Feel free to post any short tips/tricks you have for the new Colonization here... :)

1.Cant get those Converted Natives study in your school for elder statesman or whatsoever? make them study in a village in which they have just been converted for a profession , after that clear their speciality to transform them into Free Colonists which can freely enter educational buildings.

2.At the begining of the game rather head for the continent than for the islands. Hurry a seasoned scout from Europe and send him on explore. Find all the treasures you can ASAP and save up enough gold for a Privateer ( ignore King's demands for now ). Buy it, and use this vessel to wipe out all enemy caravels coming into/out of Europe. You will plunder them for resources which can be sold for a profit and at the same time will hurt AI's resource flow which will inevitably slow them down. Use the experience for navigation promotion in order to get more movement to chase those traders even faster.

3.When founding new settlements which only role is to extract specific resource ( Fur , Tobacco ) you dont need any buildings at all ( maybe only the Warehouse but it depends on the flow of your Wagon Trains) so instead of wasting these hammers you should rather spend them on Points ( Political , Exploration etc ) so you can really rush those Founding Fathers like Peter Minuit or others of your liking.

1. When you get treasure, bring it to a coastal city, but don't cash it in until you need the gold. You can hide it from your king's gold demands that way.

2. When your ship arrives in Europe you will have an opportunity to sell cargo and purchase stuff before your king has a chance to ask for gold or raise your taxes. If you want to buy something expensive do it now before your king can take your gold away. Otherwise, since tax raising is rare, exit the screen and after you conclude any business with the king sell your cargo.

Is the REF military power too much for you ? Try this :

Build some ships of the line, the AI will counter this with massive production of man o war. I had built 8 ships of the line, as a result the REF consisted of 60 ! man o war's by the time I declared my independence. But its land forces where less impressive than usual, I could almost keep pace with their numbers. And you dont need to beat all those ships for a victory, only beating the land forces is enough to get a victory.

I'm still tinkering with some of the details on this, but it appears that the King wants to attack your smallest/weakest coastal cities after you declare independence.

A "honeypot" town may be a workable strategy. This is a small, weakly defended town that can be easily reinforced and/or recaptured. Alternatively, a couple of very strong coastal towns with the remainder inland might work, too. The REF expends most of its strength trying to break "The Rock" and your inland forces mop up what's left. I'm basing this on one war for independence, though. Eight coastal cities and only two of them got attacked by the REF and those were next door to each other.

I also noted that my Native allies DoW'd the king. Didn't do me much good since they were on a different landmass (protection from the other nations), but since the REF's bonuses are all related to attacking settlements, I suspect that they wouldn't be able to defend well against Natives with bonuses for attacking outside of settlements. Making nice with the neighbors would be a VERY good strategy.

Instead of buying the Veteran Soldier from Eu dock, you could ask for the King's "military aids", which costs around 1k gold.

This is cheaper than getting from Eu market, which price progressively increase as you buy more.

Instead of buying the Veteran Soldier from Eu dock, you could ask for the King's "military aids", which costs around 1k gold.

This is cheaper than getting from Eu market, which price progressively increase as you buy more.

But it requires that you pay up when he wants some pocket money, which can be quite expensive.

But it requires that you pay up when he wants some pocket money, which can be quite expensive.If you keep buying soldiers for all your money then he'll never be able to ask for very much ;)

Keeping your gold low to "hide" it from the king's demands is good, but outright rejecting him is better. The benefits for doing so seem to far outweigh accepting-- Dale, one of the testers, has also indicated the penalty for such an action is also quite low.

Another tip is to make sure to look up the traits on the Indian tribes you are fighting. If you feel the need to go rampaging on your neighbors, focus on the ones that give bonus money when you plunder (Aztecs, Incans, Tupi to a lesser extent). Or focus on sending missions to the ones that are "Impressionable"-- you'll get more converts.

I've tried this, and it seems to work pretty well. Found one of your colonies near extensive food resources. I found one plot with three fish resources near by. I obtained three expert fisherman to work the spots and was quickly generating +20 or so food, which quick generated additional citizens. They can be sent where need to found or populate other colonies. This is similar to the specialist city concept in Civ IV.

You can use merchantmen as bait for the Kings Men O War. Hopefully the merchant will survive, and flee to a drydock, while taking the MoW health far enough down for your Ship of the Line to counter attack. Much cheaper than using two SoLs.

Alternatively, assign a great general to a ship of the line, and take skirmish 1-3 for a 60% chance of withdrawal.

Instead of buying expensive Elite units from Europe, just keep buying cheap farmers and then convert them yourself into military units.

Road all your coastal tiles before DoI. I forgot to do one hill and it cost me a lot of units. Every time I killed the last unit on that tile my dragoon had no movement left so was stranded and the next turn it was defeated by the new landings. There is no way to add a road after independence as your pioneer can't survive there.

Let's not forget a holdover from the original Col:

For additional storage, park a wagon in your colony. You can store a lot more muskets this way, or hide a good from the computer so that you'll never have to throw it away in a goods party when the king comes knocking. Downside: you have to manually unload raw goods to process them and manually unload muskets to make them available to your colonists.

Col2 might be programmed to avoid this, but I guess it can't hurt:

I wonder if this one still works:

In Col1 I would try to keep 1 unit of trade goods in a colony in hopes that it would become the target of the next goods party, rather than some good that was actually important (losing guns, horses, tools tended to be a blow). I would do the same with other goods that I didn't use, like sugar and rum if my colonies had no land for sugar.

Often times I was able to throw a party and dump something that I didn't care about trading with the king! (Most of the time when I go through the game, I don't have the tiles to produce sugar or cotton or rum and cloth as a result)

Dragoons are the best unit - they are almost even against much of the REF, and if they survive long enough the skirmish upgrades give them really good survival odds. Horses are cheap in Europe, so stockpile them next to your guns and save your domestic food supply for generating colonists. If a Dragoon is in a city that's about to be attacked, and have not moved, they can be downgraded to soldiers before you end your turn. So you don't lose defensive bonuses unless you attack or end a turn outside a city.

I wonder if this one still works ...

It's a lot harder to fool the king now, unfortunately. In the original game you could only lose goods from your port colonies. Now if you hide those goods he'll switch to an inland colony.

Dalgo, I remembered that Col1 trick late in my last playthrough. I'm going to try it and see if it works. If it doesn't work, then kudos to the programmers

nitpick: Although, it's not really the king who decides what you throw out is it? I haven't carefully read it in a while, but I think the computer chooses the good and then you choose whether to pay the tax or throw out the pre-determined item.

