[MOD] Age of Discovery II

[Dale]

Yes I'm aware, and I must apologise. Apolyton is going through some changes at the moment (new forums, etc) and it's having wide-ranging consequences on all domains they have. It should be right soon.

 

[jenks]

Why the anger against converted natives? I don't see why a native, having been converted to a religion wouldn't then try to convert other natives. I also don't see why they can't learn skills from native villages.

I see the argument for them not training in Indian villages.

I don't know why they can't be made missionaries, can't see much reasoning there - anybody?

I would also be interested in seeing another return to col1 where missionaries can only be 'blessed' in Europe, or in a colony which has a church or cathedral (presently can be done in any colony)

 

[Dale]

Well the argument against native missionaries is that the Pope classed the natives as barbarians and whilst wanted them converted, would never have allowed them a position within the church.

 

[The Great Apple]

Fair enough on the native missions.

Me and my friend just finished a multiplayer game. Standard size, normal speed and all the other European civs as AIs. Governor difficulty. Pirates and the new victory conditions were both disabled. I won fairly easily on turn ~215 by independence. A few comments (some which also apply to the original game):

Trade:
Buy/Sell prices seem a bit odd - buying stuff from Europe which isn't grown there should be expensive. Selling guns to Europe also seems to be a very good way of getting rich quick. If you have an ironworks and an arsenal you can kick them out pretty effectively.


Immigration:
The reduced cross requirement seems to have gone too far. I agree that it should have been reduced but now we seem to get far too many immigrants - if you spend some of your early cash in hurrying preachers and build up a cathedral in one city you're never short of immigrants and barely have space on the boats for them all. Compound multiplication makes this a massive gameplay change - if I understand the mechanics correctly your 20th immigrant is approximately 10 times cheaper with 10% increase than with a 25% increase.

To summarize for the 20th immigrant (if I've got the mechanics right):
10% - 6.11 times original cost.
15% - 14.2 times original cost.
20% - 31.9 times original cost.
25% - 69.4 times original cost.

I realize you probably intend this to be the case but it seems like an absolutely massive gameplay change to me making cross generation far too important.


REF:
Far too many indestructible boats! I'm never going to have a navy big enough to defeat 30 Man o' Wars. If they had just 10 and had double the ground forces I'd be in trouble though. Your screeny from 1.06 seems to suggest that this is fixed. Tbh, I've found the only use for frigates & SotL are for fighting other colonials (will they build privateers in 1.06?) - you never stand a chance against the MoW. Pirates probably change this somewhat I imagine.


Cannons:
I think they're fine, but I never really used them to attack cities. My friend complained bitterly at how underpowered they had become when attacking cities. This has been fixed in 1.06 by adding vet soldiers with colony attack.


Bugs:
My friend (on an older computer) had pink squares around his ships in the Europe screen. Also had a few OOS messages which I think you're aware of (seemed to start when we started using the pacific).


This may sound all negative but we had much more fun with this mod than with the original unmodded game. Thanks!

 

[Dale]

Glad you guys had fun, and constructive criticism always welcomed.

Fair enough on the native missions.

Me and my friend just finished a multiplayer game. Standard size, normal speed and all the other European civs as AIs. Governor difficulty. Pirates and the new victory conditions were both disabled. I won fairly easily on turn ~215 by independence. A few comments (some which also apply to the original game):

Trade:
Buy/Sell prices seem a bit odd - buying stuff from Europe which isn't grown there should be expensive. Selling guns to Europe also seems to be a very good way of getting rich quick. If you have an ironworks and an arsenal you can kick them out pretty effectively.

Yes, I agree some balancing needs to be done with buy/sell prices. Some sell prices need to be a lot lower than their buy price. This will happen in the future though, still working on core mechanics.

Immigration:
The reduced cross requirement seems to have gone too far. I agree that it should have been reduced but now we seem to get far too many immigrants - if you spend some of your early cash in hurrying preachers and build up a cathedral in one city you're never short of immigrants and barely have space on the boats for them all. Compound multiplication makes this a massive gameplay change - if I understand the mechanics correctly your 20th immigrant is approximately 10 times cheaper with 10% increase than with a 25% increase.

