Wiz: Please disable 'seize colony' if not within colonial range.

[kitemasaki]

As with other things that have changed to try and make 'game cheese' less prominent, there was one minor mechanic that is the finest grade of Gouda.
One of the workarounds in westernizing is to no CB seize a colony in South America before it is completed. Even though you cannot send a colonist there, you are still able to send settlers.
This enables some very early westernization gamey strategies, which I have enjoyed myself, but seems to defeat the purpose of requiring a border or conquering a core that is within your range.
In my opinion, you shouldn't have the option to seize a colony unless its within your colonist range. Is this something that is working as designed?

 

[Freudia]

As with other things that have changed to try and make 'game cheese' less prominent, there was one minor mechanic that is the finest grade of Gouda.
One of the workarounds in westernizing is to no CB seize a colony in South America before it is completed. Even though you cannot send a colonist there, you are still able to send settlers.
This enables some very early westernization gamey strategies, which I have enjoyed myself, but seems to defeat the purpose of requiring a border or conquering a core that is within your range.
In my opinion, you shouldn't have the option to seize a colony unless its within your colonist range. Is this something that is working as designed?

Might as well just disable 'Seize colony' if you don't have a colonist at all, then. Surely being able to get colonies without colonists is cheese, no?

More on topic, I think restricting player options is generally a poor choice in a game like this. Colonial range is already a poorly-designed mechanic anyways; what's to say I can't send a colonial expedition to Canada if I don't have the 'colonial range' to reach it? My ships can reach it just fine.

 

[kitemasaki]

Might as well just disable 'Seize colony' if you don't have a colonist at all, then. Surely being able to get colonies without colonists is cheese, no?

More on topic, I think restricting player options is generally a poor choice in a game like this. Colonial range is already a poorly-designed mechanic anyways; what's to say I can't send a colonial expedition to Canada if I don't have the 'colonial range' to reach it? My ships can reach it just fine.

I agree. No colonist should equal No colonies period. However, colonial range might be a bit weird in its implementation since you can settle the New World before Africa or Asia (completely unhistorical), but Portugal was exploring the New World decades before they ever settled there. So the fact that ships can get somewhere has no correlation with the ability to muster resources and companies willing to invest in colonizing.

 

[Freudia]

So the fact that ships can get somewhere has no correlation with the ability to muster resources and companies willing to invest in colonizing.

The game does not model any of that, however. Colonial range seems to imply the ability to get there and get back (when most colonial voyages were one-way, at least for setting it up), which does not seem very historical or plausible. As such, it seems reasonable that, given the only constraints being that you have to get your ships there and you have to have the funds to back such a colonial venture, colonial range seems like a somewhat clunky restriction to ensure that only the most western European nations can go colonial without jumping through hoops. The trade nodes reflect this.

 

[StatikShocker]

 

[Sidereus]

Ha.

Personally, I find the ever decreasing amount of alternate strategies/delicious cheese rather sad. If Wiz is taking requests, I would therefore appreciate seeing a "Cheese" option added to turn such things back on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ha.

Personally, I find the ever decreasing amount of alternate strategies/delicious cheese rather sad. If Wiz is taking requests, I would therefore appreciate seeing a "Cheese" option added to turn such things back on.

In the original version of the game, fleet basing rights extended colonial range.

That was a much better setup for both plausibility and gameplay. It seems odd to restrict colonization on "gameplay" terms but then turn around and allow FBR to open up logistics like shipping 50000 men to India from Europe (or in the reverse direction to Europe) even before 1500 if you want. From a gameplay standpoint, westernization's restrictions are worth questioning, and so is colonial range in general. The only nations that can hold up with colonies in a competitive environment are western European colonizers with sufficient navy; anybody else is going to rely on those guys or lose.

In essence, "workarounds" to westernize are a kludge counter to a kludge restriction placed on nations in a questionable fashion already. Alter the requirements for westernization, and the utility of seizing a distant colony goes from "strong" to "pointless waste of ADM" in a heartbeat.

It's not like colonizing into Cape and taking a colony off Portugal in a heated battle over South Africa is particularly more plausible, but that would be the go-to for non-new worlders that don't just conquer to border Genoa or Sweden. Rather than altering a functional mechanic that would create even less realistic behaviors by players looking to speed westernize (IE conquer-hopping to outspeed colonization to South Africa or further), taking a look at westernization pre-reqs is the way to go IMO.

 

[penco]

taking a look at westernization pre-reqs is the way to go IMO.

An easy fix is to require your "neighbor" for westernizing to be on your home continent. That captures the spirit of westernizing better anyway.

 

[grommile]

As with other things that have changed to try and make 'game cheese' less prominent, there was one minor mechanic that is the finest grade of Gouda.

I've never seen anyone use Gouda as a benchmark for extreme cheesiness before - isn't Limburger more traditional for that?

 

[Freudia]

An easy fix is to require your "neighbor" for westernizing to be on your home continent. That captures the spirit of westernizing better anyway.

That makes the gameplay aspect of it even worse though.

 

[Kalderus]

An easy fix is to require your "neighbor" for westernizing to be on your home continent. That captures the spirit of westernizing better anyway.

