The Point of Colonies?

ssmith619

Must...be...original...
Joined
Mar 29, 2002
Messages
175
Location
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA
I'm sorry if this is redundant, but I was just wondering, does anybody know of any times when colonies are better than cities!?

They can be abducted by other civilizations by culture, then with only a settler you could turn that colony into a profitable city, and they can't get abducted!

Anybody know why on earth you'd want one?
 
Ok let say we are strong and posses 5 lux. and we want to invade another continent. You raze every a.i. city, built one coastal city and link new lux to it. Because it is far away, it give nothing to built many corrupted city there, only one for exportation and you army control the land.
 
Consider the optimal # of cities - will it be worth it to build a city for the sole purpose of connecting a resource?

In most cases though, the answer is yes. Cities are less easily assimilated and provide a much stronger hold on the resource.

I presume the likeliest scenario where you'd prefer colonies is under communism - that government is not good with too many cities, so you might rather raze the enemy cities and use colonies to access their resources.
 
It's good if you have a resource just out of reach that you really need and don't want to build a city. Like iron, early in the game. If it will be a while before your culture expands, but you need the iron now, you can just build a colony.

I don't use them often, but I think it's better that they included them.
 
Colonies in this game system are a waste of time almost always.

We have often asked that colonies with a garrison be immune from being overrun by another civ's new town; or, if they do, it be considered an act of war - which would be accurate. But being accurate it is therefore not in the game.
 
They are useful for me because I made it impossible to build cities on deserts. Only problem is if there is a hill around I have to put some units there or someting because you can build cities there.

(I want cheat mode back too BTW)
 
Oil has been discovered in nearby Omi, and the Omi Oil Fields fuel the Japanese military machine. Japanese tanks threaten the entire Egyptian war effort. . . .

lamp.gif


http://www.zachriel.com/gotm9/ad1640-Oil.htm
 
I only use colonies if the terrain is so poor that it doen't pay to build a city there. Its just to easy to plop a city in the next square over and wipe out a colony. If that happens & you have a unit protecting the colony then you can expect to be asked to leave or declare war. So for most times its just easier to build a city. Of course, if there is a resource surrounded by mountains then the colony may be the best choice. Until the civ programers change this feature of the game and recognize colony wiping as an act of war I will rely on cities & not colonies as my main way of obtaining resources.
 
i've made the (common) rule changes so that you can't found a city in desert, tundra, or jungle (also, settlers are tagged as 'wheeled' and can't cross mountains or jungles w/o a road). in such a mod, colonies become necessary - large tracts of desert and jungle become geographic barriers to the expansion of borders for quite some time.

in an aside, i've find that just a few minor tweaks can really add some interesting twists to the game. if you haven't, check out some of the threads in the mods section.
 
Back
Top Bottom