No LB's until last moment ... that's the strategy?

[fumanchu72000]

So, I've been playing the new Colonization. I never really got into the original (it came out a bit before I had good access to a computer).

I started playing a few times, learning to set up a working economy when the computer kept getting all the FF's. So I played a few games and found that generating LB's allowed me to compete with them for FF's, and I got production bonuses. Excellent! Then, way before I expected I was pressed for time on the WoI, so I checked the king's army and saw it was way larger than I could manage.

So I played a few more games, trying to build up a number of cities, generating LB's and arms, and again the deadline was coming up way too soon and the king's army way too large.

So I come on here and read about the 3 city, don't generate LB's until the last moment strategy. I go home, try it, and lo and behold I beat the game.

Wow am I disappointed. LB's generate a lot of good things (especially cultural boarders that "push" the natives out), but the game seems completely rigged against generating them.

Well, at least I still like Civ 4. I'm hoping a patch fixes some of this ... but I fear the problem is more of a core design/goal issue than just a simple balance issue.

I was really hoping for more of an economic game than a straight RTS build a quick base and pump out units before the zerg shows up.

Robert

[snoopy369]

It's certainly one strategy. As I and Dale and a few others have noted ... you CAN fight a large REF. You just have to try.
If you prefer an easier game, the PatchMod (topped thread) Dale and I are working on makes the REF scale more substantially for lower levels, and does some other useful things also.

[crantor]

it wouldn't be much challenge if you could produce liberty bells, which are a huge bonus for your colonies, without any kind of disadvantage. PRoduce them early, you get a stronger start, but you need more troops later to fight the REF. I am not sure tying REF to librty bells exclusively is the best idea, but cranking out libery bells needs to have some sort of effect or it would be a no-brainer to always produce max of em ASAP.

And 3 colonies? I just finished a game on conquistador+1, 7 colonies, OUTNUMBERED the REF (except warships, which I had none) with a few units.

A tip is to "build" FF points if you need em early, but don't want to alert the king.

[fumanchu72000]

I can see there needing to be a downside to generating LB's, especially since there are production bonuses. I'd prefer the natives get hostile rather than just roll over. They are hard to deal with military wise, so expanding your borders would be dangerous with strong tribes nearby.

They probably are beatable with the larger armies, but I need more experience to pull that off, especially a larger colony will take more time, which will have the tax man all up in my profits.

I've also read about the building FF points without using LB's. I could sacrifice a city to that purpose to keep up with the Jones ...

That'd be a 4th city, so I'll need a 5th one to feed that ... hey wait. I see what you did there.

Maybe I was more disappointed with how easy it was doing the three city, crash LB's thing was after how interestingly hard it seemed early on.

I'm also tinkering with just playing like the revolution will never happen, and just taking the loss when it happens. I don't think any game police will arrest me for playing to not win.

Robert

[Asmodeous]

Originally posted by fumanchu72000
I can see there needing to be a downside to generating LB's, especially since there are production bonuses. I'd prefer the natives get hostile rather than just roll over. They are hard to deal with military wise, so expanding your borders would be dangerous with strong tribes nearby.

This, right here. On lower levels this is a much better method of stopping rampant LB production than having them end up having to defeat 150+ units in 20 turns when it generally takes lower-difficulty players longer to build up to begin with.

Especially considering there's such a short span of time to the game.

Me.

[fumanchu72000]

Since I've been learning, I am at the lower levels of difficulty right now. I'd like to try building a larger empire and then fight off the large military rather than advance in level and keep to the few city rush strategy.

I think the initial shock is that expanding your borders has always been (Civ 4 here) a good thing, something to be done early and often. In this game, there is a huge backhand slap that new players simply aren't ready for when you generate LB's.

Dealing with 400 of the kings army may be possible, but even on the easier levels I doubt many of us newbies could pull it off. Even more so now that I've seen how easy the alternative is.

Robert

[fumanchu72000]

Expanding on my thought processes ...

I think it would make for a more interesting narrative (and game) if there was a more natural progression in the game. You land, explore, expand, and fight to develop your economy ... bringing you into conflict with the land and the natives. You end this phase with the basic economy and a small number of military units.

You get your basic economy running well, money is coming in, and you've pushed the natives out of your slice of the new world when you start coming into competition and conflict with the other European colonies. You end this phase with a big economy and a core of combined arms troops.

Then, after that you have a strong economy and stable borders, your conflict with Europe comes into play. The colonies gear up to have every man and women armed and ready for the big fight.

I'd love to play that game. I'm learning more about this game, but I'm not convinced the whole game isn't a blitz leadup to a massive fight with Europe, with nothing inbetween to prepare you for that fight.

I think when I started I was playing to win a different game then the one I bought. Hence the frustration in my original post.

Robert

[snoopy369]

I think that would be interesting, but I think Col is a bit more open ended of a game than that. It's not really a "phase" game...

[Becephalus73]

Originally posted by snoopy369
It's certainly one strategy. As I and Dale and a few others have noted ... you CAN fight a large REF. You just have to try.
If you prefer an easier game, the PatchMod (topped thread) Dale and I are working on makes the REF scale more substantially for lower levels, and does some other useful things also.

That you can fight a larger REF is in my opinion and I would assume the opinions of others and extreme weakness of the game.

The British didn't lose the war because they were losing, they lost because they French intervened, they had a MUCH MUCH more important rebellion going on in India, and the support on the home front was really mixed.

Beating the king should take great tactics foreign help, and good timing, not a 10 to 1 kill ratio.

