Which Civ would you like in Colonization?

[frekk]

Take England's colonies in America in 1750 (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ritish_Colonies_in_North_America_c1750_v2.png). They most certainly didn't equal up to the land area of Portugal's colonies in Brazil but they were wealthier.

Oh absolutely they equalled the land mass. You're comparing English sites of settlement against the whole of claimed land in Brazil. The whole of English claimed land in North America was truly vast - Rupert's Land alone was nearly half the size of Brazil, and then they claimed the whole of the Atlantic coastline from the Florida border to Newfoundland. They hadn't actually set foot in many places that they claimed, but the same is true of Brazil (in fact, Brazilians today have still never set foot in a large part of the territory they claim!)

The areas where there were actual settlements of population were small and scattered, but that's equally true of Brazil.

 

[frekk]

double post

 

[The Snug]

I think the martians should be included; didn't they colonize many parts of the America's?

 

[Reveilled]

I don't think it would be hard to include Portugal and have them play differently to the Spanish. The Spanish colonisation effort was characterised by massive military expansion and native exploitation, while the Portuguese one might be better characterised by careful diplomacy and contiguous development.

So, with that in mind, have the Portuguese' bonuses be something like:
Primary Bonus - Neutrality: You gain a +1 bonus to your relations with other powers, and The King of Portugal never involves you in wars
Secondary Bonus - Maneuvers: Your ships gain a +1 movement bonus when their whole turn is spent inside your waters
Secondary Bonus - Educative: Colonists can learn professions being taught in Colony Schools connected by road to their own colony.

The primary bonus would help the Portugese player remain at peace, as he wouldn't be involved in European wars (like the Ben Franklin FF in the original), though other colonies could still go to war with him if he's not carefully watching the diplomacy.
The first secondary bonus would work that inside Portuguese waters ships would get a movement bonus, but lose it if they left, so the player would have an incentive to make as much of his movement as possible occur in Portuguese waters, and this would be of most use for both trade routes and warfare if Portuguese waters were contiguous.
The second secondary bonus would work as a distance modifier, dropping off the further away the colony was, and dropping to 0% if not connected by road. Possibly dropping by half every 3 squares, or something. e.g. if Colonist A in Colony A has a 10% of learning the skill being taught in Colony A each turn, then Colonist B in Colony B (three squares away) has a 5% of learning the skill being taught in Colony B.

It wouldn't need to be these specific bonuses, but something like that would encourage Portugal to play historically, keeping to one area and avoiding conflict.

 

[Tullaris]

A lot of people have pointed out that the Portugese retook Brazil from the Dutch.

However, at the time, people in Portugal perceived this as a miracle. The Dutch Republic was by far the richest economy in Europe and had one of the strongest fleets.

What happened was that the West India Company that exploited Dutch Brazil was not making enough profits for its shareholders and went bankrupt.

The Portugese did not reclaim Brazil themselves by the way. The colonists in the colonies themselves fought a costly guerilla war against the Dutch mercenaries.

Portugal itself never dreamed of risking open war against the Republic. Their ports would have been blocked, all of their fleet attacked by privateers and their economy ruined. Thats why officially the Portugese King protested against the rebellions in Dutch Brazil. However secretly he was funding them. Only when England attacked the Republic in the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 did the Portugese dear to openly support the rebellion.

This is the core of the issue. Portugal was never in any position to challenge the other powers. No historian could argue that.

That in retrospect Portugal's colony became important has been pretty lucky.
If the Republic had devoted more resources to the conquest of Brazil who would have known what could have happened (Brazil would have been a lot richer in any case).

 

[Ricci]

A lot of people have pointed out that the Portugese retook Brazil from the Dutch.

However, at the time, people in Portugal perceived this as a miracle. The Dutch Republic was by far the richest economy in Europe and had one of the strongest fleets.

What happened was that the West India Company that exploited Dutch Brazil was not making enough profits for its shareholders and went bankrupt.

The Portugese did not reclaim Brazil themselves by the way. The colonists in the colonies themselves fought a costly guerilla war against the Dutch mercenaries.

Portugal itself never dreamed of risking open war against the Republic. Their ports would have been blocked, all of their fleet attacked by privateers and their economy ruined. Thats why officially the Portugese King protested against the rebellions in Dutch Brazil. However secretly he was funding them. Only when England attacked the Republic in the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 did the Portugese dear to openly support the rebellion.

This is the core of the issue. Portugal was never in any position to challenge the other powers. No historian could argue that.

That in retrospect Portugal's colony became important has been pretty lucky.
If the Republic had devoted more resources to the conquest of Brazil who would have known what could have happened (Brazil would have been a lot richer in any case).

Have you edited your profile man? Almost 4 years in the forum and just posted 14 times. Just to teach us these extremely detailed historical issues I guess...

 

[CyberChrist]

A lot of people have pointed out that the Portugese retook Brazil from the Dutch.

