More Colonial Players ... [CANCELED]

[raystuttgart]

Internally we had discussions again about the game needing more Colonial Players ...
Some of us said that it would make for an even more interesting gameplay.

So let us simply also discuss here.
(And sorry if I may critizise some ideas - I am just sharing my opinion honestly.)

Option 1: Having both Leaders of a Nation in a game at the same time

One idea was to have each Leader of a Nation in the game, basically each Nation having 2 active Players in parallel.
But honestly I am not a fan - to forumlate it carefully - of having 2 English Players, 2 Spanish Players, 2 French Players ... in a single game

It would feel awefully strange to me to have George Washington play against William Penn. It would kill a lot of immersion to me.
And also it would create a lot of overhead effort in e.g. DLL-Diplo Events to prevent e.g. the English King forcing you to declare War on his own colonies.

Additionally lots of other strange effects would have to be expected if 2 active Players in a game share the same Parent / King.
(e.g. What would happen in a War of Independence, what would happen with the Europe prices stored at the Parent, ...)

Personal Opinion:
It is currently a nogo for me to include this in the core mod.
There is just too much risk, too much immersion breaking and "dirty hacking" in this.

Otherwise:
As a modmod everybody can do what he likes.
It will not be my responsibility and I do not care how it is done.

Option 2: Introducing also minor historically less important Colonial Nations

For background information read e.g. here:

European colonization of the Americas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Or watch:

Yeah, in RaR we had said we would never again introduce more playable Colonial Nations, I remember.
I am fully aware of how much effort it is to do so - especially for the graphics / Nation specific ArtStyles.

And yeah I am also fully aware that the Nations I name below were awefully unsuccessful in the end and hardly rememberd by history except history nerds like me.
But we are not playing a history sim and in the game we play "alernative history" anyways so I have no problem imagining that they could have been more successful.

ALSO:
1) We never regretted to have added any of the already existing Nations - even though e.g. there was huge resistance against adding Denmark, Sweden and Russia
2) We often already said that we would not add further stuff - like e.g. adding more Yields - and after we did it was still a good decision - just a matter of motivation and effort

In other words:
I do not consider things to be "set in stone" anymore.
We can discuss stuff again, make up a new opinion and decide together.

So we could e.g. consider to add these 4 further new Nations:

• Welsian (Little Venice)
• Courland (New Courland)
• Scotland (Nova Scottia)
• Italy (i.e. Tuscany / Guiana)

Of course they should get their own unique Traits and core strategies.
But I am pretty sure that we are creative enough to make them interesting.

Maybe it is fun to play a game with not just 8 Colonial Nations but 12 of them ...
Technically there is also no reason that speaks against adding further Nations.

Personal Opinion:
Sure, it is a pretty far stretch considering historical facts to have these unimportant powers compete with giant empires of that time like the English, Spanish or Portuguese.
But if you look at e.g. all the Nations in Civ4BTS you could say the same about almost 80% of those as well, and still people like to play them.

Option 3: Do not add any other Colonial Nation at all anymore

This is of course the easiest solution.
No effort at all. No long discussions at all.

----

Well, let us collect opinions and feedback again.
By the way, this is more of a "long term" vision discussion.

 

[CurtnoAnna]

I have started a game with 2 American colonies (2 different leaders) and gone into world builder and and changed their friendship status to 100% (no chance of Penn fighting Washington-same King). Same as the French and Spanish. I ended up with around 12 colonial players. Worked fine for me.

 

[Schmiddie]

Option 3. Option 1 and 2 are ABSOLUTELY no go's for me...

Maybe I could live with a game option where you can activate or deactivate other nations. But I will not create any graphics for such nations.

 

[raystuttgart]

Option 3. Option 1 and 2 are ABSOLUTELY no go's for me...

Sorry if I ask but is this a question of effort or gameplay? Or both?

 

[Schmiddie]

Both.

 

[Schmiddie]

In any case the gameplay aspect. Effort is acceptable, if someone would else will do the work

 

[raystuttgart]

Maybe I could live with a game option where you can activate or deactivate other nations.

Custom Game basically already allows this quite easily.
You can set the first 8 Nations to the Europeans you like and then have all the others as Natives.

But I will not create any graphics for such nations.

Nobody can be forced to work on things he does not like.
So the people that would want to have it would also need to work for it.

 

[nci]

I've made a modmod of option 1 earlier this year and tested everything except WoI, it was tons of fun (for me) and worked great - although WoI will probably be heavily affected. Planning to make one for NewHope when it is released publicly, as a proof of concept. Option 2 is fantastic, but a lot of work. before even considering we must confirm there is interest in more playable nations - and that's the main draw to implement option 1.

