Indentured Servants, Immigration, Pirates, and getting Missionaries for English

[JosEPh_II]

Have been playing WTO for past 2 days and one thing is standing out to me. For the English getting a varied Immigration select of colonists is very hard. The ones that do show up on the Docks are almost always Indentured servants. Where is the balance the stock game or even RaR had before? Is this intentional?

After you bring the Indentured servant (IS for short now) to your colonies it does not take very long before they run away. If the Settlement is Guarded by any Military unit IS and Slaves (all kinds) should be slowed down in their chances to run. But this does not seem to matter.

After you recapture the IS or slave runaway it's just a matter of a few turns and they runaway again. In my main WTP game on Pioneer Difficulty I have already had to recapture some of the same IS 3-4 times by 1587AD. By this time I would just as soon Kill the escaped unit upon recapture than to bring it back to my colony.

What does it take to get the IS to upgrade to regular colonist?

On Immigration, after purchasing, from the group available for that purpose on the docks, how long does it take for the Cost to start to come back down. Prices just keep escalating. Trades Colonist candidates available in the Drop down list are also very high. Too high to be of much use early game.

And speaking of early game it is my contention that Privateers show up too early as well. By 1560AD they roam the Coastlines. And it is not easy to get enough money together even on Pioneer Difficulty level to buy a ship that can withstand a Privateer attack. As every time you buy an entry level ship like the Caravel or Fluyt the next one gets More expensive. This also makes building early game fishing boats a waste of resources and time.

Now the one thing about the Privateer that I have not figured out is....is the Privateer from a rival Country or a Pirate ship? And if it's from a rival Country then the English are sorely at a disadvantage from the Other European powers in this regard.

Finally to get Missionaries is extremely hard even on the Pioneer Difficulty level. Even with "donating to the Church" to appease the Cardinal "thief". Much less get better Colonists available at the docks.

I suppose the plan of the Mod is to use the IS and convert them to Missionaries once you get them to the Colonies. Is this the Plan for them? This would stop the constant runaway problems of the IS at least.

Well I hope my list does not give you the impression I do not like WTP. I actually do! And I see great potential in it too. It is actually more consistent than Vanilla Colonization on how things work. I applaud the team on that.

Keep up the Good work. But "warning" I will probably have more questions as I play further into the Mod.

JosEPh

 

[ConjurerDragon]

In my last game with WtP I always send Indentured Servants to indian settlements to learn a trade there. Using them for a prolonged time without trying to educate them to a specialty seems useless to me.

 

[Nightinggale]

The ones that do show up on the Docks are almost always Indentured servants. Where is the balance the stock game or even RaR had before? Is this intentional?

It's not intended by any current team member, but it will take some detective work to figure out if it's vanilla or added by somebody at some point. The origin really doesn't matter to me. The question is how we (the people around today) want this to work.

I really don't like the runaway feature. It seems really unbalanced and annoying. The only thing you can really do about it is to place guards on the map where you predict they will run off to. Where they will run off to is broken too because it can become predictable and it might not be on the same island as the colony. I once saw a small island with like 5 plots and it had more than 5 runaway units because it happened to be the favorite location to run to from the next island.

You should keep in mind that units can only run away if they work on plots. If you place them on buildings, they will stay. However they all have negative modifiers when working in buildings, making them suck for doing that. IS, criminals and slaves can all run away.

IS can be trained in native settlements, meaning that's a good way to turn them into useful units. If there is nothing useful around you, you can train them to something you don't need and then clear specialty, which will turn them into free colonists. Schools can also turn criminals into servants and servants into free colonists, though it takes a while.

On Immigration, after purchasing, from the group available for that purpose on the docks, how long does it take for the Cost to start to come back down. Prices just keep escalating. Trades Colonist candidates available in the Drop down list are also very high. Too high to be of much use early game.

You can produce crosses in the colonies. The top of the Europe screen tells you how many crosses you need to gain a free unit. If you buy a unit, it will count as getting a free unit and clear the cross stockpile, but the more crosses you have, the more discount you will get. The price runaway is actually reduced compared to vanilla.

And speaking of early game it is my contention that Privateers show up too early as well. By 1560AD they roam the Coastlines. And it is not easy to get enough money together even on Pioneer Difficulty level to buy a ship that can withstand a Privateer attack. As every time you buy an entry level ship like the Caravel or Fluyt the next one gets More expensive. This also makes building early game fishing boats a waste of resources and time.

