Idea number 62967b: Revitalize Colonies

[Willem]

Originally posted by Uncle Thade
I think i read elsewhere, can't remember, that a la "SMAC", have colonies within your borders, that act like the supply crawler did. Otherwise certain resources that are buried deep within mountain ranges with no possibility of building a city near them are useless. Like in my current game, have urainium within my borders but no cities footprint can reach it. It remains there useless to me.

Arghhhh! Just my cent and a half.

That was an idea I bounced around before. Rather than have colonies useful only for strategic or luxury resources, use them the same way as in SMAC's supply crawlers, and allow them to work any square of land that's not within a city radius. Or at least the bonus resources, as well as the strategic/luxury.

I'm very fussy about my city placement, I don't like overlapping at all if I can help it, and quite often there's a special resource that I just can't get. It would be nice to build a colony there, with the goods being sent to the nearest city. So colonies wouldn't disappear until they were within a city radius, rather than just a cultural boundary.

[TimR]

When I first read about colonies I assumed that they would operate as the supply crawlers did in SMAC. I too am picky about the placement of my cities and loved being able to harvest food or shields from odd bits of land. I especially liked using supply boats to go after distant ocean resources. I would limit the number of such colonies to 1 per city or so.

Doing the same in Civ 3 would expand the range of the game. A single square of land out in the middle of the ocean would be surrounded by a few fish or whale resources and some civ would build a colony on it and bring in some colony-whalers. Suddenly that bit of currently useless ocean, esp. so if the land were lacking, is a point of conflict. Nothing more entertaining than making a destroyer raid on some whalers at the start of the war.

Also....

Both Rome and Athens had harbors though neither is located on the water. Often the best city site will place 5 or 6 water squares within the cities borders without allowing for a harbor to be built. Why not allow a worker to build a harbor such as workers in Civ2 built airfields. The City it served would have to pay the standard maintainence fee and it would add an interesting vulnerability to the city requiring the stationing of troops and likely a fortress there. This is not at all unreasonable.

[Willem]

Originally posted by TimR

Doing the same in Civ 3 would expand the range of the game. A single square of land out in the middle of the ocean would be surrounded by a few fish or whale resources and some civ would build a colony on it and bring in some colony-whalers. Suddenly that bit of currently useless ocean, esp. so if the land were lacking, is a point of conflict. Nothing more entertaining than making a destroyer raid on some whalers at the start of the war.

Yes, I really liked being able to send out a supply ship to get at those ocean resources. In Civ 3, it seems almost useless having all those whales, since very rarely do I end up with an ocean square in my city radius. Even if it only had a limited range, it would great if I could send out a whaling ship to harvest the resource. And that would give navies something to do as well.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Tarq. Armed natives? Would you be happy with a cultural border of 1? In other words, no need for fancy mechanics and special cases.

I'm reasonably "happy" with the so-called colonies now. If they're going to change things, I'd just as soon that they add some fancy mechanics and special cases.

I guess I'd rather Firaxis really changed the role of the Colony, rather than attempting to "fix" it. As they are, there's a lot of overlap between Colonies and Cities... I'd like to see changes that decrease the similarity between Colonies and Cities, rather than increase it. The "Trading Colony" is an example of a colony-type that'd act quite differently from a City.

But, to directly answer your question: No. I think a cultural border of 1 would make the (so called) colony too much like a city.... if you want a cultural presence, build a city.

[Jonny]

My Ideas

For quite a while I have had my own ideas about colonies and making them better. Here, I will share them. Some of these ideas have already been mentioned, but I have come up with them as well.

Note: Some of these ideas are based on the European colonization of the Americas.

1a. All colonies built on the sea/ocean (all places where harbors are allowed) shall have a harbor.

1b. All other colonies (and cities) connected by road to a colony with a harbor would have access to that harbor.

