Game balance issue: Colonial Expenses

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Beyond the Sword introduced a new concept called colonies which are a special kind of vassals. You can voluntarily release some of your cities on a continent/island that doesn't contain your capital and these cities then form a loyal vassal.
To encourage the creation of colonies by the player and AI nations alike, colonial expenses were introduced into the game. You will face these additional city maintenance costs when you found more than one city on a continent which doesn't have your capital. You will never face colonial expenses if you only build cities on one continent.

In my personal opinion, the colonial expenses are too high. They are purely related to the presence of the capital on the land mass of the city and therefore can disrupt game play on maps with multiple islands and continents. If you start on a large land mass, then you can get a huge empire without ever having to face colonial expenses. But if you start the game on one of the smaller islands, then expansion to other islands can become extremely expensive even if the other islands are just one tile distant from your starting continent. If you build some cities on a continent that is not your starting continent (with the capital), then colonial expenses can get as high as 100 gold per turn per city. This number is before the cost reducing effect of courthouses, but also before the cost increasing effect of inflation which can easily more than undo the effect of courthouses in the late game (inflation rates of 200-300%).

Of course, I know that one can create a colony out of the newly created cities on the new continent. But it was advertised as being a choice. When costs are as high as 100 gold per turn per city, then there isn't much of a choice. Some of us civ players want to create a huge multi continent empire and that isn't going to be feasible with such high costs.

Before Beyond the Sword, it was already true that starting on a small continent was a disadvantage because you couldn't get foreign trade routes with anyone until you got contact with oversees nations (which could be as late a astronomy). Other disadvantages include the lack of different resources to keep your citizens happy and healthy and the lack of technology trading. It also makes early conquest impossible. Now you can add to that, that any significant oversees conquest or colonisation will bankrupt you.

I think that this was unintended as the designers at Firaxis have chosen to cap 'number of cities maintenance' at a manageable level (5 at noble level, 8 at deity). Clearly, it wasn't the intention to completely prevent expansion into huge empires, just to slow it down. However, they have set the colonial expenses cap at an unmanageable level of 100 which contradicts their earlier choice for maps with multiple continents/islands.

Because one picture can tell more than a thousand words, I've added a screenshot of an empire that I've created with the world builder. The screenshot is of one of the 9 cities on an island that doesn't contain the palace. I didn't add any buildings and terrain improvements to the cities, so they are starving and unhappy and all, but that isn't the point. It's just about the maintenance costs.
You can see that the distance maintenance is significant too in this case because this continent is pretty distant from the starting continent. However, this distance doesn't effect the colonial expenses. They would be exactly as high if the continents were just next to one another.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/31106/Colonial_expenses.JPG

I'll also upload the world builder game that I created (BTS version 1.02, no mods):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/31106/Colony_upkeep.CivBeyondSwordSave

I've also added the Forbidden Palace and Versailles to the continent that doesn't contain the Capital to show that it doesn't effect colonial expenses (it does effect distance maintenance like the Palace).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/31106/Colony_upkeep_2.CivBeyondSwordSave


Solution 1:
In my opinion, colonial expenses should be related to the distance of the colony. So instead of capping the colonial expenses at a maximum of 100, I would cap it at the distance from palace cost level of the city. That way, colonial expenses could double the distance cost of oversees cities and that would be expensive for distant cities, but if you colonise a few islands just next to your starting continent or expand into an adjacent continent, then it wouldn't hurt very much.

Solution 2:
Lower the colonial expenses cap from 100 to 20. Simple, but not as elegant as solution 1. It would still make colonies expensive, but manageable.

For mod creators or players who want to mess with this colonial expenses cap: The colonial expenses cap is stored in the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml file and is called iMaxColonyMaintenance. It is set at 100 at every difficulty level which means that colonial expenses can't grow above 100 per city.
 

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I'd Disagree with 1 but Agree with 2 there should be a cap (probably scale with difficulty as well... 20 on Noble, 32 on Deity?)

