Colonize!

[GRM7584]

This thread is for the Complete Modpack, Colonize! by...Me.

Colonize! is a slightly alternate historical mod which takes place entirely in the New World between 1520 and 1820. It features a full set of 31 civs, many new graphics, many graphics you've already seen before, and plenty of flavor.
All civs are playable, although the Europeans more so than the others.

The lowdown:
-70 units total
-120 Improvements and Wonders
-10 governments
-full slate of resources
-Bunches of new (and used...) graphics, luxury-resource chains of improvements, several building trees, 4 (mostly) full tech trees (now with arrows!), Natives and Europeans operate on their own tech trees, several unique/flavor techs to give different nations different advantages

The Major European Civs (primary intended Player Civ):
New Spain
New Portugal
New Netherlands
New England
New France

The Minor European Civs (not recommended):
New Sweden
New Denmark

The Advanced Natives (Possible Player Civ):
Aztec
Maya
Inca

The Confederated Natives (Challenging Player Civ):
Iroqouis
Huron
Cherokee

The Minor Natives (Not Recommended):
Tupi-Guarani
Calusa
Carib
Arawak
Mapuche
Tarascans
Navajo
Haida
Nez Perce
Apache
Blackfoot
Lakota
Cheyenne
Creek
Lenni Lenape
Powhatan
Shawnee
Chimu

Downloads will be available in the Second Post as they are finished. Currently included files are: All Mod files, except (notably) Leaderheads. 3 .biq files, as follows; ColonizeAmericasT, a tiny map of the Americas, ColonizeAmericasM, a medium map of the Americas, and ColonizeRules, which will allow you to easily make your own maps or 'random maps' with the mod's rules. Obviously generating your own random maps will not work properly, as X-wrapping will be on. Feel free to post "random" maps of the Americas that you have custom tailored for other folks to download.

Nice as this mod is....
UPDATE ADDENDUM 2006: I no longer offer anything remotely resembling support on this mod. It is dead. Any high-level Modding Clerics that wish to ressurect it can consider it free for the taking. All I ask is that you attach your name to any and all additions. Whether you give me credit for the basic mod or not is unimportant.

Here is a preview:

 

[GRM7584]

Moderator Action: Broken download updated - Blake00
Here is the current main Beta download (with patch already applied):
https://www.civfanatics.com/users/downloads/civ3/Colonize!v0.12+Carribean.7z

Further patches and "official" maps will appear in this post. I will put shortcuts to other 'map' posts in my third post, if anyone ever makes any.

Full (fixed) Patch Beta V 0.12: Unzip, overwrite all.

 

[GRM7584]

Reserved for Maps:
-Note-
Any and all maps besides the Americas maps included with the mod will likely have outdated rules. To correct this, open the map in question, and use File --> Import, check ONLY rules, and then browse for ColonizeRules.biq.
You can also use ColonizeRules.biq as a starting point for making your own maps or importing other maps. Note only that the Starting Unit 1 under the General Settings tab MUST be changed to a settler-type unit if you do not intend to customize players, and that you may wish to change the appropriate entry in Labels.txt for goody huts giving units of Starting Type 1.

Variant of Medium Americas with special attention to starting positions of Europeans, including a modified St. Laurence: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2574450&postcount=34 - Davbenbak

Carribean Map: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2720191&postcount=225 - id52

 

[Grohan]

Looks very good in the editor!
I'll give this try when I've finished my current game.

 

[davbenbak]

I've played up until 1706 as the Dutch. I've wiped out the Hurons, Iroquios and French. I've only spared the English for sentimental reasons. I have seven cities all over New England and Great Lakes region. Here are my questions and observations:

1) Would be better if I could upgrade units earlier in game.
2) A better name perhaps for the English would be Capt. John Smith as oppossed to Baron De LaWarr (Delaware).
3) Leader heads for European powers?
4) It may be my imagination but it seems that ships move faster in open water than in coastal squares???
5) Neither France or England ever built any additional cities.
5) New England is too crowded. It would be better if there was space for a city between Jamestown and New York (Amsterdam). Boston ? Also maybe delete an Indian civ to make room for a more realistic location for the French even though I know you want them to have access to the Atlantic.