Now if you hide those goods he'll switch to an inland colony.
aww.

It makes sence though. "We refuse to pay your tax and will throw 45 tonnes of lumer into the... field!" :rolleyes:

What about using "tax galleons"? In Col1 I uually had one anchored just for that purpose (when I had more than one costal colony), and wagon swapped each turn when time was getting close to another tax increase.

Delay first settlement for 12 turns.

Caribbean, Marathon, Huge, revolutionary.
First looked at queue and saw fisherman and scout. Immediately sailed back to Europe, sold tools and guns and bought fisherman and scout. Sailed back.
In Caribbean loots of places with three fish, took one with fisherman, quickly found natives who do fisherman. Left two starting colonists training and set scout off.

I think the extra 12 turns delay was worth it, if only to set scout off 12 terns earlier. Not sure delaying would be so good at quicker speeds.

Col2 might be programmed to avoid this, but I guess it can't hurt:

I wonder if this one still works:

In Col1 I would try to keep 1 unit of trade goods in a colony in hopes that it would become the target of the next goods party, rather than some good that was actually important (losing guns, horses, tools tended to be a blow). I would do the same with other goods that I didn't use, like sugar and rum if my colonies had no land for sugar.

Often times I was able to throw a party and dump something that I didn't care about trading with the king! (Most of the time when I go through the game, I don't have the tiles to produce sugar or cotton or rum and cloth as a result)

For the record, this trick just worked! However, I did have a partial load of cotton on the way to Europe when I dump-partied it, so the game may have known that.

1.Cant get those Converted Natives study in your school for elder statesman or whatsoever? make them study in a village in which they have just been converted for a profession , after that clear their speciality to transform them into Free Colonists which can freely enter educational buildings.

I'vre had no problem sending converted natives to school, and the game information also says one can do it.

I'm not sure I understand how to breed horses...I know you need horses and a rancher but from there I am not sure what needs to be done??

I'm not sure I understand how to breed horses...I know you need horses and a rancher but from there I am not sure what needs to be done??

Actually, you don't need either :) You need to build a stable, and later a ranch. Any colonist can breed horses but a rancher is obviously better. You also need plenty of food (fish will do!) but suprisingly you don't need horses.

I would offer a modest correction: you do need horses, but they are so cheap in Europe you can buy all that you need and not worry about making them yourself.

My top four priorities in the opening:
1. Get a scout and explore as many Native villages and ancient ruins as possible.
2. Get an expert farmer or fisherman as quickly as possible to get a large excess of food.
3. Found several colonies, I'm doing 4 on a standard-sized map, before building up a colony too far.
4. Churches with preachers or missionaries are worth their weight in gold for an early population boost.

My main reason for asking is because I always seem to have a master rancher and want to be able to put him to a good use! Thanks, now I know!

A good tip is to check out how many braves are in a village before you attack it. That is obvious. What is not so obvious is how to interpret the information you are given. I attacked a village which I thought had 11 Braves in it. But I didn't realise what the last entry on the list meant. It said Native (21). It turned out there were 31 Braves not 11. Oops.

I'vre had no problem sending converted natives to school, and the game information also says one can do it.

In that case I obviously had to do something wrong , maybe my settlement lacked food so they could join it or some other issue. thanks then.

Here's some advice after I got slaughtered by the REF after a valiant but futile struggle. Think Stalingrad.

1. Since your soldiers now get killed, not just disarmed, one should establish two cities primarily dedicated to breeding colonists to use as soldiers later. You will need a huge supply of fresh troops for the trenches in Flanders... uh, for the War for Independence. (Also, this will enable you to let your elite troops heal in peace instead of having to send them out each turn to fight against the never-ending stream of royal troops.) However, don't arm them until you declare independence, or else the king will notice and beef up his formidable expeditionary forces even further.

2. For the same reason, one colony should be primarily dedicated to producing tools and guns. Build many trade waggons to store the surplus in. And get as many horses as you can! The Rancher is a very important new unit.

3. Keep exposure to the REF down by having most of your cities inland. If you haven't upset the Indians too much, you can keep those lightly garrisoned.

4. Don't annoy any Indian tribe unless you are prepared for a horrible conflict where you will get one colony (at a miniumum) burned to the ground by them. Form alliances with them whenever possible; they will then assist you very actively against the king's troops.

5. Buld one important city inland for the worst-case scenario that you lose all your coastal ones. The REF won't find it easy to advance through rugged terraina dn capture it.

6. One inland city should be good for breeding fresh troops. You might lose all your coastal cities. Build two ranches as early as you can!

7. An idea that just cocurred to me - establish friendly relations with some European neighbour not too far away. Sign an open borders agreement with him, send your galleons there and then transport your luxury goods overland to them and ship them off to Europe so you can buy food (for new colonists) and horses. Transport that stuff back to your own colonies, arm the new colonists and march them off. (Producing guns in your colonies is no problem.) In order to use this strategy, opt for preserving monarchy on independence so you can still trade with Europe. It's much superior to the one-off increase of population in your colonies you get for having a republic. (The European screen is still the same basic screen they never bothered to do any artwork on.)

8. Carefully build up an alliance with one or more Indian tribes against your *very nearest European neighbour*. Taking him out will give you more room to expand, and you'll also need the military points and veteran troops for the upcoming fight against the king. The new Col is very determinedly a wargame where trade and production only serve one single purpose.

The closest land to the europe sea lanes is 4 tiles. Try and plan your empire to include at least one colony at this distance and make it your main trading colony. Then put Juan de Bermudez into Congress (+1 movement for trading ships). He is an early exploration FF and to make sure you get him conserve your exploration points by skipping Balboa and Verrazano.

You will now find that your Galleons are able to reach the sea lane in two turns (although they reach it in one they don't embark for Europe that turn) but the return voyage is made in a single turn. Even better Merchantmen go both ways in a single turn. This is crucial if you want to continue to trade with Europe after the revolution as it means they are not at risk of attack from enemy MoW.

(on a huge custom map)

UNGODLY TACTIC!!!!

If any might have noticed, with Right to Bear Arms, the regular colonists (not soldiers) get a strength of 3!! But you might have also noticed that if you have a stack of colonists and one gets killed, the rest die or are captured.

TRY THIS:
Right after declaring Independance, empty out ALL of your colonies down to 1 colonist in the Town Hall.

THEN:
Spread out your colonists evenly, ONE PER SQUARE, all over your ENTIRE TERRITORY.