As for Starting on a small continent right next to a Large one, you really should relocate the Capital

(also: as a side note they should probably expand the colony concept, make it so that colonial expenses are

(# of cities on this landmass that you cannot trace a path to the capital on using only Land 'In Your Culture'-1) [only charged if this is one of those cities]

so that they would have some role on Pangea maps (and so that the Europeans could have Asian+African colonies on a world map)

That would have to allow the Formation of colonies based on that connection as opposed to simple 'landmass'
 
I'd Disagree with 1 but Agree with 2 there should be a cap (probably scale with difficulty as well... 20 on Noble, 32 on Deity?)

There is a cap, but it is set at 100, which I think is too high. But there is a cap. It seems that we roughly agree on what the maximum level should be. Do realize that an upkeep level of 20 would actually be 30 when compensated for a courthouse and 200% inflation. 30 extra cost for a city is pretty much. If you increase it any further, then it will take a well placed, well developed city to become profitable.

Why do you disagree with the concept that colonial expenses should be related to the distance of the 'colony'?

As for Starting on a small continent right next to a Large one, you really should relocate the Capital

That's why I created the scenario: two islands with 9 size 20 cities. It doesn't matter where you place the capital. The original continent or the additional continent will have cities with a colonial expenses of 100 per city.

(also: as a side note they should probably expand the colony concept, make it so that colonial expenses are

(# of cities on this landmass that you cannot trace a path to the capital on using only Land 'In Your Culture'-1) [only charged if this is one of those cities]

so that they would have some role on Pangea maps (and so that the Europeans could have Asian+African colonies on a world map)

That would have to allow the Formation of colonies based on that connection as opposed to simple 'landmass'

Interesting concept. :goodjob: There would however be strange consequences when at some point in the game, 2 large sections of one empire, the motherland and the colony, would be connected to one another by land (conquest of the cities in between). Suddenly, a huge maintenance cost would disappear.


Lets expand further on your concept: What if city maintenance would be dependant on the lowest level of culture that you encounter in a tile when you trace a path from the city to the capital. Or maybe on the number of low culture tiles encountered in such a path. (I drop the distinction between distance maintenance, colonial expenses and number of cities maintenance for the moment for simplicity)?

In civilization 4, each tile has a culture value and this value is only used to determine the owner of the tile. But you could also link it to the upkeep cost of the cities in the empire. If the cities in the empire are only linked by weak culture zones, then one could argue that the empire is a less stable empire and doesn't have a strong cultural identity. It would cost more to control the cities in such an empire than to control the cities in an empire with a strong cultural identity.

This maintenance model, where the maintenance cost of the cities are linked to the strength of the cultural link to the capital, would automatically include a system for colonies as these are not linked via cultural tiles to the capital.
It would also make the maintenance cost of directly adjacent islands to be less of a problem as the cultural zones might meet over the seas.
And it would also solve the weird immediate drop in maintenance cost when the two parts of an empire would meet in your model because the cultural link would still be weak and it would take decades of cultural development to make the cultural link strong and to reduce the maintenance cost.

If the model is incorporated well, it would also increase the maintenance cost of just conquered cities as these would also have a weak cultural link with the capital.

The way to introduce the concept to the player would be to add a line to the city maintenance cost:
something like: discount for strong cultural connection to the capital: -35%
If the city is connected to the capital by many tiles with a low culture value, then the percentage would be very low. If the city was close to the capital and linked by very strong culture tiles, then the percentage would be high and the discount thus large.

It would finally make culture more important than just for control of tiles: it would directly influence the maintenance cost of your empire.

Note that such a model is more something for civ5, if it is ever introduced. I don't expect such a model in a patch.
 
Why not let the Forbidden Palace and Versailles eliminate colony costs?

While I would also expect such an effect, it would only be a stopgap and not fully solve the problem. It would just postpone it until you colonise multiple islands/continents.

