Colonization mod...

[Dikaioma]

Colonization was a great game, and with the modding capabilities in this game, you could get away with making a Colonization mod. I haven't modded anything in a while, so I am just curious how many people would like to see one. (or if anyone would be interested in creating one)

 

[Skippa]

Interesting, idea. I loved playing Colonization back in the old DOS days. I certainly think that its worth looking into. A few of the mechanics in Colonization would take some thinking to work out properly. The main things that I see are as follows:

1/I don't believe Colonization had any research. The progression of the game was based on the advancing timeline and the patriotism of the colonists. (this could be changed so that a limited research tree is used)

2/Trade would have to be revamped to export sugar tobacco etc. I personally liked the stockpiles of goods and the ability to trade with the natives or ship stuff to Europe. Remember trade embargoes? Lets have a Jamestown tobacco party everyone (we could just use the existing trade and somehow change it so we only get money for resources)

3/ Somehow we would have to have European countries established in a limited role.

4/ We could use the specialist system already established to facilitate the different professions of Colonization. We could just use the profession number limits but the original Colonization had each colonist with a specific profession.

5/We would have to make a LOT more Native American tribes and establish them (maybe barbarian like cities that are not always at war with you or something)

6/ Somehow it would have to end with a Revolutionary war and the ability to solicit help from the other European countries. This could be a diplomatic option that is unlocked by having a certain % number of patriots.

7/Lastly, of what I can think of, is a system of New World patriots vs the 'Tories'. This may be easy by using the population % already in the game. Somehow it would have to start as 100% for the Monarch and shift etc.

Well thats my take on it. It actually seems like it would take a lot of work to pull off . My suggestions were really trying to make the cIV Colonization close to the original but it might be better to make a scenerio that's inbetween Colonization and the civIII Conquests Scenerio about the European colonization of the Americas.

 

[Jeckel]

I dug my Colonization cd out a few months ago and got it up and running (blessed be DOSBox). The main thing I noticed is the utter lack of interaction between the pointer and the game, no info pops up when you float the pointer over things. Not a big deal, but I can't count the number of times I stared at the screen waiting for the name of a resourse to pop up Still one of the best games ever made despite the lack of user friendlyness we are used to in this day and age.

But back to point..
The idea of useing specialists sounds great. Set it up so that you have to have certain buildings to use certain specialists, ex. must have Trading Post to have a Fur Trader specialist.

There needs to be a Colonist unit. THis unit is the basis of the game as anyone who has played Colonization knows. A way to add this unit to a city, similar to adding a worker to a city in Civ3, will need to be add as way as a simple sameturn way to remove them from the city.

Next is some way to bring the fun of training Colonists to be Farmers, Distillers, Gunsmiths, ect. You could do this with Promotions, ie Farmer 1 gives bonums to food production, but this could run into problems as I don't know how hard it would be to give individual citizens inside a city bonuses for the tiles they work.

Sorry if that is a little babblely, but it is late.. how about this..

The main parts of Colonization that I think should be in a Colonization Mod are the relationships between the buildings built and the products the city produces. Also must bring throught he importance of specializeing Colonists and what buildings they can work in.

As for the native tribes, I think they would ideally be done as full Civilizations. This would give the best opertunity for trading, alliances, and such.

Well is getting late, I'll play some Colonization when I get up and post something more coherant

Hey Sid, any chance we could get a Colonization 2?

 

[Wyz_sub10]

Colonization - one of the best and most underrated games of all time. (Us old guys remember those days)

I like the ideas here. The tech tree could be geared towards aspects of that game. Some examples:

- Agriculture (farming corn, etc.)
- Trapping (allows fur trading)
- Distillation (allows distillery - happiness bonus)
- Mercantilism (sell goods to Old World)
- Printing Press (leads to Patriotism)
- Patriotism (Nationalism)
- Representation
- Native Relations (increases trade with various First Nations)

etc.

The overall goal should be like the "Space Race", but the end is "Independence". Something would have to be developed to allow only your civ to achieve this - maybe a starting tech necessary to "discover" Independence...?

 

[Lehawk]

1/I don't believe Colonization had any research. The progression of the game was based on the advancing timeline and the patriotism of the colonists. (this could be changed so that a limited research tree is used)

You could replace research with the founding fathers.

 

[Philips beard]

Oh Lord, please bring Colonization back to me.... Geeh I loved that game! The only game with divine status by me, besides the CIV-series! A Colonization II is really worth dying for.......

 

[Ad Hominem]

There are so many people vowing for a Colonization II (and a Master of Magic II, while we are at it) that it strikes to me as extremely odd that nobody gets the rights and puts them on the market. Even just a revamped (with up to date graphics, modern user-friendliness and just minor gameplay additions) version of those two, would reek in a healthy sum of money for any company willing to market them.

Heya, SID, can you hear us? Give colonization a second go, Please!

