I have searched and searched, but I have not seen a topic like this, so I am opening a discussion about the American Revolution Mod/Scenario included with the 1.52 patch (I think it came with the patch).

I have only seen a couple of people talk about this Scenario on the boards, and I gather that many don't care for it. With no research (I am not certain there is no research, BTW), a limited time frame, limited number of units and buildings, no wonders, you could ask, "Where is the Civ here?" (A complaint I would add here is the Civopedia is even worse than in the regular game. They didn't take out the entries for all the things you can't build, so it is very hard to get the hang of what is different, and what isn't allowed, which is partly what this thread is all about).

I liked this scenario a lot. It is short, for one thing. The first time through, you can knock it out in about 4 hours or so, and I have gotten later games down to about two hours, once I got the hang of it. Also, it really made me pay attention to short-term objective setting, something that I am notoriously bad at in a normal game ("OOh, look I can build a Grocer here!"). Navy is a big issue too, another of my weaknesses. You might be able to win as the Americans without breaking the blockade, but it sure is a lot less dangerous to sink those British Regulars in Massachusetts Bay than it is to try to fight them off while they are laying seige to New York. It teaches you how to maximize your promotions too. The scenario plays differently as both sides, and at different levels.

I have been through it three times so far, wins with each side at Noble, and then a Monarch loss as the Americans.

So, fire it up, give it a spin and come back to tell us all what you think. My next posts are breakdowns of the geography, techs, etc, and then I will do a post on strategy.

Infrastructure

First, as far as I can tell, there are no tech choices you can make. I gather from the Civopedia that you are blindly researching Rocketry, but I am not sure that is the case. I have been unable to generate any great people other than Prophets.

Buildings:
Library (the availability of this building is what makes me wonder if you can discover rocketry) Bank, Market, Barracks, Mill, Church, Dock, Grocer, Town Hall (Courthouse).

Units:
Colonial: Militia 11, Minutemen 13, Colonial Regulars 15, Cannon 12, Cavalry 14, Frigate 8, Privateer 5.
British: British Regulars 17, Cannon 12, Cavalry 14, Frigate 8, Ship of the Line 12, Transport 6.
Various scripted units appear as well, like German Mercenaries and Loyalist irregulars, but they cannot be built, and are slightly inferior to your regulars, which will be the mainstay of your armies. Oh, yes, and both sides can build the over-powered WORKER! (That is not a joke, BTW. Lots of forests on this map, and only 100 turns, so waiting 20 turns for a Barracks is not going to cut it. Pun intended.)

I was gonna type in an analysis of the geography, but got bored, and went straight for the good stuff. This post is for the American side, but the British strategies are roughly the same in reverse I think.

First thing I did was to build workers wherever I could squeeze one out quickly, like five or six of them, spread around in the different regions, and start building regulars/cannons in the rest of your cities. It is my advice to never build a building unless you have a worker chopping for it. Otherwise, they take too long, and you need units.

One critical thing I forgot to mention: fresh water farms produce 4 food in this scenario!!

Next figure out what to do about Boston. It is the largest city in the game, and has all three health resources on the map, (wheat, clams, fish) so it is important to either take or hold this city. If you are the Americans, the British fleet will pillage your fishing boats as soon as you take Boston, and you can't replace them, so you will have one health resource for the entire game (you also have two sugars in the Carolinas, which can turn into an extra health with a grocer, but you will probably need to build units instead). Every time I have played as the colonists, the British pull most of their regulars out to take over Portland to the North, which leaves Boston as easy pickings, especially since there is a Colonial stack in the forest right next to Boston. I wish the AI was smarter than that, but there you have it. As the British, I obviously hold onto Boston-the 7 Regulars they start with there are more than enough to hold out until your first reinforcements arrive from Halifax. I start to build a Church there immediately to gain the happiness and the gold from the free priest you get under Mercantilism, and as the Colonists, the culture is important to get your radius back up. The Church is the only cultural building you can build.

I usually build a worker in New York, and a Regular in Albany. When the worker finishes, I send him toward Albany to chop out a barracks and maybe a forge and connect it by road and then work on a road through the forest toward Montreal, which is usually my next objective after Boston is secured.

