Colonies

[joseph1944]

Originally posted by TechWins
I see that colonies can have a purpose but I feel that they don't seem to be very useful. I'm not sure how valuable that resource really is going to be for me to use 1pop point on it. It might all depend on how much happiness a temple will provide if any happiness at all for you to have a big need of getting a luxury resource.

Will there still be resources like wine, buffalo, wheat, ect... that will help your food/trade/production like they did in Civ2? That's why I'm skeptical about if a resource is in your 21 city radius you might still be able to get the extra food/trade/production from it like you could in Civ2 and possibly the function that resource would normally provide. This may only be possible if you do have borders, but will it be possible to get the function of a Civ2 resource and a Civ3?

It appeared to me that in the resource/colony preview the border increased by 2 tiles when the cultural improvement (I can't remember what improvement it was) was built. It could also depend on the improvement for how much your borders will expand. Hypothetically, a library could only expand your borders 1 tile and a temple could expand your borders 2 tiles.

Tech I'm now switching back and fore with Civ 2. I started a city and it is producting 5 wheat. 2 for 1 pop. & 3 to gain a pop point. It has taken 7 turns to gain another pop point (2). If there is a needed resource just 2 tiles from your city center, are you going to wait until your city expands to 21 tiles or build a colony now. These are the decision that each player will have to make. Remember you city will start with only the first 9 tiles and you will have to wait until it expand to 10 tiles before it will show the 21 tile expansion, or build the first Culture improvement if available.

[KrazyHorse]

I think there's a bit of confusion here. Ordinary squares which give a "regular" bonus (added food, shields, trade) don't have to be inside your culture-borders to be harvested; they just have to be within the city radius. Extraordinary squares which add a needed resource (Silk, Iron, Oil, etc.) need to be within your culture borders or have a colony on them in order to be harvested. Culture borders don't start at one square out from the city; they start 0 squares from the city.

[TechWins]

(Silk, Iron, Oil, etc.)

Will silk still give you that bonus? What about the other resources such as iron, oil, coal, ivory, etc... will they give you a bonus?

These are the decision that each player will have to make.

Yes, I agree. I feel that colonies won't be very useful, they may not be useless but I don't think they're going to be that usefull.

Tech; I started a MPG game last night, It said 20 turns to build a temple that early in the game.

It really just varies on what your production is. Plus I was making up a hypothetical situation. Don't play so much into numbers.

[tniem]

I would like to apologize. I started this thread due to the fact that I had not seen any colonies in screen shots since the slide show. Well, this was due to me missing the obvious - a screen shot from Firaxis. If you want to see a colony and what appears is a worker about to found another colony coming out of a road north of Rome, click the following link:

http://www.firaxis.com/civ3/images/artarchive/screenshots/Map_Screen.jpg

Now, does this mean that I am going to throw out my theory that colonies are not that important?

No of course not. I am way to stuborn for that. I still believe (may be because I refuse that ICS will be fixed) that founding a city and buying a temple would be more cost efficent than using a colony. Maybe in time I will find out otherwise. But for now, at least I wanted to point out some of the error in my ways.

[JellyDonut]

Hmm...that screenshot doesn't show what resource the colony is harvesting.

[Col Bigspear]

.....But if it was you playing you would know.
If you are making a point about wanting to know what that resource is because you are attacking it, then I suppose tough, you get what your given!. If it's something you have lots of then you now have more of it.
Or if theirs still a key that removes all cities from the map, then you might see whats under it?.

[JellyDonut]

Or maybe you can see by clicking on it like seeing supply and demand for a city in Civ2.

[TechWins]

I think the only way you should know what your opponents colony is harvesting is if you have an embassy with that civ or you have had a unit directly next to the colony at some point in time before.

[Grumbold]

Since you wouldn't know the colony was there unless you had got close enough to lift the fog of war I don't understand your point.

We were discussing before that these are not really colonies, they are industries, and that much of the confusion about whether or not they can expand into cities or recover their population is from the confusing terminology. If they decide to make changes I hope one will be to make the artwork distinctive to represent the activity. It's pretty easy to distinguish a copper mine from a silk farm.

[tniem]

Grumbold,

Have to agree with you on that one. You should be able to know what is made in the colony without having to spy. It should be a simple mater of trade and word of mouth. If the AI is offering to trade bronze with you, you will want to know where it comes from. And if there is a colony that you know about, then it would not be that hard for word of mouth to come back to you that the colony produces bronze.

[death_head]

Even though in real life it would be very easy to find out these kinds of things, in the game it would be more interesting if you had to spy or whatever to obtain production information.

[TechWins]

Even though in real life it would be very easy to find out these kinds of things, in the game it would be more interesting if you had to spy or whatever to obtain production information.

Yeah, I would have to agree. It would add a little bit more strategy. Anything that will make the game more fun (even if it makes the game more difficult) I am all for it. That is why I want it to be this way.

[Provost Harrison]

I am sure it would be very easy to determine what is produced in a colony. Remember the 'view terrain' button?

[Grumbold]

Thats what I mean. With view terrain being in-game, the only reason to leave them identical is to cut down on artwork. Since Firaxis are doing their best to include all sorts of fancy animated artwork in the game, a few more atmospheric stills of different workshop types seems a little thing to add to the mix.

[BigRich]

Originally posted by TechWins


Well, that depends on how long it will take to build a certain cultural expansion improvement and how long it will take you to build a colony.

Also bear in mind that culture depends on how long your improvement has been around. I think we are assuming that cultural growth is going to be fairly rapid when thats not necessarily going to be true.
Seems to me that colonies are going to be useful, even from picking out the meager positive points people have mentioned so far.

Rich.