However, at the time, people in Portugal perceived this as a miracle. The Dutch Republic was by far the richest economy in Europe and had one of the strongest fleets.

What happened was that the West India Company that exploited Dutch Brazil was not making enough profits for its shareholders and went bankrupt.

The Portugese did not reclaim Brazil themselves by the way. The colonists in the colonies themselves fought a costly guerilla war against the Dutch mercenaries.

Portugal itself never dreamed of risking open war against the Republic. Their ports would have been blocked, all of their fleet attacked by privateers and their economy ruined. Thats why officially the Portugese King protested against the rebellions in Dutch Brazil. However secretly he was funding them. Only when England attacked the Republic in the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 did the Portugese dear to openly support the rebellion.

This is the core of the issue. Portugal was never in any position to challenge the other powers. No historian could argue that.

That in retrospect Portugal's colony became important has been pretty lucky.
If the Republic had devoted more resources to the conquest of Brazil who would have known what could have happened (Brazil would have been a lot richer in any case).

So you are saying that Portugal used political guile rather than brute force to achieve their goals? Maybe you just unwittingly provided a new suggestion for a trait for them.

 

[innonimatu]

A lot of people have pointed out that the Portugese retook Brazil from the Dutch.

However, at the time, people in Portugal perceived this as a miracle. The Dutch Republic was by far the richest economy in Europe and had one of the strongest fleets.

Bah, its golden age was short-lived. It spend 50 years trying to conquer positions around the world, mostly from Portugal, with varying success, and in the end had to settle for some marginal territories in Asia.
Even had it won a decisive victory in the east or in America (which it didn't), when the french and the english got into the game the republic's ambitions of taking over the monopoly of the asian trade would be crushed. The english were the true winners in the end.

The Portugese did not reclaim Brazil themselves by the way. The colonists in the colonies themselves fought a costly guerilla war against the Dutch mercenaries.

Portugal itself never dreamed of risking open war against the Republic. Their ports would have been blocked, all of their fleet attacked by privateers and their economy ruined. Thats why officially the Portugese King protested against the rebellions in Dutch Brazil. However secretly he was funding them. Only when England attacked the Republic in the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 did the Portugese dear to openly support the rebellion.

1) the colonists were portuguese.
2) Portugal was at war with the dutch, until 1661, and the dutch simply were not powerful enough to blockade portuguese ports and win the war that way.

This is the core of the issue. Portugal was never in any position to challenge the other powers. No historian could argue that.

That in retrospect Portugal's colony became important has been pretty lucky.
If the Republic had devoted more resources to the conquest of Brazil who would have known what could have happened (Brazil would have been a lot richer in any case).

You've been reading bad historians.

I could say that if the spanish had devoted more resources to stamping out the dutch rebels they'd never have managed to become independent... but they didn't. The point is that resources spent in one place are not available for use in other places, the spanish were busy fighting the french, the english, the ottomans...
Likewise, the dutch simply did not have the resources to continue their war against Portugal and at the same time fight the british, the french and the spanish, not to mention Sweden, some german states... The conquest of a large american colony was a pipe dream.

 

[Gliese 581]

I would have been fine with including Portugal. In fact I think it's only proper to do so when we're talking major colonial powers in America, but come on, Sweden?

If I remember correctly we had something like 200 people there lol. Sure it's an interesting part of Swedish history and Sweden was a great political and military force in Europe during parts of the 1600s but if you add Sweden you'd have to add a dozen others at the very least. I like the original concept of concentrating on the major powers, but Portugal should have been included.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I would have been fine with including Portugal. In fact I think it's only proper to do so when we're talking major colonial powers in America, but come on, Sweden?

If I remember correctly we had something like 200 people there lol. Sure it's an interesting part of Swedish history and Sweden was a great political and military force in Europe during parts of the 1600s but if you add Sweden you'd have to add a dozen others at the very least. I like the original concept of concentrating on the major powers, but Portugal should have been included.

There were a little over 600 colonists at the time the Dutch took over, but to that must be added the colonists who ran off and joined the Indians, those who ran off to Maryland because life as a colonist was simpler under the more easy-going English rule, and the fact that after the Dutch had occupied New Sweden, they found the Finnish and Swedish woodsmen to be such excellent settler material that they actually sent one of them, a certin Israel Helminen (an ethnic Finn), back to Sweden to recruit more colonists. Some two or three hundred made it to America before the Swedish government forbade any further recruitment of emigrants. A generation later,the people still speaking Swedish on the Delaware (some had moved elsewhere and/or assimilated with the English) had increased to 800 and asked the king of Sweden to send out pastors from the Church of Sweden to see to their spiritual needs; in the meantime, their parish clerks had held services, but they felt this wasn't quite sufficient. The king obliged, and three Swedish-speaking parishes were maintained this way - the English, as usual, didn't mind. In due time, as the Swedes were absorbed, the number of Swedish parishes maintained shrank from threee to one. The last Swedish minister administering to the spiritual needs of the people of New Sweden died in Wilmington, Delaware (formerly Fort Christina) in the 1820's. By then, the Swedes and Finns had basically been absorbed by the Anglican church. (Sweden and England were generally on friendly terms.)