To summarize for the 20th immigrant (if I've got the mechanics right):
10% - 6.11 times original cost.
15% - 14.2 times original cost.
20% - 31.9 times original cost.
25% - 69.4 times original cost.

I realize you probably intend this to be the case but it seems like an absolutely massive gameplay change to me making cross generation far too important.

I think you'll find when 1.06 comes out that you will want every immigrant you can get your hands on due to the AI hurry fix.

The main intent was that with the larger maps there is more space, and also wanted to increase natural immigration over vanilla. I argued against the high immigration threshold increases during the beta tests as it becomes much harder to keep immigration going further into the game (which is extremely contrary to history).

REF:
Far too many indestructible boats! I'm never going to have a navy big enough to defeat 30 Man o' Wars. If they had just 10 and had double the ground forces I'd be in trouble though. Your screeny from 1.06 seems to suggest that this is fixed. Tbh, I've found the only use for frigates & SotL are for fighting other colonials (will they build privateers in 1.06?) - you never stand a chance against the MoW. Pirates probably change this somewhat I imagine.

Yes, wait till 1.06 before we revisit there.
Yes, the AI still builds privateers.

Cannons:
I think they're fine, but I never really used them to attack cities. My friend complained bitterly at how underpowered they had become when attacking cities. This has been fixed in 1.06 by adding vet soldiers with colony attack.

Seems to work well the switch. Gives infantry more of a role in war. Whereas previously you would only take cannons and dragoons.

Bugs:
My friend (on an older computer) had pink squares around his ships in the Europe screen. Also had a few OOS messages which I think you're aware of (seemed to start when we started using the pacific).

Yep, but so much to get done and very limited time (wife is about to give birth in the next week).

 

[Newfloridian]

This is my first post in this forum and I have been delighted with the playability of the mod (currently at level 1.04). I have kept abreast of developments by continual reading. This has been particularly gratifying to me as of all the old PC games of fond memory, Colonization stood alongside X-COM: Enemy Unknown. I have been contributing in a small way to the mods of the recent new version of that old favourite, namely UFO:Extra-terrestrial

One fairly common thread I have noted through these pages are the arguments for more / less; bigger / smaller; aggression / peace; pirates / no pirates etc as each mod has been launched and then picked over. I wonder whether it would be possible to amalgamate all the game variables into a settings and configuration screen so that each end user can pick and choose his own way through the game.

I have attached the screen from UFO:ET here which gives access to over one hundred settings and fine tunings - one of which even allows you to import the old X-COM aliens and personel to fight against and alongside you.

 

[Skip2MeLou]

One more small bug: I've noticed that my privateers can not enter rival territory without declaring war when they come directly from a coastal settlement.

 

[KrisJones]

Dale,

Have you considered or would it be possible for you to create a Mod for Civ 4 BTS that incorporates a similar economic/resource program as seen in Colonization.

It would be awesome if people were required to harvest Ivory and Gems and eventually Uranium while possibly needing a certain amount of Aluminum to create a Modern Armor and etc.

Is that possible to do?

 

[Dale]

Dale,

Have you considered or would it be possible for you to create a Mod for Civ 4 BTS that incorporates a similar economic/resource program as seen in Colonization.

It would be awesome if people were required to harvest Ivory and Gems and eventually Uranium while possibly needing a certain amount of Aluminum to create a Modern Armor and etc.

Is that possible to do?

It's possible (as Col shows) but I'm not the right man for the job. I don't play BtS anymore, having moved onto Col.

I was always more a Col fan than a Civ fan anyways.