Now the one thing about the Privateer that I have not figured out is....is the Privateer from a rival Country or a Pirate ship? And if it's from a rival Country then the English are sorely at a disadvantage from the Other European powers in this regard.

Odds are that they are from the barbarian player, but you can't tell for certain. You can kill pirates from other countries without getting a bad relationship with that country or going to war. That's kind of the idea with hidden nationality units. You can fight without being at war.

You shouldn't get the most primitive ships. Instead get the brigantine. It has a decent cargo hold and bonus when defending against pirates. It will usually be damaged, but survive.

Barbarians appear as none, animals, pirates depending on some trigger condition. However I feel like this trigger condition is severely flawed as the strongest player might be able to fight them off while the weaker players can be severely screwed. This means the best players can get further ahead without doing anything. In order to keep the game interesting, the game should help the weak players in order to still make them a challenge or do nothing, which prays on weak players.

Also as you mentioned, pirates makes fishing boats mostly useless and the same goes for whaling boats. If they are to be used, you essentially needs to box in an area to make it pirate free and if you have enough warships to do that, you have already won the game because blocking ports of the other players will be trivial.

Ideas on how pirates and animals should work are most welcome. One idea, which came up recently is to place pirate settings in the difficulty level and/or map options. Ideas on how this could work would be nice.

Finally to get Missionaries is extremely hard even on the Pioneer Difficulty level. Even with "donating to the Church" to appease the Cardinal "thief". Much less get better Colonists available at the docks.

This comes down to getting dock units being a game of luck. I once got a farmer, fisherman and lumperjack by finding a pirate treasure during turn 1. Since I started with expert carpenters, I was off to a quick start with very high production of food and hammers. In other games you get none of those for ages.

If you have an idea on how picking unit types for immigration should work, do speak up. It needs to be a balance between not being the same each game and way too random. It does keep track of how many units you get of each kind on the dock meaning there is code to avoid getting the same over and over.

 

[JosEPh_II]

You shouldn't get the most primitive ships. Instead get the brigantine. It has a decent cargo hold and bonus when defending against pirates. It will usually be damaged, but survive.

I had a fleet that was made up of 1 caravel and 1 fluyt. They got killed in back to back turns. Just as I was purchasing an East Indiaman (6 cargo holds) strength of 38. Both the fluyt and Caravel were loaded and starting to head back to Europe. Big losses when I could least afford it.

The East lasted for sometime holding it's own against the William Parker Privateer. But last turn I just lost it as it got tag teamed 1 tile from Jamestown by 2 Privateeers. Back to back fights! And with a load of 300 silver on board too. My treasury was 2200+ at the time. The king provided a Caravel but jacked the tax rate accordingly. Now with only a caravel and 2 privateers patrolling my coasts, I'm thinking that this game on Pioneer Difficulty may just have been made into toast! Ugh!

It does keep track of how many units you get of each kind on the dock meaning there is code to avoid getting the same over and over.

I guess Master farmers, Fisherman, Carpenters, and Balck Smiths are not on that list. Not a single one of them has shown up


I just finally got my 1st Founding father Thomas Cook which gave me 3 Firebrand Preachers. I have over 50,000 exploration points but Severely lacked in any other category. It's not feasible to put a young colony On Politics, Religion, etc and expect it to grow. And it's now 1610AD. One would hope that meeting 6 Indian tribes would also give some politics.

Still this has been quite the learning experience. I did learn how to use a Monastery. but I'll probably have to start a new game to get proper usage out of them.

Final thought on the English selection, it seems to be the most difficult of European powers to play. All the Other Euro picks get big bonuses in places were it really counts like ships, military units and production. Crosses for the English don't mean much for colony growth and production when you don't get Missionaries, Evangelists or Firebrand Preachers at the Docks.

It's been awhile since I played Colonization and with the Mod RaR. So I am very rusty. But I was never a great player for Colonization anyway. Strange since I'm an Immortal player with BtS. And I'm on the Mod team for caveman2Cosmos. Maybe that's my problem! I've gotten so wrapped up in C2C that the way to play Colonization never sunk in!

 

[JosEPh_II]

In my last game with WtP I always send Indentured Servants to indian settlements to learn a trade there. Using them for a prolonged time without trying to educate them to a specialty seems useless to me.

This a play style I will need to adopt.

