Colonization Overhaul Planned

[Dom Pedro II]

Regarding Native trade, why not make some of your happy goods available ONLY via natives so that the trade is actually bi-directional. Also, maybe have them ship stuff TO you as opposed to requiring that the player initiate the trade.

That's an interesting possibility. Certainly you should get natives coming into your cities to initiate trade deals. As far as native-specific goods, what do you have in mind?

How about someones fixs the dam western map god it looks horrible no great lakes few rivers the old col north american map looked better then this.

That's a map-scripting issue. Not my area of expertise at all.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I had an idea: What do you think about adding European banks that you can take loans out from? If you need a quick injection of cash, open up the Europe screen and there'll be a button that you can push to get a loan. Each turn, they'll charge you interest, and the more loans you take out, the higher that interest gets...

We could even add new trait attributes to reduce the interest rates or raise the cap where the banks will cut you off if you take out too much money.

I figure the best means of paying it off will be that if you take out a loan, each time you sell goods back in Europe, the revenue produced from the transaction will go toward paying back the loan?

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Some more ideas and possibilities:

• Closed ports - if you tick off the monarch, he may close one of your ports preventing goods from coming in and out. I'm not sure how this should work. Should it be possible to get around the closure at the risk of your ship being caught and impounded? Should it block ships from coming or going? Or should it just block goods from being moved to or from transports?
• Imperial fleet presence - your home country's fleet floats about in your general area taking out pirates, engaging in wars when they're declared (aside from WoI)
• Smuggling - with your homeland's fleet in the area, they will also be dealing with smuggling that you'll probably be doing. Goods bought from other players will be marked and ships carrying them can be seized by the fleet for smuggling
• Colonial Charter - extends civics choices back to the start of the game rather than just a post-DoI thing. The crown will also insist you make certain changes... refusal will, of course, have consequences.
• Quilombos - if we have slaves, then it makes sense to have escaped slave settlements spring up on the periphery of your colonies. Native villages could also be magnets for escaping slave units
• Royal tax increases - Instead of the tax applying to all goods, it could be good-specific. This nerfs the effect of the tax obviously, but it could also provide some variation on what products will be targeted for taxation, how frequently, and how badly

 

[Feannag]

Sounds like a good plan, but you may have to change terrain as well. It's not obvious in this one but in the old one there were four or five types of terrain. Each one could grow one crop much better than the others, and if they were forests they would supply more of less lumber.

If you want to check it out hit up the actual america scenario map and look for yields and note the colors. I'm sure if you can add now crops and mods you can add in new terrain as well.

I like the smuggling idea but I think it should be an option. Choose if you want to smuggle before you set sail for Europe. There's a chance you will be caught and your ship and goods taken away, but if you succeed you can sell the goods at full price without taxes and even boycotted stuff.

 

[Ambreville]

Some more ideas and possibilities:

• Closed ports - if you tick off the monarch, he may close one of your ports preventing goods from coming in and out. I'm not sure how this should work. Should it be possible to get around the closure at the risk of your ship being caught and impounded? Should it block ships from coming or going? Or should it just block goods from being moved to or from transports?
• Imperial fleet presence - your home country's fleet floats about in your general area taking out pirates, engaging in wars when they're declared (aside from WoI)
• Smuggling - with your homeland's fleet in the area, they will also be dealing with smuggling that you'll probably be doing. Goods bought from other players will be marked and ships carrying them can be seized by the fleet for smuggling
• Colonial Charter - extends civics choices back to the start of the game rather than just a post-DoI thing. The crown will also insist you make certain changes... refusal will, of course, have consequences.
• Quilombos - if we have slaves, then it makes sense to have escaped slave settlements spring up on the periphery of your colonies. Native villages could also be magnets for escaping slave units
• Royal tax increases - Instead of the tax applying to all goods, it could be good-specific. This nerfs the effect of the tax obviously, but it could also provide some variation on what products will be targeted for taxation, how frequently, and how badly

Closed Ports: not sure what this all about. Do you have historical examples?

Imperial Fleet: wouldn't it make more sense if the monarch commanded his colonial governor (the player) to hunt down pirates? It would be more like a quest-type event with a benefit for the player if the quest succeeds (like an extra MoW to guard the colonial waters).

Smuggling: that would be awesome. As Feannag suggested, a chance getting smugglers caught would work well. At last a way to stick it to the old man!

Colonial Charter: makes sense. I suggested earlier in this thread adding back civics. This approach would work well in this respect.

Quilombos: I had suggested earlier in this thread a similar outcome for slaves. I went a little further with the ability to do diplomacy with them which might lead to bringing back "vassalization" mechanics.

Royal Taxes: sure. A bit more financial/fiscal strategy couldn't hurt.

 

[Ambreville]

Slave revolts ought to play a role (not just escaped slaves) -- look at what happened in RW Haiti.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Sounds like a good plan, but you may have to change terrain as well. It's not obvious in this one but in the old one there were four or five types of terrain. Each one could grow one crop much better than the others, and if they were forests they would supply more of less lumber.

