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

[kulak]

Originally posted by 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.

What I liked about game mechanics of Civ4 is that most "penalties" for doing something were just the opportunity cost of not doing something else.

There was no need to balance science by creating negative effects of researching technologies. Instead the "penalty" was only the fact you didn't do something else you could have...like build a military...

So I would've thought the ideal way to balance the benefits of Liberty Bells (assuming they're overpowered) would be to either mitigate their benefits, or to increase the benefits of alternatives (crosses, hammers, whatever).

The current way feels like the game is "moving the goalposts" - it's the equivalent of Civ4 saying that if I have a larger empire, that my spaceship needs to be bigger. Just doesn't feel right.

[rf_900]

For me it is the same case as Civilization with only one victory condition. If you play Civ4 with only one victory condition your gameplay will be affected, the strategies will be more limited and you will be force to take certain actions.

I think that if we add victory condition to Colonization it will allow for a more varied gameplay. They could be other victory conditions that allow you to achieve DoI in a different way.

[joncnunn]

If foreign intervention was brought back in, I would sugest it be a certain percentage of that foreign REF that comes over and not based upon your own REF.

France's forces that came over was based on what France could afford to send over here without losing too much elsewhere. (And not so much based on how much England intended to commit over here.)

[joncnunn]

Back on the LBs at the last moment, the more I think about, the more I'm convinced that a lot of the problem is that per turn cap on REF increase from Liberty bells making it artiically easy to win with the few cities no LB until last approach and not as much the too hard to win with traditional approach (if already on the highest difficulty level).

What it's basically done is made it such that you should either produce no LBs for NO increase; or a massive amount of LBs in a single turn way above what would cause the max cap per turn REF increase.

If that per turn cap were removed, then the player's REF would be about the same size either way by DOI weather he built a few LB a turn for several turns or a lot of LB per turn for a few turns.

[fumanchu72000]

Useful Suggestions?

Well, I've played a few more games now. I tried creating a larger colony and generate LB's at a more inuitive linearly increasing rate.

Keeping a small colony and rapidly jumping your LB's over a few turns is just more effective and a whole lot easier.

Although both large and small colonies are viable, I believe the "difficulty" is skewed toward the tiny colonies that shotgun LB's at the end. For me, this doesn't pass the "feel" test.

It was a huge task to stockpile the necessary weapons and horses for a large colony to repel such a large number of the king's forces (and I failed at that, I tried for about 100 colonial forces and it wasn't enough given my "linear" LB growth test).

So, some changes I'd like to see are ...
1. Anything that encourages more a more linear LB growth rate. One shouldn't be so massively punished for using a major game feature. Perhaps move the "opportunity cost" toward hostility with the natives.
2. Change the way the kings army is generated. Mosty to help with point 1.
3. I understand the need to make combat less of a "hide in the city" affair, but for all that is holy and good a fortified city should not be an instant deathtrap.
4. I think there needs to be a different way to stockpile goods beyond building an army of wagon trains and just have them sit in cities acting as warehouses. I think one more warehouse upgrade that allows unlimited storing would work. Maybe make it prohibitively expensive so you're only likely to build in it one city. That way you can use your exsisting wagon train network to bring everything to that one city. I don't think the wagon trains were meant to be used as warehouses.

Well, now to create a large colony strategy help thread.

Robert

[Steve Clark]

Excellent summary of the major weaknesses/exploits of the game and what can be done to improve them. I fully agree on all 4 points. Wagon Trains (and Ships) should not be used as Warehouses; LB should not slammed in at the end; and the city should not be a death trap for the invading army.

[wodan11]

If the unlimited warehouse is prohibitively expensive, then why wouldn't I keep using wagons as warehouses? They would be cheaper.

It needs to be cheaper than the wagon option. Actually, quite a bit cheaper, because wagons have the added benefit of flexibility / mobility.

The main problem is that I need enough horses/guns to be able to convert pretty much my whole city population to mounted troops. Especially now as I have to evacuate when the REF arrives. So, I need effectively unlimited warehousing in that city.

And, I need to repeat that action possibly with other cities. Certainly with other cities, if I guess wrong on which city is going to receive the brunt of the attack.

So, either the unlimited warehouse needs to be able to be built at multiple cites AND it needs to be less than 1/2 the cost of the wagons, or it's going to be a less desirable option in my book.

Good idea though.

[fumanchu72000]

I'm not that good at game design, otherwise I'd be making games.

I didn't think about the resource mobility/cost of wagon train angle when talking about the elusive unlimited warehouse. I brought up making it expensive as it's clear they wanted resource limits to be an issue that had to be dealt with. As it is, wagon trains negate the need to care how much of anything you have, as long as you are willing to build another wagon train to store it.

I could add a point 5.

5. Units outside of a settlement should want to rebel at the same rate as workers inside a city. Kinda odd that most of the population want's to rebel, and the workers doing land construction and the standing army all have paintings of the king they carry around with them. This is another penalty when trying to interact with the natives and other colonies.

This is more of a "what the heck" moment. I had a colony on a large island, that blocked most direct movement to the island behind it. I had a city on one coast, which diagonally touched a native city that touched the other coast because the land mass became a bit narrow where we were. I could sail my ship from my colony, to the native colony, to the other side of the island. Instant Panama Canal! Hehe.

