Solver, Please Fix Colony Expense Illogic - It Ruined My First BTS Game!

[LDiCesare]

I'll chime in and say cultural borders is the way to go.
I also have doubts about the logic behind the quadratic part of the cost, but that is not as important as allowing cities across a channel to be part of the same culture.

[The_Reckoning]

You should be able to name the independent nations, and choose their leader. Ideally, there'd be a set of generic leaderheads to appoint.

[joncnunn]

In this situation: First this was a badly generated terra map if you could reach the new world pre-Caravel.

Also, in something similar, I would sugest moving your capital to the new world realtively quickly (definately before your new world cities exceed the old) and if colony expenes from your main land later became unbearable, declare your original homeland to be the independant colony.

I do however see great logic in if two bodies of land are only seperated by only a single water tile the colony logic really shouldn't set in, there should be a gap of two water tiles to triger that.

Originally posted by Arator

OK. Let me see if I can clarify. The map was Terra where all civs start in the "old world." My founding city was on the southwestern coast of the largest "old world" continent. Immediately across from my capital (only three spaces distant) was the northwestern coast of a secondary smaller "old world" continent. My capital plus three old core cities were on the north side of the channel. Having reached the limits of my northward expansion (short of war), I founded my fifth core city directly across the channel from my capital. As the game progressed, I expanded southward from that fifth city, founding six more cities, conquering one barbarian city and two rival cities on that same continent. At this point, it's the early 1800's, and I have four old core cities and one new city on the north side of the channel and 10 cities on the south side of the channel. Of these 10 cities, seven are core civ with six circling one center city, all in close proximity to the north shore core (or at least as close as cities of rival civs that had expanded all on the largest "old world" continent (without water separation).

At this point, the other civs on the large "old world" continent were as viable as ever (since they had no water separation), but mine was not, because I had reached the critical mass of cities on the southside of the channel sufficient to blow my "colony" expenses through the roof and crush my research down to zero. I had no choice but to lose some of my south shore cities and cut my civ in twain.

But, the way BTS works, this meant giving up all 10 cities on the south shore continent, even though most were as close to my capital as core cities were in rival civilizations on the main continent.

I found no other way around this and it just killed my game, rendering hours of gameplay and carefully guided growth and development of my core civ moot. Post-independence, a mindless AI takes over controlling the bulk of my core civ. I am left with only the four oldest north shore cities, a rump of my former self. That's not fun. That ruins the end game. Just as I was reaching the apogee of my "old world" power and ready to do some real damage to my rivals to the north, I've lost the core territory on the south shore that I worked so hard to expand into, secure and develop -- all because of a narrow channel of water separating the two parts of my core civ. That's crazy (and game-killing).

I like maps where there are many land masses and islands separated by water. I enjoy that dimension of exploration and settlement and the challenge of overcoming the impediment of water separation.

I can understand the colony expense/independence concept when multi-city settlements are distant from one's core civ. I do not understand its application when one's core civ is merely divided by water, not distance.

[joncnunn]

Well you could go into the handicap xml and reduce the cash related AI bonsues.

Originally posted by AAHZ
i hate maintenence. the player is penalized MORE than the AI it seems.

[joncnunn]

The first case would be historic. The Normans conquered England and promptly relocated their capital from Normany to larger England. A couple of centuries later King John had his Norman possesions repossesed by the King of France. Later during the early stages of the 100 year war England conquered most of France but a couple of decades lost off of it except for Calasis. (The later being only a single city and therefore not subject to the ingame colony fees.)

You do however have a point about Canada & South America; but a more historic example would be France & Algeria where France had to let nearby but geographicaly seperated Algeria go.

I do however see your model as subject to abuse. As a European power, take several single city outposts in China taking care not to culturaly connect them and pay no colony expenses. While if you take all of India you pay a substantal colony expense.

Originally posted by OliverFA

That's odd. Isn't it? It means that if the UK owns Western Europe, they will have to pay a lot of maintenance costs despite being clearly inside the same cultural borders. But that Canada owning South America with the US and Mexico in between would not have to pay a single gold of extra cost. To me that looks not only illogical, but also unfun.


Right! That's IMHO the right way to define it. For example, you can check if they could have a trade route without open borders. It they can (which would be the case of UK owning part of France) then there is no additional cost. If they can't (like Canada owning Argentina) then the additional costs are added. If later Canada conquers all America then there will be no additional costs for the cities in Argentina.

[joncnunn]

I think reduced colony maint for expansive traight would be a very good idea.

Originally posted by tsubame
As for the early game limitation, I don't think that would be a big problem- it's a slight nerf to early game expansion- but probably not that big.