By the way, I don't think that these wonders should fully eliminate colonial expenses, just a reduction.
 
Since i got the game i have never founded any colony nor oversea city (i play mostly pangea), so i didn't give too much attention to voices about colony costs too high.
Now i see this photo of a fixed colony mainteinance of -100 and i'm really astonished, how it can be even remotely balanced so high costs for an overseas city?I totally agree that you should at least be able to maintain some cities overseas, actually i think that to maintain even a single overseas city you need to found a corporation and spread it everywhere, or you'll go in bankruptcy.
I hope it's rebalanced in next patch.
 
Since i got the game i have never founded any colony nor oversea city (i play mostly pangea), so i didn't give too much attention to voices about colony costs too high.
Now i see this photo of a fixed colony mainteinance of -100 and i'm really astonished, how it can be even remotely balanced so high costs for an overseas city?I totally agree that you should at least be able to maintain some cities overseas, actually i think that to maintain even a single overseas city you need to found a corporation and spread it everywhere, or you'll go in bankruptcy.
I hope it's rebalanced in next patch.

I don't want to mislead you, it's not immediately at -100 cost. It starts low and is related to the number of cities on a single continent that doesn't contain your capital and the size of those cities.

In the example, there are 9 cities of size 20 on the other continent. It's a normal sized map. I first did the test on a huge map (that's the map at which I normally play) and there I needed 13 cities of size 20 to reach the -100 cost.

13 cities isn't a lot on a huge map, it's a small fraction of a large continent.

BTW, the test was performed at immortal level, the level at which I played my last game and which the game had remembered. Seeing the xml-entries about colony expenses and seeing how the expenses increased for every size 20 city that I added to the colony continent, you would probably need 1 or 2 more cities to reach the -100 cost level at noble level.

BTW: I don't know if they can fix this for the next patch (even if they want to) as that is probably already being tested by 2K games quality assurance. Some days ago a Firaxian (Alexman) told us that it would take approximately 3 weeks for the patch to be made available to the public.
 
What is the cost for the first overseas city for example?
In any case if you have 9 cities and you pay around 100 gold + other mainteinance costs per city, i suppose you are paying more than 1000 gold for the 9 cities on this continent, which could be manageable only if you have a corporation HQ and you have spread this everywhere.
With such high costs, as you said in your post, colony doesn't become a choice but an obligation.
Honestly i really think that new features involving mainteinance or wealth are a bit broken.Corporation and Colony costs are too much excessive while Corp HQ giving +5 gold per city is an ultimate weapon.Don't know if the real problem is the fact that on marathon for example there are 300 turns more to play, so that mainteinance costs must be higher than Warlords, but in this way balance rely too much on corporation HQ to cover costs and overseas empire is not an option.All these feature should be really toned down.
 
What is the cost for the first overseas city for example?
In any case if you have 9 cities and you pay around 100 gold + other mainteinance costs per city, i suppose you are paying more than 1000 gold for the 9 cities on this continent, which could be manageable only if you have a corporation HQ and you have spread this everywhere.
With such high costs, as you said in your post, colony doesn't become a choice but an obligation.
Honestly i really think that new features involving mainteinance or wealth are a bit broken.Corporation and Colony costs are too much excessive while Corp HQ giving +5 gold per city is an ultimate weapon.Don't know if the real problem is the fact that on marathon for example there are 300 turns more to play, so that mainteinance costs must be higher than Warlords, but in this way balance rely too much on corporation HQ to cover costs and overseas empire is not an option.All these feature should be really toned down.

I agree that the costs are too high to make the colony a choice instead of an obligation and that is the reason that I wrote my first post in the bug thread. It's over 1000 gpt in this case for the 9 cities because they are also quite distant. The extra colony expenses itself are of course 9*100=900, easily the majority of the city maintenance costs on this continent. This cost is before courthouses and inflation effects.

