Colonies are cool!

[Watiggi]

Game-wise; if he isn't needing to build anything but settlers and galleys

Oh well, FUN!

That's more because a) I'm on an island, b) it's a huge map c) I have only put 2 civs in the game (me and Brennus) and d) I have the Great Wall, which effectively allows me to not really worry about a military. In a normal game, it would be different story because I might have neighbouring civs (and a low power rating to boot). Oh, I'm also financial, so I can get away with teching with only 3 cities, for a while at least anyway.

So, I wouldn't call it game breaking, more just that I set up the map to make it really easy (so I can see what it's like). It's like a fun colonisation game. I'm really surprised they didn't make a scenario/mod about it.

 

[chad187]

has anyone fought a war with a colony how does it work?

 

[Arwon]

So far I've had a couple of experiences.

My very first game, I was the Maya on a Fractal map, turned out I shared an island with Mehmed who was my vassal before Optics. There was a big landmass with Brennus to the west, and by the time I met him Asoka, Isabella and Montezuma were all his vassals (though Isabella later broke away and was subsequently annihilated).

There was also two single-civ islands to the north-east, with the Dutch on one and Roosevelt as a Dutch colony on the other. Roosevelt was about an age behind William the Orange though, I think he must have been liberated very early and then left on his own.

So after having great fun playing pirate with the privateers, I decided I wasn't f**king with a continent where Brennus, Montezuma and Isabella potentially were allied against me (thankfully, with the Shwedagon Paya which I can't spell, I'd been running Free Religion since before I'd founded a religion so they weren't angry at me), so I set my sights on the Dutch who were slightly ahead of me tech-wise and occasionally beating me to a wonder. I'm pretty sure with Mining Inc

Battleplan: Invade Roosevelt with my infantry against his riflemen, build up after annihilating him and then use it as a spring-board against Willem. As it turned out, it went perfectly. Roosevelt fell quickly due to riflemen vs infantry plus destroyer bombardment.

After a few turns to reorganise (and bring up a bunch more troops via transport), I had naval supemacy against the Dutch, with destroyers before anyone else, submarines and battleships just before the Dutch, and I hit Flight and airports just in time to transport units into my newly conquered cities for defence and keeping the advance going. With those, I swept through the Dutch coastal cities and a relatively meagre Dutch army, through sheer weight of numbers with infantry and tanks backed by a few bombers.

So after having annihilated both the Dutch and their American colony, I realised I could liberate potentially two colonies, one on each island. Liberated the formerly American island as Joao II (not the Inca?) and decided not to liberate the Dutch island because I wanted to keep the UN and Cristo Redentor. Instead I palmed off all the non-critical cities (everything except Amsterdam, Rotterdam the Hague and Utrecht) to Joao II.

Then Brennus and co attempted an invasion against the Portuguese cities on the formerly Dutch island, just after I launched my space ship and was 8 turns from winning. It as a good attempt, they came with naval force to match mine, but I was too powerful and advanced in my land forces by this stage... so he was throwing cavalry and SAM Infantry against Mech Inf.

Second, I played a Terra game as Portgual, built a small empire surrounded by friendly co-religionists, built the Apostolic Palace to keep things peaceful, then set off to build a nice colony in the New World. Maintaince got way too high so I liberated it as Rome, then afterwards I got smashed by Montezuma back in the Old World after failing to notice he had crushed Stalin, my co-religionist buffer state, and vassalised him. Washington and Frederick joined in (a Christian alliance) and I was too weak to fend them all off, while that bastard Pericles was too busy fighting Brennus to help out. Quit after losing 2 major cities and most of my army.

Third, I played a "Big and Small" game with lots of little islands, where I noticed De Gaulle had Louis XVI as a vassal and Lincoln had Roosevelt, which I thought was pretty cool. Civs with multiple leaders seem to get their own nation as a colony.

Lessons:

*William's military kinda sucks, but he's like Mansa Musa in his teching.

*Liberating colonies doesn't hand over your units in the cities, but your workers can no longer improve the colony's terrain, might be worth gifting them.

*Colonies are great, but need to be defended, as my invasion of Roosevelt shows. It's probably best to gift them any important defensive techs (gunpowder, rifling, etc) and even to keep your own units in their cities (or gift them to the colony).

*I think, actually, Firaxis should modify the AI behaviour to ensure that masters help their colonies keep up tech-wise.

*Colonies are essentially always going to be friendly with you, that +10 alongside the defensive pact and open borders and trading bonus pretty much secures it. There's essentially no chance of losing a colony to independence anyway, because as far as I can see there's no "free at 50%" or "free at 100%" stuff in the the relationship.

*Portugal can get to the New World in force on Terra maps, early enough to claim some land and somewhat check the rise of those super-barbarian size-20 cities, potentially even before the barbs get longbows. Careful about neglecting the old world though...

*Montezuma is still a dangerous psycho

 

[Watiggi]

*Colonies are essentially always going to be friendly with you, that +10 alongside the defensive pact and open borders and trading bonus pretty much secures it. There's essentially no chance of losing a colony to independence anyway, because as far as I can see there's no "free at 50%" or "free at 100%" stuff in the the relationship.

I noticed that too. I think that is only for capitulated vassals though, for normal vassals - ones in which they willingly decide to become you vassal - they don't have that "free at 50%" thing.

Being a different religion from them does start to tax your diplomatic modifier with the colony though. I set up several colonies, and then one of them gets a religion that starts to spread to the other colonies. I'm of a different religion and so they started to get less happy with me. I ended up just caving in and went back to no state religion (because I didn't have their religion yet) in order to eliminate the negative modifiers.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah, I found it was a good idea (especially when, as Portugal, I was probably going to liberate Isabella) to send a couple of missionaries over too.

