Prominent Colonies

[conception]

Hi guys, first time poster here. Anyways, I've been playing Civ IV for a while but just recently got into the expansion packs, which are amazing. Anyways, I'm fascinated with the idea of establishing colonies and have had a few games where I've tried to do that. Unfortunately, none of my colonies really amounted to anything, even though I did assist them a little with military troops and such.

Is the game set up so that colonies are always going to be behind the others, or has anyone gotten them to be prominent in that they can actively participate in offensive wars, build wonders, etc.? What is the best way to establish and nurture a colony?

 

[Joshua368]

I don't use colonies much, but if you want to try something interesting you could sprout off a colony, save the file as a WBSave, and then continue the game playing as the colony itself. That could make it amount to something.

 

[Gooblah]

Spinning off a colony very early helps a lot!

In a game a while back as Willem (Huge Snaky Continents Archipelago), I was on a continent with a coastal connection to Elizabeth and another connection to Ramses. I REX'd like mad and settled two cities on Elizabeth's continent early on. I named them Washington and New York, and spun off Lincoln as a colony. He didn't REX as aggressively, but did control the northern half of Elizabeth's island. He stayed at relative tech parity and was a GREAT tech partner, since he was Friendly.

 

[conception]

I actually did spin off a colony extremely early in my latest game, partially as an experiment to see if it could become a viable civ on its own. I was using a custom map script (planet generator) and I set it up so that it would have a lot of coastal regions and islands near each other.

 

[IAM]

I haven't got much personal experience with colonies but have noticed an odd AI trait. On several continent maps an AI will start on an island next to a continent; then found a city on the continent and turn it into a colony. The colony will grow to 2 or 3 times the size of it's master. It looks odd to have a three city civ with a dozen city vassal.

 

[Supr49er]

As you found, certain map types are good for Colonies.
Hemispheres is also Colony friendly.

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