Sadly, Grade "F" for Civ IV: Colonization

[Knut_Are_M]

well that is just broken and needs to be patched.
I bet i could get independence by year 1600 with those rules.
1 city, 50% liberty bells, cross based and killing natives en masse with san jose de san martin. 100+military units.

You cannot seriously mean they were that stupid to tie the REF linerly to liberty bells?

OH my god this game will be redicoulously easy as long as you know that!

1 city challenge of size 8 max here i come. tools/guns/crosses and trade goods.

How blooody stupid does they get to be? I cannot belive you playtesters did not see how easy that is to exsploit!.
Here is what i recomend, make a cap on how much the king can spend on the ref. And make the ref size more tied to time and difficulty level then with liberty bells.

well i guess i just have to get ultra choosey on which founding fathers i should pick, i recon it wont be many.

 

[Patch61]

Well, I must say that I have been playing the game 'wrong'. Because I got the impression (from the published premise of the game and the manual) that my sole objective was to foster and grow rebel sentiment until I got it to a point that I could declare independence and fight the motherland in a glorious final battle.

I don't remember any part of the manual (or civilopedia [shouldn't it be 'colonopedia' here?]) telling me that generating rebel sentiment (bells) early in the game was a bad thing that would work against me. I guess I assumed the rebel sentiment was kept on the down low. After all, this was definitely not the information age, where news was instantly transmitted across the world!

I am extremely disappointed with the highly touted extensive tutorial. How could this extensive tutorial have not clued me in about keeping the bells down until the late game? Seems to me to be a major failing.

Ah well, I guess I'll start over with a new perspective. Although I must say I am finding this game is becoming boring with all the micro-management. The whole game is much more convoluted and less flexible in what kind of strategies will win than the Civ games (of which I have owned and loved all, including all expansions).

I hope I can find a winning strategy, now that I have new information from this forum. Otherwise, this game will be shelved soon.

 

[Dale]

well that is just broken and needs to be patched.
I bet i could get independence by year 1600 with those rules.
1 city, 50% liberty bells, cross based and killing natives en masse with san jose de san martin. 100+military units.

You cannot seriously mean they were that stupid to tie the REF linerly to liberty bells?

OH my god this game will be redicoulously easy as long as you know that!

1 city challenge of size 8 max here i come. tools/guns/crosses and trade goods.

How blooody stupid does they get to be? I cannot belive you playtesters did not see how easy that is to exsploit!.
Here is what i recomend, make a cap on how much the king can spend on the ref. And make the ref size more tied to time and difficulty level then with liberty bells.

well i guess i just have to get ultra choosey on which founding fathers i should pick, i recon it wont be many.

Try it and let us know how you go.

I'm betting it doesn't work.

Because you're forgetting the rule that units in the field (your 100+ army) count towards the big button. 100 units, versus 8 pop in a city. You'll be lucky to hit 8% sentiment.

 

[Dale]

Well, I must say that I have been playing the game 'wrong'. Because I got the impression (from the published premise of the game and the manual) that my sole objective was to foster and grow rebel sentiment until I got it to a point that I could declare independence and fight the motherland in a glorious final battle.

I don't remember any part of the manual (or civilopedia [shouldn't it be 'colonopedia' here?]) telling me that generating rebel sentiment (bells) early in the game was a bad thing that would work against me. I guess I assumed the rebel sentiment was kept on the down low. After all, this was definitely not the information age, where news was instantly transmitted across the world!

I am extremely disappointed with the highly touted extensive tutorial. How could this extensive tutorial have not clued me in about keeping the bells down until the late game? Seems to me to be a major failing.

Ah well, I guess I'll start over with a new perspective. Although I must say I am finding this game is becoming boring with all the micro-management. The whole game is much more convoluted and less flexible in what kind of strategies will win than the Civ games (of which I have owned and loved all, including all expansions).

I hope I can find a winning strategy, now that I have new information from this forum. Otherwise, this game will be shelved soon.

Read what I said. What I described is ONE way to win. There are others.

 

[mrjepson]

Why are you guys generating bells to expand your borders? You can't use the land that you expand to with your cities. Just build more cities instead to claim the land so you can actually work it..

In my game I was getting close to matching the Kings army by turn 100 (playing on easiest setting to start) when all of the sudden he started ramping up his military and it started costing twice as much to buy troops and cannons. So it isn't just bells that get him worried.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

so basically what youre saying is that elite units is the way to go?
only the best of the best?
well in that case san jose de san martin is the best way to go.