[snoopy369]

I think that's a 'realism' argument; this is however a game, and gameplay is more interesting when you're doing the majority of the 'winning'. I certainly think that if you could have a Foreign King intervene on your side for some small effect it would be 'fun', simply because it sounds cool; but you'll find that for most people, it's more fun to fight with your own units and have the 'winning' determined by your own actions, rather than by random chance or the computer's decision. At the end of the day, the King intervention should be a 'fun' event and not a game-changing element.

Actually, that brings an interesting idea to mind. There have been a lot of problems with the REF not being finished off in time not because of the player's actions but because of some other problem. Perhaps the Foreign King could intervene on your side and cause the REF to surrender after some reasonable amount of time has gone by with no REF action, or some other measurable, and cause you to win instantly (as a protection against the REF getting lost, and also just an interesting element, allowing 'bunkering down' rather than just active destruction).

[fumanchu72000]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I think that would be interesting, but I think Col is a bit more open ended of a game than that. It's not really a "phase" game...

Perhaps my use of phase was too strong. I used phase to describe what I think would be an interesting progression in the game. The whole game would flow together seemlessly, but your goals along the way would shift to larger concerns as you meet your more local concerns.

Lets say you spend the first part of the game exploring and setting up your colonies. You are engaged with the local tribes, warring with some, allying with others. Once you've grown and expanded, you are now in in direct competition for resources and space with the other colonies. Now you negotiate and war with them. Once you are able to stablize your colony through that, you are now ready to go to war with your home country.

I think if these interactions were necessary, and organically grew from the game rather than forced it, one would be more naturally able to deal with the European forces.

Colonization is completely about the end war. Doing anything else but preparing for that war will lose the singular goal of the game. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm saying that I think many of the frustrations from us new players stem from the lack of progression. I remember reading a review (maybe PC Gamer) that pretty much stated the same thing. Something like, "The game is good, but nothing you are asked or required to do will prepare you for the coming war with Europe. Only if you know this ahead of time and start preparing for it 100+ turns in advance do you have a chance to win it".

I think what I'm getting at is if the military and competition concern more gradually ramped up, you may be more prepared for the end game rather than having the end game hit you like a runaway freight train. This is the first game I had to come online to figure out what I was doing wrong and found out I wasn't even close to the right solution (mostly that I never considered that a major mechanic of the game, LB's, were actively hurting my chances of winning) ... in over 20 years of gaming, I think that says a lot.

Or I'm just getting old.

Robert

[snoopy369]

And what I mean is that Col - like Civ - is intended to have many ways of playing. Having one set pattern is not really intended- obviously you to some extent must simply because you start with nothing, but there should be many ways of getting from (nothing) to (win), rather than simply following the realistic path.

You have a point that the lack of militarism early in the game makes it ... harder ... later in the game. I think that people can learn to deal with that, though (and that in and of itself is not unrealistic - the colonists fighting in the RW were not generally thinking 'war in a hundred years' when they came over, either...

[Becephalus73]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I think that's a 'realism' argument; this is however a game, and gameplay is more interesting when you're doing the majority of the 'winning'. I certainly think that if you could have a Foreign King intervene on your side for some small effect it would be 'fun', simply because it sounds cool; but you'll find that for most people, it's more fun to fight with your own units and have the 'winning' determined by your own actions, rather than by random chance or the computer's decision. At the end of the day, the King intervention should be a 'fun' event and not a game-changing element.

Actually, that brings an interesting idea to mind. There have been a lot of problems with the REF not being finished off in time not because of the player's actions but because of some other problem. Perhaps the Foreign King could intervene on your side and cause the REF to surrender after some reasonable amount of time has gone by with no REF action, or some other measurable, and cause you to win instantly (as a protection against the REF getting lost, and also just an interesting element, allowing 'bunkering down' rather than just active destruction).

I think the gameplay would be just as interesting with an REF only double your size that had defensive bonuses (you seem so anti-realism, but then break out the realism argument here where it hurts gameplay badly, not to mention the fact it isn't even realistic...). It would also be nice if the REF didn't play like a complete idiot. This is what I am talking about.

For me personally and i would assume some others having 70 kills and 8 losses is not fun. It really pulls me out of the game, because it just IS NOT HARD or interesting.

Some features/victory conditions that interest me more:

Hold on to 60% of your cities for x turns (where x is based on your total number and the average distance apart (so you don't squirrel some away)). If you do so another King intervenes and saves you.

Bribe another king to help you: Maybe this costs 1k per citizen/cannon you have, and he sends a force 1/3 the size of the REF?

Randomly changing REF sizes, I cannot stress enough how this would make people have more flexible planning, and thus make the game feel like less of a straight jacket.

X turn the REF shrinks by 25% X+15 turn it gains 40% etc. All around whatever is settled on as the ideal size. No longer are you on a single plodding path to some date you chose before the game even started.

Maybe being able to Bribe politicians in your home country (or opinion makers or propagandists or whatever to reduce the REF size.

Anything that makes this game something other than
(get #statesmen = 3(#city)
(have guns/horses for everyone else)
(or maybe just the statesmen and cannons)
(make bells)
(win after slaughtering the piss out of an army twice as good and 3 times as large as yours)

[The Rusty Gamer]

See my suggestions for change at http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=181042

The first thing I'd do if I knew how is change the trigger from LBs to political points.

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by snoopy369
And what I mean is that Col - like Civ - is intended to have many ways of playing.

It is liek Civ only if Civ is set up as a dual game with only the Domination victory condition. But it still will be a Build Food City-Sell Stuff-Buy Guns/Cannons/Horses-Buy Statemen-Win Independence game. Unless the clever people can think of a way to make your actions have more consequences.