Midgame and Endgame Expansion

[Stalker0]

So I think its a general consensus on the board that mid game expansion is "questionable". There is a lot of debate on whether the cities ever truly pay for themselves, and most players do it mainly for strategic reasons rather than "more yields".

In theory the crux of that falls squarely on Pioneers and Colonists. These units are designed to make mid and end game expansion viable by short cutting all of the old infrastructure to get there.

So I think its time to ask the question... do we want midgame and endgame expansion to be more profitable? And if the answer is yes...the solution is simple, we add more buildings to Pioneers and Colonists to make the jump start bigger. Maybe even another pop or 2 as needed.

So lets start with a poll: Do you want Midgame and/or Endgame Expansion increased in strength?

 

[CrazyG]

I think pioneers are strong. They need some support (beliefs like scholarship help a lot) but can be very powerful.

I don't support making them stronger, but I don't strongly oppose it either. I think a reduction in cost would be better than adding buildings.

I don't think pioneers should get more population. Their low population provides opportunities to get bonus yields.

I cannot comment on the colonist. I've never used one and I don't see much need to.

 

[azum4roll]

Colonists are currently only used to settle a remote place (likely a tiny island near the poles) that even the AIs won't settle, just for the strategics.

 

[Drakle]

I think that both of them need a special puppet status where you can pick buildings, but the city produces no happiness, or unhappiness and doesn't contribute to empire science or culture penalty, for a number of turns. When I have settled Pioneers, even when feeding them a production route, and gold investing constantly, the cities basically always produce as much unhappiness as the city population, if not more depending on specialists. I mean these are people who are willing to go out, and settle new frontiers. They shouldn't be immediately complaining, as I set up basic infrastructure. Maybe with a big penalty to science and culture (but not to culture for border growth).

I also think that there needs to be a settler line unit in the Classic era. It doesn't have to have much, it could just be a monument, council and shrine. But there is way too big a gap, and often Pioneers can be too late to be useable. Colonists are nearly always too late to matter, even if they didn't cost as much as a wonder.

 

[Zanteogo]

I have said before, both units should be available earlier, but weaker and cheaper.

Once Pioneer comes along 90% of the world has been settled already. Certainly 100% for Colonist.

I think it would make the earlier game way more interesting.

 

[a3kov]

The main issue with late settling is land. Boosting settler units won't help with that.
Early game I want to settle as many as possible for my preferred policy choice/strategy. Mid game I'm focused on developing existing cities. Late game I usually have enough happiness to absorb some puppets without increasing policy/tech costs. A puppet must be really crappy and the land must be amazing in order for me to consider razing and resettling - strange combo isn't it ? Cause usually good land leads to good cities.

I think an interesting change to Pioneer/Colonist would be ability to settle puppet cities (like Venice). This way at least late settling would be a reasonable option more often (whether of not the land is occupied).

 

[Stalker0]

I think a reduction in cost would be better than adding buildings.

Personally I think regardless of other opinion this should be done, just because the cost is wonky right now. Or if that cost is really intended, increase the upgrade cost of a settler, as its soooo much cheaper just make a settler and upgrade them.

 

[Zanteogo]

Personally I think regardless of other opinion this should be done, just because the cost is wonky right now. Or if that cost is really intended, increase the upgrade cost of a settler, as its soooo much cheaper just make a settler and upgrade them.

Though I think they should be moved earlier in the tree as well.. yes for certain.

I actually plan my production around this now. I try to pop out a few regular settlers and keep them in reserve knowing the production times for the upgrade is 10 times as much.

 

[CrazyG]

Personally I think regardless of other opinion this should be done, just because the cost is wonky right now. Or if that cost is really intended, increase the upgrade cost of a settler, as its soooo much cheaper just make a settler and upgrade them.

The cost of settler-units increases based on how many cities you control. How would you and others feel about removing that? I think the -1 pop alone is enough to deter settler spamming too quickly.

 

[Stalker0]

The cost of settler-units increases based on how many cities you control. How would you and others feel about removing that? I think the -1 pop alone is enough to deter settler spamming too quickly.

I think unhappiness and the need for basic infrastructure/workers is already a decent deterrent to go crazy with settlers. Even if I can make 9 cities like crazy, without workers to build them up, without soldiers to protect them, and without buildings to make them useful, its not that much of benefit and really slows down your science/culture.

So I think its a decent starting place. And while I am comfortable trying it for all settler type units, I could respect just doing it for pioneers/colonists to start as an initial run.

 

[Zanteogo]

The cost of settler-units increases based on how many cities you control. How would you and others feel about removing that? I think the -1 pop alone is enough to deter settler spamming too quickly.

I think it's a non-factor for the regular settler because it's so cheap anyways. I wouldn't be upset to see it go though.