You will see while they aren't the strongest defenders, they can quite ofter defeat ARTILLERY before dying, and certainly slow the REF's advance. Also, if they give their lives up to fighting for liberty, this leaves weakened REF troops that can be picked off by your military hiding in the forested hills.

Anyone else tried this?

A few things I have learned in the 3 games Ive played.

1) Having your top two colonies most likely to be attacked by the REF only TWO squares from eachother is awesome. If things look bad for one, you can instantly move cannons over to defend.

2) I havent used this as an exploit yet, but it has happened twice in a natural fashion. With rule number1 above, if the REF finally does take one of your colonies, you can instantly attack it with cannons that get massive settlement attack bonuses, taking it back and leveling their forces is almost too easy (hence, exploit).

3) Always spend excess money, Ive had the King damand 20 gold more than once, an easy choice.

1) Choose a starting city with a forested hill adjacent. Never cut down the trees.
2) Get your usual assortment of cannons, soldiers, dragoons.
3) THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP . . . get Ethan Allen. The RANGER is a bonus to Forest, and the Mountaineer is a bonus to hills.
4) KILL

The key is not to defend the coastal city too heavily. You want the REF to take it and fill it up with lots of troops. Your cannon get a big bonus to attacking settlements especially if you get the BOMB promotion. The dug in soldiers get a big defensive bonus from Ethan Allen. I haven't verified that they get the hilltop and forest bonus, but I have noticed that the REF gets a serious beatdown running up hill in the woods. The dragoons are good at picking off any exposed troops (especially if you have a road on the fortified square so they can duck out and back in quickly)

Need to send that Free Colonist to the far side of the continent to train in a native village, but don't want to devote a ship to carry him quickly? If you have spare horses, change him into a scout first. He'll travel there and back quicker. Even as a scout, he still trains with the natives the same way, and simply comes out as a Tobacco Planter Scout when he's done.

Hey, I do that too! Doesn't lose horses or anything.

I've played a few games now and used some of the tips on this thread as guidance. I always like to think of the different philosophies around game play. Here is one that I've found very useful and I hope this gives you a bit of a new perspective on game play :

First off this isn't Civ, so it's OK to build cities close to each other if they have enough resources to do your bidding.

The trade good colony:)
Have as many specialized workers on the field harvesting trade goods with farmers/fishermen to support your working men. That way you can have up to 6 squares for trade goods and 2 for food.

The port:king:
The port city can manage with 6 squares because it doesn't have to harvest trade goods. It really only needs food. Just enough for your specialists who process the trade goods and to make more colonists. Build factories in this city to process the trade goods.

Necessities Colony:mischief:
Build this colony close to ore and wood. Produce tools and guns here. Send wood and tools to the other two colonies when needed. This colony will make you more independent from Europe. Make this a port colony if you want to make ships.

Now that's the basics of the strategy, I wanna keep this as short as possible :p

You can add a 4th colony that could produce massive amounts of food to make colonists and horses perhaps. Or if one of your other 3 colonies are not up to there tasks.

The main thing is that you have an X amount of time to prepare for war. So you need to confine how many colonies you want to build and manage and how many will really help your goals of victory. It's not like in Civ where the more cities the better.

Good luck and have fun :)

P.S.
Don't automate the pioneers, they kinda chop down trees in the wood colony or build a cabin instead of a farm. Best to control them yourself to fit your priorities.

Actually, you don't need either :) You need to build a stable, and later a ranch. Any colonist can breed horses but a rancher is obviously better. You also need plenty of food (fish will do!) but suprisingly you don't need horses.

IIRC, Stables and a Ranch each need 50 horses to complete.

IIRC, Stables and a Ranch each need 50 horses to complete.

It scales with game length. In Normal it's 50 and 100 respectively, Epic it's 75 and 150.

Few more tips:

1. Buy a privateer early on , and waste the ships of the other Europeans. Good profits can come from this.. and you slow down your opponents.

2. Ask local natives to go to war with the other Europeans. They can wipe them completely out early in the game.

3. Trade guns, trade goods and horses with the natives. They pay . .. .. .. . loads for this stuff. And buy there trade goods.

4. Use the domestic screen to see how much you are producing of your trade goods. That way you can calculate with ease how many specialists and or factories you can build. If you have a good trade route between your colonies it won't matter where the goods come from. Just focus on producing something from the goods in one colony.If your producing 36 tobacco thru out your colonies you can have one of the build a factory with 3 Cigar specialists.

1 - Right after start, get your caravel (+Soldier + Pioneer) to scout all the coas in search for other european nations.

2 - Wwhen you find them, they will be loosely defended, use your soldier to atack the city, then use it to capture the pioneer (Which usualy hangs by).

3 - Do that to the other european

4 - You have a continent european free.

They always start the colony with the soldier so they are sitting ducks in early game. Using this strategy you can start a game with 3 soldiers, 3 pioneers, and the best no europeans.

It does sound like cheating to me though...

Set food as an export in all but one of your colonies, so that automated wagon trains consolodate food in a single colony - you will get new colonists much faster this way. This is especially important in the early part of the game.

#1 Rivers
Rivers will give +1 to ALL raw materials on adjacent tiles, building a settlement next to a river is great!

#2 Labeling
Cities with 1 resource I call 'St. Name', cities with 2 different resources I call 'Fort Name', 3 resources - 'Name City'. I label Military units and Wagons for quicker recognition. Double-click the name.

#3 Great General
2|5|10|17|26|etc - those are XP thresholds for the next promotion.

A General emerges after a certain amount of fighting, he has a total of 20 Experience Points to give, which are distributed equally among troops in the same tile (BTW a native village offers 7XP sometimes) once you attach the general to a unit, this unit gains access to GG only promotions (Leadership, Surgeon III, Explorer III etc).

Ten Units get 1 promotion each.*
Four units get 2 promotions each. **
Three units get 7XP+7XP+6XP and 2 promotions each.**
Two units can each get 3 promotions (at XP 2|5|10) ***
One unit can be promoted directly to the 4th rank, with 3 XP overshoot. ****

Free promotions don't affect the threshold, each unit will be promoted when getting its first 2 points experience, even if it is already a Grenadier I (from the French leader) or if it's a veteran soldier.

Do not underestimate the benefit of a colony plot with at least 3-4 mountain peaks combined with a few farmable plots. With a combination of expert farmers and silver miners, you have a cash cow. Silver starts at around 2x the price of the most expensive manufactured item. The difference being that you did not have to create any raw goods first. Yes you will never have the volume of a cigar factory with 3 specialists, but considering silver runs about 2x the price of cigars, you have the same cash flow with a lot less infrastructure.

