Flippable colonies sans defenses

[Spyder1]

OK, I would like a fix/help with a problem. I garrison each colony I put out -- and along comes an opposing settler who plops down and, out from beneath my riflemen, my colony disappears into the welcoming arms of the newly-settled opposing city.
So. Is there a way to garrison colonies so they "defend" themselves?
Is there a way to edit the rules to give colonies defensive value or to remove their ability to be "assimilated" by someone else? (i'd prefer this to be only applicable when you've garrisoned the colony)

Spyder1

 

[Faray357]

Sorry, I don't think there is a way. The only thing I can suggest is to build a city there instead.

 

[Spyder1]

That's what I was afraid of. You put down colonies, but then you have no way to maintain them. All anyone has to do is put down beside them and they can effectively "steal" them, without penalty.
There should be a setting or a way to "garrison" colonies and thereby prevent another group from just "taking" them in this way. Without it, there's no real point to a colony versus dropping a city, since there's no way to prevent their flipping. The presence of a military unit is totally ignored -- if there is one, now you have the civ who put the city down and "flipped" your colony out of existence complaining because your military unit is sitting there!
This should be addressed.

 

[Dillo]

they just need to give it a small zone of influence.just enough to cover itself. that way you may lose the resources when another civ puts a town, but you dont lose the settlement. Settlements are really only for putting in places you cant put a city and noone else can. Like in the mountains.Placeing them near some resources does give you access, but if you truely value these resources you need to build a city by them.

 

[Spyder1]

The problem with the advice of "...if you truly value the resources, put down a city near them" is the limiter (aka corruption and waste) that putting down that many cities would require. In other words: I had thought the colonies were a tool to make it where you didn't have to put down cities all over the place. That made sense, given the blatant penalties for putting down lots of cities (corruption, waste). However, if they're easily flipped into nothingness as in my example at the start of the thread, there's little long-term value to colonies and only negligible value short-term.
They need to regard colonies as "non-growing cities" that require conquering in order to be taken. Or, have the colony remain intact if it's garrisoned.

(shrug) back to the civ...

 

[Greadius]

If you station troops outside the colony you could block off the settlers access, assuming there is some kind of choke point.

Of course if they do build a city a few squares away the culture will eventually swallow it up (and culture will swallow up one of your colonies too).

Stealing a colony should be an act of war. Maybe you should consider it an act of war and go take your former colony back.