I wrote my extra post in reply to yours because I didn't want to give misleading information. The first oversees city has no colonial expenses. It starts with the second city on the same continent as the first and it increases faster with every city that you add on the same oversees continent until it reaches the maximum of 100 per city. It is also dependent on city size. At the difficulty level of the savegame, 9 cities of size 20 were enough to reach the colonial expenses cap of 100 gold. 9 cities of size 15 would probably not reach the maximum of 100 extra colony expenses, but 12 of size 15 probably would. I didn't experiment enough to give exact numbers in other cases and I don't have the formula. I just wanted to test how it worked because I had seen some weird results in games and from some other posters on this forum.

It's mainly a problem if you want to conquer a sizeable chunk of another continent, not when you colonise small islands because the cities have to be on the same landmass for the colonial expenses to increase to high levels. If you want to completely conquer one civilization on another continent, then you're probably close to or over the number of cities to reach the colonial expenses cap of 100 gold per city.

In my present game, I started alone on a large island (huge map, big and small map type). The island can contain some 15 cities (a decent number on huge maps, but nothing exceptional) and a main continent is one square over the sea which contains at least 5 civilizations and room for some 70-80 cities I guess. I wouldn't be able to expand significantly to the main continent under the present rules as that would bankrupt me very fast. Essentially, serious expansion to other landmasses was impossible without making these cities independent. Moving the capitol to the main continent would result in huge colonial expenses from my original island.

So, I've modded my game as in the end, it is just about having fun with a computer game and creating an empire which you can enjoy.

I actually wonder if the colonial expenses cap of 100 was put there during the betatesting stage of the game and then forgotten to readjust because not enough players played large multicontinential empires to notice that they had forgotten to readjust this number.
 
I wonder if a potential solution would be limiting it to cities that the Civ itself has founded, as opposed to cities that are conquered? That should allow for the necessary conquering, but still encourage colonies if you are playing something like a Terra map.

Bh
 
As for Distance not affecting colonial expenses, I think that is because Distance already has its own component.

Probably not a good idea to have it show up twice.

And I think 30 gold final expense is OK for a colony... that is only 15 commerce, and your Domestic trade routes would be Intercontinental, not to mention, that cost would be incurred in a Large city.. and therefore one well developed. 15 Commerce can also be gotten with 3 Printing Press towns.

Of course Inflation is getting adjusted, but assuming it still goes as high as 200%, then 30 gold is not to hard to get a benefit out of.




As for the massive empire meeting up being a problem with the "Pangea colony", I think it is reasonable. Now you can get people directly to those cities. I do agree that a more complex maintenance model would be better for civ 5.
 
As for Distance not affecting colonial expenses, I think that is because Distance already has its own component.

Probably not a good idea to have it show up twice.

And I think 30 gold final expense is OK for a colony... that is only 15 commerce, and your Domestic trade routes would be Intercontinental, not to mention, that cost would be incurred in a Large city.. and therefore one well developed. 15 Commerce can also be gotten with 3 Printing Press towns.

Of course Inflation is getting adjusted, but assuming it still goes as high as 200%, then 30 gold is not to hard to get a benefit out of.




As for the massive empire meeting up being a problem with the "Pangea colony", I think it is reasonable. Now you can get people directly to those cities. I do agree that a more complex maintenance model would be better for civ 5.

I guess that you can sustain a 30 gold upkeep for a big colony, although the colony costs aren't the only costs for the city. I have to remark though that the colony expenses are also high when you have many smaller cities on another continent. So small undeveloped cities would also get these costs when you get many cities on another continent.

If the colony expenses are not adjusted for distance, then distance becomes a non-issue. If the distance cost is 2 for a very close colony and 15 for a distant one, then both values are eclipsed by the colony expenses of 30 plus the number of cities maintenance of say 6 (emperor level). The difference in cost between the close colony and distant colony would be 38 versus 51. I find the distance component too small in that case. One city is right next to the capital and the other is on the other side of the world, there should be a bigger difference.
The main reason that this is a problem is when you start on a small island and the main expansion route is to a nearby continent. You would suffer the full colony expenses while the cities are very close to the capital. At the start of the game, you can't maintain such expensive cities.