Robert

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by kulak


What I liked about game mechanics of Civ4 is that most "penalties" for doing something were just the opportunity cost of not doing something else.

There was no need to balance science by creating negative effects of researching technologies. Instead the "penalty" was only the fact you didn't do something else you could have...like build a military...

So I would've thought the ideal way to balance the benefits of Liberty Bells (assuming they're overpowered) would be to either mitigate their benefits, or to increase the benefits of alternatives (crosses, hammers, whatever).

The current way feels like the game is "moving the goalposts" - it's the equivalent of Civ4 saying that if I have a larger empire, that my spaceship needs to be bigger. Just doesn't feel right.

There's one thing where Civ DOES have direct penalties though, and you have hit it on the nose: city count. There is a direct penalty (monetary) for having more cities, to prevent you from just building as many cities as you can. Col needs this too; and that is the LB -> REF increase (at the moment).

What else would you do to counter ICS (just building as many colonies as you can)? There's very little opportunity cost in that ...build a few fish colonies, and then go crazy.

The only thing that comes to mind for me is a much stronger native presence ...

But at the end of the day, the way to make sure it's evenly fair for people to play with many colonies and fewer colonies, is to make the REF (the major block to victory) effectively depend on the size of your colonies. It's not moving goalposts; it's making it fair for many playstyles.

[peege]

For the record,

I just won on marathon with a large map.

12 Settlements:

4 of them over 15 with one at 19.

Most all of them but 4 had lumber mills, and warehouse expansions.

It was a fun game. I enjoy NOT expanding my borders, to be honest, because I like good relations with the natives. It's not in my interest to kick them out.

I waited until later for the LB, using political, military points to generate FFs. But I had elder statesmen in every settlement working the fields. The colleges and University pumped out the statesmen for everyone after the 1st one was bought.

It was a really fun game, with specific trade automation for the flow.

The REF grew quickly to over my size, but I had enough guns in every warehouse and only needed to stockpile guns in two cities. Slightly inland. All the people armed up and evacuated the coastal cities, and armed in the secondary cities.

I lost a lot of troops, but easily took root in the woods and won several key battles in the woods.

Fun game.

I don't like only having 3 settlements. I also don't understand why people think they need to stay so small to win.

Having a pumping economy is really easy if you expand, and it isn't that hard to get those people ready for revolution, if you get some key FF's. But with 4 cities with Master Carpenters working in Lumber mills, its easy it generate those FF's every few turns on political points.


Main argument for expansion:

Converted Natives get ONE tile to work at +1 if they go in an existing settlement.

If they start a settlement, you get the center tile for free AND the tile that they harvest at +1. In some cases, the equivalent of putting an expert on a single tile of an older settlement.

AND MORE WAREHOUSE SPACE in every new settlement.


The downside to this: The automation list is ridiculous. Not in any order at all. So it is like looking for a needle in a haystack to create routes.

[Steve Clark]

I also don't understand why people think they need to stay so small to win.

Because you can. Why build 5, 9 or 15 cities when one city will do (assuming it's in a really, really nice spot)? It's almost like if Civ4 had the option to go for an Ancient Age spaceship victory. Just because one can go for an easy early victory doesn't mean that you should; but it does mean that there some fundamental gameplay flaws. Like I said before, you have to force yourself to play bigger (like what you did) or have some house rules to prevent the easy early victory.

[kulak]

Originally posted by snoopy369


There's one thing where Civ DOES have direct penalties though, and you have hit it on the nose: city count. There is a direct penalty (monetary) for having more cities, to prevent you from just building as many cities as you can. Col needs this too; and that is the LB -> REF increase (at the moment).

What else would you do to counter ICS (just building as many colonies as you can)? There's very little opportunity cost in that ...build a few fish colonies, and then go crazy.

The only thing that comes to mind for me is a much stronger native presence ...

But at the end of the day, the way to make sure it's evenly fair for people to play with many colonies and fewer colonies, is to make the REF (the major block to victory) effectively depend on the size of your colonies. It's not moving goalposts; it's making it fair for many playstyles.

I agree there needs to be a targeted measure of some sort to discourage ICS. However the effect of the LB penalty is not so much to discourage ICS, it is to discourage LB-generation. I am a classic builder, so I normally like to aim for the culture / science / etc stuff; maybe this is partly why I don't like the LB penalty, as it doesn't suit the way I like to play.

Tougher natives would be a better idea.

Other possibilities might involve:
-- making it harder to generate large surpluses of food, or harder to gain population through food;
-- reducing the efficiency of small cities, eg the founding citizen counts only for the city square, reducing the storage space available to small cities, increasing the cost of wagons, etc.

Anyway, there seems to be enough sentiment along these lines that I'm sure some kind of mod which suits me will pop up at some point. Of course I could make one myself, if I had any talent...

[Ijuin]

Hmm how about changing it so that the city square generates only food and no trade commodity? That would mean that a city would not generate any trade commodity without a colonist working the land, and would reduce the profit to be gained from small cities.

[armyjournalist]

I think that would make it prohibitively difficult to get your colonies off the ground to begin with.

[Djboomingranny]

you could always make it so that citys don't start with the refining buildings, and that you have to build them... (no weavers house, tobaconists house etc)