Native AI

[Hydrok9]

Hi everyone, I just discovered that there was a living successor to R&R yesterday! Very excited to find out that you guys are keeping this alive. Thank you!!

Colonization is a great game and it's too bad that Firaxis did such a lazy lazy job with the remake and left it up to the fans to fix.

However, I still think the game is broken due to the way Native civs work. They don't care about encroachment on their territory at all and it ruins the game imo. They simply hand over their cities to you when your borders surround them. They never attack you unless you attack them first and there's no reason to be wary of them reacting to your expansion. All you have to do is pay a few hundred gold to settle right beside their cities and they'll eventually just give up "as a sign of respect."

Is there any chance this can be fixed? The original Colonization had a threat level for every native civ and village. It worked great - you had to be aware that the natives were going to realize that you were taking as much of their land as possible and that you had lots of gold to pay for it. You could strike a balance between expansion and cooperation but inevitably there would be attacks by angry braves who were scared by your growing size. There's nothing like this in the remake. The natives just sit around to be ripped off and then happily disappear off the map.

If it's possible, I think it would finally make this a true successor to original Col.

 

[CptBadger]

I think it could be slightly better balanced. But it does agitate the natives when your borders expand over their territory. I've seen plenty refuse to give their village up because they didn't like me enough

 

[rah]

At the highest difficulty level they will declare war when you settle cities. Even your first one. I played one the other day where three tribes declared when I settled my first city.

 

[Hydrok9]

I think it could be slightly better balanced. But it does agitate the natives when your borders expand over their territory. I've seen plenty refuse to give their village up because they didn't like me enough

They should be attacking you when they're surrounded. Not just agitated. I mean, you've stolen their land. They can be literally surrounded and have no land left but the one tile for their city and they won't do anything about it except have the negative modifier to their diplo score.

It really seems like it was something that was only implemented due to them rushing the game out. When you build your first settlement, the natives give you the land "because you are a small band of nomads." They don't mind giving up some of their territory because they don't realize there will be so many of you coming. But you, as the colonizer, know that to win, you are going to take as much land as possible - and when you do, the natives don't react! Unless you directly take up arms against them they just sit there. I'm sure that the programmers meant to have a similar system to the original Colonization, where the natives try to stop your expansion when you encroach on them enough, but they didn't have time to implement it. So they just came up with this stop gap solution of having the natives just give up and get deleted off the map.

 

[Hydrok9]

At the highest difficulty level they will declare war when you settle cities. Even your first one. I played one the other day where three tribes declared when I settled my first city.

Oh really? I'm on Governor now. I'll restart on highest and see what happens.

Even so, I still feel like if it's possible to make them more sensitive to your expansion on the lower difficulties, it would add a lot of challenge and historical accuracy to the game. I'm not sure you'll find many historical examples where the native Americans just gave up their settlements to colonizers because they respected them so much...imo, they should never just give up their land - they should demand you pay for the land you've expanded into and attack you if you don't.

 

[Alignn]

They already launch raids if they're mad enough, which can be annoying even if your troops fend them off if they for example ruin your building progress just before it was finished. But it does seem weird that they just give up cities. Certainly makes playing "nice" with them easier though

 

[Hydrok9]

At the highest difficulty level they will declare war when you settle cities. Even your first one. I played one the other day where three tribes declared when I settled my first city.

Ive been playing a few hours on the highest difficulty and same result. Caribs are annoyed with me but they don't raid. Then I got them to declare war through a ruin random event and they still havent attacked me after 10 turns!

Actually, it seems like the bigger issue here is the introduction of culture by the mod. The base game doesn't have culture (correct me if im wrong) so your borders are static. Now they can expand, but the natives dont recognize that and they don't ask for payment when your borders take over their territory. They also create no culture, so they can't counteract your cultural spread. So it's easy to take their whole territory just by building cities far enough away that they don't care initially, and then letting your borders expand. Then once you have enough of their land, they just happily turn their city over to you.

If the natives could create culture, or if we could just have an option to turn it off, then it would at least fix that issue. The original issued an owner to each plot, and you could buy that plot from the natives by clicking on it in your city screen. That way city borders could overlap but only the owner could actually use the tile. A system like that would be much better.

 

[FaarmAnimal]

In my most recent game, I surrounded the natives and I was constantly getting raided in many cities. I had no choice but to attack and eliminate them. This has happened many times for me.

Sometimes they are passive and give up their settlements, but sometimes they hate you to such an extreme that you will never be able to live together no matter what.

I don't know if it is to do with the leader, the tribe or random but my experience has often been different from what you describe. That they are always passive is simply not true.

As for their culture expanding - it wouldn't make any sense within the context of the game. History has already established that did not happen.

 

[Hydrok9]

In my most recent game, I surrounded the natives and I was constantly getting raided in many cities. I had no choice but to attack and eliminate them. This has happened many times for me.

Sometimes they are passive and give up their settlements, but sometimes they hate you to such an extreme that you will never be able to live together no matter what.

I don't know if it is to do with the leader, the tribe or random but my experience has often been different from what you describe. That they are always passive is simply not true.

As for their culture expanding - it wouldn't make any sense within the context of the game. History has already established that did not happen.