I would like to see a maintenance model in civ5 where the cultural levels play a more important role because that would finally make culture somewhat more important. Now culture points are relatively worthless compared to research points or gold. With a new model, culture would also become important because it influences the maintenance of the empire and thus the research points and gold.
It would also be a very 'natural' model and doesn't have to be more complicated. It could even be simpler and still be a better model. But that's something for civ5 and doesn't actually belong in this bug forum.
 
I guess that you can sustain a 30 gold upkeep for a big colony, although the colony costs aren't the only costs for the city. I have to remark though that the colony expenses are also high when you have many smaller cities on another continent. So small undeveloped cities would also get these costs when you get many cities on another continent.

I thought the costs of colonies were strictly determined by the # of cities on the Same continent as them? ... wondering have you looked at the formula?
Also if they are small, they should have a lower maintenance.

The main reason that this is a problem is when you start on a small island and the main expansion route is to a nearby continent. You would suffer the full colony expenses while the cities are very close to the capital. At the start of the game, you can't maintain such expensive cities.

There, I think the solution is obvious, Relocate your Capital.

I would like to see a maintenance model in civ5 where the cultural levels play a more important role because that would finally make culture somewhat more important. Now culture points are relatively worthless compared to research points or gold. With a new model, culture would also become important because it influences the maintenance of the empire and thus the research points and gold.
It would also be a very 'natural' model and doesn't have to be more complicated. It could even be simpler and still be a better model. But that's something for civ5 and doesn't actually belong in this bug forum.

Nice model idea, but I also agree, wrong forum.

as a Side note, I really like Maintenance as opposed to civ 1-3 corruption
 
I thought the costs of colonies were strictly determined by the # of cities on the Same continent as them? ... wondering have you looked at the formula?
Also if they are small, they should have a lower maintenance.

No I didn't look at the formula; just some testing with the world builder.

But if 9 cities of size 20 already incur the maximum cost of 100 gold, then 12 cities of size 15 might also get this cost and 16 of size 10 maybe also. I'm making up the numbers but it is true that if you have more cities on the new continent, then the colonial expenses per city rise. So at some point, small cities will already get the 100 gold maintenance. That's all I was trying to say.

There, I think the solution is obvious, Relocate your Capital.

As said before: that doesn't help if your original island is large enough to already give you significant colonial expenses per city when you move the capital to the continent.

Nice model idea, but I also agree, wrong forum.

as a Side note, I really like Maintenance as opposed to civ 1-3 corruption

Agreed, the maintenance model is far better than the corruption model.
 
Checked the formula myself, it appears to be

[(cities on this continent -1)* population modifier*map size modifier* difficulty modifier]^2

The Square is the thing that really surprises me.
The key is that both city # and population are squared. (as are the difficulty +map size modifiers)

Pop modifier is the standard (P+17)/18
Difficulty ranges from 60% to 150% (100 on Noble)
Size modifier 67% (Duel) to 45% (std) to 30% (Huge)

so assuming a standard map, size 19 cities, Noble difficulty
take the number above and multiply by (# cities-1)*2*.45

and then square so you hit the limit after ~ 12 cities (12-1)*.9=10
square to 100

If the limit was 20 you would hit it at ~6 (for same assumption... you could hold 11 size 1 cities and they would reach the limit too)

I think that would be reasonable.. no extra maintenance beyond what you get at 6 cities on a standard map [because if you have more than 6 large cities on this continent it needs to either be your home continent or a Vassal]

maybe somewhat more than 20, but not much.. I'd put 20 as the smallest maximum (probably 30 more likely and definitely no bigger than 40) since that would be an overcomeable cap to make holding onto a large developed overseas colony something that would be profitable. but only with significant investment (6 towns per city without Free Speech..4.5 Towns with Free Speech.. not counting Trade Routes.. which would definitely be profitable, even domestic ones, as they would be Intercontinental..meaning a minimum value of 2 commerce each)
 
