What shouldn't and should change?

[kolpo]

Shouldn’t change:

-The focus of colonization on trade and low level economics, turning goods into other goods, selling goods to various trade partners(the natives, the other nations and your home colony) is what made colonization, colonization. Some extra automatisation options to reduce micromanagement are fine. But
colonization would no longer be colonization, if the goods would for example just function as the resources of civ4.

-The bonuses of each nation: the bonuses the various nations got in colonization helped diversify them and they did fit their nations well. If I would do anything to them, would I increase them and make the nations even more diverse. We are not dealing with new nations in colonization after all, all come with their own culture and history.

Should change:

-There should be other victory option then revolution. Some type of "Canadian victory", a reward for having very good relations with your king. Your king grants you much autonomy, but your nation still remains a royal servant of the king.

-Giving all goods some sort of function, beyond the value you can sell them for. Coats could maybe help colonies in cold regions, cigars could make the upper class jobs more productive, rum could maybe give your ships a morale boost, and cloth would help in colonies with average climate.

[lord of the mark]

Re: What shouldn't and should change?

[QUOTE] Originally posted by kolpo
Shouldn’t change:

-The focus of colonization on trade and low level economics, turning goods into other goods, selling goods to various trade partners(the natives, the other nations and your home colony) is what made colonization, colonization.

absolutely, I agree.

Some extra automatisation options to reduce micromanagement are fine.

Yeah. I played Col for the first time only a couple of years ago, and the interface was totally frustrating.

Should change:

-There should be other victory option then revolution. Some type of "Canadian victory", a reward for having very good relations with your king. Your king grants you much autonomy, but your nation still remains a royal servant of the king.

I dunno.

Giving all goods some sort of function, beyond the value you can sell them for. Coats could maybe help colonies in cold regions, cigars could make the upper class jobs more productive, rum could maybe give your ships a morale boost, and cloth would help in colonies with average climate.

I lean against, on historical grounds, and gameplay.

[Guynemer]

I disagree about the nation traits. They seemed rather unbalanced to me the first go around. Clearly, there should be some civ-specific traits, but the originals could be refined a bit.

[joncnunn]

I'm thinking:

Add some of the Protestant vs Catholicism rivalaries going on at the time.

Reign in but don't eliminate nation traits.

Incorporate the automation options from Civ IV for those that want them.

Perhaps a downsized civic list from Civ IV should also be included?
Govt : Monarch or Republic; Economy : Mercentialism or Free Market; Religious : Catholic or Protestent.

[AoA]

Should change:
Starting points in the original map...IIRC, England would always land in North America, some of us like to play with American maps but don't want to travel down the coast to land somewhere different

The way every one of my colonies would be surrounded by other nations' armies even when I'm at peace. I don't recall that happening in real life. And I'm a peaceful guy.

An option for sailing in from the west...yes, its not historical, but for once I would have liked to fight it out on the West Coast

If my Lumberjack has to defend my colony and is skilled at it, let me have to option whether to convert him to Veteran vs keeping his orignal status

Shouldn't change:
I want a real Americas map, not just random maps

Don't lose the schools and specialization of colonists

Insane wish:
Maps for other continents. I always wanted to fight to colonize Africa or Asia. You can have the same European nations and Tribes, just let me take over French Indochina

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by AoA
An option for sailing in from the west...yes, its not historical, but for once I would have liked to fight it out on the West Coast.

I have repeatedly settled on the west coast. It was always a question whether the loss of all those early turns my picky pioneers sacrificed to get to the promised land could be compensated by the advantage of being far away from the competition and having more advanced Indian tribes to trade with. (Most of the time it could not, but the games were still fun.) I had to look out for that founding father who cuts down travel time for the Pacific route.

[Guynemer]

The one thing that concerns me is that they will change the free colonist-specialist dynamic altogether, and use CivIV's built-in specialist feature.

One of the things that made Colonization so great was that all the settlers had different innate skills. If they just become interchangable based on what buildings you can assign people to, well, that would suck.


I also hope they keep the more complicated and diverse biomes of the original.