 

[XSamatan]

IMHO the goal of this concept could be better achieved by adding minor players, as in Ray's concept about Fuggers, neutral merchants etc

Regards
XSamatan

 

[ArchdukeLiet]

For me option 1 would feel unnatural and a-historical.
On the Netherlands, all activities were organised through the West-Indian Company (WIC). It would be strange to suddenly split activities.
Perhaps for Spain it could make sense, as they were organised in different vice-royalties. But that would be the exception, so it would be a no from my side to include all leaders.

On option 2, on smaller than gigantic maps I already prefer playing only with the main colonisers (UK, FR, DU, SP and POR) and the balance for gigantic maps feel fine for me with 8 players.
Adding more would not add value in my opinion.

I agree with XSamatan that it is an interesting idea to have them added as minor nation is a special role, instead of being full players.

 

[raystuttgart]

... the goal of this concept ... neutral merchants ...

The goal of this concept is to simply have more Colonial Players on the map, thus more competition and more wars.
The goal of the concept "Neutral Traders" (here) is a totally different one, i.e. more diplomacy events and immersion.

---------

Thus neither of these concepts can replace the other or achieve the goals of the other. They are unrelated.
They are totally independent concept that also in no way do they compete with each other.

----------

My old concept for "Minor Nations" I today consider pointless because those Nations would be just weak slaughter lambs without any interesting gameplay.
And for adding those nation as "Minor Nations" we would have just the same effort if not more than adding them as "Full Nations" - giving much more gameplay.

----------

So again:

This concept is just about more colonial players for more competition and wars on the map.
It has absolutely no dependency to other concepts like "Neutral Traders" and does not compete with those.

 

[raystuttgart]

... and that's the main draw to implement option 1.

Honestly, I am not sure what this should confirm in any way.
It will simply be a modmod that player may chose due to lacking alternative in the core mod.

-----

We already know that there is interest in more playable Nations in community. (Even if it may be just a part of it.)
But like always there are also people that are against such a change ... like with every change ... there are alway people against.

-----

However a "quick and dirty" solution like "Option 1" will never convince modders like @Schmiddie or myself of anything ... quite the contrary ... it would scare me off.
The only thing that might convince me would be a proper and clean quality implementation with everything that belongs to it, which is why I suggested "Option 2".

-----

So if somebody wants to convince us to integrate something in the core mod the best solution would be to implement a "high quality additional Nation".
Because once that is ready chances would be very high that it would be integrated in the core mod - which a "quick and dirty" workaround would never be.

-----

So either we create something of quality - which we could do most efficiently together - that can become part of the core mod.
Or people create whatever "quick hack" modmod they want that will however never become part of the core mod.

------

One of those 2 alternatives will happen eventually:

1) Quality implementation in the core mod (i.e. Option 2) - where the complete team could work together
2) Quality implementation as a modmod (i.e. also Option 2) - where motivated modders need to organize
3) Quick hack implementation as a modmod - where single modders work alone

------

I would have strongly prefered alternative "Quality Implementation in the core mod" (Option 2) - which would have allowed us to work together.
But for some reason it seems like that is not in the interest of community and team - independent of who wants to contribute or not.

It would have been a good compromise that everybody could have lived with - without having any real drawbacks.
And in the end I believe that having 4 more strategically interesting Playable Nations could definitely not make the mod worse.

Would it be a lot of effort ... sure ... but all good thinks come at a price ... if you want to do them right.
Still much better than being lazy and create low quality that nobody will really be happy with from my perspective.

------

Well, I have written and given my opinion enough.
The poll will decide about it ...

 

[Cacaso]

When I play this WTP MOD, I usually found my first city close to another Nation, so that I can attack and then capture the cities (in the first turns or in the earlygame), if there is a second player closer I also attack to steal the units in his cities and transfer to mine later. Lastly, I usually end up killing 1 or 2 nation competitors in almost every game and therefore only end up with 5/6 rivals left.

I imagine that there must be players who have an even more belligerent style of play than mine. And in these situations I believe that adding new playable COLONYS would be interesting, because at the end of your wars/conquests there would still be some rivals to interact with. I think if you wipe out all the rivals (or just cripple them severely so that they're never a threat again in WOI/Founding Fathers race terms) the game kind of loses the fun of competition.

As I'm not a modder I don't know for sure, but maybe we could start with an idea of adding the COLONYS Curonian and New Venice with new graphics, using the same graphics pack, to give a little less work, for these two civs, similarly to what happens with Portugal and Spain, which have the same city images, improvments... While the Scots and Italy CIVs would use the same graphics as England and Portugal/Spain, respectively.