Great so for with no bugs!!!! Great Work!!!

 

[GRM7584]

1) Would be better if I could upgrade units earlier in game.
2) A better name perhaps for the English would be Capt. John Smith as oppossed to Baron De LaWarr (Delaware).
3) Leader heads for European powers?
4) It may be my imagination but it seems that ships move faster in open water than in coastal squares???
5) Neither France or England ever built any additional cities.
5) New England is too crowded. It would be better if there was space for a city between Jamestown and New York (Amsterdam). Boston ? Also maybe delete an Indian civ to make room for a more realistic location for the French even though I know you want them to have access to the Atlantic.

1. I'll at least set crossbowmen to upgrade to arquebusiers, since I pushed up arquebusiers right before I released the beta to balance the techs a little.
2. It initially was, but I opted to change it. Neither of them held leadership for terribly long, but I couldn't for the moment find a more suitable leader who didn't end up in the continental congress. De La Warr would be better as a 'military' leader for his Powhatan Wars, and perhaps John Smith too. I'm open to suggestions, but New England is so fractured in terms of leadership up until the mid to late 18th century, its difficult to assign them one leader.
3. I started on assigning LH's, then stopped in favor of just finishing all the "functional" parts of the mod. I will consider assigning more appropriate LHs for the next patch, I was otherwise planning just to leave it alone until a final version (As Samuel De Champlain and a number of Native American LHs are in the works elsewhere on the board).
4. Yes, that's quite right. Coast and Ocean cost 2 movement as opposed to Sea's 1. Several ships have combinations of moving quicker in 1 or the other, and the "Sea" represents favorable winds and currents, whereas Coast represents both the danger of running aground in unfamiliar territory and the abundance of rocks, sandbars, and coastal storms in and around the New World. Ocean is either slow going because of low winds, or slow going because of nasty storms and high winds. I don't know much about actual currents, aside from the gulf stream and the horse latitudes, so I may change what is sea and what isnt.
5. That's peculiar; All civs should start out with two settlers, and in my games the AI at least built a port in one of their first two cities. I am unsure how to further encourage the AI to build ports early on, as I'm not totally clear on which "Build Often" flags accomodate which improvement flags. I did, however, add the possibility of building new settlers at Expansion, so I will go back and add the "Build Often: Settlers" to all European civs.
6. Yes, unfortunately its pivotal for Europeans to have access to the ocean. I will be doing a "1640" map with purely historical city locations for as many maps as I can, eventually. As for elbow room, I've tried to put initial landings in as appropriate as possible locations. The next map I'll try to do will be a Large Map, but I'm kind of sick of map making, so anyone else is welcome to offer to do 'em first.

Also, it would be useful for tech balancing if I got an idea when people changed eras and what difficulty level they did so at. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Lachlan]

Cool i make a post for follow this thread

 

[greenman1234]

not bad i will dl it now

 

[davbenbak]

It's July of 1706. I'm playing on convict level and I have 9 techs in the Colonial Age (about half way through) I've never raised by tech rate about 60% and am using Oligarchy form of goverment.

Settlers and servants seem to be coming too fast. I might be more fun if there were different small wonders available to different nations that produced colonists at different rates. (English the most, Dutch the least)

I haven't looked yet but surely there are some large maps out there of the new world so you would have to start from scratch. I really like your choice and use of resources though.


p.s. I guess I really shouldn't complain about De LaWarr as the head of the English faction since one of my first ancestors in the New World was his secretary.

 

[Grohan]

I just played it for about 10 turns.
Unfortunately it crashed:

LOAD ERROR

ERROR READING FILE

Missing entry in "Scenarios\Colonize\text\Pediaicons.txt": _LARGE

The game will now exit.

Otherwise scenario seemed good.

BTW is it possible play with the minor european civs?