It is possible to trade with an inland village on a different island or continent to your home colonies. Load an empty wagon train and the goods you wish to trade into a transport ship. Sail this into a coastal indian village and unload the wagon train. Then select the goods and load them into the wagon which can now move inland to trade.

Veteran dragoons and soldiers will rise through the ranks twice as fast as cannons, due to the +100% XP Leadership bonus. Even though cannons are much more effective massacring entire settlements/tribes, with almost no healing downtime and high odds. (Drag & hold the unit to see the odds).

A wounded soldier can pass on his weapons to another patriotic citizen, while healing his wounds during recreational activities (i.e. in a silver mine).

A wounded soldier can pass on his weapons to another patriotic citizen, while healing his wounds during recreational activities (i.e. in a silver mine).

Now this is an awesome trick! Too bad the one remaining guy in my colonies is usually a native convert and can't take up arms.

It is possible to trade with an inland village on a different island or continent to your home colonies. Load an empty wagon train and the goods you wish to trade into a transport ship. Sail this into a coastal indian village and unload the wagon train. Then select the goods and load them into the wagon which can now move inland to trade.

Dalgo,
I wasn't able to do this when I tried. What buttons are you pressing to unload the goods and then load them onto the wagon while in an Indian settlement?

Dalgo,
I wasn't able to do this when I tried. What buttons are you pressing to unload the goods and then load them onto the wagon while in an Indian settlement?

OK, I checked that again to make sure I got the correct sequence. It took me a bit of trial and error to get it right initially.

I sail a Merchantman containing an empty wagon and some guns into an indian village and the 'unload all' icon appears. I click on that and the wagon unloads into the village, and the icon disappears. Next I select the guns and this time the 'load' icon appears. Clicking on that transfers the guns to the wagon which is then able to take them to the inland village for sale.

Now this is an awesome trick! Too bad the one remaining guy in my colonies is usually a native convert and can't take up arms.

I read that you can train a convert in a native settlement and then "unlearn" the skill and he will become a free colonist. I haven't tested it though.

I read that you can train a convert in a native settlement and then "unlearn" the skill and he will become a free colonist. I haven't tested it though.

It's true and, what is more, I regard it as a bad feature. It's idiotic to have native converts learn a profession in an Indian village and become European settlers in the process. Maybe you should have trained that Indian before declaring your independence - or sent him to school while there was still somebody else around. It's sufficient that someone has been present in a colony during part of the training for that profession to become optional.

1. You can use native villages as canal if your town isnt adjacent to water.

2. Those silver resources are hard to find but arent really necessary. River next to mountain is powerful. Muntain+river+mine=3silver (6 from specialist) . You can often find a river running alongside a huge range of mountains!

3. Small towns are more efficient. Go wild with 1pop towns. Place them as close as possible. A town gives 1 production and works all its possible yields at the town square. The other squares only give 1 type of resource. A 1pop town on grassland with a convert working a tobacco bonus gives +1food +9tobacco/turn. No buildings required. Place a town with maxed warehouse in the center and make it import all. Make all small town export all. Fully automate a bunch of wagons. Sell via warehouse.

You can place a sign on a map tile with Alt S. I use this to flag my future colony sites with a description of what they will produce. eg 'cigars/tools' etc. When your colony is built the sign is also visible on the colony screen so if you are paging through your colonies you can quickly see what goods they will specialise in.

When you start quicly found your first colony use 2 citzenz take away they tools and guns and imedietly load them (tools guns) on your ship then move to native vilage sell them you shuld get around 300-500 for tols and 600-1200 for guns . Sail to europe get horses you shuld still sell them for around 600-1400.
This shuld gave you head start :)

Welcome to the Forums slawomir furman. :beer:

If you click on a wagon that is serving some trade routes, it forgets its routes. Click on the assign route button and you will see all routes unchecked. This is a nightmare if you have 5 or more of them.
One way to deal with the wagons is to give them a name, usually the same name as the city each one is coming from, like Isabella1, Isabella2, etc. You may need to write down on a piece of paper which goods are being transported and to where.
Sometimes you may need to dispatch a bunch of goods to somewhere only once so you click on the closest wagon to do that errand. And once that task is completed, you want the wagon to resume its assigned routes.
When hovering the mouse on a wagon there should be a display of the routes currently assigned to it.
Until a patch is released we have to live with this unfinished game that was rushed out to suck up your $30-40 bucks.:(

I don't build missions in the closest native villages because I always took by force those villages that are in my way so the mission would be destroyed if you raze that village.
Always grab those veterans when they are available at the docks either for free or low cost. And attack your close villages, if not, when you try to create a new town close to the natives, they would charge you a huge amount a no-no proposition for me.
My last game with Simon Bolivar, I have the free veteran with so many promotions including forest II with increased movement (looks like a horse) then I attached a GG and that guy was a superman :lol: unstoppable and accompanied by some cannons. you get the picture hahahaha

Hello All.

Here are my priorities in order for opening game:

1. Find a city spot.
2. Get at least 1 scout picking up village and ruins treasures, and scouting trading partners.
3. Be an arms dealer. Trade with indians is pwnage. sell them guns, horses, tools, and trade goods. Finished goods (cigars, rum etc) aren't profitable.
4. Get Peter Minuit. He makes every recruit in Europe cost 25% less. Almost, but not quite making your gold 25% more valuable in mid-late game.

After that its building an economy. I like to get a galleon as soon as feasible. This has two huge effects: 1. Lets me transport treasures for free, 2. Lets me devote my initial ship to indian trade while the galleon does Europe runs. One galleon can handle all your european exports (especially when upgraded w/ +1 movement and 1 turn europe bonuses) unless you go for crazy big economies.

The value of indian trade can't be overstated (especially for players in the original game, in which it sucked). For goods demanded, you get between 2x and 3x what you pay in europe for them, and you can judiciously buy indian produce for a 20% to 2x profit in europe.

I've seen many people talk about using blacksmiths and gunsmiths and ranchers to produce tools, guns, and horses. Given the stability of the economy in europe (vs the old game) why would you ever build a tool. Ore pays 2 or 3 (sometimes more) in europe, and tools cost 2 or 3. Just buy them. Horses are the same. they cost 2 or 3 gold each. A rancher should (IMHO) ALWAYS be made a free colonist and made to do ANYTHING other than ranching. Turning food (price 1 in europe, or price 3 when you turn 200 of them into a 600 gold new unit) into a price 2 horse, and using labor to do it is just as insane as making tools.