Since all early colonial populations in what is now the US bred at a tremendous rate, the number of people descended (in part, of course) from the people of New Sweden must number in six digits, perhaps more. Ask a population statistician if you don't believe me.

Also, apart from supplying the ancestors of of John Hanson (the first president of the Continental Congres) and John Morton of New Jersey (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), the Swedes introduced the log cabin. At least, such a building demonstrably existed in Sweden-Finland (largely still forest country) at the time, but not in England and the Netherlands (cleared farmland).

None of this makes the Swedes on the Delaware comparable in importance to the Portuguese or even the Dutch, but I'd argue that they were at least as important as the Russians. Admittedly, this is on a rather humble level, far below the five Big Ones.

Oh, a final note - so many young men ran off to join the Indians because the forest life of the local tribe, the Lenni-Lenapes (who got on famously with the Swedes) was quite similar to forest life back in Sweden at the time.

Ahem. Sorry for the lecture, folks.

 

[Sashimi917]

Portugal is such an important colonizer to have missed out

 

[Tullaris]

You've been reading bad historians.

Charles Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil? Thats pretty much the standard work on the matter. Boxer is an Englishman, so pretty objective for that matter.

Atleast it beats whatever petty portugese source you can come up with. Fact is Boxer used a lot of sources from both Portugal and the Republic and the things I have told here come mainly from his book.


Dont take innonimatu serious. He says the Dutch didnt have the Naval power to blockade Portugal back in the 1660s. Are you kidding me? They had the strongest fleet in Europe. Remember that the Dutch decisively defeated the English fleet in 1665 and towed their flagship down the Thames.

I hate resorting to Wikipedia, but innonimatu has some serious reading up to do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Dutch_War

Start there.

 

[Tullaris]

Have you edited your profile man? Almost 4 years in the forum and just posted 14 times. Just to teach us these extremely detailed historical issues I guess...

I'm a Civ player but also someone with an extensive interest in historical matters. Mostly I read a lot of topics but occasionally when I read historical claims that are simply not true I feel inclined to reply.
I've studied history and specifically colonial history in the 17th century, so I know my sources.

I agree that if there were a fift European nation it should be Portugal, but since there are only four this will have to do. Some people however are claiming that Portugal was more important in that time than the Dutch Republic. However such claims are completely ungrounded, not a sane historian will agree with that.

I understand where such claims could come from, you look at Brazil and think that the Portugese must have been extremely influential. But history does not work that way. At that time, Brazil was not as large and populous as it is now. Portugal was a weak nation from a diplomatic, military and political point of view. That it founded one of the biggest colonies in retrospect was a extremely fortunate and good accomplisment.

However at the time they were simply not an important power on the European political scene.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I understand where such claims could come from, you look at Brazil and think that the Portugese must have been extremely influential. But history does not work that way. At that time, Brazil was not as large and populous as it is now. Portugal was a weak nation from a diplomatic, military and political point of view. That it founded one of the biggest colonies in retrospect was a extremely fortunate and good accomplisment.

However at the time they were simply not an important power on the European political scene.

Agreed, but they had such an impact in the New World that I think they should have been included.

 

[Zhahz]

The germans with hitler should definitely be in.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

/facepalm...

I think the Portuguese and maybe the Russians should be in.

I think their bonus would be Agricultural. +50% production of non-food or fish crops.

The leaders could be:
Joaquim José da Silva Xavier (Agricultural, Independent) (3 more people can work in the Liberty Hall)

Manuel da Nobrega (Agricultural, Imperialistic) (Missionsaries can convert nearby Indian cities to join them, though converted cities lose 25% population)

 

[GoodGame]

I enjoyed it.

On the 'log cabin' thing. Weren't some of the Eastern natives living in similar long huts at the time? Just curious, because I'd assumed they'd be an inspiration for simple wilderness homes.

Ahem. Sorry for the lecture, folks.

 

[GoodGame]

Yeah right. /sarcasm off

I would be wonderful if more alt-history colonizers were in. Germans, Italians, etc...

The germans with hitler should definitely be in.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

They lived in long houses, but they weren't like log cabins IIRC... they were roundish

 

[frekk]

They lived in long houses, but they weren't like log cabins IIRC... they were roundish

There were alot of different designs. Some were roundish, though those ones were generally smaller - just houses, not longhouses. The actual longhouses, ie Iroqouian design, were constructed of timber frames with bark or hide walls, usually designed so that sections could be rolled up. Some have roofs that are slightly rounded at the ends, others look more or less like barns:

http://www.nygeo.org/Longhouse.jpg

On the Pacific coast, there were longhouses of heavy timber construction, the Haida and Tlingit plank houses:

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/8325/longhousescreenbmpyc7.jpg

http://www.nativeaccess.com/ancestral/haidahouse1.html