BTW This mod sounds fascinating! If done properly, it will be a blast - needs lots of work though. Probably lots of Python meddling, as well. Don't see anything substantial coming out anytime soon.

 

[AlexTG]

I always thought it would be cool to have a full earth map for colonization that allowed you to colonize places outside the americas.

 

[Dikaioma]

I like the idea of techs being founding fathers combined with the idea of "independance" being a final tech. Perhaps certain fathers give you this "tech"? Or even the final tech gives you a wonder. You can build a project like the liberty bell or even the declaration of independance. Maybe in this mod, we could make the native americans playable civilizations. I'm sure the trade system wouldn't be hard to imitate, maybe except for the actual "motherland" screen in Colonization. As far as specialists go, I am sure you could create more positions. Should the cities still use the same 9 square radius? Can you limit that in this game? The tories vs patriots idea can be manipulated with the slider bars that are used to control research/gold/culture now. Perhaps one of the fouding fathers allow you to change this bar, and it wouldn't change gold like in this game, but maybe like the bells. I dunno... I am getting psyched about this, heh.

 

[WaxonWaxov]

Heya, SID, can you hear us? Give colonization a second go, Please!

I heard that!

I LOVED Colonization when it first came out. Just the mention of that game makes me hear the repeatative music in my head.

 

[straightbambi2]

Colonization, wow I had a great time playing it. But I do think that modding civ 4 to suit Colonization 1 1/2 is too much work. But I also have to admit hat I really dont know anything about modding so maybe Python is such an easy language that the col. mod is realistic.

By the way I want to play with the natives and get screwed over when trading with one of the 4 european powerhouses.

"Tabac for 1000? I'll give you 2000 gold"

 

[Skippa]

Hey I just realized that there is a Revolutionary war scenerio in the Civ4 install. I should probably check it out. Might make for some good ideas

 

[WaxonWaxov]

Hey I just realized that there is a Revolutionary war scenerio in the Civ4 install. I should probably check it out. Might make for some good ideas

or at least some stuff you an plagarize.

 

[eatcarrotsnow]

Anyone started working on this? I've tried Freecol and some of the other mods, open source, but I always end up just going back to the original Colonization. I would love to see a mod like this for Civ IV. I am willing to help do anything to see that made possible also. Please let me know if you are going to work on this mod. Thanks!

 

[Dale]

I'm working on an Age of Discovery mod. Sure it's not proper colonisation, but should tie you over till someone does the real thing.

 

[totg_kabu]

For the tech tree I would have it doing things in the background(unseen) or just drop it out it's not really needed.
As for the citizens, I am working on a mom mod atm, soon I will be investigating the possibility of automatically having all of a cities squares worked as an auto bonus. (without citizens to work them) and having all the citizens as specialists, hope it's possible without the sdk
The buildings I have already implimented(with heirarchial structure instead of tech based) nice and easy with a little more work it would'nt be too hard to connect them up to resources would require a fair bit of scripting though.
The colonist unit: sit it over a city like a great person, join, click on face in city screen and use the create unit command and delete specialist.

 

[Supreme Shogun]

Nice thought, I wish you luck. Founding Fathers pretty much was research also it kept unrest/ tories down. Having trained statesmen was key. I'd have specialist towns that did nothing but crank out other statesmen while another did gunsmithing.

Also would suggest modding the scout for a 'trade with village' button when you get adjacent to a barb city - or if you can, when you try to enter..

Also need to think about scripting events, like when other countries intervene on your behalf. I don't know how to mod, but since you threw the idea out I wish you luck. I hope you can pull it off.

 

[eatcarrotsnow]

Thanks Dale, I'll check it out.


Totg_kabu, is there a collection of people working on this then?

 

[maxpublic]

I'd love to see a Colonization mod, if you could get it as close to the original game as possible. That game 'hung together' better than any version of Civ ever did, and was more fun to boot. Only SMAC gave it a run for it's money in the genre, I think.

But the key is to try to duplicate Colonization, not change it. One of the reasons I wouldn't look forward to Colonization II is because I'm positive that the designers couldn't keep their freakin' hands off the game system - they'd just HAVE to screw something up, just like they do with every version of Civ. A Colonization II with the exact same game system and better graphics, I'd buy; a Colonization II that's some fools reinterpretation of the original game I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Question is, can you duplicate Colonization enough with this game engine to produce a recognizable remake? If you can I'll throw stock Civ out the window and play your mod exclusively!

Max

 

[eatcarrotsnow]

It looks to me like it could be done. It may not look as nice as Civ IV does, i.e. the buildings won't be laid out as in the original, most of the colonists would need to be assigned jobs in the side bar of the city screen. But, it certainly looks like the Civ IV engine has the functionality to recreate the exact same gameplay without changing anything in units, movement, or cargo.

Again, I'm just trying to find out if anyone is trying this, and join them, or if there needs to be some kind of "group creation" for this project.