So, screw over Eastern hordes even more?

 

[MadDjinn]

So, screw over Eastern hordes even more?

And the Americas. Can't full siege your neighbour because they got the colonist and dropped a colony.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

An easy fix is to require your "neighbor" for westernizing to be on your home continent. That captures the spirit of westernizing better anyway.

Making the game worse is not a fix. This isn't the industrial era....mechanic is of right now in the first place.

 

[kitemasaki]

Making the game worse is not a fix. This isn't the industrial era....mechanic is of right now in the first place.

I completely agree that the current westernization mechanic isn't good design. Its working as designed (as it will probably be said by PDX) but that doesn't mean its a good design.
Even outside of the westernization cheese that I mentioned, I still think you shouldn't be able to have colonies that are developing without having the ability to send colonists in the first place. If you can do something such as that which immediately sets you a hundred years ahead in colonial range (through cheese), then the range limitation should just be eliminated then. The wonderful thing about the users on this forum is that they find these workarounds which expose poor mechanics in the game that I would hope the dev team would appreciate and fix.

 

[Illianor123]

And the Americas. Can't full siege your neighbour because they got the colonist and dropped a colony.

There is always the option to just burn the colony instead

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I completely agree that the current westernization mechanic isn't good design. Its working as designed (as it will probably be said by PDX) but that doesn't mean its a good design.
Even outside of the westernization cheese that I mentioned, I still think you shouldn't be able to have colonies that are developing without having the ability to send colonists in the first place. If you can do something such as that which immediately sets you a hundred years ahead in colonial range (through cheese), then the range limitation should just be eliminated then. The wonderful thing about the users on this forum is that they find these workarounds which expose poor mechanics in the game that I would hope the dev team would appreciate and fix.

People would just use the next best strategy up. Depending on how fast you are, that's probably "vassal Irish minor" then transfer occupation to Benin, Kongo, Kilwa or whatever until they'll buy your core and then you can westernize. At DIP 7 they might have enough range already.

That's a junk path but it's the kind of play you'll see in that case.

Westernizing would make more sense to depend on contact with the new world, or high stability, or a good financial situation...something that can logically be placed that would well-position a country to modernize without depending on luck.

 

[Xenobion]

I think this is a terrible idea. If you can sail to it you should be able to seize it. What would be the purpose of this? The AI doesn't actively practice it, and multiplayer is in no way historical anyways for all the roleplayers out there. This allows strategy for a country that is behind in the colonization game and in a multiplayer game it can make the war hurt if you're not prepared. I personally believe if you can land troops on it, you should be able to colonize it. I think this phenomenon of blocking key islands like the Azores, Bermuda, Canaries, Cape Verde to stop other countries from colonizing is the true "cheese" being spread. I think the old port access way of getting colonial range that was eliminated some patches ago was probably the most historically accurate frankly. Having separate trade, colonization, and sailing ranges in my opinion is dumb.

It would be cool to integrate active fleets for both trade and colonization that you could attack during war. A colony further away just takes longer to dump off another batch of colonists, trade could be innovated in some ways along these lines as well.

 

[kitemasaki]

Westernizing would make more sense to depend on contact with the new world, or high stability, or a good financial situation...something that can logically be placed that would well-position a country to modernize without depending on luck.

Unfortunately its something the dev team doesn't seem to comprehend. Instead of tying it to stability, diplomatic relations (the rare ability to trigger Western Arms trade) and an idea group, they insists on making arbitrary requirements that make a nation weaker and even less likely to have accepted new ideas. Their attempts to 'fix' westernization have left me wondering if they even know what they are doing from a design point. Remember that failed, up to 11 techs behind, silent change they did a few patches back? Yeah I think they are bankrupt in the idea dept regarding this mechanic.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Unfortunately its something the dev team doesn't seem to comprehend. Instead of tying it to stability, diplomatic relations (the rare ability to trigger Western Arms trade) and an idea group, they insists on making arbitrary requirements that make a nation weaker and even less likely to have accepted new ideas. Their attempts to 'fix' westernization have left me wondering if they even know what they are doing from a design point. Remember that failed, up to 11 techs behind, silent change they did a few patches back? Yeah I think they are bankrupt in the idea dept regarding this mechanic.

It *IS* tied to an idea group of course, that being exploration. No exploration, no fast westernization, unless you're in the Muslim tech group or you're Sub-Saharan where they'll conquer Jolof (or you can just go beat Morocco down). I'm not counting American tribes for this consideration because it's largely irrelevant (they'll have coring range or a border outright anyway).

If you really wanted I guess you could just yank most of the remaining tech penalty between groups so the difference isn't too big (the AI trails hard when not lucky even in the Ottoman group for example) and just leave it, but I don't think that would be popular.

 

[Incompetent]

The whole system of westernisation based on cores of Western countries is something that is best served at the end of a meal with wine and crackers. Modernisation should be based more on your own country's achievements (like it is in Victoria 2) and less on finding a magical artefact left behind by the Westerners. Fixing the colony exploit isn't going to do much to reduce the cheesiness.