Colonies

[onedreamer]

And then an AI comes and puts a city just next to your colony, obliterating it. I'd still found a city - why waste perfectly good workers?

An OOC is certainly the exception, through.

that would mean declaring war if the feature would be implemented in a decent way. Like others said, Civ3 was a different game, and the concept can be better implemented.

 

[Ambassador]

Nice and promising idea! And around the tile improvement/unit would be, say, 8 tiles of claimed territory? Does this territory expand in time? Does the colony cost money per turn? Is tit further improvable? Can these colonies be shifted to another player (via diplomacy)?

 

[Deego3]

I think it should be able to be traded away and it could be upgraded with later techs (as in FF) with a higger defence rate, bigger cultural boundaries and higher maintanece.

 

[kairob]

The way I saw it it was just as it looks, border in a 5 tile box that doesn't expand or cost upkeep as you have to pay to build them. They would however be able to upgrade to cities for a cost.

 

[senturus]

I think it is an interesting concept, which could be quite easily been implemented.

It would be quite historical (as many civilisations “claimed” some foreign land and grabbed their resources, but without a real colonization effort) and interesting in terms of gameplay (it would avoid to built useless city).

It could work quite similarly like the colonies in civ3:
- To build it, you have to sacrifice a worker (and possibly pay a bit)
- No upkeep cost (or maybe very low?)
- Cultural area of 8 squares around (if no cities around), no more culture spread
- Disappear when a foreign city has influence on it (if you want to be absolutely sure that no foreign civilization will settle the land around, then you’ll have to build your own city or make war by razing the enemy towns)
- Small defence bonus for units in it

Finally, these colonies/forts would be interesting in two cases:
- When you want some resources quickly, without having to support a huge upkeep cost (quick colonization of American resources by Europeans, of Mediterranean by Greeks or Carthaginians….)
- To “settle” useless lands which doesn’t worth any real colonization (mid-Russia or north of Canada for example)

But I don’t know if the AI would be able to use it correctly.

 

[cider]

I support this idea. I always missed something like that in Civ4 !

 

[BurnEmDown]

Maybe it could also be possible to bring a settler and settle him on the colony or one space off, which would disband the colony and give you back your worker.

 

[Deego3]

I think they should cost the same as any other unit in terms of maintance.

 

[deadliver]

even better would be having a chance for the colony/fort to spawn into an actual city.

 

[kairob]

The best way would be where you have to spend X amount of money and wait X turns to turn it into a city. This would give a reward for lowering the tech rate instead of playing the whole game on the highest you can get without going into the red...

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

If this is too hard to code we could always make forts have a one tile culture radius of the tile that they're on. This would give you access to the resource and wouldn't be as culturally powerful as a city. It would also allow you to claim all those little islands, which I always thought would be cool. IMO, I think giving it an eight tile radius makes it too powerful, but that's just my two cents.

 

[Positronic]

If this is too hard to code we could always make forts have a one tile culture radius of the tile that they're on. This would give you access to the resource and wouldn't be as culturally powerful as a city. It would also allow you to claim all those little islands, which I always thought would be cool. IMO, I think giving it an eight tile radius makes it too powerful, but that's just my two cents.

I would agree with this. Maybe have it start with 1 tile cultural radius, and then it can be upgraded from there to a 5 tile colony, and from there to a city, for the cost of gold.

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

I would agree with this. Maybe have it start with 1 tile cultural radius, and then it can be upgraded from there to a 5 tile colony, and from there to a city, for the cost of gold.

Gold doesn't turn a trading post into a city; people do. If you want to turn it into a city, send a settler there.

Cheers, Luke

 

[BurnEmDown]

Gold also doesn't upgrade Cavalry units into Helicopters, but this is civ we're playing.

 

[kairob]

Exactly, the gold would represent paying people to move into the area increasing its population. Like King George did.

 

[deadliver]

You can spend money to build settlers with the right civics so....what would be the big deal. Just make the fort upgrade more expensive than buying a settler and your peachy keen ready to go.


Cheers,

Deadliver


edit: BTW, keep King George outta this!

 

[Aeon221]

Be simpler to just add another worker.

 

[Cethegus]

Be simpler to just add another worker.

What would be the new worker's name? Worker #2? Colonialist? Colony Worker?
Furthermore, should it have any other purpose than creating a colony?

 

[Tullius]

Yeah, this is a pretty good idea. Especially since founding cities wrecks your expansion stability.

 

[Deego3]

What would be the new worker's name? Worker #2? Colonialist? Colony Worker?
Furthermore, should it have any other purpose than creating a colony?

I think that would be kinda a waste of codeing, better to have the normal worker as it is to do it. ie. No new useless units.