8-10 elite man of wars here i come. they only count as 8-10 units.
only units i use are elite cavalry units.
And cities should only reach enough rebel sentiment to declear independence.

Anyway it is still a exsploitable system, that gears towards elite units!

You know what screw independence, you win if you have the highest score at the end of the game, so i will just kill the 3 other european players as fast as i can and never aim for independence!

OH man what a griefer i will be online, but the rule of the game is, do whatever you can to win, as long as you do not cheat!

 

[SiBr3]

I was unimpressed by the usability of the interface. The first 30 minutes of game-play gave me a headache, literally. The only thing I would honestly like to take from this game is the new graphics. If these graphics were integrated into beyond the sword I would be happy. To sum it up, I really do not like this game at all. I'll stick to traditional civilization, with expectations of improved graphics!

I wouldn't give it an 'F' as such; however, I wouldn't give it an A either.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

if you play to win in MP in civ 4, then you rush for milirary techs, and rush and win. As simple as playing only the military sides, because that makes you win. As such the game dictates that a good player is agressive.

Civ 4 means charismatic and agressive is a nice option for attacking other players.
But why not vary your tactic and civ based solely on what kind of situation youre in?
if your alone, you build and tech and exspand.
and if youre surrounded by enemies you go for military techs and crush em.

That is what a truly good player does!

In col2 you build a huge empire and crush all your enemies, because A independence is impossible in an online game no matter what you do. And B you win when you kill offf your 3 opponents. In col 2 you go for a military victory, if you want to win!

accually a good rusher beats a turtler in civ 4. IF he turtles all you do is attack another opponent, or contain him while you exspand, or just outwright outproduse him. In civ 4 the land you occupy/begin with is 25% of the reason you win!

 

[Dryhad]

Not anglocentric an attitude at all, simply a reality. Ignoring history for a second, the game produces colonists based on religious intolerance. So the dynamic you see is (religious) intolerance > tolerance/independence > (economic) intolerance > independence (if you beat the REF).

That's the dynamic you want to see in the game, but it apparently isn't. I'm not sure I understand, are you saying this is how the game works or that this is the general historical pattern?

As for love of the motherland, it never left America. Even up to the Declaration of Independence the various continental congresses tried to patch things up, and alternately blamed either Parliament or the King. Heck, in 1810 New England was talking about seceding because they wanted strong relationships with England instead of France.

Never, you say? How many Americans today think of England as their home, as themselves as English, or even like England all that much? The effect you describe is not a social connection but an economic one. The early United States wanted trade with Britain, or at least peaceful coexistence. New England had trade with Britain and didn't want to give it up just because Jefferson was buying land from their worst enemy. Today the United States and the United Kingdom have close ties, but the US has close ties with other nations and it doesn't consider them its homeland. Don't confuse diplomacy with patriotism.

Yes, it's easier with subsequent generations to feel less kinship ... which is why I argued that liberty bell production should be prevented at the beginning of the game.

You argued that it should be prevented until provocation arose, something different entirely. Unless the game is very different from what I've been lead to believe, it is more difficult to accumulate Liberty Bells (as any resource) earlier in the game than later. Indeed, that is why I think that focussing on Liberty Bells too early would be unnatural. If you're (at this early point in the game) devoting practically all your resources to producing Liberty Bells that doesn't seem very realistic.

You're misreading my intention here. All I ever wanted was an update of Colonization. And I got it. And I'm ecstatic about how close to the original it is. I'm glad they didn't try to change the game (for the most part), because any potential changes could've made it, well, not Colonization.

Well fair enough.

My main opposition is to the 'keep liberty bells low' strategy is the fact that it's a strategy that feels inorganic.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. Nobody's explained to me why it's inorganic. Maybe once I play the game I'll understand, but for now I don't get it. I've explained my understanding of game mechanics and why I think it makes perfect sense for that to happen, and you've presented ideas that could either be modded or included in an expansion/subsequent release. You're perfectly free to do that, of course, but it doesn't help me understand what's inorganic about the current setup. Quite the reverse, in fact. The nature of your suggestions is very familiar to me, I see it all the time in Civ4 modding. Don't take this the wrong way, but it does sound like you're going too far in your pursuit of realism. I'm not sure I agree that your solutions have counterpart problems.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

we all know this does not occur in civ4, you cannot turtle and exspect to win, same with building buildings/wonders. those buildings are simply to costly for there hammer worth, compared to just useing them on promoted units. Later in the game you can build a few cheap buildings by whipping em.

You can exspect to win if you play a military strategy in pangea in civ 4 if your start position was good!

