One tile colony border

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, this was the idea I came up with for outposts, colonies AND forts:

1) All of the above improvements have a per turn maintainance cost.

2) When first built, these improvements have NO cultural border.

3) As you station troops in said structures, you get an increasing 'border' around them.

4) Your nations 'Home Culture' determines THREE things-the maximum size of the border that can be formed around the terrain improvements, the maximum distance from your own borders that this effect can occur, and the amount of foreign culture needed to 'convert' the border around the improvement.

5) Such terrain improvements can actually be traded or given away as part of diplomatic agreements-essentially constituting 'Land Purchases'.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Naokaukodem]

colonies could have 0 culture tile but 1 culture per turn and when it would reach a certain number (after the same number of turns in fact), the first culture tiles square would appear and it would become then a true city. But i don't see in what it would be an alternative gameplay. The idea of adding a worker pleases to me better as 2 workers costs less than one settler to build, for example.

Colonies are pretty worthless. I say drop 'em!

Colonies are very usefull in multiplayer, especially when you play with the 'one city kill defeat' option enabled, preventing you to build a city where there is many usefull ressources.

Colonies should be just what they are in reality, a mean to harvest ressources on other continents. In fact you can create a colony by bringing a settler on a new continent and create a city. But there would be corruption. Maybe a Colony could be a kind of mobile great wonder (a unit needing the number of shield of a great wonder or forbidden palace to be constructed) with state people, floats and everything so that the new founded city would have 0 corruption? (and possibly a zone of influence) so that it would be productive.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

I had this idea five minutes ago, so excuse me if it's incoherent and not fleshed out:

Colonies would be built by workers as they are now. They have no borders when they are built.

You could do several things with colonies. One thing is order the colony to build two levels of barricades (like two levels of walls or Perimeter Defense and Tachyon Field in SMAC). Another is to build a port or airport, allowing them to serve as naval bases or airbases, respectively, as well as connecting them to your trade network via sea or air. Another is to order it to expand its influence; you would direct it to a particular square in order to do this. The square would have to be adjacent to the colony in order to become under the colony's influence (because luxuries so often come in clusters).

A colony would permanently be part of your empire unless you choose to disband it for whatever reason. A colony could become a town if it meets certain criteria (for example, a colony on Mountain or Marsh cannot become a town) . And if another nation expands around the colony, it remains yours; if the colony is entirely surrounded by that other nation, they can politely ask you to disband it, but if you refuse, it remains in place and they must respect the colony.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Have colony improvements cost addtional workers. One to run the mine, another to run a harbor, etc.

 

[Vizard]

A colony may not disappear entering the civ cultural borders, but you can get the option, "Disband Colony" instead and get the worker back. If you believe is a good city spot, then a second worker should be used to populate the colony, using a special worker order: "Urbanize colony", it can take 10 turns or so to compensate the higher shield cost of settlers in comparison with two workers. After that a new 1 population city can be acquired.

This way you can use a colony as an advancement post, without culture or control tiles, but with a defined nationality. Obviously it won't allow to create a city on a mountain or another forbidden terrain.

 

[Himalia]

I like the idea of them having a border. Iv never liked the fact they just get wiped out if another city is built nearby. Afterall they are just small settler units in some respects and over time could possibly even upgrade to a city in its own right if you nuture it in the right way.

 

[mastertyguy]

I think colonies should have advantages over cities. I don't know what, but they should have some.

 

[apatheist]

It sounds like people just want to have cities. All of these things, culture, improvements, borders, spy subversion, maintenance cost, etc. is a big change to the model just to avoid building a city. The unusable single tile mountain island with iron is less a failing of colonies and more a failing of map generation, or maybe just a taunt ;-). Colonies are a specialized, niche tool. If you want to harvest a resource outside your borders and that's all, you build a colony. If you want anything beyond that, just build a city. Otherwise you get into a quagmire of complexity that confuses without any real benefit.

The idea of being able to add a worker to an existing colony to upgrade it to a city is a good one, though.