An argument might be made for gunsmiths, turning price 2 or 3 tools into price 6 or 7 guns, but this seems like too much effort for the infrastructure. Many other jobs offer the opportunity to make 3-4 gold/unit produced.

Cheers,
Tradewind

I've seen many people talk about using blacksmiths and gunsmiths and ranchers to produce tools, guns, and horses. Given the stability of the economy in europe (vs the old game) why would you ever build a tool. Ore pays 2 or 3 (sometimes more) in europe, and tools cost 2 or 3. Just buy them. Horses are the same. they cost 2 or 3 gold each. A rancher should (IMHO) ALWAYS be made a free colonist and made to do ANYTHING other than ranching. Turning food (price 1 in europe, or price 3 when you turn 200 of them into a 600 gold new unit) into a price 2 horse, and using labor to do it is just as insane as making tools.


I hate paying tax and my understanding is that the rate of tax rises is dependent on the volume of goods traded in Europe (not the cost). So if you buy heaps of cheap tools and horses your tax will go up a lot faster than if you just trade high-value finished goods. That's why I make all my own tools.

Hey, Welcome to the Forums tradewind. :beer:

My hint is to have another city that is on the other side of the continent you are fighting over.

Once the REF comes at you they typically come from either the right side of the screen or the left... not both.

If you want to continue to trade with Europe after the Revolution starts, having a port that you can easily launch your trading vessels from without fear of the REFs Man-o-wars then this is a good tip.

Just move all of the finished goods to that port and start trading in that direction.

I know someone has mentioned killing off the other European colonies very early, but I have a little tweak (exploit)

I killed off all 3 of the other colonies mid game. Their kings kept sending more colonists. I kept capturing their new colonists (getting 1 to 3 extra pioneers every other turn or so). Here is how it worked. Defeat last colony & all colonists. Kill caravel with SoL or Privateer. Next turn, new caravel arrives from Europe with the civ's starting colonists (pioneer & soldier). Wait for them to land and make new colony with soldier. Invade. Capture/Raze colony. Capture helpless pioneer. Take said pioneer to your production city. Give him some guns. I've done this @ 10 times now in my current game. It has really helped build my military quickly (along with a food city popping new citizens about every 7-8 turns)

1. Use coastal cities to manunfacture and inland for resources. Don't make one city for all industries. After WoI and if you lose one you can still manunfacture one resource in the other and shift raw materials there. Provided you scan still trade with Europe.

2. Buy horses from Europe and make guns in the new world as it's meant to be. As someone said before, if a city is under siege swap wounded soldiers with healthy colonists.

3. Use Wagon Trains for more than route and two ways if you can. That is if you have 1 cigar factory and 4 towns that produce 3 tabacco each use one train for all 4. That way you will move more than 3 tabacco each turn.

4. If you feel you will lose a city, move all units out and let the King capture and simply retake it after. Attack settlemend bonuses help a lot.

5. (Exploit) The ReF is based on rebel sentiment. If you delay generating liberty bells and then spam them with lots of statesmen the ReF will be much smaller as the King won't react fast enough.

6. Watch out for Open Border Agreements. More often than not, you will see the AI privateer happily docking in your port revealing its nationality.

7. On Marathon you need 600 food for new colonists ;)

If you are working a tile for silver and it yields one silver only (no mine or river adjacent) then a converted native is just as effective as an expert silver miner, because natives get +1 to collect any resource.

You will generate 38 gold per turn instead of 19 this way, if you were just using a regular colonist.

In combat you can find out the likely outcome of a battle before you fight it. Select your unit with right click and drag the mouse over your opponent. The combat odds for that battle are listed on the screen. If they are favourable to you simply release the mouse button and the battle begins. If you don't like the odds drag the mouse back to your own unit and release. You can also use this method to test several of your troops to find out which will be the most effective. Obviously it is not infallible - the RNG gods will still have their say - but it is a handy guide.

For naval victory:

In battle against the Royal Navy, privateers are more efficient than Ships of the Line. Typically I sacrifice one or two privateers, then sink the MoW with a second or third. It typically takes two SoL to take down a Man o' War anyway.

To be more effective, create Great Admirals. Put the privateers you wish to promote in a port (expecting the usual 20 points divided among the ships), then commit a Great General. Be sure to move the garrison out of the port temporarily or you'll put points on them too.

This is particularly powerful with Simon Bolivar's bonus to combat strength, and of course it's a lot easier if you delay your LB production to minimize the size of the Royal Navy.

With Bolivar and 9 privateers I lost 3 or 4 privateers but wiped out the 5 MoW. With the Dutch I had 11 privateers (and 2 token frigates) and sank the 5 Mow at a cost of 5 privateers. [Frigates are useful for finishing off cripples but of course are at a big disadvantage versus MoW.]

Merchant ships in coastal waters can be sacrificed to soften up Royal ships to make things easier for the privateers. The MoW attack the "helpless" caravels but may lose a few points in the process. This led to my proudest moment: "...your Caravel has killed a Spanish Man-o-War."

This seems obvious unless I've missed something important. Play on the largest board. You can still play your three towns and have treasure streaming to your port for most of the game by scouting the supersized board. Is there a downside to this?

This seems obvious unless I've missed something important. Play on the largest board. You can still play your three towns and have treasure streaming to your port for most of the game by scouting the supersized board. Is there a downside to this?

Yes. The larger map makes the indian tribes larger, stonger and more aggressive. However your troops will ultimately benefit with more experience so you can turn it to your advantage, just don't leave any colonies undefended.

I've seen many people talk about using blacksmiths and gunsmiths and ranchers to produce tools, guns, and horses. Given the stability of the economy in europe (vs the old game) why would you ever build a tool. Ore pays 2 or 3 (sometimes more) in europe, and tools cost 2 or 3. Just buy them.

Yeah, but after buying a few hundred tools the cost rises fairly steeply. Plus they take precious cargo space and time to transport.

The old ramp-up in prices just doesn't occur any more. Kind of a shame, because that was something Col1 got right. Of course, the game is a lot shorter, so I guess the purchasing of weapons and tools expedites the Revolution Phase so you can finish in time.

Sorry, guys, double post.

Yeah, but after buying a few hundred tools the cost rises fairly steeply. Plus they take precious cargo space and time to transport.

True. Even when you play as the Dutch, prices rise fast.