 

[aronnax]

I forgot, what is the advantage of a colony?

 

[Arwon]

Lower maintaince because you're not trying to manage far-flung cities, less micromanagement, guaranteed overseas trade routes. I forgot to mention, too, that putting corporate branches in their cities is another way of getting the +5 income without paying corporation maintance in those cities.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

That's more because a) I'm on an island, b) it's a huge map c) I have only put 2 civs in the game (me and Brennus) and d) I have the Great Wall, which effectively allows me to not really worry about a military. In a normal game, it would be different story because I might have neighbouring civs (and a low power rating to boot). Oh, I'm also financial, so I can get away with teching with only 3 cities, for a while at least anyway.

So, I wouldn't call it game breaking, more just that I set up the map to make it really easy (so I can see what it's like). It's like a fun colonisation game. I'm really surprised they didn't make a scenario/mod about it.

Aahhh, that makes much more sense, thanks for clarifying that That would make for an interesting type of game, populating the map with your vassals. I may have to give it a whirl.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Ha ha, just read something funny about colonies...

Originally posted by uniteatteri

In my first game, Suleiman of the Ottomans created a vassal, Mehmed of the Ottomans. So there were two Ottoman civs, the other being other's vassal. The vassal got a random colour.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah that happened to me with America and France in one game, too.

 

[Watiggi]

My game (Victoria, colonisation one) is becoming a 'build your colonies' type of game. I find myself spending more and more time giving them stuff in order to build them up. Lots of naval work. I can see why the English had such a strong naval pressence! Also, build up your espionage too, so that you can look into their cities in order to make building their empires up eaiser. It almost feels as if they're yours.

What would be really cool is if they had a way for the master to essentially give the colony hammers. I don't know, maybe have the worker capable of being consumed in a vassal for hammers or something. That way, you could help the colonies that have very little hammer yield (which quite often happens) by building workers for them and then using the workers to build their stuff for them. That would be a nice touch!

Ha ha, just read something funny about colonies...

I'm Victoria and I have Churchil as a vassal. I don't see a problem with it. When you create a vassal, it says "Victoria has charged Churchil with managing a colony" or something along those lines. So to me, it's ok.

 

[Carver]

Roman Empire -> Western Rome & Eastern Rome (Byzantium by another name)

They probably didn't always have the "same name" option available, but if you didn't allow it, WHAT would you call them? Not every civ has "sister" civ names available, and if THEY were already in play you could be disallowed colonies just because there was no civ name available. Is THAT what you would want?

It would be nice if they included established modifiers for civ names, e.g.:
New America
America 2
America 2a
New America 2a

j/k ...but some sort of systematic modifer.

 

[aronnax]

Would it not be hillarious to have Spain a colony of the Aztec or England the colony of Zulu

 

[Cromat]

In my game Mehmed created a colony ruled by Suleyman (blue color), and I think the game refered to it as the Antalya Civilization, after it's capital. Seems like an elegant solution.

 

[Chode]

I still havent seen anyone explain the direct benefits of making colonies

 

[Watiggi]

Ultimately (excluding the small things, like extra happiness, extra war buddy and trading partners), it's significantly reduced micro management. You're ultimately there to support them. There not there to support you. You help them. The more you build them up, the more potential they have in times of war in being able to support you, plus being able to trade with you too. With the beefed up AI naval offensive ability, I'd assume that colonies would become quite valuable if they were really looked after really well. I haven't reached this point yet though.

 

[Angst]

In my game Mehmed created a colony ruled by Suleyman (blue color), and I think the game refered to it as the Antalya Civilization, after it's capital. Seems like an elegant solution.

Nice!!!

Wow! I just started a game with a hug map, small islands and 2 civs

I'm Victoria (Imperialistic!) and wow! I have just settler spamed all the islands I can find.

Just build the Great Wall (to get the Barbs off your back), screw the military and just build settlers and galleys. I have 4 vassals and am currently looking for more islands! You can also add more cities to an existing vassal as well, effectively swamping your opponents. I've built 19 cities and I own 3 of them All you need is 2 cities on one island and it can become a colony. Conveniently, the Galley can carry 2 settlers

It's going to get interesting when all my vassals start picking on each other

It's like you start with only 2 civs and end with there being 15 civs or something!

Expansion without the headache, essentially. You 'own' the cities, but you don't have anything to do with them. Basically it's like a normal vassal (extra happiness, extra territory/pop and extra team power rating), but they want to be apart of you and have no real interest in leaving.

Essentially makes the game go forward like in the real world history. I can't wait playing it! I'd like to play the Sumerians, 'giving birth' to all other civs in the Middle East, actually developing Western Civilization like in the real world!

I'm happy.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Ultimately (excluding the small things, like extra happiness, extra war buddy and trading partners), it's significantly reduced micro management.

So basically all the deity players and SE maniacs who build the Manhattan Project in 500 B.C. with only stone and iron will have no use whatsoever for them and will scoff at the rest of us. Sad.

 

[El Koeno]

Wait a sec -- I was under the impression that "colony maintenance" was, actually, an extra maintenance fee for cities ruled directly by your own Civ that were located on an overseas island/continent, and that the maintenance fee for Colonies that you've spun off from your own civ were handled just like Vassals (since "Colonies" are really just vassals that you create....)

See, e.g. this thread

Oh... So colonies are a way to avoid colonial expenses? That sounds both logical and confusing at the same time. Like civ is supposed to be!

 

[Gaius Octavius]

And is it just me, or is the Great Wall cheaper now? I swear I never used to be able to build it in 6 turns before.

Anybody else see this?