Colonization Overhaul Planned

[Ambreville]

But this game only covers the New World. And in the New World, the Portuguese only had Brazil. However, that said, Brazil is bigger than the combined French possessions in the Americas and vastly larger than the combined Dutch possessions. That justifies them being included as opposed to whatever else they might have held elsewhere in the world.

Did I give you the impression I didn't agree with the above?

I'm not entirely surprised that Portugal was left out because Brazil is somewhat the odd man out in the Americas. It is a Portuguese-speaking country surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries, and Americans see far more Hispanics than they do Brazilians. When I was applying to college, my guidance counselor would come to me with countless scholarships for "Latino" students. And invariably, there would be a place on the form that would say "Brazilians need not apply"

"Brazilians need not apply" -- wow! I had no idea. At any rate, I didn't think this would be the basis for not including Portugal in a historically inspired New World setting. IIRC, the basic Civ4Col map includes both North and South America. Although the Dutch had a small presence in both North and South America while the Portuguese manifested themselves in a big way down in South America only, I thought the Portuguese were more relevant as a "colonizing" power than the Dutch, certainly as far as controlled landmass and population were concerned. Either way, it's arguable.

 

[Ambreville]

Early on, btw, the territory of French Louisiane + Quebec/Nouvelle France was comparable to the size of Brazil, or pretty darn close.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Early on, btw, the territory of French Louisiane + Quebec/Nouvelle France was comparable to the size of Brazil, or pretty darn close.

Well, it gets a little hazy because while the French controlled vast territories on paper, the reality was that they only settled very small portions of that territory. But the same was true of the Portuguese in Brazil. I think modern Brazil is slightly larger than the combined French territories. Hence why I only used the word "vastly" larger in comparison to the Dutch territories


And no, you didn't give any impression that you disagreed, but my point was that it really doesn't matter how much territory the Portuguese controlled outside of the Americas. They could've controlled all of Africa and Asia, but without any colonies in the New World, I would not think they had a place in the game. But since they did and since Brazil is so large, it does justify their being in the game.

"Brazilians need not apply" -- wow! I had no idea. At any rate, I didn't think this would be the basis for not including Portugal in a historically inspired New World setting. IIRC, the basic Civ4Col map includes both North and South America. Although the Dutch had a small presence in both North and South America while the Portuguese manifested themselves in a big way down in South America only, I thought the Portuguese were more relevant as a "colonizing" power than the Dutch, certainly as far as controlled landmass and population were concerned. Either way, it's arguable.

The reason why the Dutch are included? One word: Manhattan.

 

[Ambreville]

I'm sure "Yankees" are quite happy to learn the term might come from "Jan-Kees" (or Jan-Kaas, John-Cheese), hence the Dutch connection.

 

[Ambreville]

I'd also add two more words: Sid Meier.

 

[Ekmek]

Alright, I've added the code necessary to have the plantation system I was discussing earlier. I still have to actually add the plantations in.

Your just going to use the planations from civ4 right? no need for new graphics I think. Are you going to have it that only Expert cotton planters etc are able to build the plantations. It would be restricting but I think better than having pioneers do it ll.

Right now though I'm working on adding in the loan system I was discussing earlier. That's going pretty well and hopefully I can have that done by the end of the weekend.

Getting a great formula for it might take a little longer and will require more community feedback I'm sure



But the basic formula is that you will be able to get small loans in the early game at moderate interest rates. As you develop, the banks will offer bigger and bigger loans, and if you keep your debt low, at reasonable interest rates. You can take out several loans in a short period of time, but the interest rate will build up quite rapidly that way. Accumulated debt will also reduce the amount of money the bank will be willing to lend in the future.

My plan is that if you have outstanding debt, goods sold in Europe will go towards paying that debt. You will not get gold from transactions until the debt has been paid. Gold traded through diplomacy, however, will not go directly towards the debt (but you can pay the debt at any point obviously).

Debt will also count negatively toward your final score as well. I figure this is a good way to prevent players from taking out a huge loan at the very end of the game and then declaring independence with no intention of ever paying the money back. If you're not going to be doing much trading with Europe anyway in the end, there's no incentive to pay it back. Negatively affecting the score then seems like a good solution. Huge debt will also make it less likely that other European players will intervene on your behalf.

adding some of the financial aspects like banking and insurance that made colonization possible would be cool. but how will it interact between players? use it to minimize events or taxes?


another idea
i was thinking of having some colonization code go to civ4 and ran into the issue of where does the money come from. My idea, and maybe you can use this for your mod, is have silver (and add gold and copper) instead of being sold be able to be converted to cash (coinage) like lumber comverts to hammers. of course make it more profitable to send it to europe like the spanish historically did, but it would be cool to generate some cash in the colonies through a metalsmith.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, the Dutch played more of a role in US history than the Portuguese ever did. I lived in Bergen county New Jersey for most of my life with countless streets named after Dutch people I've never heard of in history. Two of America's Presidents, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, came from a Dutch family that first settled in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. Then there's more peripheral things such as the Puritans having settled in the Netherlands for a period of time and Britain's long-standing ties with the Netherlands.