In Philadelphia I will hire a second priest for at least one turn (one is free under mercantilism) so that the GP finishes there rather than in any of the other cities, since that is where I join him, although there might be a better city for it.

The Mid-Atlantic and Southern coastal cities I start in on Frigates right away. Be sure to set your civics to maximize experience for your troops so that you can overcome the stronger British forces. Their reinforcements coming from Halifax arrive without upgrades. This is especially important for the Frigates, since coastal tiles give a 10% defense bonus to defenders, and you will have to be the attacker to break the blockade.

There is a city in the Appalachians in the Carolinas that is surrounded by forested hills (Greenville?) that I like to get a worker to ASAP to chop out a barracks and a mill and a bunch of mines. It can use both of the sugar plantations for growth and can get up to 12 hammers pretty quickly, making it a nice cannon factory. Richmond is a good city for hammers too, and so gets a worker to it as well to mine the iron next to it and chop out any builidngs I think I will need.

The Southern coastal cities are all exactly four sea tiles apart, allowing you to leapfrog your single frigates up the coast to stack them in a city (I usually go for Norfolk) without leaving them exposed to the British fleet between turns. I use the privateers that appear in New York as bait to pull the British fleet close enough to take a couple of frigates out once I have built a few frigates in New York (after Boston is secure).

On higher levels barbarians (loyalist irregulars) spawn in the Appalachians, so be sure to leave a light covering force in place in the South. Otherwise, take all your new troops up to New England. By the time they get there you will be ready to make a push for Montreal.

I often retreat the units in Portland up into the forests toward Quebec. Once I was able to pick off Quebec with just a minuteman after the AI attacked it in a forest across a river, leaving Quebec undefended. Quebec is England's third best city, after Boston and Halifax, and has a ton of forests to chop.

After Boston is secure and I am making progress at sea, I begin to mass my units for a push into Canada. In order to win, you need to take at least three cities (including Boston) and these are the most accessible, though most defended as well. Take several cannons for each city, and don't count on them being reliable producers unless you can snatch one early on.

Well, that's basically it. After all, there are only 100 turns so you don't have too many other options as I see it.

On monarch I didn't keep any troops in my southern areas, so the barbarians from the West took several of my cities, and I went into a cash crunch without them. Until then, I was cruising along, so I think this strategy is fairly sound at most levels, even though I haven't won at the higher levels yet.

It is interesting that the game progresses roughly along historical lines, but with a few key difference. As the British, hold Boston, keep control of the seas, ferry in your reinforcements from Halifax and have a go at New York. Then march on down to Philly. Use units you can produce in the interior of Canada to harass Albany and close in on New York. As the Americans, take Boston (which they were unable to do historically, and which they couldn't if the AI didn't pull out its troops to take Portland) hold New York, take control of the seas (which they also couldn't do IRL, but CIV isn't set up to simulate harassment of merchant shipping)) and then go after Montreal, Trois-Riviers and Quebec.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences about the American Revolution Civ4 scenario. It is one I have started a time or two, but which I hadn't finished.

Perhaps now I will complete it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/art/pic_redcoats.jpg

Strategy guide for winning where King George III could not:

1. First action is the siege of Boston, and colonial forces are throwing quite a few Minutemen and militia at the city. They are also pillaging farms and mines outside the city. The proper reaction here is to stand fast IN the city, dig in, defend the city itself, and wait for reinforcements from "Blighty", of which you will be getting plenty during this game. (Having enough troops will be the least of your worries!)

2. Once Boston is no longer in danger of being lost to the Rebels, check your civic options, as this will be vital. I always go with Representation and Environmentalism for city happiness, and Vassalage and Theocracy so that any troops you "home grow" in your American cities will start out with two promotions.