Same as if you pick the proper civ for an island strategy with building and then moveing onto mass units.
But what you cannot win with is building alone(vs good players), but you can almost win with rushing alone if you play on pangea.

Col2 will be very narrow in it's overall startegy in MP.
Forget independence as youre out of luck, since your oppoent will mass attack you when you declear independence.
The way to win is mass exspansion with a military edge. That means you exspand your colonies and army and attack your weaker enemies.
If you do not defend in col2 when you face a good player, then you will die!

When you declear independence in an onlince game, you also decleare war on all other players when they notice the ref. Because they want to win and put you out of the game!

 

[Old MacDonald]

I don't see why holding back on Liberty Bells is "counterintuitive to reality". To me it seems ridiculous that the viceroy of the New World, immediately upon founding a new colony in the name of the King would say "Ok, lets get that rebel sentiment going. I'm looking ahead hundreds of years to our war of independence". That's absurd!

Well, the problem is that Civ 4: Col is already absurd - because the king starts demanding tribute and tax increases from the first couple of turns. He acts as an opponent during the entire game, which in terms of realism is just wrong. The colonization of America happened with the full backing of the royals in Europe.

Also, there's the fact that producing liberty bells is the only peaceful way to expand your borders. Very useful, right from the start. And of course, there's the founding fathers. If you don't produce liberty bells early on, your opponents will get the good ones.

 

[sw99]

Pre-Rant Disclaimer: I've just spent 6+ hours playing this in one sitting which is pretty good compared to many games, so it's obviously doing something right... but..

How did they manage to forget so many things that were in my old amiga version of col... yet are absent in the 15 year newer remake.

Foreign powers pledging their support in your fight for independance, the tense wait as you get more liberty bells, then hurrah! the french are bringing their own overpowered motherland units to fight with me!? Gone. Too complicated to program?

Cannons in port firing at passing enemy ships. Gone. Too many computer cycles huh. It's especially missed since there is no way to take out the mother countries man o wars, the super expensive ship of line gets destroyed by it, takes like 3 SOL's (apt abbreviation there) to kill 1 MOW, which when you're outnumbered makes navy pointless.

The maps feel smaller, I had to select huge maps just to get what feels like a small civ 4 map.

The included scenario map for the western hemisphere doesn't even have accurate starting locations for the indians, unbelievably lazy work there. The english always seem to start in brazil/argentina too.

Apart from all those seemingly glaring omissions my pet peeve that came up every few minutes is the fact you can't do anything with colonists that just arrived in the colony if they travelled by road and still have movement points left. You have to wait till next turn to place them anywhere in the colony or give it a job. I went to a lot of effort to connect by colonies by road, let me use them grr.

 

[ChrTh]

That's the dynamic you want to see in the game, but it apparently isn't. I'm not sure I understand, are you saying this is how the game works or that this is the general historical pattern?

How the game works. They tell you people are fleeing the motherland due to personal reasons (specifically religious intolerance), they go to New Nation to escape, thus establishing a pseudo-independence. Then the economic 'intolerance' occurs, so they revolt and try to gain real independence.

Never, you say? How many Americans today think of England as their home, as themselves as English, or even like England all that much?

I said that incorrectly. I meant that at the time of revolt, there was still tremendous desire to remain connected to England. Heck, it's why there was Tory sympathy almost everywhere in the colonies, and Franklin was working his butt off in England to put things right (until the British did something very, very stupid).

You argued that it should be prevented until provocation arose, something different entirely. Unless the game is very different from what I've been lead to believe, it is more difficult to accumulate Liberty Bells (as any resource) earlier in the game than later. Indeed, that is why I think that focussing on Liberty Bells too early would be unnatural. If you're (at this early point in the game) devoting practically all your resources to producing Liberty Bells that doesn't seem very realistic.

As I noted in my original post on the subject, the game mechanics detract heavily in the early game from generating liberty bells. However, I'm guessing a strategy will emerge where early independence is gainable (is that a word?) via early liberty bell generation (and probably alliance with numerous indian tribes). I was thinking an artificial barrier would provide a more historical reality while at the same time making explicit by rules what is mostly obvious by gameplay.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. Nobody's explained to me why it's inorganic. Maybe once I play the game I'll understand, but for now I don't get it. I've explained my understanding of game mechanics and why I think it makes perfect sense for that to happen, and you've presented ideas that could either be modded or included in an expansion/subsequent release. You're perfectly free to do that, of course, but it doesn't help me understand what's inorganic about the current setup. Quite the reverse, in fact. The nature of your suggestions is very familiar to me, I see it all the time in Civ4 modding. Don't take this the wrong way, but it does sound like you're going too far in your pursuit of realism. I'm not sure I agree that your solutions have counterpart problems.

