Ahistorical Colonisation in Demo

[colonelkadaffy]

Huge by what standards? Yes, there were *yearly* trips there to catch cod. Not for settling the space. It was just an economical activity, like mining or farming. It had nothing to do with *colonization*. As the game doesn't sport fishing navies, its irrelevant.

Well if we are talking about 'historical' portugal, yes it did discover prehaps more than any other nation.

It was fairly picky about where it colonised though. In north america it made only a few attempts at colonising the roughly qubec area. Which it gave up on soon enough.

Mainly because they werent worth any money, portugal along with spain as the first nations to 'get out there' should allways colonise the richest lands, leaving the historical north american possetions to the catch up nations of britian, france and the netherlands. Unless there planing particually ruthlessly.

 

[unmerged(514)]

I haven't found any AI files in the EU3 directory, so maybe that's why the AI doesn't play historical.

There are AI files, for sure!

 

[SsiRuuk25]

I have to throw my hat in with the people who think that the colonization seen in the demo is a bit ridiculous (with one caveat, to be mentioned at the end). I decided to play my first game as Norway (a country on the edge of things where I could get my feet wet), and after a bit of settling in, was looking towards beginning a colonial empire in the Americas. I had selected the "Quest for the New World" idea, and was ready to hire an explorer and set off. Of course, at this point what had been a trickle of "You've learned about X province" messages began to turn into a deluge, with the result that I never bothered with the explorer. By the end of the demo's timeframe, my thoughts could best be described by the letters WTF, if you will.

Now I suspect that this can be modded easily, but still, it's a bit over the top. By the end, I knew about the whole of the East coast of North America, Brazil, and much of West Africa. Without exploring.

Now for the caveat. This is admittedly a demo, and conceivably it could be true that PI decided to turn up the "You've learned about X province" MTTH a notch or fifty, so that players could experience the beginnings of having a colonial empire. This actually wouldn't have been such a bad idea, though if it was their intention, it would have been nice to know about it.

 

[unmerged(6105)]

Since the Demo begins in 1492 I would add that it works a bit more to your wishes if you begin playing in 1953 as the "free" exploration comes further into the game. But dont' expect historical colonies if you don't begin in an era where the colonies is already there.

 

[unmerged(514)]

Well if we are talking about 'historical' portugal, yes it did discover prehaps more than any other nation.

It was fairly picky about where it colonised though. In north america it made only a few attempts at colonising the roughly qubec area. Which it gave up on soon enough.

Mainly because they werent worth any money, portugal along with spain as the first nations to 'get out there' should allways colonise the richest lands, leaving the historical north american possetions to the catch up nations of britian, france and the netherlands. Unless there planing particually ruthlessly.

You are correct. Portugal lacked the manpower to massively send people overseas. This should clearly be included in the game.

My only qualms with this deviation from canned historical events are only related to colonization. Right now, it has the potential to be a game breaker.

 

[unmerged(514)]

Since the Demo begins in 1492 I would add that it works a bit more to your wishes if you begin playing in 1953 as the "free" exploration comes further into the game. But dont' expect historical colonies if you don't begin in an era where the colonies is already there.

But is it just not a matter of having prefered regions for each major country in the AI file?

Fantasyland doesn't suit me.

 

[SonofWinter]

You should not be able to learn about other peoples discoveries, period, unless you sent a spy who discovered one unknown province from the spying victim.

 

[unmerged(514)]

[...]

Now for the caveat. This is admittedly a demo, and conceivably it could be true that PI decided to turn up the "You've learned about X province" MTTH a notch or fifty, so that players could experience the beginnings of having a colonial empire. This actually wouldn't have been such a bad idea, though if it was their intention, it would have been nice to know about it.

MrT already said the sharing of knowledge about the maps in the new game is much delayed by 25 or 30 years. That is good, but if at the same time any country can have settlers as well as choosing CotNW as a national idea, it only postpone the problem for 25 to 30 years. After that, expect Switzerland to build a nice colonial empire in Argentina without even having access to water. :wacko:

 

[unmerged(514)]

You should not be able to learn about other peoples discoveries, period, unless you sent a spy who discovered one unknown province from the spying victim.

Now, THAT is good game design!

 

[knul]

There are AI files, for sure!

I would suspect as much, but I really can't find them. Of course I could be very wrong and that they're there, but it would explain the odd behaviour.

Maybe they shipped the demo withou AI files, while the full version may have them, making it more historical.

 

[unmerged(514)]

I would suspect as much, but I really can't find them. Of course I could be very wrong and that they're there, but it would explain the odd behaviour.

Maybe they shipped the demo withou AI files, while the full version may have them, making it more historical.

*Starts praying*

 

[Boblof]

I have only played one game in the demo but I feel that colonization was a bit... off. I played as Sweden and by the time that the game ended I had just finished colonizing Österbotten (damn colonies are expensive), but by that time I knew about all of the African west coast and most of brazil, the west indies and all of the US east coast whitout doing anything. and I must say I was a bit intimidated by the AI, I will never be able to compeate with portugal or spain in north america if they are going to spit out colonies like that in the real game unless I start out as a great power like france or perhaps england.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

True but Ahistorical A.I play is much more gun when in in reaction to my own ahistorical play.

