- Maybe it has already been said, but I found very helpful to have all my cities except (of course the first one) built far from the coast. So when the Royal forces attacked I concentrated almost all my forces in the coastal city, and as they ruled the waves with more than 20 ships, 30 cavalry units, 40 cannons and 120 infantry, I was always on advantage with my 40 units army. They never got the upper hand, their landings were of 15 to 25 units at max, so I always had fresh units to defend. :king:

Don't defend, attack.

Add to this the fact that inland cities have better production :
- with an expert fisherman, you can get 6 food on a normal sea tile
- with an expert farmer, expect 7 to 8 food on a farmed tile
- coastal cities lack lumber

Don't defend, attack.

Yes, you are right, after the RF arrive I attack always with more than 90% prob. of victory

I'll be trying this for my next game...

Add to this the fact that inland cities have better production :
- with an expert fisherman, you can get 6 food on a normal sea tile
- with an expert farmer, expect 7 to 8 food on a farmed tile
- coastal cities lack lumber

On a normal sea tile, yes.
Fishies gives you 12 food, which is equal to corn+farm or corn+river. Strangely enough, banana likes being in jungle. Don't chop it down if there is banana in it.
Best food is corn+farm+river (children of the Korn!).

Though I find it rare to find a coastal site without lumber, though, less land = less chance of forest.

I find horses to be the most important resource (harder to build a gazillion of than weapons, require a lot of food), so food is, IMHO, by far the most important resource. Just like in CivIV.

- Maybe it has already been said, but I found very helpful to have all my cities except (of course the first one) built far from the coast. So when the Royal forces attacked I concentrated almost all my forces in the coastal city, and as they ruled the waves with more than 20 ships, 30 cavalry units, 40 cannons and 120 infantry, I was always on advantage with my 40 units army. They never got the upper hand, their landings were of 15 to 25 units at max, so I always had fresh units to defend. :king:

Unlike original Colonization, the crown won't adopt a coastal colonies first military strategy. They will attack inland colonies and march great distances overland to get there. Inland colonies are fine, but leave them with modest defenses at your own peril.

I found the 'one coastal city' strategy worked well in the original game, and I won my first Civ4: Colonization game with it yesterday.

Based on that miniscule sample, the advantages are:

- you only need to build one Stockade / Fort / Fortress etc
- the small 'satellite' settlements are easy to get to 100% rebel sentiment
- the small 'satellite' settlements can be specialised (e.g. based on a Resource)
- it's easy to handle wagon trains (all roads lead to one city)
- the initial European landings are all around your Fortress, just where you can attack, then retreat for healing

well, i was hinking on adopt this strategy for my next game, becouse to defend coastal cities is impossible, the first game was a joke, i was on an island, got 2 of my 3 bigest ciites overrun by the king in the firsts turns by aphibious atack.

The second game i tried this, got only 2 coastal cities, the second one was on a spot i could not loose. But my error was trying to defend them... when the king finally took it i have no more troops to defend the continent.

Now i will try to build only one and abando it when declaring independece, so my fortress will have some use.

The kings troops anyway are much strong.... i triyed 3 times in governor level and loose the 3

You can use the coastal city only as a port. Put only a few colonist in it and at the start of the war turn all but one into soliders. Let the REF take the city right away. This will force the REF to make a death march to your well defended cities where the Man-o-wars can't eliminate your forts.

In fact you don't need a coastal city at all. If you have a wagon train and a ship in a native settlement you can move goods between them. It makes for a very very easy one city challenge.