3. When promoting units, you'll want to go with Combat I and then Clutch for the Redcoats so that they'll have an edge over those Continental Regulars who get advanced training from Baron Von Steuben. Cavalry go to Combat I and Combat II. Their goal eventually is to be able to have that extra promotion for a bonus against other cavalry--and cavalry is particularly strong among the Rebel forces, and they use them often. That and a surprising number of cannon. Your own cannon units will want to be city raiders, I and II. They aren't much use in open field combat since the Rebels almost never stack large stacks. They throw onesie twosie cavalry charges at your improvements, tempt your forces out for a skirmish, and when you defeat that one cavalry (IF you do--sometimes you LOSE), and when you do they usually have a follow-up cavalry to get payback on the unit that defeated their comrades. Unit-for-unit "exchanges" like this are common throughout the game. They win one, we win one, and back and forth, and meanwhile they get some destruction done of the cities we're trying to build up.

4. City management is VITAL. Your biggest challenge as the British is on the economic front rather than the military front. If you neglect your economic strategy you WILL find yourself unable to pay the massive numbers of Redcoats and mercenaries advancing on a Rebel city, and as a result of the "strikes" and payroll revolts, the Rebels won't have to defeat you, as your armies will just scatter on their own. There is nothing more frustrating than being on the brink of decisive victory, only to have bankruptcy pull it out from under you. With that in mind, here is your city strategy:

a) You need exactly ONE Redcoat for city defense in the northern areas considered safe from Rebel, French, and Spanish attack. No more defenses needed. The main focus of the north, and especially safe areas of Canada, is: $$$. Chaching. Money. Go nuts with the villages and have just enough food to grow into them. The business of Canada should be: BUSINESS. This helps hedge against that red ink, helps you economically support the gigantic waves of reinforcements you'll have showing up in Halifax.

b) In Alabama you are in danger from the Spanish stronhold at New Orleans. Don't let the 14 strength of their Spanish Regulars fool you. They are extremely lucky, and N'Orleans is rather prolific in generating them rapidly. Especially for Mobile, keep building all units, all the time. A good balance vs. the Spanish is 4 Redcoats per 1 cannon and 1 cavalry. Cannon versus the stack, cavalry versus any Regulars out in the open, and throw a few advanced Woodsmen units to give breathing room for a Worker unit to clear the forests around your Alabama cities, and put in some defensive roads.

c) In Florida you'll want to work the land up enough to be productive, as it'll have to send reinforcements to Alabama and keep that area from being lost to the Spanish, or to keep marauding and pillaging Rebel cavalry from making a shambles of your hamlets, etc. That means as many workshops as the banana plantation can support food-wise.

d) In any American cities you take from the Rebels, it will be impossible to "make them happy". They'll hate you no matter what--no amount of churches, theatres, etc., will improve the frowny-face situation. Just give up and accept the fact that they won't grow and won't be as productive or prosperous as your Canadian cities. Fact of life, move on.

5. The guts of the military strategy:

a) With your first wave of reinforcements, land them at Portland. Taking it with your gigantic force will be easy. The non-damaged units should force-march from there to besiege Albany, while damaged units stay behind to "heal". Eventually you'll be leaving one rookie unit there which will likely never see any action for the rest of the game.

b) Once all your Portland invasion force has caught up at the siege of Albany (and make sure there isn't a river between your siege camp and the city, open fire with your cannon to reduce the defenses to nothing (you DID keep your cannon alive, didn't you?) Then start with your mercenaries as "cannon fodder". The reason for this is that the cost of maintaining a mercenary unit is the same as a Redcoat, but the mercenary's combat power isn't as much, so they are less bang for the same buck--expendable!!! (Remember, economy is the key to winning this!) Similarly so for inexperienced Redcoats, but to a lesser degree. Manage the assault so that you are grooming more experienced troops for "sure" wins (by checking the combat odds), and the more difficult or suicidal tasks of wearing down the Continental Army when experienced and dug in, goes to the least experienced of your many, many, many Redcoats. By the time your Level II Redcoats are storming Albany, the defending troops should be down to 3 or 4 combat strength, versus your 16, a shoo-in.

