Sadly, Grade "F" for Civ IV: Colonization

[DrewBledsoe]

This difference between POLITICAL POINTS and LIBERTY BELLS is extraordinary if true, and COMPLETELY opposite to what the manual says!

The manual says that Founding Fathers require LIBERTY BELLS (Rebel Sentiment) to be drawn to your side. Is this wrong??

If what Dale says is true, I think these are not effective? There seems to be an implication that political points are not related to rebel sentiment, and allow you to pick up Founding Fathers without inflaming rebel sentiment and thus spiking the REF?

If I understand correctly, what a truly awful extra double cheesy feature. I guess inspired by building "wealth", "culture" and "research" in Civ IV. As pointed out by others, in Colonization (unlike Civ) things don't just build themselves (which is excellent)...oh hold on, I'll get my carpenter to build some magic wood which will inspire politicians to rush over from the "old country" (unless George W was around then --"Magic Wood, I'll give you Delaware for a ton of it!")

Truly dreadful.

 

[Gliese 581]

Perhaps they're building huge wooden signs saying "Up yours George!".

 

[The_Dwarf]

Isnt building political points through hammers instead of producing liberty bells in order to avoid getting a bigger REF totally useless anyway (other than you have a master carpenter and its faster) ?
For a given colony population you will need 50% rebells in order to declare independance - so that should be the same number of produced liberty bells throughout the game anyways regerdless at what time you produce them. Thus the REF should always be the same size for a given colony population (that is if you have exactly 50% rebell sentiment) Am I getting something wrong here ?

Furthermore if I am getting this right the actual number of colonies is basicly irrelevant instead the efficency is what counts, so you should aim for very good spots only to build settlements ?

 

[obsolete]

Alright, now I'm getting even more frustrated. Tried the building politics points. Absolutely no change. I was stuck at 12% for my empire, and that was putting every worker I could on building bells AND building points.

Is this yet another bug that none of the testers caught, or are new players supposed to be psychic and there is still more to it that isn't so obvious?

God help the new player who picks this up off the shelf haha!

 

[Lord Shadow]

Political points are for getting Founding Fathers. They don't raise your rebel sentiment.

 

[much2much]

Thus the REF should always be the same size for a given colony population (that is if you have exactly 50% rebell sentiment) Am I getting something wrong here ?

Sounds great to me!!

That is not how its working at the moment though. They should change it to do this.

It is nice and simple mathematically so won't require extensive playtesting.

Seeing how they have totally screwed this up with the games release it is much more logical to do it this way than keep tweaking modifiers that are no where near working yet.

 

[Shylock]

Perhaps they're building huge wooden signs saying "Up yours George!".

Or printing subversive literature .

Paper is just refined wood.

 

[ACEofHeart]

I find both good points and bad points with Civ4Col but to give it a "F" is silly.. I give it a B- and hoping Modders will elevate higher..

 

[Gliese 581]

For a game that (imo) could be an A++ with a patch or two and a few good mods, grade F is a bit low.

 

[Zilkin]

Yep F is too low imo. I would give it solid C. Though I´m kinda factoring my belief that this game will get eventually fixed into that grade.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

If I understand correctly, what a truly awful extra double cheesy feature. I guess inspired by building "wealth", "culture" and "research" in Civ IV. As pointed out by others, in Colonization (unlike Civ) things don't just build themselves (which is excellent)...oh hold on, I'll get my carpenter to build some magic wood which will inspire politicians to rush over from the "old country" (unless George W was around then --"Magic Wood, I'll give you Delaware for a ton of it!")

Truly dreadful.

The explanation is simple: These old farts across the pond heard tales of "magic wood" and assumed it was a miracle cure for their "problem".

Besides, we always hear politicians talking about a "party platform"... now we know what kind of wood the platform is made from.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I remember Civ4 and Civ3 receiving lots of criticism when they came out. Now we love them.

Just give this Col some time.

 

[dalgo]

I remember Civ4 and Civ3 receiving lots of criticism when they came out. Now we love them.

Just give this Col some time.

Yes Civ3 was criticised heavily for the early corruption problems. A similar balancing issue to what we are seeing here. This was fixed in patches - these are from the readme

'Police Stations now reduce corruption in the city they are built in.'
'Corruption effects have been reduced.'
'Increased corruption/waste fighting ability of courthouses and police stations.'

THEN it became a great game.

