Upgrading the Settler to a "Colonist" at Astronamy

[Bridger]

I tend to play a lot of Terra type maps (with a "new world" continent) as I enjoy the race for new land after Astronomy is discovered. One thing I find tedious though is that new colonies take a very long time to build up to be useful to you (especially since they now slow down your science progress). In fact, they are a drain on your empire for quite a while, especially if you don't purchase the starting buildings (granary/workshop/watermill/monument) for them. I'm sure that it's important (gameplay-wise) for them to be a drain on your empire, as that only makes sense historically.

However, I also notice that by the time you get to this stage, it's usually very trivial to build settlers. They pop out in 2-3 turns from your production-centric city. Earlier in th game they take up a huge chunk of time/hammers but later they are easy to crank out no problem. This doesn't quite feel right to me. This resulted in me building a ton of colonies really fast, and then feeling the huge drain on my empire (policy/science costs without providing enough return). While this is probably important for balance, it feels wrong that the system makes it so easy to make this mistake. It's not intuitive. "I can spam settlers, but I shouldn't do that now?" I'd like to make later game settlers more punishing to build (more cost up front) but also more rewarding (faster growing colonies).

I propose a change which I originally saw in a Civ IV mod (can't remember which one) and that is to have all settlers be replaced by (and upgrade to) "colonists" when astronomy is researched. Colonists would have the following changes from a regular settler:

• 3-4x as much hammer cost (whatever makes them feel as "punishing" to build as they are in the early game)
• Be stronger when embarked than settlers (though not much)
• Provide their new city with a Granary, Workshop, and Monument when they settle.

I feel like this would slightly speed up the Age of Discovery phase of the game, and make colonies feel more rewarding faster. Currently I feel like I can't ever have more then one colony at a time without bringing my empire to a screeching halt. If I'm going to increase my science costs by 5% and policy costs by 10%, I want to get that sucker going fast, so I tend to have 2 of my trade routes dedicated to sending food and hammers to the new colony, and I try to get it up to at least a university with pop 7 or 8 before I even think about a second colony. You would not be able to build regular settlers after researching Astronomy either, so you're always going to be stuck with the more expensive version.

Thoughts? Is this too big of a chance for CEP?

 

[Ahriman]

I think there is widespread agreement that this is a good idea, the issue is whether it is technically feasible. Settlers are a weird unit, handled very differently from others, it is apparently not a simple thing to create such a unit.

 

[Seek]

While I agree this would be a fun change, Astronomy feels too early (with BNW's tech balance, it is early mid-game). I'd say somewhere in the late Industrial to Modern Era would be better balanced - perhaps it could be a bonus effect to adopting an Ideology?

Also, have you experimented with Domestic TRs? They are very strong and serve this purpose quite well, especially with some decent food resources in the new city, so I'm not sure this should be high-priority.

 

[Hawawaa]

I was gonna suggest something along these lines but here is my spin on it, cities founded in later eras start up more default buildings say starting in the renaissance cities get granary and monument, next era workshop, etc...

 

[Bridger]

I was gonna suggest something along these lines but here is my spin on it, cities founded in later eras start up more default buildings say starting in the renaissance cities get granary and monument, next era workshop, etc...

This might be an easier way of doing it if creating a new settler unit is tricky. It doesn't solve the problem of being able to easily pump out a few settlers whenever you want. Making the decision to build a settler in the early game is a big, important decision. It's too bad that it's such a no-brainer later.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I'm not sure the way to go is make Settler/Colonist units harder to produce in later games.

Your cities are larger and more capable of taking the 'burden' of making settlers. The trick is knowing that just because you CAN make a settler SHOULD you make one.

Once a new city is founded late in the game it is a fairly quick task to get it's basic infrastructure up and running. Domestic trade routes, abundant gold etc. all making building structures a lot easier.

As to having your settlers survive the battles of a new landmass. If you can't afford to send some military along with your settler then I suggest you shouldn't be looking to expand your empire.