c) You SHOULD have enough troops left over from the battle of Albany, to march on New York City. If not, besiege it and wait for another wave of reinforcements. Here in New York your navy can do the work of wearing down the defenses. If your army has more than one cannon you can consider using one or more of them for an initial suicide strike against the defending stack, to do "colateral damage" and wear down many defending units at the same time. This will mean less of an expensive process of throwing cannon fodder units initially into the assault. Always keep at least one cannon alive for those cities your navy can't bombard, and the rest can be thrown into the fight. It's also good luck if you are able to groom a cannon unit to high levels of city raider experience so that the initial cannon strike WON'T be a suicide run, and for that reason consider using cannon units in late-stage assaults against worn down defensive units (especially if there are a large number of weak ones). Rebels will use cannons in defense too, against your stack, and to balance against that, always have at least one cavalry with your infantry units when stacked.

d) You will notice the progression of cities I'm citing here as a sort of "sweep" action, to methodically drive Rebel presence further and further south in a sort of steady line. This is because a "race to Baghdad" as was done by the recent Madness of King George has been proven a bad strategy in the long haul. Leaves too many pockets of resistance, and they will make a shambles of your economy. Remember the economy? KEY. No gold, no troops; no troops, no victory. The vital effort here is to expand the "safe zone" where it can reasonably be assumed no Rebels or French will be able to invade and do damage to the towns, plantations, mines, etc. Speaking of the French...

e) The French factor is not as formidable in the scenario as they were in the real Revolution, at least not for land forces. What it does mean is that they will do their best to land troops in and around New York to harry the place, pillage, etc., which means in New York City you'll have to garrison about 3 or 4 cavalry units for counterattacks. Occasionally a Rebel cavalry unit also sneaks past your sentries and strongholds too, and you'll have to have a muscular answer for them, as they are no wimps on the battlefield. So NYC is the exception to the "one defender only" rule. One or two experienced Redcoats are also a good supplement to get your own cavalry out of trouble if the Rebels/French decide to mass. Where the French are still a non-trivial threat is at sea. You have Ships of the Line as the British, and they are very very powerful, but the French navy is SNEAKY. You'll need to pepper the open water with frigates for eyes and ears, and have enough SOTL as a response force for any French fleets spotted. When economic bad times hit it's VERY tempting to disband naval units as they seem superfluous early in the game, but the French navy will make you regret such a move later.

f) Philadelphia is not a trivial city to take. By the time your initial army takes New York it will have lost enough Redcoats to where there won't be enough to also take Philadelphia. But, you should have a couple handy to setup a siege camp in the woods to the north, and you will delight in the sight of Rebel forces suicidally trying again and again to dislodge your initial siege party. Each unsuccessful sally out of Philadelphia they throw at you, that's one less dug-in defender you'll have to try to overtake later, so "bring them on". Next wave of reinforcements you get, they can meet up with your initial siege party, then also hunker down there, and set the cannons to work bombarding the walls (assuming you haven't already done so with extant cannon forces that survived the assault of New York City). Then rack up Philly as a win.

g) After Philadelphia the northern arm of the Colonial uprising is pretty much broken. You can also take Baltimore and consider setting up a defensive line on the north side of the river that runs south of there, or just hunker down in Philly. What I like to do with the next reinforcement wave after that is to start to put pressure on the South. Not necessarily to take cities, but to let them know they can't just operate with impunity or safety. Part of that force I send to Mobile because by this time the Spaniards are on the brink of taking it, throwing wave after wave against the haggard, worn down, defending Redcoats. Another part sets up a good defensive perimeter along the northern borders of Florida. And the rest I like to send in as raiding pillagers, and here sometimes you get loyalist forces popping up to join in the rampage. They will throw strong cavalry units at you, and that may eventually dry up your raiding force, but in the mean time you'll be able to do the economic damage to the Rebels that they were going to try against you earlier in the environs of New York and Boston. The pillagers have now become the pillaged. And now you are breaking THEIR economic back, and THEY are going bankrupt. And the French by this time are no help at all--too little, too late (as long as your navy holds up, and it should!)

h) Eventually after enough waves of reinforcements and transports from Halifax, one by one all the rebel cities will fall. Be sure to focus on JUST taking Rebel cities and not wasting time against the Spanish--yet. At some point, too, the game will say you've won a points victory, but we're not about points here, we're about total conquest, right? Click the "just one more turn" option and keep going, as it'll be a lot of fun. Ultimately you want to take the last rebel city, and THEN vent your rage against the Spanish.