And ultimately, even though it isn't presented as such, this is a game that's about American history and America's Revolutionary War. Everything in the game is based on the American colonial experience. I don't have a problem with this, but it seems to me like they kind of draped a little bit of flavor from the history of Latin America in there and marketed it as a general Age of Discovery game when it really isn't.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Your just going to use the planations from civ4 right? no need for new graphics I think. Are you going to have it that only Expert cotton planters etc are able to build the plantations. It would be restricting but I think better than having pioneers do it ll.

Hey, if you want to do some graphics for these specific crop types...

And the problem with the expert planters is that they're rather late arrivals to the game. I want to remove all of the crops from the game map. So the only sources of these crops will be from tiles with plantations on them, so the plantations have to be buildable very early.

adding some of the financial aspects like banking and insurance that made colonization possible would be cool. but how will it interact between players? use it to minimize events or taxes?

Well, the loan system is fairly simple (as I've designed it). You can take money and pay the money back (money will be automatically paid back from your European sales too). Your debt will affect two things: your score, and your relations with other players. If you have huge debts, other players will be less likely to help you. There has to be some kind of a penalty for racking up huge debts so that it's not abused by players.

another idea
i was thinking of having some colonization code go to civ4 and ran into the issue of where does the money come from. My idea, and maybe you can use this for your mod, is have silver (and add gold and copper) instead of being sold be able to be converted to cash (coinage) like lumber comverts to hammers. of course make it more profitable to send it to europe like the spanish historically did, but it would be cool to generate some cash in the colonies through a metalsmith.

Yes, you're right. I've been thinking about this too. Silver & gold should be converted directly to gold (money).

 

[Ambreville]

And ultimately, even though it isn't presented as such, this is a game that's about American history and America's Revolutionary War. Everything in the game is based on the American colonial experience. I don't have a problem with this, but it seems to me like they kind of draped a little bit of flavor from the history of Latin America in there and marketed it as a general Age of Discovery game when it really isn't.

Yeah, that's specifically where I was going with this. Civ4Col is definitely wrapped around Washington's belly button as a general concept. It definitely begs for an Age of Discovery development -- which connects with the object of this thread. Soooo.... I'll now leave all this in your capable hands.

 

[comtedemeighan]

Dom Pedro I really like the Loan idea its pretty cool. Colonial Debt was part of the reason for the stamp act crisis. Maybe the debt could be used as leverage against the crown forces like if you pay the debt off the REF forces will shrink but if you don't pay the debt the crown will increase its forces to eventually make those stubborn colonists pay up when they do revolt. Also can you make Sugar Planters availible in Europe because Sugar is a European plant

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Dom Pedro I really like the Loan idea its pretty cool. Colonial Debt was part of the reason for the stamp act crisis. Maybe the debt could be used as leverage against the crown forces like if you pay the debt off the REF forces will shrink but if you don't pay the debt the crown will increase its forces to eventually make those stubborn colonists pay up when they do revolt. Also can you make Sugar Planters availible in Europe because Sugar is a European plant

There's a number of things that can be done with the debt. However, since you're borrowing the money from a European "bank" rather than the crown, it wouldn't make much sense if th crown comes to collect the debt. But REF could still be affected by the level of your outstanding debt a the time of the revolution.

And yes, the Sugar Planter thing is a bit silly. In fact, among the crop resources in the game, only Tobacco is actually indigenous to the Americas. It's also a bit silly that you can train Expert Ore Miners in native villages considering that very few Pre-Columbian civilizations knew anything about metalworking (and even then only soft metals like gold), and I doubt they had anything to teach the Europeans about mining.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Just... for an update:

I've gotten the loan system up and running. I haven't coded all of the details about the debt and how it affects score, player relations, etc. But there is now a new button on the top left hand corner of the screen for loans. When you push it, a popup appears telling you the maximum amount the bank will lend right now and your interest rate increase.

If you have outstanding debt, there will be a third button that will allow you to pay back some of the loan. If you push that, a new popup will appear that will let you input the amount you want to pay back.

I haven't decided where exactly I want to put the debt. I figure it should probably be on the main interface... maybe next to the amount of gold you have.

