Measuring Garrison Revolution Support

[misterslack]

Garrisoned units should be subject to liberty bells, plain and simple. Fixing this and rebalancing the REF generation will go a long way will solve the two major problems with the game right now.

 

[Common Sensei]

... just leave out colonists outside colonies from the overall rebel percentage calculations or take the rougher road and change the colonists so they can be either tory or rebel? When a new colonist is born, the game would randomly choose which colonist is his parent and he'd inherit his polical views. That'd be fair, as long as the rebel propaganda filled newspapers make their way into the fort *winkwink*. (But I guess nobody from Firaxis is listening in.)

I would be okay with the percentage of rebel sentiment being the chance a colonist born there will be a rebel sympathizer. If the town is 70% Rebel, 30% Tory, those are the corresponding chances for each. If the town is 100% rebel, each colonist born should be Rebel.

If each colonist born is always Tory, that's an extra step and getting into heavier micromanagement.

 

[Gliese 581]

I would be okay with the percentage of rebel sentiment being the chance a colonist born there will be a rebel sympathizer. If the town is 70% Rebel, 30% Tory, those are the corresponding chances for each. If the town is 100% rebel, each colonist born should be Rebel.

If each colonist born is always Tory, that's an extra step and getting into heavier micromanagement.

Now you are advocating a completely deterministic mechanic, what about free choice?

Don't worry, just playing devil's advocate, I suspect your idea might work well from a game mechanics point of view.

 

[Ellestar]

A gameplay reason = a reason that it makes the game more fun/better balanced/a better game. Your reason is still a 'role playing' reason, or a 'realism' reason, or a 'story' reason, depending on how you see it. Basically, if you abstract the game to moving different kinds of marbles on a black gameboard (but with the same exact rules), what would the reason be then?

There is a good gameplay reason for it, more combat units before the revolution -> you need more bells to declare revolution -> king will send a bigger army. So, you can't just mass a big numbers, you should have a plan. IMHO it's a good thing for a strategy game.

I would be okay with the percentage of rebel sentiment being the chance a colonist born there will be a rebel sympathizer. If the town is 70% Rebel, 30% Tory, those are the corresponding chances for each. If the town is 100% rebel, each colonist born should be Rebel.

If each colonist born is always Tory, that's an extra step and getting into heavier micromanagement.

You can exploit it by transferring all your food to a 100% rebel city, all colonists will born there... Unexploitable solution will be to have an additional global pool of liberty bells that will increase by (total liberty bells everywhere / total population) each time a colonist will be born.

 

[Kraftster]

Just lost the game because of this game feature. As the french colonies, I was by far the largest and richest power in the new world. I was preparing for the upcoming fight with my lord and king by garrisoning most of my new free colonists while trying feverishly to raise my rebel sentiment. I was glad to see rebel percentages go up in my cities, 50, 60, upper 70 percent... My army was getting huge in the mean time... When I realized that my garrisons had negated the effects of my elder statesmen, George Washington had gained up on me and DoI'd on me... If I had known about this "colonist garrisons are 100% tory, always", I could have DoI maybe 30 years before Washington. Cannons not counting as garrisons proves how flawed this system is. The cannoneers aren't mindless drones, they're people with political opinions, just like infantry men or dragoons.

When you accumulate 200 food, the free colonist that appears at the city gates, is he from the old world (100% tory)? I mean, I thought the colonist was born from parents inside the city, but I guess the abundance of food attracts people from Europe? The way it works now is when you hit the 200 number, a parentless golem of ears of corn rises from the storehouse that I devoutedly loyal to the king.

How intentional is this? Is this feature in place to prevent the player from getting too strong before declaring independence? Only the city rebel / tory ratio mattered in the original Colonization. This is a major game design change from it's predecessor.

... just leave out colonists outside colonies from the overall rebel percentage calculations or take the rougher road and change the colonists so they can be either tory or rebel? When a new colonist is born, the game would randomly choose which colonist is his parent and he'd inherit his polical views. That'd be fair, as long as the rebel propaganda filled newspapers make their way into the fort *winkwink*. (But I guess nobody from Firaxis is listening in.)

That's about exactly the same as my first game experience with this..."situation."

I just won my first game, and, I basically avoided this situation, which I'm still going to call a "problem" by basically storing dozens of loads of guns and horses. 2xGalleon full of guns, Merchantman full of horses, all 5 settlements to the max with each as well. Without making much of an army I was able to get over 50% and then declare and create as much of an army as my stored resources could create. The army was sufficient to win, but, I still don't really like being forced to wait to create an army. I just don't see why bells wouldn't impact garrisoned units. Make it take longer, a lot longer if that is what is needed to keep it balanced, but, don't make units DEFENDING a city IMMUNE from any of the growing revolutionary support within the city walls.

 

[Gliese 581]

What about % chance of being born rebel or slave is based on overall rebel sentiment for all colonies? That would get around exploiting it by having everyone being born in a 100% rebel city.

 

[Volstag]

The only thing that makes sense to me is that it's a limitation on actual soldier count - ie, the more soldiers you have the worse of a problem this is, so it's an incentive to have fewer soldiers. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but we'll see I suppose.

My obligatory take on it: it would be too powerful if you could build a huge army/navy then, zip, declare independence. Further, it may accurately reflect the logistical difficulty of fielding and equipping vast standing armies comprised largely of volunteers and conscripts.

It may also be a pain in the ass.