That just leads to exploting the AI.

Besides, as soon as you would make 1 unhistorical move, it would set in motion a chain of causality that could lead to unpredictable results seen here as well.

Now, THAT is good game design!

Maps of the world were published after a period of time for everyone in Europe (who could afford to, which would be any monarch), to get a hold of them.

 

[unmerged(514)]

[...]
Maps of the world were published after a period of time for everyone in Europe (who could afford to, which would be any monarch), to get a hold of them.

Completely agreed BUT the game must have ways of abstracting real life issues. I can easily understand any nation having maps of the new world by 1520, what I cannot understand is how any nation (even to the ridiculous point of landlocked ones!) can send settlers around...

Now, to curb nations like Norway to colonize completely ahistorically BUT to let them colonize where it was more sensible, you cannot refrain nations of having settlers, but instead of keeping the map closed more time.

All in all, before I may think about coding the events I was planning and talked to you, some serious game balance issue is in order,most of which I am sure can be achieved by tweaking the game files.

Fortunately I do not feel alone in my opinion on the game.

 

[unmerged(9875)]

I have only played one game in the demo but I feel that colonization was a bit... off. I played as Sweden and by the time that the game ended I had just finished colonizing Österbotten (damn colonies are expensive), but by that time I knew about all of the African west coast and most of brazil, the west indies and all of the US east coast whitout doing anything. and I must say I was a bit intimidated by the AI, I will never be able to compeate with portugal or spain in north america if they are going to spit out colonies like that in the real game unless I start out as a great power like france or perhaps england.

Yes you dont really have to take the "Exploration of the new world" idea, because the AI will "unweil" the colonies much faster then you (or they), wil be able to colonize it.

I really think we should not be able to get free maps from the AI at that speed. I think we should not be able to get maps from AI at all really...unless as some other poster said in an earlier post, through espionage.

Im sure though that there will be "mods" out there after a short while, tweaking the game more to my liking

 

[minority]

A 30 year delay is fine IMHO. The race for colonisation in North America, for example, was quite competitive and I think other nations getting the map more than 25 years later (Note MrT said this was the fastest.

Let's not complain about it until we get to know the modifiers involved for the release version. I'm quite confident that England, not being Spain's neighbour, would probably get North American in their sights at the end of the 16th century, which would lead to colonisation at just about the right time.

Also, I for one have not really seen landlocked nations colonising. Lucky?

cheers

 

[unmerged(41817)]

Same here, England and Austria very active in west african coast, and venice and aragon.

Although they find it very hard to prevent the locals from burning their settlements to the ground quickly, no idea what spain and portugal are up to in the new world though because i cant see.

 

[unmerged(514)]

A 30 year delay is fine IMHO. The race for colonisation in North America, for example, was quite competitive and I think other nations getting the map more than 25 years later (Note MrT said this was the fastest.

Let's not complain about it until we get to know the modifiers involved for the release version. I'm quite confident that England, not being Spain's neighbour, would probably get North American in their sights at the end of the 16th century, which would lead to colonisation at just about the right time.

Also, I for one have not really seen landlocked nations colonising. Lucky?

cheers

The problem is not with England. The problem is with ANY country with a single settler being able to colonize those NA provincies.

The problem with England is, if the state of the demo can lead to conclusions, maybe will colonize Brazil by 1510, thus ignoring the Caribbean and North America, while arriving 100 years earlier, after colonizing a patch of western Africa in 1495, close together with that capable colonial nation, Brandenburg.

As for you being lucky, I suppose so... with Portugal I saw the most improbable nations sailing around my coast in 1492. Just fire up a game and marvel at the Polish impressive armada going down the lusitanean sea to explore the African Coast.

 

[unmerged(514)]

Same here, England and Austria very active in west african coast, and venice and aragon.
[...]

This in itself is completely disrupting.

 

[unmerged(64527)]

I'm going to have to agree with Ubik and the other posters here who disagree with the current colonization system (at least the one in the demo). While I understand the more random event and more ahistorical approach the developers are taking with EUIII (and don't get me wrong, that's fine), with colonization the ahistorical nature of the game seems to cross that line into fantasy. Fantasy because you have lanlocked countries, or very small countries that could in no way be able to colonize the certain areas they have in the game. While I do like their efforts to make the game ahistorical, there needs to be a balance. As some people said, you can still have the game be ahistorical with colonization, but you also need to keep it realistic (i.e: countries that could realistically be able to colonize those areas should be able too, landlocked isolationist countries shouldn't be grabbing land thousands of miles away).

It takes away from the game too much, plus, in my experience, maps were given out too much. And while people can argue that the widespread map knowledge was a fact back in EUIII time period (which is ironic, people defending an ahistorical fantasy system with HISTORICAL facts...), I still shouldn't see Brandenburg colonizing West Africa. That's a physical impossibility at that time. Also, the AI jumps on the colonization about a day after the area is explored, so it's like a race with the AI to see who can get what.

What I'd like to see is restrictions on the colonization (at least at the beginning) to more realistic settings (as I said before, to countries that could actually colonize at that time period). But, I have no qualms with those colonizing countries choosing different areas (if Spain wants to colonize Brazil, fine.) I just don't want to see Switzerland in Cuba.