I'm not conversant enough in the finer points of vassalship to say.

The option that shouldn't exist is to get astronomy and immediately go drop a fully-controlled city literally half a world away. That's not how it worked.

I don't think invoking adherence to realism is a valid argument when it comes to game design; we have melee cavalry that can deal damage to tanks with their lances, jet fighters and bombers taking damage when they bomb infantry.
In a video game fun and balance are always a priority in contrast to realism which is a secondary icing on the cake.

 

[detroitrex]

I don't think invoking adherence to realism is a valid argument when it comes to game design; we have melee cavalry that can deal damage to tanks with their lances, jet fighters and bombers taking damage when they bomb infantry.
In a video game fun and balance are always a priority in contrast to realism which is a secondary icing on the cake.

totally fair. I even mostly agree. I also think that not having full control over your distant cities would add another layer of fun. For me the parts of civ that are most lacking are diplomacy and internal imperial dynamics. This could be an avenue to take a swing at improving either/both depending on how it was structured. That it's also more realistic is, as you say, a secondary icing.

 

[ma_kuh]

Not to get picky, but that same argument holds for basically any city you're dropping down. The only one you "control" is the capital, everything else is a settlement run by a governor. To me it's already an abstraction that you can control directly any city at all, so it doesn't bother me much that a post-Astronomy city also falls under that umbrella.

If this idea did get traction, I don't think you'd want to limit it to "over seas" only, it should be total distance from the capital regardless of landmass. Just my two cents. It's the same problem as the conquistador, where some maps literally don't make use of a mechanic unless you make this concession.

 

[CppMaster]

Yes, total distance makes more sense. It's not needed, though. Just the decision to puppet or not, just like when conquering is enough.

 

[detroitrex]

ok sure, give me a control radius from capital that expands with tech. Inside the circle as now, outside the circle I can only found puppets. That actually sounds cool.

 

[N.Core]

ok sure, give me a control radius from capital that expands with tech. Inside the circle as now, outside the circle I can only found puppets. That actually sounds cool.

Which is similar to my Control mechanic grand idea.