 

[Deljade]

As others have pointed out, the main issue of using Pioneers and Colonists is space.
But in the case of occupying new land... well, in Huge maps there is available land by the time of Pioneers quite often (the question is how close it is to you). I find it though, that Pioneer is not available by the time I get to late Medieval excess happiness, and I quite often end up building my two first filler cities with plain old Settlers, even though I am one tech away from Pioneers, due to the urgency of occupying the space before the AI.
By the time of Colonists, usually the only land left is quite remote, or rather small and uninteresting. I sometimes use one to secure an essential strategic or for a trade route to an important civ etc. Or Just for fun. I also do raze and resettle occasionally in order to consolidate 2-3 crappy cities to one stronger. In all of the above cases for Colonist, a few extra buildings would surely help.
In general, the cost of building these units feels a little steep, for Huge maps at least where there are more cities per player. On the other hand, new cities are not as punishing in terms of science and culture, so I think it's balanced out. And I think the way that a 15-16 player Huge map fills out with cities at this point is rather satisfying. Therefore the only change I would consider is a few extra buildings on the Colonist.

 

[ElliotS]

Every time I build pioneers I feel like the city is a happiness dump, and with space being so hard to find I don't think we need the double-whammy when we do find it. I'd like to see them buffed with a few extra buildings and maybe just a flat +1 or +2 local happiness.

Honestly maybe just give them a town-hall building that gives +2 local happiness, +5 production and +5 culture. It would solve most of their issues pretty well.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Honestly maybe just give them a town-hall building that gives +2 local happiness, +5 production and +5 culture. It would solve most of their issues pretty well.

This is a nice idea as long as it's 100% destroy on capture, so the bonuses would only apply to the civ that settled it.

 

[Zanteogo]

Every time I build pioneers I feel like the city is a happiness dump, and with space being so hard to find I don't think we need the double-whammy when we do find it. I'd like to see them buffed with a few extra buildings and maybe just a flat +1 or +2 local happiness.

Honestly maybe just give them a town-hall building that gives +2 local happiness, +5 production and +5 culture. It would solve most of their issues pretty well.

Though I am not against this, we are looking for the complex solution when the easiest solution is just move them both to earlier points in the tech tree (and adjust their buildings to match the point in the tech tree)

The bottom line is they are just unlocked too late for real use in actual settling. This is way better than the complex and possibly balance breaking solution of creating new buildings to make these units competitive late in game.

Heck, I wouldn't be against moving them way back but not making regular settlers obsolete right away. It would make the option of quickly building a regular settler or taking more time for a "super" one.

 

[psparky]

Though I am not against this, we are looking for the complex solution when the easiest solution is just move them both to earlier points in the tech tree (and adjust their buildings to match the point in the tech tree)

The bottom line is they are just unlocked too late for real use in actual settling. This is way better than the complex and possibly balance breaking solution of creating new buildings to make these units competitive late in game.

Heck, I wouldn't be against moving them way back but not making regular settlers obsolete right away. It would make the option of quickly building a regular settler or taking more time for a "super" one.

I modded my game to do just this a few months ago, largely because a) there was a significant period when it felt like using an ordinary settler would result in a city that would be just too far behind, and b) in 2 years of play I had never used a colonist. Based on my experiences, I think the game feels somewhat better for the change, so I would endorse this suggestion.

I adjusted the buildings to be more appropriate to the era, reduced pioneer cities to 2 pop and less free territory. Colonists became slightly better than existing pioneers. I also made the cost constant and much closer to the value of the free buildings (which meant quite a big increase).

As you suggested, I even had a period of overlap where you could build settlers (and upgrade them) or pioneers, so you could take advantage of either good production or good gold output. I subsequently removed that because perhaps I needed to tweak the AI to take proper advantage, but it was OK to play that way.

I even considered trying to make a sort of rolling settler type unit, where the buildings you get, and the cost, gradually increase as the game progresses. The idea being to make settling reasonable at any stage of the game.

 

[Delvemor]

Many people consider the issue with pioneers and colonists to be more about when you unlock them rather than how strong they are. I suggest a modified poll or a new one adding this choice too, that is, making pioneers and colonists available earlier.

 

[Stalker0]

Many people consider the issue with pioneers and colonists to be more about when you unlock them rather than how strong they are. I suggest a modified poll or a new one adding this choice too, that is, making pioneers and colonists available earlier.

To me strengthen is in the details, so we certainly could consider an early use of the unit as strenghtened it. Really the poll is to assess if we should do anything about pioneers and colonists or leave them as is.

 

[Delvemor]

To me strengthen is in the details, so we certainly could consider an early use of the unit as strenghtened it. Really the poll is to assess if we should do anything about pioneers and colonists or leave them as is.

The poll results confirm what has been said for a while now, that something should be changed about pioneers and colonists, but it doesn't mention making them available earlier specifically. The people suggesting a buff are not talking about having it earlier, they are talking about having more buildings. Some people including myself would like to have them available earlier. I still see a difference there, thus why I suggested a modified poll.

 

[Stalker0]

The poll results confirm what has been said for a while now, that something should be changed about pioneers and colonists...

I would actually argue that the results for Pioneers are pretty "meh", I don't see a strong drive for change there so far. The colonist has stronger appeal, we will see as the poll continues.