i) Battle of New Orleans, a la Espanol. This will be a bit tricky. They have a defensive river along the south, and the northern approach is open grassland, so any invading force you drop there will immediately get assaulted by large waves of Spanish Regulars. I usually put a generous helping of inexperienced Redcoats there to start with, as the Spanish tend not to have a lot of cannon. They'll win many battles, but it will wear them down. After you start to have Redcoats actually survive the open field battles, then you'll know it's time to bring your main force down from the woods where they were previously hunkering down and waiting for the right time. Now is the time: move them in, and dig them in. Now it's experienced troops rebuffing the counterattacks, and 9 out of 10 of them should survive. Meanwhile you can have frigates working on bombarding the city walls. When your siege stack has mostly healed up, ensure you have at least one "city raider" cannon unit, a good half dozen or so "cannon fodder" units, and another good half dozen or so veteran units, CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE! Fix bayonets and "go in". It will be mind-bogglingly expensive compared to Rebel cities, as the Spanish Regulars, as I said before, are lucky mo-fo's. Some sort of hidden bonus or something, but their nominal combat strength is 14 and they fight more like a 20, and it's not just because they're promoted to Combat II or City Defender II. They got some voodoo going on in the Big Easy. BUT... you will overwhelm them.

j) After New Orleans, the next interesting conquest is Saint Louis, after which the game becomes a tedious cleanup operation of Appalachian towns, and I usually don't stick around for that.

Back in Ole Blighty in time for a spot of tea, eh?

The American strategy for the same scenario:

1. Here you get the luxury of doing the smart thing and CALLING OFF the suicidal assault of Boston. You are NOT going to succeed at taking it, and you'll merely make the Redcoat defenders more experienced, and your own army weaker, by attempting it. Lay siege. Dig in. Promote surviving militia and C. Regulars to woodsmen and hold wooded terrain right outside Boston. The Redcoat AI cannot stand your units being near their cities, and will always try to attack, and with their inexperienced redcoats you can cost them dearly in units with relatively few of your relatively cheap forces.

2. Just as the British challenge is to build up enough economy to support the tidal wave of units, the American challenge is to destroy that economy. ATTACK CANADA, early and often. Not to take cities, but to pillage. Do not allow their hamlets to grow. Whack the farms. Destroy the watermills. Leave the mines in shambles. Scorch the earth. Leave them with many cities that are nothing but a further drag on their economy, and with luck their units will disappear from payroll riots before you have to even fight them.

3. You will lose Portland, and you don't care. Move on.

4. You will probably not lose Albany, as the AI tends not to be smart enough to get on the right side of the river or use its cannon properly. You also have time to build up some quick and easy militia to make the difficulty even more daunting for them. Once you have 4 or 5 defender units, keep building units to send north for pillage raids. Do NOT bother building workers to try to build anything in the area, unless it's just to production-chop the forests and build barracks, churches (for culture), and some simple essential military-enabling buildings. But only if the Redcoats aren't swarming nearby.

5. You have a wide flexibility of options for city strategy in the central and southern regions of the Colonies. What I tend to like to do is make New York City a pure city defender unit creation city, Philly focuses on economics, Baltimore builds up production for raiding, pillagings, and generally offensive armies, and in the South the calculus is that if they have a lot of hills, gear them to military production, and if a lot of grassland, gear toward economic support. You're not as economically desperate as the English because, well, you do NOT have nearly as many units to support (unfortunately). Not yet, anyway. So when in doubt, err on the side of production cities and just resort to economic growth when they're mainly grassland (e.g., along the Virginia coast).

6. The AI Spanish will take Mobile from the AI English, most of the time. This eases some of the pressure on the southern front and keeps the English busy trying to retake its lost city. Still, you'll have to throw a few woodsmen units into the woods between Florida and Georgia, and bording Alabama, just so they don't get any ideas.