Checked the formula myself, it appears to be

[(cities on this continent -1)* population modifier*map size modifier* difficulty modifier]^2

The Square is the thing that really surprises me.
The key is that both city # and population are squared. (as are the difficulty +map size modifiers)

Pop modifier is the standard (P+17)/18
Difficulty ranges from 60% to 150% (100 on Noble)
Size modifier 67% (Duel) to 45% (std) to 30% (Huge)

so assuming a standard map, size 19 cities, Noble difficulty
take the number above and multiply by (# cities-1)*2*.45

and then square so you hit the limit after ~ 12 cities (12-1)*.9=10
square to 100

If the limit was 20 you would hit it at ~6 (for same assumption... you could hold 11 size 1 cities and they would reach the limit too)

I think that would be reasonable.. no extra maintenance beyond what you get at 6 cities on a standard map [because if you have more than 6 large cities on this continent it needs to either be your home continent or a Vassal]

maybe somewhat more than 20, but not much.. I'd put 20 as the smallest maximum (probably 30 more likely and definitely no bigger than 40) since that would be an overcomeable cap to make holding onto a large developed overseas colony something that would be profitable. but only with significant investment (6 towns per city without Free Speech..4.5 Towns with Free Speech.. not counting Trade Routes.. which would definitely be profitable, even domestic ones, as they would be Intercontinental..meaning a minimum value of 2 commerce each)

Thanks for looking at the formula. I must say that it's a rather weird formula with squaring everything. It means that it doesn't scale well with map size. It means that you can easily bankrupt yourself by building several small cities on another continent, because there is no way that small cities can maintain these costs.

The real problem with such an implementation of the colonial expenses is that you are in serious problems when you happen to start on an island that is a bit smallish for a well sized empire, but still large enough to contain several cities. It means that you will have to expand to another continent to get a decent sized empire. But at that point you will get the colonial expenses and whether you place your capital on the larger continent or on the original island, some of your cities will get the conial expenses and that will seriously limit the expansion of your empire compared to someone who starts on the larger continent and doesn't face these additional costs.

The archipellago map and the 'Big and Small' and 'Medium and Small' maps will often encounter such a starting position and also some rare examples of the continents map and maybe some other map types with which I'm less familiar.

If the colonial expenses would scale with distance, then some of these problems could be lessened. Expanding to a nearby continent wouldn't be so expensive anymore.
 
I don’t have anyproblem. at all with Colonial Expenses. I usually play on huge maps though usually on noble or prince difficulty, I haven’t had any issues, even when setting up cities on new found islands etc…
The reason: If you are enjoying the galleon rush and settling the various islands, with only a few cities per island the Colonial Expenses are dwarfed by distance from capital modifier, and even once developed are only a few gold. Even with a new continent it only comes in once you have a large number of large cities.

I can see this getting very tricky though if you have a a situation where the map dictates that your cities will be spread fairly evenly across 2 landmasses, especially at highier difficulty levels, as colonial expenses will be unaviodable and act as a constant drain, before potentially coming bankrupting, as having 18 cities is very easy to do on a huge map, but from Roland Johansen's post, if those cities are split evenly across 2 landmasses keeping 9 of those cities will cost you 900gold, which is harsh considering you can easily have that number of cities on a single landmass.... So it does force you to either restrict the number of cities you have, concentrate on one landmass, or to grant independence to several cities as loosing just 2 cities could almost half the colonial expenses for the remaining 7, so by reducig the number of cities down to 7 cities, these would incour costs of at a guess about 400 gold... Still not great, but far better than it was.

