Fixes\Patch Mod

[snoopy369]

Okay, some things are done as of now. I don't suggest using the mod at the moment to actually play your main games, as it's super-alpha and not necessarily stable, but testing is appreciated.

Much more will be done in the next few days, though, so don't despair.

One change that will need discussing is the education threshold increase. Clearly 20% is too high - after 13 colonists it takes 90 turns on schoolhose / 23 turns on University to train another colonist - but I would suggest that 0% is too low (a university trains colonists in 3 turns, from now until the end of time). The proper balance is probably somewhere between 5% and 10%. (These are based on 'default' settings, changing size/speed may alter timings.)
(Schoolhouse / College / Uni for turn timings; rounded for even numbers)
5% level:
1st colonist 30 (10 turns / 5 turns / 3 turns)
15th colonist 60 (20 turns / 10 turns / 5 turns)
30th colonist 120 (40 turns/ 20 turns / 10 turns)

10% level:
1st colonist 30 (10 turns / 5 turns / 3 turns)
8th colonist 60 (20 turns / 10 turns / 5 turns)
16th colonist 120 (40 turns / 20 turns / 10 turns)
20th colonist 180 (60 turns / 30 turns / 15 turns)

20% level (current)
1st colonist 30 (10 turns / 5 turns / 3 turns)
5th colonist 60 (20 turns / 10 turns / 5 turns)
9th colonist 120 (40 turns / 20 turns/ 10 turns)
11th colonist 180 (60 turns / 30 turns / 15 turns)

In a normal gamespeed game, on mid-level, I'm tempted to say that 10% is right, because if your 20th colonist is 15 turns in a university, that's a reasonable amount of time to educate by that point. Most of the time you probably won't want 20 people educated anyway (by the point you would be, you'll be just wanting guys who can hold guns, and these folks don't care about book learning).

However, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, particularly with games played where it was relevant. The PatchMod super alpha has 10% set in it, and we'll see how that goes. It also would be interesting to see how it varies with gamespeed - ie, does someone on Epic feel okay with it, but Marathon feels it's too high?

Play around with it, and report back, please. If you need to know where it is, open (in Notepad) Colonization\assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml and search for EDUCATION_THRESHOLD_INCREASE, and change the integer after that from 20 (default value) to something smaller. 0 means it will always cost the same to educate someone (30 education points, or 10 turns from a schoolhouse, on normal speed/difficulty/etc.); 20 means it increases (from a start of 30) by 20% each time you train a new colonist, so 30 -> 36 -> 43 -> ...

[Aerion]

Snoop, can that rate be a sliding scale dependent on game level? I.E. 5% on easy but 20% on hard?

[Hety]

Maybe increase training time but remove penalty completely? So it will be like 30/15/10 turns every time u train a colonist.

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Aerion
Snoop, can that rate be a sliding scale dependent on game level? I.E. 5% on easy but 20% on hard?

Just about to write that.
Easiest level should be 5% for the player to learn what to do with it. The sooner the better.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Custom houses did incur taxes in the original. See attachment. I also checked that the amount of money I had after the sale had grown by the amount reported after taxes, so no bugs there. They just allowed you to sell through boycotts.

[Machismo]

I know you seem to be adjusting education. Is there a way to allow a player to postpone the completion of education if they don't have the money for the type they want (i.e. elder statesman) or that they choose at the start.

[DarthVeda]

Originally posted by Machismo
I know you seem to be adjusting education. Is there a way to allow a player to postpone the completion of education if they don't have the money for the type they want (i.e. elder statesman) or that they choose at the start.

QFT.

[Krill]

Remove the person being educated from the slot when he is one turn from graduating, and he will retain the level of education he was at when removed for at least a while (not tested how long though). Then, when you have the money, put him in the school/college/university for the last turn and he will graduate and you can then choose the correct prfession for him

[peege]

If BUGS are the topic. I think this qualifies. I'm not sure though.

