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

[Arator]

Originally posted by patcon

I agree that colony maintenance should only come into play if the two regions are not part of the same connected cultural boundary. Yes, that means that a region could start out as a colony and then be absorbed into the motherland as cultural borders expand.

That is exactly the way it should be programmed. No colony expense within the contiguous cultural borders containing the capital. Solver, get on this please!

This small change and one other would make BTS's colony expense/independence system perfect:

Allow players the option to control and manage newly independent former colonies as a second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) empire. That would only add to the fun by giving players additional empires to build up to perfection. That's much better than giving one's hard work over to a mindless AI to mismanage.

[Solver]

The criteria of colonial maintenance kicking in are not something I am going to change in my unofficial patch.

[Arator]

Originally posted by Solver
The criteria of colonial maintenance kicking in are not something I am going to change in my unofficial patch.

OK, but perhaps you could help make Firaxis aware of this problem so that it will get into the official patch?

[ben04]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Isn't that the point of the maintenance? Forcing you to choose between vassalizing the civ and paying a fortune?

Indeed it should but it doesn't. Why do you make colonies? Mainly to get resources for your corporations and to win a domination victory. While the latter is very possible with vassals the former isn't. The AI just reds out additional resources and then you are left with nothing as you can't even take those cities back. Economy rarely is a reason as those cities most of the time need too long to come online and only cost maintance.

Originally posted by OliverFA

Or Crete in Greece, Corsica in France, Balear Islands in Spain, just to name a few examples.

Very bad examples as all of them want their independence. Especially the second. Don't ever go there and say that they're French.


However I really like the idea of taking cultural borders as criteria. I'd then give even 1 city groups a maintance cost. This way you will not longer be able to place cities early one too far away from your capital to secure some land for further expansion.

[Solver]

I would think that Firaxis noticed this thread already. Whether they think it's a problem is up to them.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by ben04
Very bad examples as all of them want their independence. Especially the second. Don't ever go there and say that they're French.

I think this discussion belongs to another forum, but I know for sure that Balear islands don't want their independence. If they want something is to become part of an independent Catalonia, which would have a capital in the continent anyway. But in fact it is something that only a very very small percentage of people with great access to press want. Unfortunatelly their control of the media allows them to make people believe in a reality they just created.

So if some shady interests made you think they want to become independent, I bet the same happens for Corsica and Crete.

Originally posted by ben04 However I really like the idea of taking cultural borders as criteria. I'd then give even 1 city groups a maintance cost. This way you will not longer be able to place cities early one too far away from your capital to secure some land for further expansion.

If you think about it, it really makes much sense. When Greeks and Phoenicians had colonies in the Mediterranean with no land connection (despite being at the same continent) they could not hold them for so lond. But Romans had no problem holding those same colonies as they were a single block.

[wodan11]

Actually, the "same continent" restriction is kind of silly. Think about an extreme example: a giant "U" shaped continent, with half of an empire on each tip of the U. Such as the Mediterranean... according to Civ rules, Africa/Asia/Europe are the same continent, since they have contiguous land. So, Rome owning Carthage or other cities in Africa would NOT trigger colony maintenance. Likewise, Dutch or French colonies in SE Asia would not trigger colony maintenance. Makes no sense.

Meanwhile, Japan having an empire and owning cities in Manchuria would trigger colony maintenance.

Getting completely rid of that requirement, and replacing it with a simple "contiguous cultural border" check, makes a whole lot more sense.

Wodan

[Kuciwalker]

I also agree with the "contiguous cultural border" check.

[marvinkosh]

I think that having a contiguous border is a good criterion. It encourages the development of an empire that makes use of its cultural weight to unite otherwise disparate cities.

[tsubame]

The contiguous border idea is something I also think would be a reasonable and welcomed change.

Actually, part of me thinks the colony model should be changed from "seperated by water" to "no cultural connection to capital". This way, on a Pangaea map, if you conquer a bunch of cities halfway across the world, they would be a colony- which makes sense to me.



BTS, while very good, seems to have a lot of things people want tweaked.

I also like the player controls colony idea as an option, but that could be an exploit in MP.

[Unimatrix11]

Well, well, well - i guess this forum once again paid good devident to the devs - this is, after all, quite a reasonable suggestion, now, isnt it ?

Note for next patch: Calculate colony costs accounting to connected culrutaral borders instead of splitting oceans...

[player1]

I support this culture border idea.
It makes so sense.

Although it can give problems to early expansion.
(grabbing that iron 10 tiles away, should make you pay)

[jam3]

Experiencing this in my current game invading a civ on another landmass.

1) I agree it should be based on cultural borders and not water.

2) Institute a new building to offset the cost in a city and a new national wonder to offset the cost on a landmass.

[patcon]

Originally posted by player1
I support this culture border idea.
It makes so sense.

Although it can give problems to early expansion.
(grabbing that iron 10 tiles away, should make you pay)

It wouldn't cause a problem since costs don't come into play until you get a few separated cities.

[ben04]

I don't know if we'll see it in a new patch. It is after all a non trivial to implement as the game doesn't yet track continious culture borders AFAIK.