As for 100 gold limit; to get that high you need a large number of cities of large cities, particularly on huge maps. On Noble difficulty 17 size 20 cities are needed and to be honest even on a huge map entire fully developed civilisations can have less cities than that. So to have a ‘core’ empire of at least 17 developed cities, and then to have another 17 developed cities all on the same, different landmass means upkeep should be both be of little worry as you can just crush anyone militarily, as you are twice the size of anyone else (though this could naturally add even more overheads from newly acquired cities…) and your biggest worry, as controlling 2 large groups of cities with a definite divide is always difficult when the control comes from one central locations.

Either way the only time this gets expensive is when you have overseas cities (on the same different land mass than your capital) that are collectively (number of cities on landmass) and individually (size) large enough to operate as a civilisation in their own right.
If you start on a little continent/ large island these costs and be slashed by moving your capital. If you have an empire of 20 cities, 6 on your starting landmass A, 14 on land mass B, all size 20 then with your capital on Land Mass A colonial expenses are 64gold per city for those on landmass B, or 900 gold in total, which is indeed a vast some of gold even before the effects of inflation, however this can be reduced to just 9.5 gold a city on landmass A, or 57 Gold in total( before inflation effects) by relocating your capital to land mass B. Based on the formula previous in the thread with Noble Difficulty and Huge Map. Which sounds sensible.
 
@Cornishman

You can think of situations where there is no problem or the problem can be solved, but that is not really that interesting. I'm looking at the situations where the model isn't balanced. If the starting island is that small that moving your capital will reduce the upkeep by such a huge amount, then sure there is not a big problem. But if the starting continent in your example would have had 9 instead of 6 cities, then the colonial expenses would have been 24 per city after moving the capital which is still large. If it had been 12, then the costs would be 46 per city after moving the capital.

The real problem (as said before) is when the player has to expand to another continent at the start of the game thanks to his starting position. At that point in the game even colonial expenses of 10 per city is way too high to be able to sustain. The colonial expenses of a size 1 city are 23.7% of the colonial expenses of a size 20 city. So they can be severe for starting cities on a new continent.

All of these problems could be avoided with a lower cap and a model that takes distance into account. With distance used in the model, it should be possible for a player starting in a position where you have to expand to a second continent to be able to do so without incurring huge colonial expenses because the second continent is near to the starting position.

The level related component of the formula is also quite severe. At deity, you pay 2.25 times as much for colonial expenses than at noble (say 45 gold instead of 20 gold in a specific example). There are no other difficulty level related modifiers that are this severe (as far as I recall).

Edit: As far as I've experienced, you can't grant independence to 2 out of 9 cities on another continent, it's all or nothing. I also wonder what kind of a pathetic state these 2 cities would form. They would probably have barely any happiness or health resources to be able to survive. And you as the master will probably demand several of their resources that you owned before but were lost due to the independence of the colony.
 
Roland Johansen, good points, guess I hadn't thought it through that throughly.

If the definition of continent etc... could be changed that would be very useful, so that a large island and the adjacent larger land mass (seperated by the easily crossable 1/2 tiles of water) are all concidered one landmass.

I would agree the squaring the level adjustment is very nasty

Edit: Having given given it some more thought, and now that I have realised that even if only a single tile of water sperates two landmass colonial expenses are incurred. I agree that the system needs to be rework. At present it is very harsh where your 'core' empire formed at the start of the game in split by any body of water, and would explain why I've seen rival empires literally split themself in half. My experience of colonies has been islands/ continents 1/2 way across the world.
 
@Cornishman

For civ5, I'd prefer a model where the maintenance cost of a city is (partly) linked to the strength of the cultural link to the capital. If the city is far away and there are quite some tiles between the capital and this city without your culture, then the expenses would be high (like a colony). If the city is close with high culture tiles between the capital and this city, then the cost would be low (like one of your first cities on the same landmass). Thus the maintenance of a city would depend on the number of tiles between the capital and this city and the level of culture present on these tiles.
As culture zones can pass over small areas of sea, it would solve some of the problems with the present colony system.

(In this model, culture would symbolise a civilisations identity. If the cities share the same identity/culture, then their maintenance is smaller.)
 
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