[The Rusty Gamer]

I think they should start off by replicating the game rules as they were, though with the new interface, graphics etc. THEN they add other stuff, like extra founding fathers and other game options etc. and perhaps making them optional. Then you can always play the "classic" game if you want or play with expanded rules.

I hope we will get a graphic representation that tells us whether or not a scout has visited an Indian village. It was hard to remember (unless you wrote it down) just where the scouts had been.

[kolpo]

Originally posted by Guynemer
I disagree about the nation traits. They seemed rather unbalanced to me the first go around. Clearly, there should be some civ-specific traits, but the originals could be refined a bit.

Yes But I think this rebalancing should be done by increasing the traits of the weaker nations, so the nations become even more diverse. The English for example could get an even bigger immigration bonus, so they are better balanced with the Dutch.

Having only 4 nations gives them the perfect opportunity to make them very diverse yet balanced. I'm in favour of balanced nations, but I prefer asymmetric balanced ones (huge advantages of nation A, are balanced by giving nation B huge advantages of a completely different type).

[Niptium]

Shouldn't change

-The economy : should be staying... It needs more polish (what doesn't, this game dates back in 1994).

-Indians relations : unlike Age of Empire 3, Indians should remain fodder to European fire. Like in real history, genocidal campaigns should be made available. One possible new feature should be a complex system of relationships between Indian nations, in which Europeans allies would be dragged into inter-tribal wars (just like the French were brought into the Iroquois vs Hurons/Algonquians/Micmacs/etc... wars.

Should change

-Add new players. Firaxis doesn't need to add that many nations, it only needs to add Portugal and maybe Sweden. That's it. Russia, Denmark and other minors don't need to be added. What we could see is competition from rival same nation colonizers. The English colonization of North America is a great example of this, no need to be reminded of the Maryland-Delaware/Pensylvania contentious, or the inter-New England competition... Having several domestic competitors would add to the gameplay, not only full fledged wars against them would be impossible, but you would resort on the Crown/Estates to settle out some conflicts.

-The game's diplomacy, especially your relation to your mother country should be brought closer to history. That means, colonial wars should be subject to European wars... Only the Seven Years War was started in North America.

The game shouldn't be limited to winning via Independance. I'm sure Firaxis could find alternatives...

[Niptium]

Oh, and let's add some other ressources like coffee, maybe make agricultural product more diversified than wheat... and worth something on the market...

[Verrucosus]

It's probably too late for this wish, but something that should not change in my opinion is the style of the manual:
- a descriptive and precise language
- no major omissions (like the UN rules in the Civ4 manual)
- a very clear structure (as you might guess, I am not fond of the Basics / Advanced Rules division in the Pirates and Civ4 manuals)
- a useful introductory chapter (particularly the section "Colonies and Colonists" that gives you an excellent overview of the game mechanics clearly inspired by the corresponding section "Cities and Civilizations" in the original Civilization manual)
- a well-written historical appendix that really puts you in the mood for colonizing a new world.

For me, a comprehensive and well-written manual is an important contribution to my enjoyment of the game and the original Civilization and Colonization manuals were the best ones that I have read. (If they do not have enough space, they should rather leave out all those tables with information that can change with the first patch and that is more easily looked up in the Colonizopedia anyway.)

[OzzyKP]

Shouldn't change:
The workers/colonists

Should change:
More civs! Add in Portugal & Sweden.

[timbrom]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
It's probably too late for this wish, but something that should not change in my opinion is the style of the manual:

Bang on! The manuals for the old Civ games and Col itself were excellent and I found myself returning to them time and again as I became better aquainted with the games.
The modern tendency to either include thin outline guides in the useless DVD boxes or else put the full manual on a .pdf should be resisted. Give me a nice big box and a nice big manual every time.

[Asmodean]

The biggest change I yearn for is a modernization of the game. The game is/was great, but having just played it again after God knows how many years, I think it is too simple for modern standards.

Tech would be a nice addition for one thing. The game covers the era 1492 - 1789, and the world really advanced a lot in those years. I would very much like to see that reflected in the game.

Borders like in Civ would be great to have too. I also hated all those other nations constantly nosing around my colonies in the original.

Asmodean