Last things first: my solutions aren't solutions, they are ideas. Only starting points. I'm sure there are issues that would evolve from them, and that would require more discussion. My comments were meant as a starting point, not an end point.

Now, as for the inorganism, I'm not sure that I can come up with a better analogue than the cultural victory one in Civ IV. Obviously there's a meta aspect to any strategy game that will take you 'out of it'. It just seems to me that holding back culture or liberty bells to just the right moment and then unleashing them is too meta. And obviously your mileage may vary. But it's not like military where you can reserve forces for an opportune time and then strike. It's culture. It's popular feeling.

I mean, I thought the repression of popular feeling is why we're wanting to declare independence. I have to do it myself (on the meta level) to help do so? It just seems weird to me.

 

[Dryhad]

How the game works. They tell you people are fleeing the motherland due to personal reasons (specifically religious intolerance), they go to New Nation to escape, thus establishing a pseudo-independence. Then the economic 'intolerance' occurs, so they revolt and try to gain real independence.

But as you say this isn't how the game works. They go to the New World to escape religious persecution, and then they generate liberty bells and gain real independence. The economic "intolerance" is incidental to the whole process.

I said that incorrectly. I meant that at the time of revolt, there was still tremendous desire to remain connected to England. Heck, it's why there was Tory sympathy almost everywhere in the colonies, and Franklin was working his butt off in England to put things right (until the British did something very, very stupid).

Well of course there were people who still thought of themselves as English. That doesn't mean that everyone did, or even that the majority did. I still maintain that a large part of this effect was pragmatic. The default position is not to change anything.

As I noted in my original post on the subject, the game mechanics detract heavily in the early game from generating liberty bells. However, I'm guessing a strategy will emerge where early independence is gainable (is that a word?) via early liberty bell generation (and probably alliance with numerous indian tribes). I was thinking an artificial barrier would provide a more historical reality while at the same time making explicit by rules what is mostly obvious by gameplay.

If it's obvious by gameplay it doesn't need to be made explicit by rules.

Last things first: my solutions aren't solutions, they are ideas. Only starting points. I'm sure there are issues that would evolve from them, and that would require more discussion. My comments were meant as a starting point, not an end point.

Yes, I had trouble phrasing that. Basically, I don't accept your premises, and proposing changes based on premises that I don't accept doesn't explain anything.

Now, as for the inorganism, I'm not sure that I can come up with a better analogue than the cultural victory one in Civ IV. Obviously there's a meta aspect to any strategy game that will take you 'out of it'. It just seems to me that holding back culture or liberty bells to just the right moment and then unleashing them is too meta. And obviously your mileage may vary. But it's not like military where you can reserve forces for an opportune time and then strike. It's culture. It's popular feeling.

I mean, I thought the repression of popular feeling is why we're wanting to declare independence. I have to do it myself (on the meta level) to help do so? It just seems weird to me.

Who said anything about repression? All I'm talking about is not encouraging it. Obviously I'll understand better once I play the game, but I would assume some liberty bells would be permissible in the early game. It's not about going out of your way to avoid them, just not going out of your way to get them either.

 

[fmiracle]

Author got a nice point. I also was astonished by the number of king's forces.

The REF in my game (one of hte easies levels) is contrary both gameplay (no fun to play as I already see there no way to win) and realism (not one king in his mind will build 50-100 Man-o-War to threaten offshore colonies - Ships of the Line were very, very, very expansive in the real world)

Now as I understand (oh yes, I knew about it, to I just not understand it's degree) that REF is lineral to Liberty Bells generation - strategy to win is pretty clear. But I still can not undertand it.

Game taunt you to generate liberty bells - they are needed to:
1. expand borders (advantage in wars)
2. increase productivity of workerrs
3. obtain Founding Fathers (!!!!)
4. declare independance to win the game
...And, finally they are the way to lose game completely....

I can't see how newbie player may undertand that (expamle) "you must NOT generate bells until turn 200, but generate them fast not later than turn 220 or you lose by time". Is it professional game or game for fun?

I never think that statesmans who generate "liberty bells" declare Independance itself. At the late stage - yes. But at first times it is only patriotism, states about country and New World, global insight of the population... And the only side-effect of it - rebel sentiments between populations...

And my game. about 10 cityes, few really beg. Big cities have statesmen. Is it prohibited to have statesmen in big cities? I think it is not.... But king increase and increase and increase it's REF...