 

[CptBadger]

I've always found the english the most OP, for this same reason. IS can be sent to natives and trained, cleared for free colonists. Throw horses or weapons on them they can become seasoned or veterans fairly quickly. Tools to become pioneers. The overwhelming flood of bodies makes my colonies thrive even on hardest difficulty, it's just about allocation. My priorities are in order as follow... food/ immigration, hammers (including lumber), pioneering, scouting, goods production for sale, tools (incl ore), then amassing an army. A free colonist (formerly IS using natives) can perform any task passably. And learn quick enough as english, though not as fast as others. Now the ratios could be a little better balanced with specialists from Europe, but then again a LOT of english colonists were exactly that. IS.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Doing much better with the 3rd game. Getting the Brigatine really helped, as did a Galleon. I still want the East Indiaman. Now I also have a Frigate and That has really put a big dent in the Privateer infestation. But I also need a Privateer to access Port Royale since my Jamestown Fur Party against the King's excessive taxation.

Seems like every time you get your gold over 4000 the King and Cardinal come knocking for hand outs. Or want you to buy slaves at inflated prices, just like the natives do.

And what is up with the Train Oil event? Sure you can get an Expert Train Oil for 1500 gold from the event. But how many do you really need? Especially before 1610AD?

The Mod has been consuming my leisure time.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Got my 1st real taste of Colonial Warfare with the Mod when the King declared war on Portugal my southern neighbor. And then the Algonquins Declared War on me. So 2 factions to fight at the same time. And the Native one integrated throughout my Colonial area.

With the Troops and Man-O-war the King provided I was able to destroy 1 Portugal city and many improvements before the king aske me to stop because the King of Portugal "asked him too stop" my forces. Which in turn allowed me to redirect those same forces against my Native opponent. I think I will leave 2 Algonquins villages intact after I have chased down and eliminated all war parties of Braves.

 

[FaarmAnimal]

To reply to the OP:

I have played the English as well as other nations and have seen all the units on the docks that you don't seem to get. I think it must just be unlucky if you aren't getting more useful units.

Also, as mentioned, you can use any unit as a missionary. I think it is fine as it is - i also send the indentured servants to learn a skill in native settlements or as a missionary.

I agree that the events need tweaking.

 

[lyciummusic]

Note that "pupil" natives convert and "teacher" natives teach faster than others.

 

[raystuttgart]

The ones that do show up on the Docks are almost always Indentured servants. Where is the balance the stock game or even RaR had before? Is this intentional?

Maybe you just had a bit of bad luck.
Because although yes, Indentured Servants and Normal Settlers are more common than others, you should also get some Specialists.

And yes, in RaR already the chances of Indentureds Servants and Normal Settlers was increased a little bit compared to Vanilla or TAC.
But it was not that dramatic.

After you bring the Indentured servant (IS for short now) to your colonies it does not take very long before they run away.
...
What does it take to get the IS to upgrade to regular colonist?

There is some random factor in there. But the logic increases chances every turn a little of actually running away.

Running away can be prevented by e.g. Training them in Native Villages or by Education. They also won't run away if you let them work as Pioneers or Scouts outside the city.
Also - if you employ them in a Profession - Indentured Servants have a chance of becoming "Free Settlers".

On Immigration, after purchasing, from the group available for that purpose on the docks, how long does it take for the Cost to start to come back down.

You need to produce Crosses to reduce the price of hiring at the Docks. It will not simply be reduced over time.

Now the one thing about the Privateer that I have not figured out is....is the Privateer from a rival Country or a Pirate ship?

There are two different Units.
- Privateers --> They are produced or bought by other European Ships
- Pirates --> They are from the Barbarian Player and spawned by DLL with some random factor and a minimal time (all configurable in XML)

Finally to get Missionaries is extremely hard even on the Pioneer Difficulty level.

The Experts are a very powerful Unit and relatively rare. But you do not necessarily need the Expert Unit. You can just use the Profession.
There are a couple of Python Events and DLL Events that will give you Missionaries and also Founding Fathers. But there are also chances that they voluntarily appear in the queue on the Docks.

But "warning" I will probably have more questions as I play further into the Mod.

Go ahead and ask.
We know that RaR and WTP are more complex than Vanilla.

We also know that Civ4Col mechanics work a bit differently than Civ4 mechanics.
It is a matter of getting used to those and adapting your strategies.