2a. Once a small number (but more than 1, maybe 2, I don't know) of colonies are built in an area by a civ, their cultural influence will start to spread in that area. (Historical example: once the French got their colonization of Eastern Canada up to speed, their culture spread and thrived there, so much that it still lasts today.)

2b. This cultural influence (even though it's small), will prevent the cultural infuence of another civ's city from taking over the colony.

3. The only way to take over a colony is by war, unless it is a single colony alone with no cultural influence.

4a. A colony collects food from the tile it is sitting on. It collects the normal amount of food that tile would normally produce. However, if that tile normally produces 0 food, then it receives 1.

4b. A colony would use 1 food per turn (this is what the small number of people in a colony eat.) Any excess food would be stored.

4c. Once the colony gathers 100 excess food, it would turn into a size 1 city, with the normal capabilities. If the colony was on a coast and had a harbor, the city would have one too.

4d. Sending a settler to a colony would automatically turn it into a size 1 city.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll think of more later.

[Ethelred]

You idea is just a slow way to build a city.

Would anyone actually use it rather build a city? I doubt it. I am pretty sure I wouldn't. I don't see any real advantage to your version over building a city in the first place. A city would grow faster and do the exact same thing. It would just cost a bit more but not much more especially in comparison to what you would get out of it.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Ethelred
You idea is just a slow way to build a city.

Would anyone actually use it rather build a city? I doubt it. I am pretty sure I wouldn't. I don't see any real advantage to your version over building a city in the first place. A city would grow faster and do the exact same thing. It would just cost a bit more but not much more especially in comparison to what you would get out of it.

I suppose you're right, it is just a slow way to build a city.

But there must be someway to make colonies better and more used, though.

Edit: But what if you took out the colony turning into a city part. Then would it be a good addition to colonies (maybe)?

[Ethelred]

I have seen one instance where a colony having a port capability made sense. There was iron on an island and it was completely useless except for the iron. In fact a city couldn't be built on it. All mountains and not even a hill. Took up four or five tiles.

Giving a colony port capacity for trade only wouldn't bother me at all. Then again making it possible to build a city on mountains would have fixed that one instance. It would have always been a crummy city dependent on fish for food but it might have reached a population of six eventualy. It would be expensive to get the harbor of course but the iron would be worth it.

Now if Firaxis was to make Colonization II that would be different. Then starting several different classes of cities and colonies would make a lot of sense as the that is what the game would be about.

This game however is called Civilization and that means EXACTLY citification. The Mongols weren't much of a civilization. Not one real city till Ghengis Khan founded one. I am sure there were some towns in the area but they weren't exactly of the same culture as the Khan came from. It was a culture completely without civilization untill that point.

[Uncle Thade]

Originally posted by notyoueither
UncleThade. Build a road to it? That's all that is required as of now. Idea number 62967b would require you to build a road to it and build a colony on it.

The cost of a worker is neglible when you need it. Supply crawlers also cost in SMAC, so what,??? When it is within your borders and in terrain that can't be settled what do you do?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by notyoueither
UncleThade. Build a road to it? That's all that is required as of now. Idea number 62967b would require you to build a road to it and build a colony on it.

Originally posted by Uncle Thade
The cost of a worker is neglible when you need it. Supply crawlers also cost in SMAC, so what,??? When it is within your borders and in terrain that can't be settled what do you do?

Is this a trick question?

There is no terrain, other than water, that cannot have roads or colonies built on it.

[Uncle Thade]

Originally posted by notyoueither

Originally posted by Uncle Thade
The cost of a worker is neglible when you need it. Supply crawlers also cost in SMAC, so what,??? When it is within your borders and in terrain that can't be settled what do you do?

Is this a trick question?

There is no terrain, other than water, that cannot have roads or colonies built on it. [/QUOTE]

I understand that notyou, but what if you cannot reach a resource with the footprint of on of your cities and the resource falls within your borders? ie, like I previously stated "in my current game, I have urainium within my borders but no cities footprint can reach it. It remains there useless to me. " So how do solve that when you can't build a colony within your borders but a resource falls inside your border? How do you utilize that resource? I didn't ask you anything about building roads I was talking about colonies and placement of them.

