Whats with these 'colonies'

[Darkknight]

Thanks Dan! I lkie the movable population. Does that mean settlers can join a city regardless of the city size?

Java: I think colonies can be connected by road/railroad to a port which then ships to a port on your home continent which itself is connected to your capital by a road/railroad.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by java4me
One more question though. How can you build a colony on another continent (which has none of your cities on it) and connect it with your capital city over seas? Also, does the colony need to be connected to your capitol city, or can it be connected to another one of your cities? Or can it connect to your capitol through one of your cities?

This is from Dan's post on page one of this thread:

The reason the goods need to be somehow connected to your capitol city is because it's a trade network. You can actually have many different subnetworks, for example, and each of them might be connected to the capitol in one way or another, but a crafty adversary could, for example, occupy your sole harbor city that links one subnet to another, effectively cutting off an entire continent's trade from the capitol city's continent.

So we can infer from that the cities on one continent will be connected to those on another via port cities. As to whether a colony can serve as a port... well, hard to say. I wouldn't think so, though. Then it would be too easy for port cities to take advantage of the resources along all the shorelines of the world. After all, to take advantage of a resource on your own continent you at least have to build a road. If colonies could be ports you wouldn't even need that.

[java4me]

Thanks for the answer El hldalgo!!!

[dainbramaged13]

so basically, the colonies are like tile imrpovements that consume the worker. cool. if you pardon the analogy to such terrible a thing as an rts (gasp) starcraft, theyre kinda like refineries. except instead of collecting the resources with units, you use roads. ok. i can live with that.

But I think I'll still build cities wherever I want resources. After all, you still have to provide protection and connect a colony with roads. The only advantage I see is that you dont have to keep the people happy in a colony, which can be a problem with building cities far from your capital... Well, my guess is that I'll still find ways to perpetuate my evil ICS instincts...

But wait - this is crucial i just thought of something - u can build cities outside your borders right? i know u can build colonies, but im not sure about cities. u can tho, right?



off subject:
what about offshore resources? will there be any special resources in the ocean? i mean, like whaling stations in the very far south. you dont want to build a city there, but... anyway, small question.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
But I think I'll still build cities wherever I want resources.

We dont know yet how much cheaper the production-cost is for the worker, compared to the settler. Probably only half. Also, always remember that settlers cost 2 pops, which is pretty much early on. There so many priorities in the beginning - you must build city-improvements in order to establish your borders. You need access to resources - fast.

With colonies you can pick-and-choose resource-tiles from barren places otherwise unsuitable for city-growth.

But wait - this is crucial i just thought of something - u can build cities outside your borders right? i know u can build colonies, but im not sure about cities. u can tho, right?

Of course - how else could you populate far away islands beyond the reach of your current culture-borders?

what about offshore resources? will there be any special resources in the ocean? i mean, like whaling stations in the very far south. you dont want to build a city there, but... anyway, small question.

Nobody knows. No info and no screenshots covering ocean-resources have been released yet.

[java4me]

FIRAXIS still has to expain on resources in the sea, but i think that the only resources that you could us in the sea are the ones that are in your cities borders!!!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by java4me
FIRAXIS still has to expain on resources in the sea, but i think that the only resources that you could us in the sea are the ones that are in your cities borders!!!

Not necessarily! Shallow ocean can also appear far from land. There you can very well found northsea-type oilrigs on top of ocean-based oil-resources.
The worker-unit can move around anywhere outside your culture-borders on land, and it can move with help of ships, and (perhaps) also build ocean oil-rigs, for example. You cannot build road-connections on the ocean, of course - but, Im sure Firaxis figures out a solution. Likewise, they perhaps have added stationary "fishing-factories" on whale & fish-tiles far away from land. How knows?

[java4me]

Originally posted by Ralf


Not necessarily! Shallow ocean can also appear far from land. There you can very well found northsea-type oilrigs on top of ocean-based oil-resources.
The worker-unit can move around anywhere outside your culture-borders on land, and it can move with help of ships, and (perhaps) also build ocean oil-rigs, for example. You cannot build road-connections on the ocean, of course - but, Im sure Firaxis figures out a solution. Likewise, they perhaps have added stationary "fishing-factories" on whale & fish-tiles far away from land. How knows?

Very interesting!!!

That would definetly solve the problem!!!

[tniem]

Dan still has not explained to me why cities would not be preferable to colonies in many situations. In my opinion it is much easier to defend a city that can build troops than a colony that cannot.

Second, a cities borders can expand so that it can take in more and more resources. All of which only need to be linked by road to be added to the trade network. While, a colony can only use resources in the square it was built in.

Finally, a city has the potential to form more cities/colonies, build units to take over the world, build spaceships, build up culture, add money to treasury, etc. Meanwhile, a colony cannot do any of the following.

Unless conlonies are significantly less to build, I will be building cities to add to the trade network, the rest of you can build colonies. At least this is still how the issue seems to be to me. That very much could change if colonies/workers did not take away pop points. I think that Firaxis should try this in play testing and see how it works. How I picture it, it would work much better than what seems to be currently being proposed.

[dainbramaged13]

good ideas. another factor to consider is that i think the ocean tile improvements were a good thing in ctp, and if there were to be a sea-going worker unit, or at least the ability for the worker to function while on a transport, they could have them in civ3 too, also allowing the option for an oil rig or a remote whaling station, etc. then it could assume that the closest city at the time of construction to the rig/station would get access to that resource. or maybe, the rig would have to be within a certain number of tiles from a city equipped with a harbor. all these are good ideas, in my mind anyway, that are probably way too late to be implemented. but i think that its a good thing just to say them, whether you'll be even noticed or not, and since there does happen to be someone from firaxis looking at this forum, they do have a bit of an odds advantage

[dainbramaged13]

hehe sorry i kinda lack grammar skills when i type

[java4me]

There is probably oil rigs, and fishing rafts or something similar!!! I think that FIRAXIS will tell us later in more detail!!!

[Grumbold]

Unless you build your city slap bang on top of the special resource regardless of all other considerations then it will take time to expand your culture to utilise the resource. That, and the extra build time for settlers may be time you can't afford to lose when a quick colony could secure it for you faster. Cities are still going to be the game winners but colonies look like useful tools too.

[dainbramaged13]

Cities are still going to be the game winners but colonies look like useful tools too.

LONG LIVE ICS!!!!!!

[java4me]

Geez you are very happy!!!