Colonies? Are you kidding me?

[Coracle]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Some more good ideas that are unlikely to ever be implemented by firaxis.

Indeed.

Send your complaints to http://www.firaxis.com/contact_gamefeedback.cfm

Colonies?? The idea that your colony vanishes if a rival civ builds a town nearby (or their border flips) is one of the more stupid aspects of Civ III. In reality, doing something like that should be considered an act of war.

[Ethelred]

Nothing is stopping you from considering it an act of war. Just take the nearst city.

Colonies disapeared all the time during the Age of Exploration. The Spanish made a lot of them disapear. The only question was any country willing to start a war over it. Are you?

The Spanish themselves didn't go to war over the attacks by Francis Drake on their Pacific Colonies and shipping and they certainly knew exactly who was responsible for it.

Sounds to me like you have the anger but not the will. Sometimes I have both sometimes I decide its better to look the other way.

I know what you need to do. Launch a preemptive strike on Firaxis. You could burn your complaint into their sidewalks with thermite.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Ethelred
I know what you need to do. Launch a preemptive strike on Firaxis.

And I just got a great leader to build an army just for that.

[The Rook]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Nothing is stopping you from considering it an act of war. Just take the nearst city.

Colonies disapeared all the time during the Age of Exploration. The Spanish made a lot of them disapear. The only question was any country willing to start a war over it. Are you?

The Spanish themselves didn't go to war over the attacks by Francis Drake on their Pacific Colonies and shipping and they certainly knew exactly who was responsible for it.

Sounds to me like you have the anger but not the will. Sometimes I have both sometimes I decide its better to look the other way.

I know what you need to do. Launch a preemptive strike on Firaxis. You could burn your complaint into their sidewalks with thermite.

You're overlooking the point. It's not whether the player see's it as an act of war, it is whether it is part of the game that it IS an act of war. If my good friends the English build a city next to my colony and gobble it up. If I attacked them, it would be like I was the bad guy. The English would have no clue as to why I went to war against them. The AI, knows not to attack my troops, because that is an act of war. It doesn't know not to gobble my colonies up.

Stop defending colonies like they aren't broken. It's a half-assed effort to impliment something from history. Real life colonies, even "work camps" could bring goods to the main countries that owned them, even without ports and other niceties. Some colonies, grew into cities, some even banded togther and became countries. Why can't we have this same functionality with colonies, but within the scope of the game?

[Ethelred]

I didn't overlook anything. You are the one doing that. The AI doesn't care why you start a war. They will always become furious just as you would.

Stop defending colonies like they aren't broken.

Stop attacking them as if they were broken. They do what they are supposed to do. They are a stop gap.

They are not the English colonies in the New World. They are bunch of political prisoners collecting turpentine in a penal or work colony. The only thing wrong colonies is the name which is causing you this obsessive confusion and unwilliness to accept what the colonies really are.

They HAD to send the stuff to real towns that had ports. Any that didn't weren't cost effective. It takes a lot of time and effort to fill a ship by carrying stuff to it with rowboats.

Build a city. The city will be exactly like the kind of colony YOU are thinking of. Only you will call it a city because that is the label it comes with. You need to quit thinking in labels.

Why can't we have this same functionality with colonies, but within the scope of the game?

We DO have that. Its called building a city. You seem to be unwilling to accept that.

Edited because I left words out. Typical of me.

[Jonny]

Check out this thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45618

Lots of ideas here. Be sure to look at mine!

[Ethelred]

Answered over there. Of course I really allready answered it here anyway.

[The Rook]

Penal colonies, huh? You can rationalize it away, but you're still wrong.

You say colonies have a usefulness, but you really really have to have the perfect situation for that. As it stands, if you find a resource on an island way across the world, there's no point in building a colony. You have to first build a city, then build a harbor. It could take you awhile to do that. Historically, the Spanish, English, Dutch, French, and others could set up a colony and have goods reaching their shores in less than a year.

So you say the game colonies are just prison camps. OK, fine, we want colonies. Something that inexpensively gives us the goods without the hassle of building a city. We are not asking for a freebie though. Put restrictions on it. Charge us for upkeep. Do whatever it takes to make colonies useful more often or why have them?

They named them colonies; because, they are supposed to be colonies, not work camps.

[Ethelred]

You say colonies have a usefulness, but you really really have to have the perfect situation for that.

Actually I said they do what they are supposed to do. I don't find them very usefull. They are just a stop gap. The AI uses them and they would be somewhat hamstrung without them. That may be main reason they survived testing.

Humans almost never need the things.

Historically, the Spanish, English, Dutch, French, and others could set up a colony and have goods reaching their shores in less than a year.

By building a city. Take a look at Lima Peru. In significantly less than one mans lifetime it went from nothing to an important port city. The lifetime in question was Pizzaro's and he was middle aged when he founded it and was only a little past middle age when he was murdered. It was paid for by gold. Tons of it. Rush built.

OK, fine, we want colonies.

You DO have kind of colonies you are asking for. They are called cities in the game and are exactly like the ones you just called colonies in the real world. A city on a far shore is identical to what you are demanding. Just relable it in your mind and you have exactly what you are asking for. Your thinking apears trapped by the labels.