[nbarclay]

I like the idea of being able to have workers build a harbor outside a city. That would allow the development of colonies with harbors without making colonies a cheap way to get a harbor. If you look at the cost of pop rushing a harbor, the idea of getting even a limited harbor facility free with a colony seems a bit ridiculous. In contrast, if workers can always build harbors, there is no imbalance between the ease of getting a harbor with a colony and the ease of getting one with a totally corrupt colonial town. And I do find it both annoying and ridiculous when a city with half a dozen water tiles within its radius can't get good use of them because it can't build a harbor, so allowing workers to build harbors would kill two birds with one stone.

In regard to Canada, France had cities in Canada, not just outposts. The very fact that someone would use Canada as an analogy helps reinforce how misleading the use of the term "colony" for what we have in Civ 3 is. To me, the true colonies in the game are the small towns dotting the landscape of islands distant from their homelands, and it cramps my writing style having Firaxis call something else "colonies."

In regard to needing colonies within one's own borders, in my view, the spread of culture around a city indicates the presence of rural farms and villages large enough to be self-sustaining but not large enough to contribute significantly to the nation's net worth. It is simply not realistic to think there would be large tracts of usable land that no one lives on just because they aren't within the "city radius" of any particular city. Such rural villagers are the ones who exploit a resource once it's within your cultural border, so no colony is needed.

In regard to colonies inside someone else's territory, when has one nation ever willingly allowed another to maintain control over a valuable resource within its borders on a more or less permanent basis? A Civ 3 "colony" might reasonably survive being a dent in the very edge of a nation's borders. But once the growing nation fully surrounds the colony, the nation that planted the colony would find it almost impossible to justify a continued presence. In such a situation, it might ideally be possible to hang onto a colony by threatening and if necessary fighting a war, but I think that should be the only way to hang onto a colony fully enclosed by someone else's borders.

Finally, I very definitely do think that attacking a colony that's not within your borders should be regarded as an act of war. Ideally, it should not automatically place the nations in a state of war without their control. Rather, it should harm the reputation of the attacking nation and should cause the nation that attacked the colony to be viewed as the aggressor if the nation owning the colony does decide the matter is worth fighting over. (Actually, I think the same should go for attacking trespassing units, and probably even for attacking units wandering around in unclaimed territory. Not everything that is legally an act of war is worth fighting over, especially if the nation taking the provocative action is a whole lot bigger and more powerful than the other one.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Uncle Thade

I understand that notyou, but what if you cannot reach a resource with the footprint of on of your cities and the resource falls within your borders? ie, like I previously stated "in my current game, I have urainium within my borders but no cities footprint can reach it. It remains there useless to me. " So how do solve that when you can't build a colony within your borders but a resource falls inside your border? How do you utilize that resource? I didn't ask you anything about building roads I was talking about colonies and placement of them.

With the current game design, if a strategic or luxury resoruce (e.g. uranium) is within your cultural borders, all you have to do is build a road to it whether it is within your city radius or not. "Idea number 62967b" would change that so you'd have to build a colony on the resource as well as building the road if it's in your borders but not your city radius, but the resource would remain reachable. Personally, I oppose such a change, but that's the idea as presented.

Nathan

[Uncle Thade]

I think there was some contention with was it working or not? I didn't know this... thanks a lot everybody. Out to try this. LOL
Doh? me feel like Homer...

[Willem]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Is this a trick question?

There is no terrain, other than water, that cannot have roads or colonies built on it.

Of cource there is, it's all the land that falls within your cultural borders. If a resource is just outside your city radius, you might be able to use the strategic aspect of it, but you can't harvest the actual shileds or commerce etc. it provides, which could be a real benefit to a city.