 

[Dale]

This is my first post in this forum and I have been delighted with the playability of the mod (currently at level 1.04). I have kept abreast of developments by continual reading. This has been particularly gratifying to me as of all the old PC games of fond memory, Colonization stood alongside X-COM: Enemy Unknown. I have been contributing in a small way to the mods of the recent new version of that old favourite, namely UFO:Extra-terrestrial

One fairly common thread I have noted through these pages are the arguments for more / less; bigger / smaller; aggression / peace; pirates / no pirates etc as each mod has been launched and then picked over. I wonder whether it would be possible to amalgamate all the game variables into a settings and configuration screen so that each end user can pick and choose his own way through the game.

I have attached the screen from UFO:ET here which gives access to over one hundred settings and fine tunings - one of which even allows you to import the old X-COM aliens and personel to fight against and alongside you.

Yes, I plan on a program like this.

 

[KrisJones]

Dale,

I understand your position.

My only complaint against Colonization is the lack of multiplayer capabilities or attention, if you will.

There was much more focus on the benefits of multiplayer in Civ 4 than Col.

Do you feel it would be worth you time to foster a more mutliplayer oriented version of Colonization?

 

[Dale]

I would like to include MP in the mod. For sure! You are right in that col's MP < civ's MP. I hope I can bring all the features of AoD to MP. I'm trying to ensure I have MP functionality for all things I add, but occasionally I slip up and an error gets through.

I do have them in mind to fix, it's just I'd like to get the core of the game working how I want it to before fixing up auxillery things like graphics, fine-tuning balance and MP. But they are not less important, just less priority at this point in dev.

So I hope you stick around and help to ensure MP is heard.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Is there a way to have single-unit graphics instead of multiple unit graphics?

 

[Rusty Nail]

The mod (1.04) plays very well, especially with the new victory conditions and aggressive AI (forces you to think aboiut defence). I thnk it could be even better with the following additions:

1) a domination victory condition as in BTS, especially in conjunction with 2) and 3).
2) additional units, including unique units, for greater variety in game play.
3) introduce some of Rusty Gamer's ideas from his innovative "10 colonies" mod, for example, that certain buildings ( including military buildings) can first be built conditional on the number of colonies and infrastructuure, etc. It is a bit like introducing a simple tech tree.

These changes would introduce many new strategies and utilize the full potential of the game. Winning would require going to war with both the natives and other colonies in a longer game.

Great iniative, Dale. Its getting better than BTS.

Just some thoughts for you to consider.

 

[qpalzm]

I just signed up to this site (to find I had registered with my email some years ago, sorry for the stupid user name ).... to say thanks to you Dale and Co. for the awesome mod

Now it's off to play some multiplayer with my wife (she loves this game), lucky me

 

[The Great Apple]

* Units on the way to, or in Europe get intercepted by the King when you declare independance.

Can you explain this mechanic a bit more? I've never managed to get anything to Europe after a DoI (all those Man o' Wars kill 'em). Is it insta-death, or a % damage? What are the chances of it occurring?

 

[Dale]

Can you explain this mechanic a bit more? I've never managed to get anything to Europe after a DoI (all those Man o' Wars kill 'em). Is it insta-death, or a % damage? What are the chances of it occurring?

On the turn you DoI, any unit on the way to Europe or in Europe are captured by the King. Any units on the way back to the New World make it back (aren't captured).

In vanilla, if you have a unit in Europe when you DoI, they remain in Europe to be used after you win the WoI. A bit far fetched as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Lajbi]

Just a quick feedback : The REF and independance of the pirates (which exists (in numbers or value) but has no role, when one plays them) will make a small bug in the beginning of the game if the AI controls them. From the very first turn they declare their independence (unofficially or out-of-play), which triggers the Pirate King and its veterans appear in the map (I encountered them in the 5th turn or so). They don't attack (automatic peace is made) but I dunno if they could like pirates do without declaring war. In addtion you cannot contact the Pirate King still the foreign adv. shows him and his mood towards you. So that's one plus nation from the start to confront. And oh yes the pirates and their king appear totally separately in the map far away from each other, whick make them unable to battle...

 

[Jean Lannes]

Yeah I've encountered the pirate king quite a few times as well haha.

 

[tripecac]

In 1.0.5, I'm still getting crashes when clearing specialties. Is anyone else getting those crashes?