King is NOT worried AT ALL about next things in colonies:
1. It's total big size and population
2. It's great army, few times more than combined forces of all navies and other europe colonies
3. Great arms and artillery production
4. Stopped trade with him (no ships arrive with goods for long time - no income in King's pursue)
5. Boycottes and tribute rejects are also not enough for him to increace REF

King is GREATY worried about next things in colonies:
1. few statesmen.

Is it normal?
Is it intuitive?
It's not, imho.

I must note - Col-1 model was playable for enyone with the same idea, but Civ4-Col is not... Why? May be it is an error? May be REF must just not grow SO DAMNED FAST? I can live if it is grow linerary to working statesman, but not so fast, please...

 

[dr_AllCOM3]

the war of independence feels like it's five times more difficult than the level you chose. it should be easy if you choose so, no matter what you do before.
it cannot be, that it becomes unrealisticly difficult. there are people out there who have never played a civilization game before. they are never going to win.

King is NOT worried AT ALL about next things in colonies:
1. It's total big size and population
2. It's great army, few times more than combined forces of all navies and other europe colonies
3. Great arms and artillery production
4. Stopped trade with him (no ships arrive with goods for long time - no income in King's pursue)
5. Boycottes and tribute rejects are also not enough for him to increace REF

King is GREATY worried about next things in colonies:
1. few statesmen

yeah, i can reject everything and the king does nothing.
the game was clearly not fully tested. too strong natives are another point. when they start a war with europeans they win, unless you invest heavyly in military. the ai doesn't.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

You should generate liberty bells early, as the ref is determined by the total number of accumulated liberty bells. And total acumulated liberty bells deside how many rebels there are in the colonies.
You may sometimes notice that you can add alot of people before the rebel % drops, for then to have it drop by an increment per additional citizen inside the city. And you get political/military founding fathers that are very useful in the independence victory goal.

Also you have 2 ways to win.
way 1 is independence.
way 2 is high score.

Both ways count as a solid win on your record.
Way 2 involves killing the other europeans and preventing independence, and gaining a sorta domination victory.
Way 1 contains the usual metagame, but it is not essesarily the best way to win and should only be done in an online game if you have some mega promoted units!

 

[Daath]

Well, the good thing here is that the most irritating flaws in this game should be quite easily moddable.

Maybe something like this: Liberty Bells create "political awareness" that increases production and gives you FFs. Rebel sentiment is determined by tax rate, amount of banned goods etc. and the general awareness in colonies. At low levels, king can mistreat his subjects a lot without much repercussions, at high level the rebel sentiment goes through the roof if/when he tries that. Maybe add some events that allow increasing/reducing rebel sentiment, and some functionality relating to just how high the sentiment is when you declare. Such as, at 50-75% you lose some production when fighting against motherland, at 76-100% you actually gain it. REF size is increased by rebel sentiment and your military strength, capped by difficulty rating.

The other mechanic that encourages metagaming, the rapidly rising education times, should be even easier to fix. Just make it so that universities can train unlimited numbers of specialists. It still pays off to play nice with Indians, but in case you don't particularly want to, your strategy isn't brutally punished by sticking you with loads of untrainable non-specialists in the endgame (by which time you should actually be pretty self-sufficient).

 

[fmiracle]

Well, the good thing here is that the most irritating flaws in this game should be quite easily moddable.

And bad thing is that many people wish 'fun and intresting' game out of the box, without any searches for Really-Right-Mod.

And personally I do not know how really moddable in game. Is it really possible to change REF increase logic so far?

 

[The_Dwarf]

Refering to the initial post :

As I played Civ4 for the first time some funny things happenend, first I wondered why the hell are my cities not growing (because I would build settlers and workers asap).
Secondly why am I getting totally toasted if I build many cities asap what tended to be the best strategy always.
Well now I know ofcourse and I think how they slowed down an infinite city sprawl is pretty awesome.

Coming back to your problems I see some similarities. One of the best strategies in traditionell colonization was to build many cities with 1 size population to generat a flood of liberty bells cheaply, than get Jefferson and enhance that even more so that you get all important founding fathers in no time.
However I didnt seem particulary logic. I guess the designers are well aware of that issue and what you feel like a game flaw is actually exactly the opposite - preventing a stupid strategie in the game that shouldnt work.
I feel it makes a lot of sense that you have to be careful with liberty production since the benefits of founding fathers are huge, so this opens a lot space for strategic/interesting decisions. Get many bells and founding fathers but have those drawbacks you describe or get less benefits but therefore less drawbacks also - honestly that sounds pretty good to me.