Colonies....

[Archon_Wing]

I guess I don't play enough archipelago maps but it seems like it doesn't make much sense.

Pros:
Reduce Maintenance costs
Can gift obsolete units for them to upgrade.
Possible trading partner
Can gift them nukes to avoid suffering war weariness. (But then you can't direct them)
Allows you to control areas with crappy land that you don't want to pay for yourself.
Count as foreign trade routes. (As a side note, does anyone try Mercantilism + vassals?)

Cons
They start with all your technology and can trade it all away
Messes up diplo
Must be on their own landmass for the most part, because there's no way they can compete with rival culture. You can't, say capture things on another landmass, and make it a colony because it'll all flip back.
Unlikely to be a tech trade partner with you unless you liberated a huge swath of land. And if the land was good, it would make sense to take it for yourselves.
Can leave you
Redundant with State Property
Problematic if they end up holding a valuable resource like oil. You'd have to rely on them to improve the tile before you can even demand it and they like to take their sweet time.

So it would seem they'd only be a thing if you had a number of landmasses that can fit 3 cities and you haven't gotten SP or want corporations. But if I were on a map with a ton of islands, it seems like SP would make them most sense....

That seems like a lot of effort for little gain. But I'd like to see a game where someone makes use of colonies (hopefully multiple)

 

[Major Tom]

I like them and find your cons not really problematic cons.
They are your preffered tradepartner. One trade with him is one less with other AIs.
The biggest advantage is that you can tell them what to research. Then trade for it with the other stuff you have researched in the meantime.

Gift them enough workers so they develop fast. Maybe a settler or two, too.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Being able to direct trade, yes, but it'd be kinda hard without a bit of land for them to research a useful tech before the game ends. I guess it'd be a thing on higher levels?

 

[Robo-Star]

Don't they grant +1 happiness to their suzerain's cities (as other vassals do)?

 

[Archon_Wing]

Actually yes. I completely forgot about that.

 

[6K Man]

If you turn on “no tech brokering”, does that prevent colonies from trading away techs that they start with when they split off from your civ (I’m assuming that if you gift a tech, they can’t broker it, as it would be the case for any other tech trade or gift)? Anyone checked this?

I turned off colonies a while ago. The biggest con’s for me were:

- Vassal shenanigans when at war (e.g. I take 6 cities, another AI takes one city, and the target vassals to the AI and not me)
- AI-AI wars usually lead to the stronger AI vassaling the weaker after a couple of cities taken. In this way, I run away from the AIs in the late Renaissance – I keep taking cities and wind up with double the land and city count of the top AI.

I turned Permanent Alliances on instead. It makes a lot more sense to me, IMO, and is more challenging (again, IMO).

 

[Tatran]

Lately, I've been playing with 'no tech brokering' on and the game is significantly different. Almost no more peace vassals and also no more an early runaway civ.
The AI spends less commerce on espionage and of course the tech race is slower.
Expansion + building military units early by the AI is more equal.
And yes, the AI can't trade techs they didn't research themselves.
Those peace vassals screw up the balance of the whole game. Nothing more annoying to see a backwards civ with 20 or more cities to become a vassal, get all the techs of the master and then break free after fuelling.
Last point, the setting isn't allowed for HOF, but I don't care. I don't want to play the same game over and over again, because the game let's one AI runaway very early in the game.

 

[lindsay40k]

If you're planning a Religious Victory but have more than 75% of the votes, you can grant independence to sneak in