 

[raystuttgart]

so that I can attack and then capture the cities (in the first turns or in the earlygame)

Same for me, because especially in higher difficulties this is almost the only chance to win.
You need the additional colonits to boost your cities and get a head start of the other AIs.

Lastly, I usually end up killing 1 or 2 nation competitors in almost every game ...

In most of my old games I ended up "killing" at least the 4 strongest opponents.
(So I usually left just the weakest 3 opponents untouched to keep good relations for e.g. Events)

1) I wanted to have their cities or actually their population for my own cities
2) I wanted to prevent them from declaring War of Independence

I think if you wipe out all the rivals ... the game kind of loses the fun of competition.

Absolutley agree, which is one reason I would like to have more of them.
So even if I would wipe out 4 rivals there would still be 7 others to compete with.

-----

... of adding the COLONYS Curonian and New Venice ...

I could have worked for adding the new Colonal Nations ... I would even be motivated for it.
But I will not do so if the community and team votes against it (as it does right now).

I will also not work on modmods if there is still other work on the core mod.
And I promised that I will not force stuff into the mod against community and team.

So as long as this does not get a community majority and team support my hands are bound.
Once that changes I could support with adjusting / creating graphics and other implementation.

-----

Others can however already start working on this:

Research / Conception:

• define color scheme
• collect City Names
• collect Ship Names
• collect General Names
• collect Admiral Names
• find 2 Leaders and suitable Leaderheads
• find a "King" and a suitable Leaderhead
• work on Land Unit graphics
• work on Ship graphics
• work on interesting Traits
• create Mission and Trade Post Icons
• ...

Once an interesting Nation is created (in good quality) I think it also has good chances to be integrated.
(And once that happens I also think it will get improved internally with e.g. better graphics.)

 

[CptBadger]

My "other" is to add just two of the four, Scotland and Venice. While I know the other two and a number of other minor colonial attempts, they might be a bit obscure for many players. Since there's some resistance to adding more, two might be easier to sell than 4.

 

[raystuttgart]

My "other" is to add just two of the four, ...

Could also be possible.

It needs to start with the 1st one anyways - and once that is done the next one.
The creators of the modmod can decide how many Nations they want to do and which.

 

[raystuttgart]

Just in case somebody wants to work on this, here are 3 pretty good looking leaderheads not yet used in WTP.
(They may need some retexturing to become perfect but they could serve as a really good base of work.)

Gustav II Adolf

My Leaderheads gallery http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_(Civ5)

forums.civfanatics.com

Ivan the Terrible 2.0

My Leaderheads gallery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible

forums.civfanatics.com

Daniel of Galicia

My Leaderheads gallery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_of_Galicia

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I have started a game with 2 American colonies (2 different leaders) and gone into world builder and and changed their friendship status to 100% (no chance of Penn fighting Washington-same King). Same as the French and Spanish. I ended up with around 12 colonial players. Worked fine for me.

There have been several skirmishes between the colonies before nowadays US were formed and many of them had overlapping claims that could have and did have caused fighting.

e.g. "Virginia" had at times claimes as much as THAT (and the others were not far behind in claiming lands):

or if Washington as a warhero and military leader would have tried a Cäsar/Rubikon move.

 

[raystuttgart]

There have been several skirmishes between the colonies ...

Yeah still it would destroy immersion for me if "George Washington" and "William Penn" where somehow be playing as different Players.
(Even worse if game situations were triggered by the current mechanics that would cause war between them.)

As I said, "Both Leaders of a Nation in a game at once" is a feature I would heavily dislike and most definitely veto integration in the core mod.
(And for most of our other players it would also be immersion breaking - I am pretty sure of that.)

For me this is and stays a poor workaround just to achieve to get more Colonial Players and thus more competition in a game.
To properly implement the new Nations "Little Venice", "Nova Scottia", "New Courland" and "New Tuscany" would be much cleaner.

-----

But both ideas are disliked at the moment anyways ...
So whatever happens is up to potentially interested mod-modders.

 

[raystuttgart]

Feedback is so negative, that there is no way to develop this directly in the core mod.
So only if modders from community decide to work on this as a modmod it may become reality.

-----

If somebody wants to work on this as a modmod, I would support a bit here and there.
(Most of it can be handled by XML and finding / integrating existing graphics.)

So we could e.g. consider to add these 4 further new Nations:

• Welsian (Little Venice)
• Courland (New Courland)
• Scotland (Nova Scottia)
• Italy (i.e. New Tuscany)

We could also have it be developed as a separate development branch in our GIT-Hub.
(Which would make it a lot easier to synch and also if it turns out good to discuss again to merge it.)

-----

But for "Having both Nations in a game at the same time" do not count on my support.
I still consider it a poor workaround / hack that I want to have nothing to do with.