Colonization 2 Wishlist

[Elok]

This game does not exist, and probably never will.  But . . . what if it did?

I should note that I never played Civ 4 Colonization, because it seemed like a very halfhearted mod rather than a proper game in its own right.  So I might be reinventing the wheel here.  But I'm going to start with just one idea, though I've had oodles over the course of my many games of Colonization:

SLAVERY.  Would never be included meaningfully in any actual commercial game (getting shoehorned into the "Constitution" at the end doesn't count), but this is hypothetical so why not.  Leaving it out of any game about the Colonial era is simply absurd.  My idea: at any time, the player can sail off to a port called "Angola" (or similar) to buy slaves.  Their price remains steadily low-to-moderate.  Each slave consumes only one food and produces like a free colonist, except he can't be a politician or soldier (obviously) and doesn't learn expertise.  Slaves can be freed at any time, but this converts them to freedmen, who function like indentured servants (with the same requirement of education to improve) but still consume two food.  The really ugly part is that slaves cannot be Sons of Liberty, so each slave in the long term is a serious drag on the colony's productivity and on your liberty effort.  So players can use slavery to kick-start their colonies, just like in the real world . . . but there's a long-term price to pay, repairing the damage is costly, and depending on it too much will leave your nation socially retarded.

Also slaves can revolt in poorly-garrisoned colonies, damaging buildings, looting commodities and rendering a colony unproductive until you crush the uprising (which costs you the slaves, obviously).  They reproduce in proportion to their percentage of the colony's existing population (so every time it gets a new person from natural growth, there's a chance it'll be a slave).  The FF Benjamin Banneker allows freedmen to educate directly into skilled professionals instead of stopping to become free colonists.  Indians may also be enslaved by separate means (raiding), and Bartolome de las Casas provides a Banneker-equivalent bonus for them.

What's on your wishlist?

[Mart]

This game does not exist, and probably never will.  But . . . what if it did?

I should note that I never played Civ 4 Colonization, because it seemed like a very halfhearted mod rather than a proper game in its own right. ...

Yes, the core game is disappointment, and it did not have large group of followers.
I liked a lot colonization 1, and not surprisingly, when I read about how it was made, Brian Reynolds had a lot to say about its shape?
However, one thing I have to say, the graphics was improved compared to civ4 vanila (BTS included).

Having good modding capabilities in civ4 and then civ4col, some people made playable mods. I have not started a single core civ4col game for years. And now, when I feel like play a short colonization game, I use this mod:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=440319
The Authentic Colonization.
It has interesting and new features/concepts. Some new trade items, like gold, whale oil, cocoa.

Slavery is implemented in a civ4 mod: Caveman2Cosmos, in a way, that it feels like it is really in the game.
It will not most likely make its way to civ4col modding. Hardly there are players for this game.
But I play TAC mod

[Buster's Uncle]

Dale did a Colonization mod, right?  I heard it was very good.  Should we call his attention here?

[Elok]

Well, thus far it's just me mentioning something about a slavery feature . . .

[Buster's Uncle]

[shrugs] He could do that if he wanted, I gather.

[Mart]

Dale was working extensively on a mod... let me check.
Age of Discovery II, final version released August 2009.
I played that too.
Civ4col has presently very limited players base. I wonder if and then when we could expect any new version of Colonization game. My feeling is, that it may be much worse waiting than awaiting for SMAC2 (the real one).

[Elok]

Well, another thing on my wishlist was to make the king less of an idiot, and have him steadily rack up pressure on the player in response to looming rebellion.  As is, you can get every colony up to full SOL with an army bigger than the king's and he'll still be sitting there with his thumb up his butt.  Better to have him respond to unrest by posting troops, shutting ports, etc. as in real life.  Early in the game, he starts posting Royal troops in your colonies.  At first only a few, and the number grows slowly to keep pace with your population growth--barely even a presence.  These troops are not controllable, but don't get in the way (at first) and will defend your colonies from attack and move to destroy attackers if possible.

The king will add more than the small percentage-of-population boost if you make him suspicious or he feels the need.  That is, in response to Indian raids or foreign wars, if SOL membership starts climbing too high, if you start recruiting tons of mercenaries or training large amounts of militia, endlessly refusing tax increases, etc.  The degree of his paranoia will vary depending on difficulty level, natch.  He will also add ships in response to privateer raids, or if he hears about your custom houses dodging his trade bans.  High troop presence and high SOL ratings will combine to make "incidents" steadily more likely to occur, until he starts taking drastic action, e.g. shutting down ports and seizing cargoes.  Eventually the player may be forced to declare independence purely to retain control of the situation.