I was going to post some screenshots, but it was late and I was tired. I'll have something up later tonight when I get home from work.

 

[Melinko]

Just... for an update:

I've gotten the loan system up and running. I haven't coded all of the details about the debt and how it affects score, player relations, etc. But there is now a new button on the top left hand corner of the screen for loans. When you push it, a popup appears telling you the maximum amount the bank will lend right now and your interest rate increase.

If you have outstanding debt, there will be a third button that will allow you to pay back some of the loan. If you push that, a new popup will appear that will let you input the amount you want to pay back.

I haven't decided where exactly I want to put the debt. I figure it should probably be on the main interface... maybe next to the amount of gold you have.

I was going to post some screenshots, but it was late and I was tired. I'll have something up later tonight when I get home from work.

Good to hear about the progress, one suggestion for most of where to put all this is maybe a Financial Advisor screen of some sort. This might be a little more then you want to put in there, but it might be an easy way to show the values of the gold exchange and negitives (or positives) to income.

And we want screenshots... (LOL )

 

[Dom Pedro II]

And we want screenshots... (LOL )

Ask and ye shall receive

I increased the size of some parts of the image so that people can see it more clearly since I shrunk down the image to fit well on the forum. The number next to the gold is your debt amount. There's supposed to be a smaller red gold stack next to the regular gold stack, but for some reason, it's not appearing... I'm going to work on fixing that. I've figured out what I did wrong and have corrected it.

I've added the ability to sell your ships in Europe. The price is based on a base price plus the costs of yields required to produce the ship.

I've also added a new unit called a Coastal Trader. It's essentially a floating Wagon Train. It has the same storage capacity, can only carry goods, and can't make the trip to Europe. But it only requires a Dock and is very cheap to build.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Ok, I've posted more screenshots in the above post. I'll feel comfortable enough with these changes to release an initial version soon.

Of course, most of the really big stuff like the Africa screen and the new plantation system are still on the drawing board. But this is a start.

 

[Jeckel]

Very awesome DPII!!

I like the new Button on the Main Interface, that rocks. Selling ships is also a very good idea and I think will add more fun to the game.

 

[comtedemeighan]

There's a number of things that can be done with the debt. However, since you're borrowing the money from a European "bank" rather than the crown, it wouldn't make much sense if th crown comes to collect the debt. But REF could still be affected by the level of your outstanding debt a the time of the revolution.

And yes, the Sugar Planter thing is a bit silly. In fact, among the crop resources in the game, only Tobacco is actually indigenous to the Americas. It's also a bit silly that you can train Expert Ore Miners in native villages considering that very few Pre-Columbian civilizations knew anything about metalworking (and even then only soft metals like gold), and I doubt they had anything to teach the Europeans about mining.

How bout if you borrow the money and you decide not to pay it back and the crown drops your taxes a bit because of pressure in parliament from the bankers and merchants who want you to pay back some of that money thus lowering your tax rate but angering the king.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Very awesome DPII!!

I like the new Button on the Main Interface, that rocks. Selling ships is also a very good idea and I think will add more fun to the game.

I'm just glad I actually did something with python and the universe didn't end It's not exactly my strong spot.

As for selling ships, I think it will be very useful. If you start the game with a Caravel, you can essentially trade it in (with some extra gold of course) for some other ship like a Merchantman. But it also opens the possibility for the player to set up a ship-building business like New England did in the later game. Rather than trade in cash crops, you could focus on building and selling ships.

How bout if you borrow the money and you decide not to pay it back and the crown drops your taxes a bit because of pressure in parliament from the bankers and merchants who want you to pay back some of that money thus lowering your tax rate but angering the king.

Well, I'm not inclined to give rewards for not paying back a loan.

To all: Okay, so I'm planning to release my mod either tonight or Sunday. Then I'll let you guys find all my bugs while I work on the next game components

I'm going to make a couple small changes to these things now. First, I'm considering that Coastal Traders also need to be unable to enter undiscovered territory so that people don't exploit them as cheap exploration vessels. Btw, there's now a new XML tag that I used for this unit that prevents a unit from being able to sail to Europe.

I also need to solidify the max loan amount and interest rate formula because right now you'll just get the max amounts that modders can change in the XML.

My next battle is with the plantations. I'm not particularly familiar with the art stuff, so that's going to be the big problem because I'm not adding any new functionality (I already added it to the SDK ).

 

[henryMCVII]

Nice to see the mod is moving on.

I have one question before I start playing with this mod: What happens to goods or units on the ship when you are selling the ship?

 

[Zuul]

Will you inlcude Dale mods?