 

[GRM7584]

Yes, it is possible to play europeans; just not in either of the two maps I included. Whenever a huge map is made with room for all civs in it, the minor europeans will be playable. Or, if someone wants to make their own map with some of the minor europeans playable, that would work too. OR, you could play on a random map and pretend that the "X-wrapping" represents a trip around the world, somewhat like Magellan lets you do in Colonization.

That load error seems like it should have occurred when you were looking at an individual entry in the civilopedia which didn't have an appropriate big icon...do you know which entry you were looking at, or if I'm wrong and it just crashed on the world map?

 

[Grohan]

I think I was looking for some government entry. Colonialism if I remember right.

 

[woodelf]

Colonialism civ entry crashes the game for sure. There was another one as well that I'll go back and look for.

The Mod looks to have a good beginning, sort of like Europa Univeralis in feel. Keep up the good work.

 

[GRM7584]

Aye, as most governments do not have prereq techs, and I failed to put in entries for them independently. I'll fix it in the first patch, as well as actually put entries for the governments to look at
I'd like to see if there are any more error reports or recommendations before I start dumping out patches, though.

 

[Dick Tater]

This is a fantastic mod! You made an elegant solution to the way new colonists are acquired. I'm playing as the Dutch at the moment and have been having fun since turn 1.

 

[woodelf]

I finally figured out the colonists. Next I need to figure out boat building....

I had the other game crash error happen again just now. When I was in the units section of the civilopedia I tried to scroll down by clicking on the right side. When I did this it brought up

"art\civilopedia\icons\units\12pikemansmall.pc", game will now exit.

Not sure what the pikemansmall is and I didn't click on it, but that's the second time for me.

 

[woodelf]

Not sure if this is a bug or intentional, but I rushed the Manhatten purchase with a leader and I can still build it in all of my other cities.

Also, a lot of the resource icons are switched around in the civilopedia, but not when you push F2 to see what you have currently. For example; prime timber is the fish icon in the Civilopedia, but is correct on the map and F2.

Overall, this is a great start to the mod.

 

[Dick Tater]

Seems that the AI hasn't really figured out the Colonists yet. You need to make it build more coastal cities so it can max out on Ports. It's AD 1651 and the French are still stuck with a single city in my game...

 

[Gunner]

Wow, great job GRM. I started a game this afternoon as England and I really love the way it has progressed so far to 1616. I got into the second age around 1610, I'm not exactly sure. The AI's seem to be expanding very well, France has 5 cities, Spain 3, and Netherlands used to have 2 until I conquered them both bringing me to a total of 6. I haven't met Portugal yet. This game is on the Craftsman (emperor) difficulty.

Here are some of the bugs or comments I have:
1. It looks like the Dye Manufactory requires spices instead of dyes.
2. The Tobaccoist doesn't have the 'goods must be in city radius' flag checked.
3. Most of the building are messed up in some way because the game crashes when you right click on them once they have been built in the city. The ones I specifically remember doing this off the top of my head were the harbor and servant building.
4. I think this was said before, but the government descriptions are wrong. Just making sure that this is on the list of things to do.
5. I really like the choice you are given with the initial three governments. It seems that the computer only chooses Conquest though. But I guess thats good because it makes Spain build its conquisdador building (I know that because they invaded me with 3 of them at one point!)
6. I don't think that crossbowman should upgrade to Arbequesters, I like it how it is. Even if they could though, wouldn't we have to wait for Muster fields before they could be upgraded?
7. This game really does a good job of capturing the spirit of Colonization for me. The magically appearing colonists, all the great buildings, searching for that problem that just made you crash, they all come together and I love it.

 

[davbenbak]

I think I would like to delete one of the North American tribes and put one somewhere in the Amazon. The Portugese have it too easy! Perhaps the Yanamano? I'm reminded of a foreign movie I rented once, staring Rutger Huer I think, about some conquestadors sailing up the amazon on a raft who are attacked by canabalistic jungle tribes.