Well, I'm stripping the map of all of the current cash crops... at the very least all of the ones that are not indigenous to the Americas. Cash crops will now be grown from plantation improvements. But I do plan to have certain plantations grow more of a crop on certain terrains. Sugar will do better in Marshes for example.

I like the smuggling idea but I think it should be an option. Choose if you want to smuggle before you set sail for Europe. There's a chance you will be caught and your ship and goods taken away, but if you succeed you can sell the goods at full price without taxes and even boycotted stuff.

I hadn't really been thinking of it in terms of moving your goods to your European markets. I had been thinking of it in cases where you bought goods from another country and are trying to move the goods to one of your cities or to Europe. This is a big oversimplification of the the system, but I'm not sure what the alternative might be.

I suppose every time you buy something in another colony's cities, you might get a prompt when you bring those goods into port whether you want to pay the import tax or try to smuggle them past royal tax collectors... that might get very annoying though. And you'll only be getting that prompt as you enter the city, so it'll be a complete crap shoot whether you succeed or not whereas simply blocking all foreign goods would make it dependent on whether you have a run-in with a patrolling warship.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Closed Ports: not sure what this all about. Do you have historical examples?

Remember that little party with the tea? The British government responded by closing the Port of Boston until the destroyed tea was repaid.

Imperial Fleet: wouldn't it make more sense if the monarch commanded his colonial governor (the player) to hunt down pirates? It would be more like a quest-type event with a benefit for the player if the quest succeeds (like an extra MoW to guard the colonial waters).

Well, I am thinking of quest type events where the crown will ask the colonial governor to contribute to a war effort, but navy ships would be under the control of the crown rather than the colonial governor in most cases... also, it adds a little more interactions that some people have complained is missing from the game.

Slave revolts ought to play a role (not just escaped slaves) -- look at what happened in RW Haiti.

I'm considering that, but I'm not really sure how that'd end up working...that's like a next generation consideration.

 

[Ambreville]

One more thing to add -- making sure that colonists that just entered a town, but still have a movement point left, can be incorporated to that town right away, rather than having to wait for the next turn. It's a small thing, but it's irritating as all heck!

 

[Ambreville]

Re. Slave revolts

I'm considering that, but I'm not really sure how that'd end up working...that's like a next generation consideration.

I thought my earlier description was pretty clear about how it might work out. (??)

 

[daveyjwin]

Re: Slavery - Why not make Slaves an expendable worker type unit that is used up upon improvement. For example, buy a slave from Africa, bring them to the Americas, set them outside the city and select "build tobacco plantation." Slave disappears, tobacco plantation appears. Then use the colonist units to work/manage the plot, at whatever the advantage the plantation gives.

This I think would be a good compromise, in that you need the slaves for the plantation, and the overseer (specialist) managing the production.

Other: What about some new buildings that provide gold based on population and finished goods, instead of (or in addition to) a Customs House. For example, if you have 15 population and some Rum on hand, you could build a tavern, which converts 15 Rum to Cash at full price per turn. Same could apply to other "finished" goods as well, such as a Jewelery for Silver, a Smoke Shop for Cigars, a Clothes store for Cloth, and a Fashion Store (lame I know) for Coats.

 

[magwea]

i'm loving the mod ideas so far and am eagerly anticipating the results. Dom Pedro II do not disappoint!

daveyjwin's home market for goods sounds great. At the moment their is effectively no use for processed goods within your own city.Why not make like Anno and make certain goods a requirement before certain settlers will appear or buildings become available. Eg. no elder statesmen before cigars, no soldiers without rum or the like. Consumption of processed goods for happiness would be cool, with luxury goods from europe as an extra.

I'm lovin' the idea about slaves and the trade triangle, screw political correctness, col is effectively a war game as is. Perhaps, make slaves a unit that do not consume food but whose efficiency slowly declines over time. Should a player disband his slaves these would go on to establish revolt colonies. Slave ships could be the AI African slave traders fleet which when the slaves are bought would not require the player himself to transport the slaves themselves.

One small idea, perhaps make it so that when you sail to Europe one could choose at which country to dock with, thus allowing trade with multiple leaders per journey, angering one's king by trading with a rival monarch who offers a greater reward in return. Perhaps with time the religion of the various nations could play a role with the cross prodution within each dock.

One minor design bug that irritates me greatly in Col. is the building option, the screen has only the thumbnail image and requires moving your mouse over the image for the building name. At the moment i'm constantly searching for the next building within the options since the thumbnails aren't clear enough. A drop down menu with the names and the image would be much easier and quicker to navigate.

Otherwise, greatly looking forward to your mod, sounds like there are plenty good ideas already.

 

[Ambreville]

An improvement of the game's performance, if possible, would be nice too. Civ4Col seems much slower than my BtS game. In the 1700's, there were substantial drops in performance -- for example, it takes a long time (6 seconds or more) to open city screens and even longer to draft colonists back to their garrisons. This thing's a hog!

