This is a flawed remake

[Venger]

The problem is that its not a finished product. Especially for a Firaxis game, it's almost as if no one tested it... it's terrible.

This could be posted for every Firaxis release made. And to be honest, half of the games produced these days.

Venger

 

[Lord Shadow]

Considering it's a remarkably complex game, and that most things do, in fact, work, saying it barely got tested is rather extreme.

 

[Ambreville]

I think the fundamental issue is that the game does not really do justice, at least from a thematic stand point, to the whole genre of colonial independence due to conceptual and design limitations. It seems to focus in a big way on resource/population management mechanics which, unfortunately, it does in a pretty clunky manner. I suspect the creators might have gotten stuck between Col1 and Civ4, and ended up missing the boat altogether.

 

[Viperace]

Totally agree with point 1 to 5

 

[morchuflex]

A few additional gripes:

1. There should be some warning when a city is about to waste stuff because of insufficient storage space, not after it has started to waste it.
2. And a warning when a specialist is underproducing due to lack of raw materials.

Because no matter how careful you are, you WILL forget something at some point.

3. When a boat has no Movement Points left, you can't click "unload", even if the ship contains units that DO have MPs. This is a pain, since you have to select the units onboard and manually tell them to disembark.

4. I haven't found any way to tell ships to unload everything when they're in a colony. You have to click and drag everything one a time. Tedious!

 

[cephalo]

I completely agree with the OP, but I am really loving this game. Don't worry about the awful fractal map script folks, I'll have a new one out in about a week that will look much better and more fun to explore.

As far as the size of the map goes, it's kinda tricky. The cities here are only 9x9 and 7 or 8 cities is all you'll ever want to have to micromanage. It's ok to have most of the land remain undeveloped in a game, but if the map is too tall, then there's no conflict over land with good access to the old world, as there should be. If you want to increase the size, I recommend changing the width only. There is an xml file called worldsizeinfos.xml I think that allows you to change that if you want to experiment.

 

[Gliese 581]

A few additional gripes:

1. There should be some warning when a city is about to waste stuff because of insufficient storage space, not after it has started to waste it.
2. And a warning when a specialist is underproducing due to lack of raw materials.

Because no matter how careful you are, you WILL forget something at some point.

3. When a boat has no Movement Points left, you can't click "unload", even if the ship contains units that DO have MPs. This is a pain, since you have to select the units onboard and manually tell them to disembark.

4. I haven't found any way to tell ships to unload everything when they're in a colony. You have to click and drag everything one a time. Tedious!

1&2: Yes but this is lacking in CIV as well, only the BUG mod takes care of it so I expect the same will happen here. As it is you need to check with your advisors every turn to see if any of the hammers/storage is in red if you have a large empire.

 

[henryMCVII]

Sad to say I have to agree with most points in post #1.

I will add two more points:

# The AI seems to be unable to get ther treasures home. In my actual game (huge caribian map) the Dutch are settling north on some separate landmasses. Well, they managed to move one scout south via ship. Looks like he was a lucky one, but now are running six or even more dutch trasure trains criss-cross through my territory.

#The minimap is strange too. Look on this little screenshot and guess how many colonies i own. (I'm playing the English in the lower right ... err ... corner of the huge map...)
So a square minimap would be much more usefull - an square map would able to show my 8 colonies not just make it pure guessing. I like the look of that round minimap its really nice on first view, but when moving or settling near the map corners it becomes useless.

 

[Ambreville]

Another thing I thought was singularly missing in a game that attempts to recreate the theme of foreign import/export, besides better automated resource management, is a decent mechanism regulating market prices of goods (and people). I suspect what the game presently offers is purely random or tied to the quality of relations with one's own monarch.

The prices offered especially in Europe should reflect a few things, such as overabundance of some goods vs rarity and demand (perhaps quality too), but also "preferential treatments," negotiated access to markets, and other trade agreements. There are no Civics to choose from, so there is no such thing as controlled markets (free markets, markets controlled by trade companies vs. appointed officials, etc).

-----------------

aka. Hudson Bay co., La Compagnie des Indes, etc... Come to think of it, BtS's corporations are entirely absent from this game, along with any spying mechanics.

Edit #2 -- and strangely there is no Coffee resource and coffee-related features. That's about as bad as not including the Portuguese. I guess the idea was the limits of game design resources available at the time (or game memory requirements?)

