Immigration Overhaul [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Immigration Overhaul

Hi guys,

today we again had some discussion about Immigration.
(And as a reaction to it this concept evolved.)

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Problem description:

Due to the high production of Crosses in late game, there is just too much of Immigration (in late game).
In early game however the Immigration is perfectly fine and would not need to be changed generally.

Also we do not want to completely devalue production of Crosses / usage of Preachers in late game.
The player should still be able get a steady flow of Immigrants if this is the strategy he wants to play.

Spoiler :

Potential issue if we would just mess with the XML balancing for Immigration only:

We could create a balancing issue related to e.g. value of Preachers vs. value of Farmers.
Because if Immigration is too slow, it might be smarter to have Preachers become Farmers.
Because Growth by Food might then create more Colonists than Immigration by Crosses.

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Thus we agreed to these measures:

1) Small Balancing changes: Max. Immigration Threshold gets increased but Immigration Threshold Increase Rate gets lowered in exchange
2) New Feature: Once a Threshold of Immigrants Waiting on Docks is reached, this temporarily increases Immigration Threshold (relative to Immigrants waiting on Dock)

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How this affects gameplay:

Docks will not overlow with unused Immigrants anymore beause Immigration will regulate itself.
Player is incentivised to bring at least his most valuable Immigrants to the colony or risk losing them.

In other words:

There is some new layer of strategy in Immigration now that the Player will need to take care of: To balance Immigrants waiting on Dock.
Little may change for early game as long as player brings all immigrants to his colonies, but midgame to endgame will be affected by this.

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Remarks:

All of this can be fully balanced in XML and even deactivated completely.
(e.g. No chance to migrate, or no Immigration Threshold increase, ... will deactivate it.)

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Feedback still welcome.

 

[8BitArchitect]

Excessive immigration/population growth is one of my pet peeves with Col. I had a personal mod with some tweaks with version 3.x where I simply removed the cap on the amount of crosses required to generate an immigrant. This mostly solved the problem, but did mean immigrants essentially stopped being generated at a certain point in the game (which didn't really bother me because I could generate and train new citizens in the colonies quite quickly anyway.)

I think points one and three in this system would do a very good job of balancing immigration. I suppose point two is required to avoid immigrants simply switching back and forth between two (or more) players docks if no one has the ability or desire to transport them quickly enough.

Overall I'm quite excited to see this change implemented. Hopefully along with the proposed growth changes it will eliminate the problem I often seemed to have in 3.x of having lots of citizens with no useful jobs to place them in (and not really wanting to found and develop a new settlement for that.)

 

[VegetableRights]

In early game there should be miners, lumberjacks and pioneers. Instead I have a dock full of professionals I am not ready to use.

Yes, I can strip the profession, but would it not make sense to balance the units appearing on the docks to be more useful as time goes by?

 

[canexpthat]

In early game there should be miners, lumberjacks and pioneers. Instead I have a dock full of professionals I am not ready to use.

Yes, I can strip the profession, but would it not make sense to balance the units appearing on the docks to be more useful as time goes by?

I wonder if an element of immersion can be applied here. Historically, what kind of people were most likely to want to move to the New World from Europe in the 1500s vs 1600s vs 1700s? Or, what kind of people were most likely to want to move to a New World destination that was mostly for extractive purposes (Spanish), fur trading in cold places (France), or settling down for a new life in general (England)? I'm personally ok with the way it is now, but just throwing some ideas out there.

 

[VegetableRights]

I completely understand the idea that people from all walks of life are coming to start a new chapter, so in that sense it is immersive. My issue is purely from a player-friendly perspective. Even a slight bias would help the player.

 

[raystuttgart]

Instead I have a dock full of professionals I am not ready to use.

That is intentional.

Just like in a card game, the game does not just deal you a hand to easily win.
If it would just give you the "perfect most suitable settlers" it would be boring.

So instead it some of the time gives you things that do not perfectly match.
Thus you actually have to think and most likely also have to adjust your strategy.

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Basically what you are asking is:
Remove the challenge and make it nice and convenient.

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Even a slight bias would help the player.

There is. More common Professions are more likely.
Still there is a lot of randomness in the game.

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E.g. you get a Cigar Trader and have no Tobacco?
Well, maybe the game wants to challenge you to found a new City to get Tobacco.
Then it is up to you to decide if you want to adjust your strategy or not ...

 

[VegetableRights]

Basically what you are asking is:
Remove the challenge and make it nice and convenient.

Slightly incorrect paraphrasing. Of course I am not actually saying that. I was merely exploring a ' slightly less' challenging direction

Nevertheless, you have explained your reasoning and I fully respect that.

 

[raystuttgart]

Nevertheless, you have explained your reasoning and I fully respect that.

It is simply not possible that the game "calculates" what the player actually wants to do and fits best into his strategy.
Even trying to do something like that would ruin performance - also it would not really be fun to always give the player "what he wants".

And being spammed with boring bread and butter (Miners, Lumberjacks, Farmers, Servants, ...) is most likely not as fun as you may expect.
Then people will / would complain as well: "The Immigration just gives me Units I already have and do not really need anymore. It must be more interesting! "

In other words:
We have already been there and done that. What we have currently is better.
I rather have surprise and challenge than being bored with "standard stuff" that somehow always fits.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, this is now (fully) implmemented.

Spoiler :

With current balancing (all fully configurable in XML):
Once more than 5 Colonists wait already on docks, immigration threshold will increase by 10% with each additional colonists.
So if you want to have full immigration speed, better check that not too many Colonists get piled waiting on the docks.

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It is a linar relation after 5.
(So it is pretty easy to calcuatle in your head.)

0-5 Units waiting: No increase
6 Units waiting: +10% to immigration threshold
7 Units waiting: +20% to immigration threshold
8 Units waiting: +30% to immigration threshold
...

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Balancing variables in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml:
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GLOBAL_DEFINE_MIN_UNITS_ON_DOCK_BEFORE_THRESHOLD_INCREASED
Threshold of Units waiting before the feature kicks in and adds a modifier.

GLOBAL_DEFINE_IMMIGRATION_THRESHOLD_MODIFIER_UNITS_ON_DOCK
Percentage modifier for each additional Unit --> Set to 0 to fully deactivate the feature.

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Comment:
I did not implement that Units might leave the Docks again, as it would have little gameplay value.
(Also it would not really be any fun feature because not really adding any gameplay decisions.)

Credits:
Credits also to @jooe who had already implemented the base implemenation.
I just improved it a bit by making also the threshold variable XML configurable and displaying the effect in Europe Screen.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

I have updated the mod but am not getting a message that the emigration threshold has been increased. I understand correctly that it should appear in the top center of the screen?

 

[raystuttgart]

You need to "Mouse Over" the Immigration Bar.
(And it only shows the red text once you have more than 5 immgrants on the dock.)

See here:

Spoiler :