This is not only more realistic/historically accurate, it keeps the war of independence from becoming basically D-Day from the German perspective, as it was in SMC.  I gather CivCol/the TAC mod did something quite similar, from remarks on CFC.  Not quite the same as my idea, but general efforts were made to put the initiative less entirely on the player's shoulders.

I'm guessing "IT'D BE WEIRD YO" is a little gift from you, Buncle?

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh yes.  You can totally change that in your profile>Forum Profile (left sidebar)>Personal Text field.

Be clever.   (Or do as you like.)  Lori didn't put the vulgar thing in his personal text - I just got a whim - but against policy to use my powers for jokes on individual citizens unless I really believe the member won't mind, or at least can easily change it.

(If I'd wanted to be REALLY familiar, you'd have "Racist" as a Custom Title over Citizen - and have to tell me to change it back.  )

[Mart]

Civ4col has that "overall rebellion support"
You need 50% ? if I recall to be able to declare independence.
This is something very similar, after all, when a player lands in the New World, he is King's man. Neither King no Player should think in "rebellion mode" The support for rebellion is 0, so the troops are in fact King's military.
As the game progresses, the sentiment for independence increases, and King might bring to the New World 100% loyal to him troops, but the game explains that as you say, D-day scenario. So he keeps the troops in the Old World until the declaration.
I am not sure this would be really needed. The troops wandering around colony as neutral would be just different way of displaying them. They are going to appear when they are needed to defeat the player. Before this, it is Player's task to defend the colony, what King expects from colonial governor.

[Elok]

(been a bit sick the past couple of days)

The thing is, the status quo puts the king at a rather pathetic military disadvantage and makes the endgame tedious.  All you have to do is stockpile dragoons and fortify all your coastal colonies.  Since there are no support costs for troops and you tend to have a population surplus late game anyway, you can amass an enormous heap of mounted troops and simply shuttle them to whatever colony the REF arbitrarily choose to land at.  They're out in the open, they land in smallish groups staggered over multiple turns, they have a special tactical disadvantage; it's basically a shooting gallery.

Partly this can be rectified by forcing you to pay support for troops (I'd be inclined to revamp the entire unit system, but that's another matter).  But it's more interesting, and makes more sense both historically and in-game, if the King already has a significant presence of troops directly loyal to him on your turf.  Not enough to crush all rebellion, but enough to fortify one or more metropolitan areas they can use as a beachhead.  I can see what you mean about the player being responsible for defense--perhaps if the Redcoats were "donated" assets which remain loyal on DoI and hit you with a penalty for losing them?  Or possibly the presence of Royal troops carries a hefty penalty to offset the free defense, e.g. they only come to shut down ports and enforce customs?  Just thinking as I type here.

[Mart]

Good points.

Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement.
You know, maybe you could try those latest civ4col mods and then see what you think about changes they made to SMC 1 in those latest civ4col mods?
Personally, I would recommend TAC, as I think the modders of TAC placed attention to details.
Originally developed by German and Swiss modders, they still seem to work on further modmods. I will have to check them myself.
And they say, they used some developments from other mods, like Age of Discovery II.

Well, I read this about yet another mod based on TAC (Religion and Revolution):
"(RaR is 4times as big as TAC and contains much more graphics...."

[Elok]

Never even bought CivCol.  At this point in my life, if my wife caught me one-more-turn-ing on a game, she'd strangle me.  I just don't have the time for gaming that I once did, too many commitments.  Alas.

(this thread is just a dumping ground for all the thoughts I had while playing SMCol over the years)

[Metaliturtle]

I spent a lot of time playing freecol, and always sorta thought that the game got a bit unwieldy after a while (micromanaging caravans and shipping etc.)

[Elok]

Freecol?  What's that?  Is it like FreeCiv?

In SMCol, shipping was tremendously streamlined by the custom house, which was nice.  Also overpowered, since if you had even one custom house per contiguous landmass you could thumb your nose at the King and accept no tax hikes whatever.  I'm guessing that was a glitch, since if it was supposed to represent smugglers there would be no taxes at all, instead of the puny 1% or so you had to accept before you got Stuyvesant.

[ariete]

http://animagination.net/Religion&Revolution/