Renewable resources: The death of colonies?

[korn469]

grumbold

basically you need special resources and most likely luxeries ASAP, but the only good thing is that you won't need to build many colonies to satisfy your empire's demand for iron, bronze, silk, and the other vital early game resources/luxeries...i could see a player rushing in a colony or too to secure bronze, iron, horses, and silk...so that is four early colonies, and although that is a hit to your workforce i think that workers in civ3 will be cheaper than settlers were in civ2, and regaining four lost population won't be too much of a problem, especially if you have swordmen, horsemen, archers, chariots, etc before your enemy does...

in civ3 i could see a round or two of early expansion, then a rush to build colonies to secure special resources, then either further expansion or you take to the offensive

i do think that 2 pop settlers will slow down early game ICS some, and that the need for special resources will basically force an ICS player to build colonies, and even perfectionists could probably use colonies to secure special resources faster than they could use culture to engulf those sites within their borders

[Grumbold]

We agree Useful for that first expansion phase then basically useless with the current information.

[korn469]

yeap grumbold we do agree

according to the firaxis resource guide when you discover a certain new tech then suddenly you see the special resources on the map

so as far as we know the special resources are:

bronze (an alloy but oh well): bronze working
iron: iron working
horses: horseback riding
oil: refining?
rubber: ?
coal: steam engine?
uranium: fission
gold?: ?

so after each one of these discoveries there could be a rush to secure resources by building colonies, but most likely once your empire is well established this probably won't be the case because your civ's borders already cover most of the map...and some resources you just might have to trade for

so colonies seem like they will become obsolete fairly quickly, but they do seem like they will serve at least some purpose in the game

[Grumbold]

Yep. I'd expect there to be more chance of a brisk war to capture a key city or two than a renewed burst of colonial activity

[kolpo]

I can think of a raison to build colonies in the mid/late game: unhappyness by distance from capitol. I don't know or civ3 will have this but if it has that then will that encourage to build colonies on far away islands.

[korn469]

the only way i could see colonies being useful beside the early game is if they made it more valuable to trade your resources, or if they brought extra trade income in when you connected them to a city, or something along those lines...because if there are only 8 resources and 8 luxeries in the game and you need only one to provide for all of your civ then that is 16 colonies at most...but some of the resources won't come into play later, when a quick war, or the current placement of your cities, or a worker discovering a special resource will already put resources within your borders so the only time i can think of borders really being a limiting factor is in the first 100 turns

my question is what is the general consensus about colonies at firaxis? this we will never know...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by korn469
urban ranger

your idea raises a few questions

do enemy borders envelope colonies like friendly borders do? if not then is building a colony in enemy territory an act of war?

though it seems that parking a military unit on that special resource would be a better way of handling the situation

I'm not sure if you can build inside enemy borders, but outside, why not?

The advantage of a colony over military units is of course you get to use those resources yourself eventually. You probably need the military units to defend the colonies, but they'd be in place regardless.

[Inverse Icarus]

QUESTION: if you are the first civ to discover Fusion, and you see the French land is Laiden with Uranium, do you have to give the French Fusion before trading for Uranium with them?

thats stupid in my opinion.

"i'll give you 2 gold for that useless glowing rock over there"

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by UberKruX
QUESTION: if you are the first civ to discover Fusion, and you see the French land is Laiden with Uranium, do you have to give the French Fusion before trading for Uranium with them?

thats stupid in my opinion.

"i'll give you 2 gold for that useless glowing rock over there"

Very good question, one I'd like to know as well, Firaxis says you can't see a resource until the tech has been discovered, but is that, everyone sees it now, or just your civ? Hopefully just your civ.

[Miatezhnyi]

I would hope that the resource becomes visible to all civs. Suppose you discovered technologies that allow you to see and utilize oil, but 80% of the oil is located in territory occupied by a pathetically underdeveloped civ which you have good relations with. If they can't see it you really couldn't trade for it. Seeing the resources does not mean they could utilize it for production, simply trade it (perhaps for that knowledge).