History has not established that native culture did not expand. I'm not even sure what you're trying to get at by that statement. Native Americans had thousands of years of cultural practices and traditions before contact, many of which survive and are practiced to this day. They also covered wide stretches of territory, much wider than the game represents. This is of course because of their nomadic lifestyle not because their settlements got bigger and bigger like in Col/Civ - but in the context of the game, where cultural borders = cultural reach of that settlement, native culture and expanding borders certainly make sense.

They should never ever give up their settlements. It's just insane that they do so. They should try to sell them but they should never give them up. Natives never just gave their land up irl, they agreed to share it, sell it or were forced into cessations. It's just a lazy stop gap solution thrown in by the programmers.

I suppose I'm just unlucky because I have never had natives attack me because of border friction. Not once on any difficulty with any nation. I stopped playing R&R for that reason and went back to original Col. Original Col's threat system is far superior to what is in the remake. It's too bad they didn't include the Portuguese or I would just stick with it but the map feels too empty without them.

In any case, the introduction of cultural expansion allows the player to take huge amounts of native land without any payment and little if any recognition by the ai. It's a serious issue imo.

 

[devolution]

Guys, the proper place to discuss specific issues is here: https://github.com/We-the-People-civ4col-mod/Mod/issues. We already have a number of issues concerning native/AI behavior.

 

[rah]

Now they can expand, but the natives dont recognize that and they don't ask for payment when your borders take over their territory.

Really? I've seen a tribe's attitude degrade when a city culture popped to the second ring. They may not ask for payment but it does piss them off.

 

[Hydrok9]

Really? I've seen a tribe's attitude degrade when a city culture popped to the second ring. They may not ask for payment but it does piss them off.

You're right, they do "recognize" it in the fact that their opinion goes down, but they don't recognize it in the same way they do if you found a city. They ask for payment if you build a city on their land - they should do the same if the city you happened to found away from their borders now takes up their land.

 

[FaarmAnimal]

History has not established that native culture did not expand. I'm not even sure what you're trying to get at by that statement.

I was talking within the context of the game. If you want to create a mod stretching back thousands of years which concerns the native culture then great, but that isn't the focus of this game.

 

[CptBadger]

I'm sensing a LOT of hostility in this thread. I'm pretty sure we can debate the pros and cons of various features without being quite so touchy.

I would love to see native culture be a little more of a factor. Like the option to pay for the natural expansion of my colonies, and the option to respect their territory in my expansion. Because I'd absolutely allow a friendly tribe to keep their settlement thriving, as they can be a useful ally. But as far as active growth, by the age of discovery there was not as much of an expansion. Most tribes had their areas established.

Further, there ARE plenty of historical examples of tribes packing up and moving to escape European expansion. In other words, peacefully handing over their settlements. I think the game could use native AI that builds new settlements further away from Europeans as they lose ground

 

[FaarmAnimal]

No need for hostility,

They should never ever give up their settlements. It's just insane that they do so. They should try to sell them but they should never give them up. Natives never just gave their land up irl, they agreed to share it, sell it or were forced into cessations. It's just a lazy stop gap solution thrown in by the programmers.

I don't claim to be an expert but the reason some of them gave up the settlements was because there was a degree of assimilation happening. As the older generation was dying out there was less resistance.

 

[rah]

but they don't recognize it in the same way they do if you found a city.

Well actually they do, in the sense that you can take the same attitude hit as when your culture expands.

If your new city isn't encroaching on any of their culture squares, you won't be asked for money, but can take an attitude hit.

 

[FaarmAnimal]

I would love to see native culture be a little more of a factor. Like the option to pay for the natural expansion of my colonies, and the option to respect their territory in my expansion. Because I'd absolutely allow a friendly tribe to keep their settlement thriving, as they can be a useful ally. But as far as active growth, by the age of discovery there was not as much of an expansion. Most tribes had their areas established.

I think, because the behaviour of the natives is fundamentally different from the european settlers, this would not be worthwhile. The natives don't have regard for cultural borders - as demonstrated by freely passing within them - they are purely a mechanic for the player and rival euro powers.

I would rather this remains unchanged.

 

[CptBadger]

It would not affect their movement, but it would affect which settlement can work said squares, as well as my relations with that tribe. I could theoretically keep my people from farming/working certain squares, allowing the natives to continue to thrive. Consider it a reservation. I hate when my inevitable cultural growth snuffs out a trading partner and ally. It isn't a huge issue to me, but I think its be a nice add. At least to pay for land gained by expansion. When you capture another euro colony encroaching on the natives, you have opportunities to pay them. Not far different

 

[FaarmAnimal]

I might be wrong about how this works, in which case I would welcome being corrected, but I was under the impression that the natives get annoyed if you build an improvement in their territory.

If I am right then the game already works along the lines of what you are suggesting. If you leave the plot alone, you are fine. Improve it and you suffer a relations hit with the natives.

If I am wrong, then I agree 100% with your suggestion.

 

[CptBadger]

Wow. Ok, if a dev can confirm your understanding I'd be happy as is, I didn't know that. Does that mean they can still work it for their city as long as you arent?