Second suggestion- expansive should get a buff of reduced colony maintenance.

The more I think about it, the cultural border idea is what I really want instead of the current system. I'd also like to see it where all non-connected cultural cities are eligible to be part of a spun off colony. That change would likely need to be done as well.

Wondering if this stuff is moddable as is so it could be done before an official patch.

[tsubame]

The taking single cities expansion method would be difficult to abuse.

1) You'd run into cultural problems. Those cities would revolt often.

2) They'd be harder to defend.

[LDiCesare]

You do however have a point about Canada & South America; but a more historic example would be France & Algeria where France had to let nearby but geographicaly seperated Algeria go.

Actually, this is beter modelled by culutral revolt than high maintenance.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by joncnunn
You do however have a point about Canada & South America; but a more historic example would be France & Algeria where France had to let nearby but geographicaly seperated Algeria go.

I think that was more related to the state of the world than to anything else. In that time the state of the world favored decolonization movements, and Argelia was not an exception. Portugal for example had to give up all the colonies it still had because it proved impossible to maintain them. However it had no problem keeping the same colonies a couple of centuries ago.

Originally posted by joncnunn
I do however see your model as subject to abuse. As a European power, take several single city outposts in China taking care not to culturaly connect them and pay no colony expenses. While if you take all of India you pay a substantal colony expense.

This could be solved by saying that ALL cities not connected to capital count as a whole for colony costs. It does not matter if they are connected between them or not.

[LDiCesare]

I think that was more related to the state of the world than to anything else. In that time the state of the world favored decolonization movements, and Argelia was not an exception. Portugal for example had to give up all the colonies it still had because it proved impossible to maintain them. However it had no problem keeping the same colonies a couple of centuries ago

This would make for an interesting civic like emancipation vs slavery: colonialism vs autonomy(???).

[Tattila the Hun]

I wonder how something like Hong Kong would be handled... The bloody thing would be in revolt all the time...

[LDiCesare]

Maybe there's the Globe Theatre in Hong Kong? Make it a new wonder: Hong Kong Movie Industry. No unhappiness from being a colony.

[Nadar]

Originally posted by olelukoie
I've looked at the code and found a way to turn colony maintenance off. Look at the functions:

int CvCity::calculateColonyMaintenance() const
{
	return (calculateColonyMaintenanceTimes100() / 100);
}

int CvCity::calculateColonyMaintenanceTimes100() const
{
	if (GC.getGameINLINE().isOption(GAMEOPTION_NO_VASSAL_STATES))
	{
		return 0;
	}

	CvCity* pCapital = GET_PLAYER(getOwnerINLINE()).getCapitalCity();
	if (pCapital && pCapital->area() == area())
	{
		return 0;
	}

	int iNumCitiesPercent = 100;

	iNumCitiesPercent *= (getPopulation() + 17);
	iNumCitiesPercent /= 18;

	iNumCitiesPercent *= GC.getWorldInfo(GC.getMapINLINE().getWorldSize()).getColonyMaintenancePercent();
	iNumCitiesPercent /= 100;

	iNumCitiesPercent *= GC.getHandicapInfo(getHandicapType()).getColonyMaintenancePercent();
	iNumCitiesPercent /= 100;

	int iNumCities = (area()->getCitiesPerPlayer(getOwnerINLINE()) - 1) * iNumCitiesPercent;
	
	int iMaintenance = (iNumCities * iNumCities) / 100;

	iMaintenance = min(iMaintenance, GC.getHandicapInfo(getHandicapType()).getMaxColonyMaintenance() * 100);

	return iMaintenance;
}

As you can see, if you switch off Vassal states, the colony maintenance will always be zero. So, if you like to play archipelago maps or like to conquer territories on other continents, just disable Vassal State.

Another way to get rid of the whole Colony Expense concept, is to edit the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml (\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml) and set both iColonyMaintenancePercent and iMaxColonyMaintenance to zero (or whatever values you might find fit) for your actual difficulty/handicap level. This is easy and also works for a game already in progress, and "saved" my game from total bankrupcy since I have the odd habbit of playing conquest on huge maps... which the colony expence actually don't let you do.

[_BuRjaCi_]

BtW The idea that the culturte idea would be an early game bummer is BS, since the cost goes up with the amunt of turns in the early game it would be nearly nothing. And one city would not have colony tax.

And France didn't settle Algeria it conquered it.

[joncnunn]

The Franks didn't settle France either; they conquered it.

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_
BtW The idea that the culturte idea would be an early game bummer is BS, since the cost goes up with the amunt of turns in the early game it would be nearly nothing. And one city would not have colony tax.

And France didn't settle Algeria it conquered it.