Welcome to the Forums. :beer:

Question: What triggers the citys culture expansion?
My capital city lost 3 tiles due to another nations citys expansion
Any ideas?
Bob

Question: What triggers the citys culture expansion?
My capital city lost 3 tiles due to another nations citys expansion
Any ideas?
Bob

Liberty bells. If he is producing more bells than you then his borders will expand faster. The simple solution is to buy some cannons and take him out.

Re this: "This seems obvious unless I've missed something important. Play on the largest board. You can still play your three towns and have treasure streaming to your port for most of the game by scouting the supersized board. Is there a downside to this?"

This can make it harder to use the exploit "capture massive numbers of pioneers by sinking caravels using privateer/merchantmen combos", since you may wind up with the enemy ships respawning faaaaar away from your cities, or having varied respawn points. And, to use this exploit, you have to wipe out their entire civilization, which means by the time you find a distant enemy and raise the military to defeat them and send your armada overseas, they may be really dug in and hard to take out. Whereas if they've built their first city 10 squares from your capitol, you can take them out early and then rapidly build a city capable of building privateers.

Yes, the treasure from a big map is nice, and getting enough exploration points for FFs on a small map is hard, but once you've got the pioneer capturing exploit up and running, your civilization will start growing exponentially. It's a judgment call.

And, there's something to be said for randomizing everything when setting up a game, including map size. Makes you try different strategies. My current entirely randomized game I wound up on a small map with a small near-polar continent full of fur and tundra and severely lacking in food, which made for some interesting compromises. THREE cities with coat factories cranking out the cash, out of just 5 major cities (with two little "pocket" cities to exploit some silver resources), with every single land and sea square on the tiny continent developed and being worked by a specialist. Oh, and I had to take out the native cities on that continent early on, because the native civilization gets really pissed when you take over all the squares surrounding their cities.

I know someone has mentioned killing off the other European colonies very early, but I have a little tweak (exploit)

I killed off all 3 of the other colonies mid game. Their kings kept sending more colonists. I kept capturing their new colonists (getting 1 to 3 extra pioneers every other turn or so). Here is how it worked. Defeat last colony & all colonists. Kill caravel with SoL or Privateer. Next turn, new caravel arrives from Europe with the civ's starting colonists (pioneer & soldier). Wait for them to land and make new colony with soldier. Invade. Capture/Raze colony. Capture helpless pioneer. Take said pioneer to your production city. Give him some guns. I've done this @ 10 times now in my current game. It has really helped build my military quickly (along with a food city popping new citizens about every 7-8 turns)

what will happen to your diplomacy with others, natives, or replacements; do natives know of your hostile activities and react? not that it really matters since you're going to wipe everyone out anyway...

The most important resource for your starting settlement is Food ... you need to expand, you need to be able to work everything in your settlement to the max, they all need food. Preferrably find a spot with access to 2 fish or 2 corn. Second to that, it needs to be near Lumber and Ore ... if not within the settlement square itself, then accessible with a nearby second settlement.

Lacking a resource? I'm just not that great at balancing my settlements for optimal resources. I'm constantly over-producing some resource, such as a raw material like tobacco or cotton, especially when its something in the all-resources-harvested center settlement square, and frequently struggling to get my wagon routes to supply enough ore and lumber to fuel my coastal cities in my attempts to build up an arsenal of weapons, troops and warships. I'm further hampered by my (tangent tip) means of reducing the effects of the King's ring kiss demand by the fact I keep my gold-on-hand low by always buying troops, etc. ... I've found a solution (if anyone else is as numbskulled as I about this and need to feed their big industrial cities some ore or lumber) in swapping resources with the AI ... although for some reason trade doesn't mean actual barter, you can find an AI (preferrably rival Europe Colonies, as Natives don't tend to stockpile 300 qty.) who offers a 300 load of ore or lumber, and will generally sell it to you for less than they will pay for a load of other raw resources. That means you can get the resource you really need basically in exchange for stuff you're not using and is getting lost anyway.

Hiding gold from your king -

Tired of that fat tard stealing your gold while you are trying to save up for some shiny SoLs to send his MoWs to the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle? Keep your gold-on-hand low by wheeling and dealing and keeping as much of your assets non-Gold as possible. Getting a miserably low profit on a load of tools (as much as you can buy) to sell to the Natives beats the heck out of losing half or more of your gold to kiss that filthy jewel! The king can't steal gold you don't have!

Get the fewest tax increases for the most profit -

I use several methods to maximize my trade without getting rapid tax increases. First and foremost, conserve your trade with Europe ... only sell fully loaded Galleons' worth of goods to Europe because one big Galleon trade (1800 cargo capacity) can only trigger a single tax increase, versus three separate Caravel (600 cap. each x 3 = 1800) trades. If you really have a solid trade good production going, send several loaded Galleons at once.

Second, learn to trade with Natives and rival European colonies .... Natives tend to pay okay for finished goods (ESPECIALLY guns and horses, but make sure you're on very good terms with them or selling them arms could be very well selling your own coffin!) if they have some gold, likewise for rival Europeans with raw goods. Trading with natives/rival colonies does not trigger tax increases (so far as I know).

The king can't steal gold you don't have!

Trading with natives/rival colonies does not trigger tax increases (so far as I know).
It makes sense that minimizing your treasury minimizes the amount the King can demand, but refusing those demands for cash has absolutely no negative consequences (beyond losing the ability to request military help from the King). Just tell him what *he* can kiss instead.

You are correct about trade within the new world: no tax increases get triggered.

It does if you play with Dale's AOD II mod. :P (King's negative relations with you worsen the REF growth with the mod, as I understand it)

Yeah, that's my understanding and I normally play AOD II, I should have specified "if playing vanilla."

Having acquired COL2 only yesterday, I was reading through the tips in this thread. A few remarks

1. A lot has been claimed about how to deal with (=avoid) rising taxes or otherways paying the King. Although most of the claims (all?) are correct, one should always take the 'phase' of the game into consideration. Which goods will be the object of you 'party' depends on the volume of the trade in Eu. This means there's no harm in trading massive amounts of raw goods (furs, tobacco, sugar) in the early stages. By the time you feel compelled to throw a goods party, you should be in a position to limit trade to finished goods.

2. An obvious remark, but not made yet: the choice between a tax raise and a goods party must be considered on a case by case basis: how large is the proposed tax raise? which goods are party candidates? how much of this will actually be lost? etc.

3. COL is not CIV! Although I agree that one or several 'food' colonies can come in handy, never forget that immigration is the main foundation of your growth (especially if you play the English), not autonomous growth.