I refused the new tax, and threw all the Food away, just to get asked immediately after for a 7% hike or I'd lose the Coats, my primary export at the time. It seems like if you boycott something there should be at least a few turns in between requests. Or I will just accept every tax hike, or not trade.

Pretty sure it was two consecutive turns at least once, but it happened in several games, within a few turns, on marathon.

[SilverGrowler]

Some way to trade boycotted goods easily without micro management needs to be in the game for "lazy" people like me .

I play games more to relax than to tax my brain and thats what the easier levels should be for.

You should be able to trade boycotted goods with other nations so I don't see the Custom House as an exploit at all just an eliminator of micro management.

You should be able to send goods to any European port you like, maybe custom houses could also be considered a simulation of this? I'm sure too smuggling of boycotted goods would have taken place (in the real historical world were any goods boycotted?). Of course in reality the taxes made by England on the colonists were very low and the Boston Tea party was about imported goods.

Originally posted by tour86rocker
........One downside that punished me in that game was that wagons in automatic trade route mode would not move boycotted goods, making intensive micromanagement necessary to process and custom-house goods.......

In the unpatched original boycotted goods could be unloaded in Europe by pressing U but not by mouse drag.
If you apply the patch to fix the ability to unload boycotted goods in europe then automated wagon trains won't automatically unload the goods in the cities, but would still load them. Without the patch I think they still worked correctly (not played unpatched game for over 10 years).

[snoopy369]

Trading boycotted goods will never be in the game proper, and thus is not in scope for this patch. Someone would need to make a player mod to accomplish that.

You can still trade boycotted goods with other folks, but if you allow custom houses to trade boycotted goods, you give no penalty to refusing tax increases, which is unacceptable.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by peege
If BUGS are the topic. I think this qualifies. I'm not sure though.

I refused the new tax, and threw all the Food away, just to get asked immediately after for a 7% hike or I'd lose the Coats, my primary export at the time. It seems like if you boycott something there should be at least a few turns in between requests. Or I will just accept every tax hike, or not trade.

Pretty sure it was two consecutive turns at least once, but it happened in several games, within a few turns, on marathon.

Hmm, haven't seen that. A save from before the first one would be helpful. IIRC (i'm at work and can't check) tax increases are based on how much you trade, so the only way you get two that quickly is if you trade a TON of stuff, after not having traded a lot before, which would mean you're in one of the 'earlier' levels of tax increases but trading a much larger than expected amount at that level.

[ParticleHustler]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Trading boycotted goods will never be in the game proper, and thus is not in scope for this patch. Someone would need to make a player mod to accomplish that.

You can still trade boycotted goods with other folks, but if you allow custom houses to trade boycotted goods, you give no penalty to refusing tax increases, which is unacceptable.

As someone who wants Custom House back in the game for game play reasons, I wholeheartedly agree. I don't want a cheat/advantage, just an easier way to sell a lot of goods in the mid-late part of the game.

[Dale]

Originally posted by peege
If BUGS are the topic. I think this qualifies. I'm not sure though.

I refused the new tax, and threw all the Food away, just to get asked immediately after for a 7% hike or I'd lose the Coats, my primary export at the time. It seems like if you boycott something there should be at least a few turns in between requests. Or I will just accept every tax hike, or not trade.

Pretty sure it was two consecutive turns at least once, but it happened in several games, within a few turns, on marathon.

From the code this looks intentional. Tax rates are measured against your most traded good. So if you mostly trade coats, the party will be for coats. Thus, is you do hold it, the measurement switches to another good.

If you've been trading that second good enough, then it will already be at the threshold for the King annoying you with a tax hike. So 1-2 turns after the party he comes again.

And so on if you hold a second party.

I think you could call it a bug that it doesn't reset the threshold counter when it switches good after holding a party.

[snoopy369]

Ah, that makes more sense than my explanation... presumably unlikely to hit the threshold that fast, isn't it.

Leads to another question - is it best to have it ALWAYS be the most traded good, as opposed to a random chance on any given good based on its tradedness (so it's likely to be your most traded good, but not always), and then just a single global counter?