They named them colonies; because, they are supposed to be colonies, not work camps.

They named them colonies because they didn't think to call them work camps. Firaxis is not exactly perfect. They botched the Civalopedia entry for Corruption also. That has spread needless confusion about how corruption and Police Stations and Courthouses work.

[The Rook]

Both you and I are arguing over what firaxis was thinking and there's no way either of us can prove that. However, I don't agree with the work camp idea. I think you are just rationalizing.

Firaxis made it harder to expand with Civ 3 by making Settlers cost more. They also threw in resources that are necessary for a Civ's survival. In order to balance this out, they put in colonies. Maybe you are right, maybe colonies are meant to help the AI more than the human. I can't argue that, but because of how crappy they are, if the AI uses them, it's putting itself at a disadvantage.

The whole main issue with colonies is that they are gobbled up too easily. If Firaxis made it so that the game see's colonies as territory belonging to another Civ, and only gobbles it up when it wants to declare war, then instantly colonies become useful for both human and AI player alike.

[Ethelred]

However, I don't agree with the work camp idea. I think you are just rationalizing.

I think your just ranting. The phrase 'work camp' fits what the colonies actually do. Since it is clear that a city ALLREADY does most of the things you want and the other things aren't part of any version of Civilization then I am definitly not engaging in mere rationalization.

Firaxis made it harder to expand with Civ 3 by making Settlers cost more.

Yes they did. They also made it uneccassary to upgrade workers. Seperating the very different functions makes sense to me. I think they raised the expense and the population cost to cut down on the ICS nonsense.

If you look at Marla's World Map Mod you will see that she made them twice as expensive as Firaxis did. Why I don't know. Makes warmongering the best way to start her map.

Most of your complaint seems to be about the colonies not haveing a border. Well that is why I said they are work camps and they are very clearly nothing like one of the Thirteen Colonies that founded the United States. They are barely at the level of the Roanoke colony.

The Pilgrims for instance did not go to America to develop resources. They went to found a CITY of their own where they could reestablish religous oppression like they had in England under Cromwell. If the French or Spanish had tried to take their colony over the Protestants in England would likely have considered it an act of war. After all it was a town not a bunch of trappers trying to make buck on the fur trade. The US later absorbed a lot of those guys.

Taking a colony by culture is not an act of war although you may choose to treat it as such. If you want some sort of model for it, then it is a neglegted group of starving people that weren't wanted by the home country and decided they will be better off with some nation that cares enough to build a city. Attacking the colony with troops IS an act of war both in the game and in life.

Even then there several historical instances of badly planned exploitation type colonies being attacked and slaughtered by others. Not just Roanoke where the people appear to have been killed by a local Amerind tribe. The Spanish did it to the French. Some conquistadors captured a small group of French. After promising not to harm them they took them behind a hill and murdered them one at a time. Nice folks, the conquistadors.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Stop attacking them as if they were broken. They do what they are supposed to do. They are a stop gap.

They are not the English colonies in the New World. They are bunch of political prisoners collecting turpentine in a penal or work colony. The only thing wrong colonies is the name which is causing you this obsessive confusion and unwilliness to accept what the colonies really are.

Outposts, in other words.

But it's all Firaxis's fault, of course.

[SpencerH]

Whether they are penal colonies, outposts, or work camps etc is somewhat irrelevant since they dont work in the game. Two faults (at least) are obvious. Human players dont build them because after the first time the AI puts down a city near one or the AI's civ boundary engulfs the colony we realize that they are too vulnerable. In the early game land grab its better to put down a defendable city to grab up a resource than build roads and a colony. The AI cant figure this out and so the human player can use this as an exploit. If I see the AI expending the effort to put down roads and build a colony over a resource that I want I allow it to do so. Its easier for me to put down a city when I choose to and grab it up (including the terrain improvements) than to fight a war in order to take a city.

Colonies are an interesting idea that dont work (as is) but might work if improved. As I see it though, there are simply too many other facets of CIV3 that need fixing first so I doubt that we'll see any changes

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Sinapus


Outposts, in other words.

But it's all Firaxis's fault, of course.

Well of course it is. Who else?

I like your term. Better than work camp.

I originally had a longer reply but when I tried the preview it went to the Void. Perhaps for the best. Reason is not wanted when someone is ranting.

Heck I have even had people tell me I couldn't argue with what they said because it was a rant. They didn't know me very well. I can argue government with libertarians. Whether I get anywhere is another question. Sometimes.

[The Rook]

Originally posted by Ethelred


I think your just ranting. The phrase 'work camp' fits what the colonies actually do. Since it is clear that a city ALLREADY does most of the things you want and the other things aren't part of any version of Civilization then I am definitly not engaging in mere rationalization.

That's just it, a city is overkill for what we want. The 2 citizen cost for settlers, and the time/money needed to build a harbor is too much. It's not historically correct. You don't need a city to exploit a resource. In the game, namely in the event the resource is on an island, a colony is useless without a city and a port. The problem in game is cities don't come any smaller than 1. That's why colonies are a good idea, but they need a 1 square cultural radius, and the ablity to build a harbor. Then, they would actually be a useful part of the game.