 

[obsolete]

Hmm, I take it in the original Col, that your military units did not count as Tories?

I haven't even been able to get past beginner mode, as I can never get my bells past 50% despite putting just about the whole kitchen sink on cranking out bells and points.

Now, I understand if I knew exactly how the game works in detail, I'd find a lot of exploits and loopholes to take advantage of which would get me around this rediculous broken bell system. But that takes time, and is that REALLY how you are suppose to beat a game?

We are NOT talking about deity here...

 

[Ambreville]

@Obsolete -- To what post are you answering?

 

[player1 fanatic]

Hmm, I take it in the original Col, that your military units did not count as Tories?

Actually, I think they counted as tories there too.

 

[Poonchance]

Also, my first game i was on a small map and stuck with only 4 settlements. I feel like if i had more than 6 - like if I had 15ish - i'd go insane with managing all the goods and people.

 

[Gliese 581]

You could convert your soldiers in col1 I think (actually don't remember for certain).

 

[Saurus]

I don't remember any of this. Also I remember that if you had William Brewster you not only got 10-12 free people but you got to pick every one of them.

About map size: I'm actually happy with the standard setting. I like the world to be at least semi-filled before the WOI and filling it all before then is a huge task still. In the original it was laughable, you would fill maybe 5% tops. That might be realistic but it left me yearning to accomplish more, which wasn't really feasible (at least to my kiddie skill back then )

If you had William Brewster, then you got a pack of free colonists rather than a pack of criminals, correct.


You are quite correct regarding your statement about 95% of the map beeing unintresting and unused in the orginal.
Then again this huge landmass provided a certain strategic depth.
For instance, in my current game there is really no spot for a sugar city that
I could settle. In the orginal, the huge map provided everything in abudance -there were no lack of any resources - it just was that sometimes the distances then become a strategic issue. If you built a sugar producing city far away, it became difficult to defend, costly to build roads etc, transporting goods become an issue... But at least you COULD walk around the problem not having the resource immediately close at hand.

Then again, this seems to be balanced by the fact that market prices do not seem to be as sensitivite this time around. In the orginal col, it was very important to produce a little bit of everything as any other aproach quickly caused imbalances and eventually caused the market to crash.
(Like if you were manufacturing cigars, cloth and coats but no rum, then soon enough rum was the only good that held any value)

I also find that a too small map does not provide my scouts with enough to do, and no interesting thing for your privateers to do either.

 

[Ranbir]

It is flawed, it's lost a lot of the charm that made Col, Col.

 

[fmiracle]

It is flawed, it's lost a lot of the charm that made Col, Col.

Absolutely agree - it's the biggest loss - game have no own charm, seems just like very good mod for Civ4. Too sad.

 

[Apocalypto]

Pacific ocean, eh, big deal. Fountain of youth, however, was a completely overpowered random event. For those of you that haven't played the original, you could randomly find the fountain of youth in native ruins and burial grounds. Finding it would cause 10-12 immigrants to immediately be ready for pickup in Europe.

It may have been overpowered, but it was one of those things that contributed to the "charm" of the game that some here mentioned is lacking. While I find the game to be charming enough, I also think they could have kept the Fountain of Youth. It's not unrealistic that some sort of rumor from New World would find its way to Europe and cause increased immigration. It should be easy enough not to make it overpowered by reducing the number from 8 colonist (that was what you got in the original) to say 5 or even 3 colonists.

Just like to point out, that with all the rebel bonuses you get after the DoI, you can competantly defeat a REF 4 times your size.

I agree with this. There's been a lot of discussion about the size of the REF, many being very critical of the challenge it presents. With the new combat system, I don't think you can look at this in share numbers like you could in the original version. Players now have to make good use of Great Generals, promotions, and terrain. This makes the revolutionary war a lot more interesting imo. I found the combat system of the old version to be one of its greatest flaws, to the point where it often made the game boring after declaring independence. This is no longer the case. You now have to make the right use of individual units, not to mention native alliances.

I totally respect that others may have a different view about this, but I am somewhat surprised by it, because I think this is one of the best improvements to the game. A strategy game should be challenging and reward smart strategies. If doing things the old way no longer works, you have to adjust your strategy instead of asking the rules of the game to be changed so that you can play the way you always did. I have no intention of provoking those who disagree, this is just the way I look at it