 

[Lord Shadow]

That's what I meant with giving Col some time.

But still, the REF issue is being blown out of proportion, from my point of view. They come in waves, not all at once, and your troops are superior due to rebel sentiment and terrain bonuses, both of which royal regulars completely lack. You've time to heal your men inbetween waves, so if you hold the line, killing 500 is the same as killing 1000.

I'm guessing some people are getting intimidated solely by the REF's numbers and quit without actually trying to fight it. Then they come to this thread and fuel the potential exaggeration. Then some others get intimidated by these complaints and don't even bother with getting that far, as they assume the King's forces will inevitably own them no matter what they do.

 

[much2much]

@Lord Shadow

What you say is true but still doesn't fix the problem that the more waves the more turns will be required and the game will end before you can win.

 

[smellymummy]

i've been avoiding this thread so far but meh.. i agree with the grade F, the new version did not put me into the same plane of joy as the original (that can be easily be replayed in dosbox), nor did it put me in the same enjoyment phase as the open source version (freecolinization)

i tried dozens of games of civ4 col, and always ended up sorry for wasting that time. man, i wish i could load up a game and get as immersed as i was in times of past, but nope. it's a big bore fest even at high difficulty levels. i don't know what they did wrong but i do hope it gets fixed soon.

in the meantime, if i itch to play colonization, i'll be playing FreeCol

 

[OrionNebulae]

I have to admit that I did not read the full thread but only the first and last 2 Pages but I have to say that I agree widely with the OP.
Although I disagree with the grade F - I think that there is still very much to do regarding balancing of the game. The thing that bugs me most is the fact that the game is extremly easy in the beginning just until you declare independence - even on higher Levels this does not seem to change at all. I had no problem at all to raze other european players although they had by far more points.

But when one declares independence everything changes - if I'm not able to offensively anhilate a wave there troops are easyly anhilating my cities. It's really frustrating to see how a city (with a Fortress) with 7 dragoons and 8 Canons is captured by the motherland which only lost 3 or 4 units in the process.

Furthermore I'm missing some of the features of the original game - e.g. paying a certain amount of gold to allow trading of goods again with the motherland (I played as dutch and soon had the problem that all my goods were blocked, next time I'll try to cheat the game logic and will store only the raw goods that I don't export in my Capital city so that I can continue to export to the Motherland).
Another feature which might exist but I did not encounter yet is the small chance one had to upgrade a non-specialist settler. This disturbed me in a game where I could neither find a suggar planter or a trapper indian village and therefor had no chance to get some. For soldiers I'm missing this feature even more.
Another thing that eased the fight against the motherland in the original col was the fact that fortressed cities did shoot at enemy ships if they had canons inside the city. That gave one a good chance to sink there armada instead of fighting all the troops.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

No because in col 2, you must produse more then 1 bell per pop to rise rebel sentiment!
rebel sentiment will drop if you do not produse any bells anymore.
and rebel sentiment will rise very fast if you produse high amounts of liberty bells.
(bells prodused-colony pop)/(pop x liberty bells per pop)= rebel sentiment rise.

 

[Venger]

Im sitting here looking at my Colonization disc and now dread installing it.

I am the Grand Wizard of DOS Colonization. But it sounds like this is a beta Civ4 mod wrapped in a $30 price tag. Allay my fears...

Will free colonists/indentured/criminals occasionally pick up a skill they are tasked with, i.e. lumberjack if they've been working at it for a while?

Do native cities train one unit and then kick you to the curb?

Is combat Civ like or Col like? Do units demote, or do they get destroyed?

Man I hope I didn't blow $30 for cool looking water...

 

[Gliese 581]

Im sitting here looking at my Colonization disc and now dread installing it.

I am the Grand Wizard of DOS Colonization. But it sounds like this is a beta Civ4 mod wrapped in a $30 price tag. Allay my fears...

Will free colonists/indentured/criminals occasionally pick up a skill they are tasked with, i.e. lumberjack if they've been working at it for a while?

Do native cities train one unit and then kick you to the curb?

Is combat Civ like or Col like? Do units demote, or do they get destroyed?

Man I hope I didn't blow $30 for cool looking water...

Colonists can't learn a skill by prolonged self-practice.

Natives can train an infinite number of colonists but it takes increasingly long for each one you train (in that village).

Units are damaged and destroyed and can heal like in CIV.