7. You should eventually have enough units built up to either prevent New York City from falling, or taking it back if the Redcoats did take it. Do NOT rely on the French to be of any use at all except maybe to make the English navy less of a threat to your own frigates. Speaking of which, any good productive city along any coast should be building frigates (which means, hang onto iron mines AT ALL COSTS. More important than cities!) It actually IS possible, later in the game, to gain total domination of the sea, which basically just means, fewer surprises along random coastal cities when gigantic stacks of redcoats just show up for a raid.

8. The final push is for Boston, and this is just basic brute force of dirty, grueling, square-by-square, expensive combat. You have to claw your way to the woods west of Boston and plant woodsmen units there and hold onto it for dear life. Once a permanent base is established there, move in the Regulars who have Combat I and Clutch, the City Raider cannon (GENEROUS helping of those!), and token anti-cannon cavalry, into the wood square. Then the final battle, which will be expensive and dirty and almost painful to watch, where you expend easily half your army assaulting Boston, but as you start with about 2:1 numeric superiority, and wear them down with floods of grapeshot from the cannon, your brute force assault wave of C. Regulars will ultimately march into Boston, victorious.

9. At this point you will probably gain the points victory. I typically accept the points victory, because attempts at total conquest will be a long, dragged-out, annoying and tedious affair, what with floods of British troops always showing up in Halifax every other turn, and the back-and-forth of destruction gets pretty pointless after a while. But if you like that sort of thing, keep on with it.

The thing I liked about that scenerio is that it taught me the usefulness of watermills and workshops. Never used them before that.

i found this incredibly easy on noble when i tried for the first time, winning in about half an hour, ill push the difficulty up and maybe it'll be harder

this scenario gets fun when you put it on deity. really shows how hard the revolution was, considering you start with 10 gold, and -31/turn.

i've never tried... i'll have to take the time.

does the ai always follow the same strat?

I created a new scenario for the War of 1812, based on the American Revolution Scenario. If you like the AmRev Scenario, maybe you'll like this one too.

It's here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169378

I'd love to get some feedback from the American Revolution Scenario fans.

i found this incredibly easy on noble when i tried for the first time, winning in about half an hour, ill push the difficulty up and maybe it'll be harder

The thing that makes this an easier than usual scenario is that the AI tends not to use a clever strategy when playing as either the Americans or as the British. The AI will stupidly waste units in suicidal assaults that it "should" know it can't win. As the British, the AI will be all over the map, apparently not knowing what the hell it wants to accomplish with its stacks, and when it does zero in on a city, it doesn't bother bombarding your defenses down most of the time, so it commits suicide with most of its units trying to charge fully intact defenses.

As the Americans the AI never bothers to mass any units, and instead will throw any units right at a well-defended city in full suicide right as soon as it produces any of them. And it never bothers to try to plunder Canada, leaving your economic base unrealistically secure.

What would make this scenario extreeeeeeeeeeeeemely interesting would be multiplayer. Organic human brains up against each other duking it out would make the strategy for victory less of a given, less predictable, and humans are likely to throw in a twist now and then where an AI won't.

I tend not to like the b.s. of high-level single player modes because it's ridiculously inaccurate to have a barbarian warrior slaughter a knight without blinking an eyelash or taking any damage (the old "spearman beats a tank" crap we know well from older Civ versions!) The increase in difficulty shouldn't be a matter of stacking the laws of physics against you and robbing your treasury blind--rather, it should be a matter of making the enemy truly smarter in its STRATEGY where it counts. Maybe when real AI gets figured out and not the half-@ssed AI of game software, that intelligence level can be adjusted more readily.

I created a new scenario for the War of 1812, based on the American Revolution Scenario. If you like the AmRev Scenario, maybe you'll like this one too.

It's here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169378

I'd love to get some feedback from the American Revolution Scenario fans.

Will do shortly! Sounds exciting!

Unfortunately, (and perhaps obviously) the AI is not a better "general" in the 1812 Scenario, but the challenge is more of a race against time -- you need to get a conquest victory in 75 turns or less.

"2. Once Boston is no longer in danger of being lost to the Rebels, check your civic options, as this will be vital. I always go with Representation and Environmentalism for city happiness, and Vassalage and Theocracy so that any troops you "home grow" in your American cities will start out with two promotions."

Theocracy is a non-factor since there are no religions in the scenario.