Can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

 

[stackpointer]

Seems like you can just use this mod with a few lines of sql:

UPDATE Units SET Cost = Cost + 80 WHERE Type = 'ERA_MEDIEVAL' IN ("UNITCLASS_SETTLER");

Note that the above syntax is probably not 100% correct but the idea is there. The additional cost to settler production can come from whatever free buildings and population the city starts with. So it's like building all that together at once with the settler.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think the best approach is giving new cities free buildings based on our current era. It's simple to code, unlike settler upgrades. This would reduce tedious micro of new cities, and encourage us to actually bother setting up new cities late in the game.

 

[Bridger]

That does sound like the best way to go about it Thal.

 

[nightstorms]

[*]3-4x as much hammer cost (whatever makes them feel as "punishing" to build as they are in the early game)

Hello everyone! I'm new to modding Civ 5, although I have modded several other games before. I'm just thinking, isn't possible to create one settler for each era and just duplicate the instance? Where you start with <Type>UNIT_SETTLER1</Type> in ancient and at classical you get <Type>UNIT_SETTLER2</Type> and so forth, just re-using all the TXT-info and make each unit more costly to build for each era? Where one decides a tech that ends the current one and starts the next one with a <ObsoleteTech>-tag.

Just a thought.

 

[Thalassicus]

Settler cost is set in a global variable, and cannot be customized for individual units. Settlers are coded differently than all other units because they are integrated into the Advanced Start stuff.

 

[nightstorms]

Ahh, so not so smart idea after all. I guess disabling the old settler altogether and making a new unit that can settle cities is out of the question as well then. And use the <Found>true</Found> parameter. At any rate I guess I'll just stop there, just wanted to see if I could contribute with something.

Good luck!

 

[Ahriman]

I wouldn't want classical era to be giving anything free, and probably not medieval era either.
It's very possible to get into the classical era very quickly, sometimes before I even get my second city. That would be a big gameplay advantage to start getting free stuff so soon.

 

[mystikx21]

Could double up on industrial era and beyond (2 types per era). Settling in the renaissance and before is still viable already to acquire strategic resources, with enough surplus happiness and when strategic resource frequency starts being smaller and more spread out. Classical is way too early to start getting a bonus.

I would go
Industrial: Culture+food. Both important to get a new city off the ground faster and spread out.
Modern: Production+happiness - Both important to want to found a new city and have it do things.
Atomic: gold/science - Both important to have the new city contribute to the greater glory of your empire.

One idea could be to have exploration tree improve this option somehow, adding some other tier one buildings (granary/lighthouse).

 

[ExpiredReign]

Personally I don't like the idea of 'tooled up' cities being founded.

To me the decision to found a new city includes ALL the tedious micro-management involved. That's why I like to claim my territory early and only expand if I am on a global warfare campaign. Which means taking over someone else's city.

But.

If asked to choose I'd go with only late-game changes. Industrial at the earliest.

 

[xInVicTuSx]

Could we tie it to an Ideological Tenet maybe?
I know the Order one that has cities start with 3 pop is pretty nifty.

Agree with the sentiment against giving prebuilts for anything sooner than Industrial.

 

[mitsho]

An Ideology Tenet or Exploration Policy could improve it, but I see nothing wrong with giving away a base thing for free anyways. Mystikx list above seems to make sense for the base settler, add extra population, extra territory and/or a few more buildings are abilities for those policies to improve on.

 

[albie_123]

I think happiness should remain off-limits. As happiness is the ONLY limiting factor with city spam, having cities give it for free removes all sense of a need for planning city expansion.

 

[mystikx21]

One reason I might suggest that happiness be involved is the AI runs off and founds a lot of later cities (or it used to). Though of course such a reason can be limited to just the AI.

i would have population stay in order, exploration could do granary/workshop (smithy). If we don't do happiness, then maybe the shrine, walls (if that isn't in liberty), or a second source of production (stable/forge if applicable?).

 

[Thalassicus]

If we limit free buildings to lategame, it'd be a logical Exploration policy.

@albie_123
We could replace the Exploration policy giving 2 city happiness per city to minimize the net effect. In addition to that, colosseums increase maximum population per city (city happiness), not our maximum number of cities (national happiness). These balance details can be worked out later. I'm focused on broad concepts at this early stage.