Connected Terrain For Easier Expansion

[SimplyDupdge]

Something has bothered me about rimworld. In my 132 hours of playing so far, I've loved every minute of the game, but I've resorted to using mods like replicator and resource crops because playing with multiple colonies is not a fun experience. Not that fun, at least. At first, I liked the idea of expanding myself to a planet wide colony, but as time went on, I became increasingly frustrated with the lack of capable workers across my 2 colonies, I didn't have very good luck, and only had 3 (probably less) laborers capable of dumb labor and such. Animal attacks were pesky, and the lack of shooters didn't help.

My specific scenario aside, I think that expanding across the planet should be more fulfilling and satisfying, with multi-colony playthroughs more viable, especially with limited resources. Why should I be forced to trade when I could make another few colonies and risk the starvation? I'd be a little more happy if it was a little less micro-managy having a second base.

Now, onto what the title of the post is pointing towards. What if colonizing adjacent terrain extended your existing base? that's what I think would be awesome. expanding your base to be several tiles large, finding new, creative ways to get your resources across your sprawling base before your haulers starve to death.

Edit: This is my first post, so sorry if I posted it in the wrong place!

[Harry_Dicks]

I don't understand why you would need to connect 2 smaller tiles. Why don't you just play on a larger map, and have your two bases that way? 

[lancar]

I believe I read somewhere that Tynan said the game is supposed (read: balanced around) to be one centered around the operation of a single colony, and the multiple colony option is set to 1 for this very reason.

That said, the faction system seems to be all set up for multiple-colony factions, even on the player side, so perhaps one day we'd be able to send out settlers to make AI-controlled towns under our faction? Who knows =)

[Granitecosmos]

I believe I read somewhere that Tynan said the game is supposed (read: balanced around) to be one centered around the operation of a single colony, and the multiple colony option is set to 1 for this very reason.

This is true. Besides, multiple colonies break the game in certain ways anyway. Like keeping one colony artificially low on colonists to generate more drop-pod refugee and wanderer joins events (because colonist softcaps are local, not global), or the one-man psychopath organ harvester colony next door to cheat the mood system. Alternatively combine those two and you don't even need prisoners for organs anymore. Even if the second colony is of proper size, colony wealth is also local. You can get raided and just drop-pod in additional soldiers to completely break raid balance.

[patoka]

I believe I read somewhere that Tynan said the game is supposed (read: balanced around) to be one centered around the operation of a single colony, and the multiple colony option is set to 1 for this very reason.

This is true. Besides, multiple colonies break the game in certain ways anyway. Like keeping one colony artificially low on colonists to generate more drop-pod refugee and wanderer joins events (because colonist softcaps are local, not global), or the one-man psychopath organ harvester colony next door to cheat the mood system. Alternatively combine those two and you don't even need prisoners for organs anymore. Even if the second colony is of proper size, colony wealth is also local. You can get raided and just drop-pod in additional soldiers to completely break raid balance.

...so? seems like an awful lot of easily solvable problems. make all these things global and not local (except on caravans, those should always be local and also local raids everywhere) that would solve the wanderer joins and escaped droppod guys. i still play A17 so this might have been changed, but isnt the mood debuff global? i think all the inhabitants of my multiple village (or fortress) spanning empire would know of the nazi doctor that stole some poor soul's organs. especially with so few pawns around, the word would quickly spread as the pawns are gossipping.

all this said, i am probably completely biased. i always (well, not always. but you get it) play on the smallest maps and i like the small maps the most, especially if they barely have any mountains. sure, it makes it a bit too easy at times to find good soil, also low probability for bugs and them turning super annoying. on the other hand, you also get way fewer resources to just collect. you have to make good trades. you have to go out and trade with the locals and you can greatly profit from resource caches and bandit camps, also the trade deals. to me, these are my missions that i missed from other games i've played. they enable survival for me.
now all this said, on small maps like mine you very quickly run out of natural resources. sure, hunting is viable until you have like 20 pawns if you make fine meals out of them and if you farm well, but that also has a limit. metals have a much stricter limit. you just cant survive on what you're given at start. so what i'm proposing is maybe a mod that changes gameplay to a large extent: you start off on a REALLY small map. as small as all the other maps are that you get for encou ters with your caravan. once you have like 10 pawns, you have the option...(or i don't know. maybe make it a research project, or a build project where pawns dig at the border of your map)...well any way you do it, the end result would be you paying a certain price (or investing a certain amount if you will) and it will increase your map's size
this feature could be minor, as in you do it once for a single major increase in map size or you could do it twice. or, which is my favourite, you can do it any number of times for an increasing cost to make your map just a bit larger. maybe you could choose the border which would be increased, let's say the southern border, and it will be moved by 5 squares.
the effects would be:
more soil to grow stuff
more animals to hunt and tame
more natural grass growth, especially on maps where all the grass dies off in winter and doesnt come back
more natural resources
just more space
more time for you to react to an incoming raid or mad animal horde charge and so on

your specific version probably doesnt work because climate changes on different hexes, you wouldnt wanna have different climates and therefore also weather on different parts of the map or you'd need a completely new engine. so that idea is as good as scrapped. sorry, as much as i'd like the idea otherwise

[JayB]

I would really like to found several colonies but I dont know how and if it is possible... I only found a mod where you are able to set up camps so far... Maybe somebody could help...

Even though I like the idea of many seperate colonies I can see the problematics which I havent thought about yet

[Calahan]

I would really like to found several colonies but I dont know how and if it is possible... I only found a mod where you are able to set up camps so far... Maybe somebody could help...

If you open the Options menu you should see a horizontal slider for "Maximum number of colonies:" halfway down the middle column. The vanilla game allows for values between 1-5. (I do not know if there are any mods that increase this or not).