 

[Ambreville]

There is no tech tree in this game (it doesn't necessarily need one), however, there ought to be events that allow new ideas and new knowledge to come about, which would affect perhaps finances, warfare, the gathering of resources and bells, and the production of finished goods. There's a big difference between the early 16th and the late 18th century in all of these regards. Granted, the game isn't about tech-mongering, but something's missing here. I'm not sure that, memory-wise and as far as the sheer amount of data to process goes, Civ4Col could withstand the additional layers of coding, but right now, it sure seems that Civ4Col has been stripped of most Civ4 features for the sake of this god-awful resource/manpower allocation system (all gone are techs, events, civics, spies, corporations, etc).

This thing also needs a major SPAM_FILTER! There needs to be an in-game option to remove all the useless messages about every native chief handing you a handful of tobacco leaves, a wad of cotton, or bit of ore that requires at least one click. One click should be enough when leaving a colonist to learn a specialty at a native camp, or when accepting a new tax raise. Likewise all the little messages about excess resources being wasted or sold off. After a while, I don't even bother reading those. Damn, that spam is annoying!

 

[Dom Pedro II]

An improvement of the game's performance, if possible, would be nice too. Civ4Col seems much slower than my BtS game. In the 1700's, there were substantial drops in performance -- for example, it takes a long time (6 seconds or more) to open city screens and even longer to draft colonists back to their garrisons. This thing's a hog!

I personally think that the slow down is due to the fact that rather than use BonusTypes like they did with Civ4, all of the commodities in the game are YieldTypes. Yields are sprinkled throughout the code and are the bedrock of the game. As a result, they are cycled through frequently in lots of different places. Of course, there are a lot more yields in Colonization vs. the 3 in Civ4 (Production, Food and Commerce). This means cycling through yields takes 4 or 5 times as long.

Now, one of the ways they compensate for this by having far fewer players. But that will just reduce the time between turns rather than the time it takes for any particular thing (like opening the city window).

There is no tech tree in this game (it doesn't necessarily need one), however, there ought to be events that allow new ideas and new knowledge to come about, which would affect perhaps finances, warfare, the gathering of resources and bells, and the production of finished goods. There's a big difference between the early 16th and the late 18th century in all of these regards. Granted, the game isn't about tech-mongering, but something's missing here. I'm not sure that, memory-wise and as far as the sheer amount of data to process goes, Civ4Col could withstand the additional layers of coding, but right now, it sure seems that Civ4Col has been stripped of most Civ4 features for the sake of this god-awful resource/manpower allocation system (all gone are techs, events, civics, spies, corporations, etc).

These things were stripped because they were remaking Colonization and not revamping Civ4. But certainly there is a performance question, and not having these things (to some degree) increases performance.

This thing also needs a major SPAM_FILTER! There needs to be an in-game option to remove all the useless messages about every native chief handing you a handful of tobacco leaves, a wad of cotton, or bit of ore that requires at least one click. One click should be enough when leaving a colonist to learn a specialty at a native camp, or when accepting a new tax raise. Likewise all the little messages about excess resources being wasted or sold off. After a while, I don't even bother reading those. Damn, that spam is annoying!

I'm not really sure how that could be changed, but there should probably be some kind of a way to turn off those.

 

[Reveilled]

I was thinking about the royal taxes idea, and came up with a similar one:

Preferred Goods - Occasionally, the crown is in great need of a certain resource, and gives you a tax break on sales of that item. This would be especially common for the resources that are usually low value, possibly to increase the feasibility of shipping them to Europe, like Food, Lumber, and Guns.

What I was thinking was that the Royal Taxes and Tax breaks could be tied to the presently mostly pointless lump sum demands by the king. If you refuse a gold demand from the king, he'll respond by raising a tax on a single good significantly. The king could also demand resources, like the ones above, and accepting these demands would net you a tax break on that good from him.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I was thinking about the royal taxes idea, and came up with a similar one:

Preferred Goods - Occasionally, the crown is in great need of a certain resource, and gives you a tax break on sales of that item. This would be especially common for the resources that are usually low value, possibly to increase the feasibility of shipping them to Europe, like Food, Lumber, and Guns.

What I was thinking was that the Royal Taxes and Tax breaks could be tied to the presently mostly pointless lump sum demands by the king. If you refuse a gold demand from the king, he'll respond by raising a tax on a single good significantly. The king could also demand resources, like the ones above, and accepting these demands would net you a tax break on that good from him.

This is an interesting idea and something to consider for the future. I like game components that provide the carrot and the stick to the player.

 

[SuperGeek89]

One thing i found annoying was that after i gained independence that my former king would try to raise taxes or demand gold. If there was anyway to fix that it could add more to the game after victory.

 

[alexender000]

Hi, just a word about performances. I feel that the problem is not the game itself (i.e.: the Yield and whatnot) but a huge memory leak. Try it. When the game start slowing down after a few hundred turns, save... reload... voila! Responsiveness!

At least that was my experience.

 

[RichardLion]

Ya i think the new col has some major memorey leaks later in game