4. As for killing off rivals in the early stages: I haven't tried it, but I recall from COL1 that this trick only worked in the lower levels of play!

I'll be back if I have experimented some more ...

EDIT: forget point 4 and start killing your European rivals! It works!

FlowKey:

I disagree with your comment on food colonies. Having a couple well placed colonist farms will nett you MANY more free colonists than immigration will. The only benefit to immigration is that you'll get specialists too.

I always have at least 2-3 colonist farms going by turn 100 (normal speed).

@Dale
I don't think we really disagree; it's more a question of strategy. My remark was meant to be no more than a general pointer for those who are familiar with CIV I-IV (but not COL1) and may put too much focus on autonomous growth in the early stages.

I have to admit tho: things start changing when hurry costs for religious migrants skyrocket. But even then an ore miner still costs you *only* 800g, while little else remains to spend your gold on.

True, new players should still focus on immigration, whilst perfecting the colonist farm comes with practice.

You should have several distinct stages of population growth:

Immigration should get you rapid early population growth, but it becomes so expensive later in the game that it transitions into getting population via colony farms, several key FFs giving you "free" units, and eventually the powerful "privateer/merchantman combo capturing pioneers" exploit once you've got your "ship farm" city churning out those units (after first building a galleon to ship treasure units, natch). The final stage of population growth should occur after declaring independence, when you immediately start converting your huge cash hoard (you did hoard cash for this, right?) into an endless stream of cheap units (Fishermen, Lumberjacks, Ore Miners, and Farmers are all just 450 gold on the Quick setting with Peter Minuit) bought in Europe to be armed with guns (and sometimes horses, depending on terrain) and fed into the hopper to replace combat losses with the REF.

Getting a cathedral up should be a HUGE early game priority.

Getting a cathedral up should be a HUGE early game priority.

I only do this if I get an early master firebrand, otherwise it's not worth the resources. I'd rather use those resources on missionaries and get free NC's instead if I don't have a firebrand. :)

Lately I've been pushing hard for a cathedral, especially in AoD II where I can't train NCs in their villages. I don't push very hard on NCs because most of the time I play a minimalist game where I only have 2-4 towns and I want experts in the harvesting slots. Maybe I should rethink the emphasis, but this is working well for me.

1 - Right after start, get your caravel (+Soldier + Pioneer) to scout all the coas in search for other european nations.

2 - Wwhen you find them, they will be loosely defended, use your soldier to atack the city, then use it to capture the pioneer (Which usualy hangs by).

3 - Do that to the other european

4 - You have a continent european free.

They always start the colony with the soldier so they are sitting ducks in early game. Using this strategy you can start a game with 3 soldiers, 3 pioneers, and the best no europeans.

It does sound like cheating to me though...

I started to play yesterday and I have exactly that same perception.
Conquering other European settlements right from the first turns, even before founding your own first colony, is crucial for a head-start ...
And it also works well at higher levels ("revolutionary") because your opponent is absolutely defenseless in the very first turns!
(and then buy a privateer asap ;) )

It makes sense that minimizing your treasury minimizes the amount the King can demand, but refusing those demands for cash has absolutely no negative consequences (beyond losing the ability to request military help from the King).

Indeed. I may miss something about the consequences but I always refuse payment demand from the king.
Just produce my own goods and trade mostly with the natives or pillage other European settlements and cargo at the beginning of the game.
The only issue in trading purely with the Natives is that they have a limited wealth (between 10 k and 50 k) and do not seem to renew it fast ...

Mighty Googa and C.C.: yes, destroying or crippling the other Europeans makes victory easier, especially if you want to monopolize the FF. However, in vanilla they have virtually no chance of winning a WoI so they aren't much threat. In AoD II, on the other hand...

...first of all you can't attack another European for the first 20 turns, allowing them some time to defend themselves, and the Europeans pump out military before declaring independence, so in fact they may very well beat you to victory. (Lots of other improvements, too.)

can't attack another European for the first 20 turns ???

Sorry: I just figured out it is indeed a feature of Patch 1.01F that I am currently downloading.

Except that there are apparently two different versions of the patch...
And through the updating feature of the game you only get the patch for the retail version (the version protected by SecuRom).
Which, of course, does not work for downloaded version of the game !

Do not underestimate the benefit of a colony plot with at least 3-4 mountain peaks combined with a few farmable plots. With a combination of expert farmers and silver miners, you have a cash cow. Silver starts at around 2x the price of the most expensive manufactured item. The difference being that you did not have to create any raw goods first. Yes you will never have the volume of a cigar factory with 3 specialists, but considering silver runs about 2x the price of cigars, you have the same cash flow with a lot less infrastructure.

Problem is, silver dropped down to 1 gold in my game :cry:

Problem is, silver dropped down to 1 gold in my game :cry:

Yes, but before it did that you would have made a lot of gold selling silver. When the price drops to 5 or 6 I convert my silver colony into something more useful, usually tools/guns as I have the mines already in place.

I often use inland cities to get resources and use wagon trains to move the goods to the port city. Sometimes I use WorldBuilder to change the unit to name it. so I know which is which (e.g. "Cloth" or "Rum")

I often use inland cities to get resources and use wagon trains to move the goods to the port city. Sometimes I use WorldBuilder to change the unit to name it. so I know which is which (e.g. "Cloth" or "Rum")

That's a great idea, thanks :)

I often use inland cities to get resources and use wagon trains to move the goods to the port city. Sometimes I use WorldBuilder to change the unit to name it. so I know which is which (e.g. "Cloth" or "Rum")

I do the same but it isn't necessary to use WorldBuilder to change the name. If you select the wagon then go to the bottom right of the screen and click on 'Wagon Train' you can change the name there. This is also useful for trading ships especially when you have two Merchantmen arrive in Europe at the same time, one from the East Coast and the other from the West Coast.

Hello all. I just recently got this game (Long time CiV player, first time Spin off) and after a few practice games I figured most things out, but there is one thing I'm not getting.

Is there a way to keep track of which native village wants what resource? The cities helpfully tell you what specialist they train right on the main menu, but I can't figure out what they want.

Welcome to Colonization nephrahim.

After you have visited an Indian village and talked to the Chief a small icon will appear beside the village name showing what goods that village wants (you might need to zoom in a bit to see it). Another way to view this is by using the display icons on the left hand side of the map screen. If you toggle on ‘Resource Display’ and then select ‘Map View’ (or use F11) you will see a global view with an option to change the information displayed to ‘Native Goods Requests’.

