New? AI civ added mid game

[v6v6v6]

I've played many Civ IV games but never experienced this before... I was playing a tiny map with 3 civs (including mine) and midway through the game one of the AI civs took on a new civ as it's vassal state. Here's the quote: "Sitting Bull has placed Lincoln in charge of their overseas colonies of America".

Is this new with BTS or just a rare occurence?

 

[aokces]

Its the new colony feature of BTS, that creates a new Civ with one or more of your existing cities. You can create ur own colonies in the Domestic Advisor screen.

 

[plesniak]

I believe that this is the new "colonies" feature in BTS. THis has happened to me in a few games of the BTS genre. When an AI or you capture a city that is on a different land mass, you get the option of turning that city, or cities if you capture a few on a different land mass, into a colony and a leader from the game is chosen.

 

[Gre_Magus]

This is actually a pretty cool feature in BTS! I was once playing a Big and Small map with the islands near the continent (all the different landmasses were connected by coastal waters) and by 1000AD or so the two original "island" nations Jao and Napoleon had each spawned 2 colonies.

It was a little bit annoying that I had to conquer (eliminate) the colonies before the master civ's would capitulate to me - I guess you can't become a vassal if you have vassals of your own?

 

[eewallace]

Am I the only one who finds this juxtaposition of Sitting Bull and Lincoln amusing?

 

[v6v6v6]

So what's the benefit of this?

Am I the only one who finds this juxtaposition of Sitting Bull and Lincoln amusing?

Heh, I didn't make it up! Very amusing.

 

[DilithiumDad]

There seems to be a flaw in this in that when an AI civ creates a colony, they don't share all their tech. In my current game, I can sell a tech to Ghandi then sell the same tech to Asok, who was hired by Ghandi to run his overseas colonies. Not that I'm complaining!

 

[Nelgirith]

So what's the benefit of this?

When you have cities on another continent than your starting one, you pay high maintenance now. So you can release the cities oversea and make it a colony, which will become your vassal. It reduces maintenance costs and the AI will take care of developping those cities and eventually conquer more

 

[Willem]

So you can release the cities oversea and make it a colony, which will become your vassal.

And not just an ordinary vassal. The relationship is much friendlier than if a civ capitulates, and they can't just dump you like a voluntary vassal can. I believe the conditions required are even more stringent than a capitulated civ would need in order to leave you, though I don't know exactly what they are. I haven't created one yet.

 

[IamJohn]

I don't even think there is a way for the colony to escape, at least when I tried them out there wasn't the "vassal can leave at 50% of master's..." messages that there are normally for vassals.

 

[Willem]

I don't even think there is a way for the colony to escape, at least when I tried them out there wasn't the "vassal can leave at 50% of master's..." messages that there are normally for vassals.

There are some conditions that will allow them to leave. I believe if you start getting beligerent with them and their relationship hits bottom, then they can become a self-sufficient civ. But you need to become a real jerk towards them to make that happen so it will rarely, if ever, happen.