Ignore the icon telling you what the natives allegedly want -- they lie. What all native civs want, and will pay top gold for, are guns and horses, and to a lesser extent tools and trade goods.

Obviously, selling guns to a nearby native civ is risky, since that increases the combat strength of the units from 2 to 3. Selling horses to the natives is somewhat less risky, since that increases the mobility of the unit but still leaves them with only a combat strength of 2. Selling guns AND horses to the same native civ is a terrible idea unless they are so far away that they pose no threat to your cities if they declare war on you, since then you will be facing mobile units with a strength of 4.

There's no military downside to selling tools and trade goods to native villages, though you can only sell a few hundred quantity of each to any given native civ before they quit paying you a good price for it. You make more money selling horses and guns than tools and trade goods, but try not to arm native civs you'll likely go to war with, especially the native civ with villages closest to your first two cities.

It's almost obligatory to sell the guns from your initial military unit in order to get the cash to buy less risky commodities such as tools, trade goods, and horses -- try not to sell horses also to that native civ, and if it doesn't consume too much ship travel time, try not to sell that first load of guns to the native civ right next to your first two villages, since you'll likely have to fight them sooner or later in order to expand your civ.

Selling manufactured goods like cloth or rum to native civs doesn't get you much of a price -- unless your tax rate in Europe is completely out of control, sell those goods in Europe.

I stumbled across another path to victory in my first play through. Game was on the lowest difficulty, so this may be less viable higher, but if you kill off all of the King's navy (warships, listed on the Revolution force list), you will win by independence regardless of how many land units remain in the table! Someone earlier on this thread said that building lots of ships makes the king prioritize naval vessels when he adds to his force, so keep that in mind. What I did was built 4 shipyard cities, each with 3 carpenters and sufficient tool/gun/lumber support from other cities. Right about the time I started my liberty bell run-up (putting the statesmen to work, getting those presses/newspapers built, etc), I started repeat-building ships of the line in all 4. By the time the invasion started, I had a tidy fleet of 8 warships, enough to sink all 4 transports in his first wave (2 before they landed troops, as an added bonus). Initial odds were around 25%, so I lost 3 (the 4th got lucky and won his first fight), then killed the cripples. By killing off the men-of-war, each successive wave was actually smaller, with only 2 ships in each of the last 2 waves. With the shipyards still cranking out new ships (4-5 turns to build, so about 1 new hull per turn) the rest was cake. Only one past wave 2 survived to land troops, and none returned home. I was concerned I would have to leave one alive to go home and ferry all 30+ remaining ground units, but lo and behold, when the last one died, victory!

Must be late, that rambled longer than intended. Anyway, hope someone finds it useful.

Clearbeard -

I was going through some old threads and someone that actually looked at the code (?, protocol, whatever) said that it is not true that the King counters your build up appropriate units. It is all randomized. It may seem like it counters you at times, but it really doesn't. Logically, it makes sense. The computer would have no way of knowing how many dragoons and soliders you plan to make out of the horses and rifles you have in stock. How would it know how many cannons to build?

One note about killing off the King's navy, though - you can catch his ships in port if they have captured a city. Take the city and you kill the ships.

Clearbeard -

I was going through some old threads and someone that actually looked at the code (?, protocol, whatever) said that it is not true that the King counters your build up appropriate units. It is all randomized. It may seem like it counters you at times, but it really doesn't. Logically, it makes sense. The computer would have no way of knowing how many dragoons and soliders you plan to make out of the horses and rifles you have in stock. How would it know how many cannons to build?

One note about killing off the King's navy, though - you can catch his ships in port if they have captured a city. Take the city and you kill the ships.

Figured you could kill his ships that way. In my one game to date, he never took any of my cities, so it never came up. :D

Thanks for all the tips

Definitely would not have won the WOI on my first try without them.

I played on Normal Speed - with the Western Hemisphere board on Pioneer

Decided on doing the two continent strategy.

North America was my main 2 cities and 2 inland cities as support

South America had 1 main coastal city and and inland.

One thing I didn't do was fight any Native. I sent two scouts exploring everywhere and got so much gold from them and as the game went on thanks to missionaries I sent out they kept on sending me more converts.

Gained battled experience by fighting the Spanish on North America and killing off the French early in my game. I traded with the Dutch on the south continent.

I didn't think the game was going to go anywhere because I was constantly adjusting good manufacturing and trade and with 60 turns left my Rebel support was less than 10% but then I just put everyone on liberty bell creation and then I started to get all the political founding fathers. My support skyrocketed very quickly and I started to buy cannons in Europe and build some in the colonies. Able to declare independence with maybe 20 turns left.

I think the 2 continent strategy made it possible. The king landed all his troops at first in South America, I let him easily take my coastal city but then came at him in the jungle tiles and was able to wreck shop - especially with Ethan Allen so every troop had forest attack defense bonus.

He finally landed in North America but was down to only half his army and once again I let him easily take my coastal city but just came out with the cannons and dragoons.

I didn't bother building a navy except for a galleon and a couple of caravels and it never seemed to matter. I was always able to sail my galleon to avoid the man-of-wars to send troops from South to North America - just had to sail via the Gulf of Mexico to avoid the Atlantic barricade.

So a game that I thought I didn't have a chance ended up in victory. The key above everything was the native support, I think in the old Col game I would always kill the natives but the benefits of getting them on your side just makes everything easier. One weird thing was eventually they started to just give me their cities and land as gifts but after I accepted it the city had disappeared.

Also I never gave the king money but I did always allow him to raise the tax rate except if the tea party was a raw goods - since I could just sell him the manufactured good. Though i made sure to get the founding father than would match religious sentiment with your tax rate so you get cross bonus every time the tax rate is raised.

great stuff though

thanks again.

Congratulations on your win spiritross and welcome to the forum.

SINK ALL OF THE KING'S SHIPS AND HE MAKES PEACE - YOU WIN

While I was playing this time and my very first colony had a lot of spare resources and working power I was able to build 3 ships of the line before declaring independence.

However - I was able to sink all of the king's ships. Although I read enough of not building war shipsh at all I did so.
I should propably mention that I was playing on average difficulty and playing a Spanish leader (Jose de San Martin -50% experience for unit promotion)

What I did was just to use the great generals in colonies I had those ships, to give them XP so the were stronger than the king's. I had to fight about 100 of the 150 REF soldiers. But after sinking the last of the king's ships he made peace and I won.

Welcome to the forums Trogi
:hammer2::woohoo::band:[party]:popcorn:

Combining San Martin and your GG's is certainly a good tactic, congratulations on your win.