What size navy do you get, small, medium, large?
Give specific numbers and what kind of ships do you try to get?

I like FRIGATES, and will sometimes have 8-14 of them. I use them as privateers because they can take more cargo and allmost always win. Just be prepared for war.

I also try to get a galleon running for each of my major ports to bring back quantities of people(I buy ore miners by 6 at a time, clear their specialty, and educate them in colonies or in battles.) I will then put em in port and fill them with guns right before revolution.

I'll use the merchantman and caravel for transport between colonies and trade with indians/european rivals.

I allmost never use privateers. It seems that if I don't use them, the AI doesnt either, too often any way.

Wes, how do the Schools work? Is there a way to train a specific free colonists to be a ore miner, or expert farmer....And don't u put like an expert farmer at the school if thats what you want to be taught?

A couple galleons, a caravel or two for little jobs, two to three merchantmen for trade/taking soldiers from place to place, (ideally) 3 privateers so I can have peace and steal the occasional trade goods or load of tools from my neighbors :mischief: and three or so frigates.

All, of course, funded by Inca gold. ;)

School is very important.
I will have 2-5 universities eventually, with the odd college and a school house out on the frontier.

Early on put a farmer/fisher in a school house and put an indentured servant/free colonist/criminal on any square, where ever you need him. After several turns the teacher has taught the student his craft. Thus the Colonist turns into a farmer etc...
The criminal must become an indentured servant before he can then become a colonist then a farmer, thus it is best/quickest to educate free colonists.

The real special jobs like statesman/preacher can only be taught in university(3 at a time). All the skilled labor jobs can be taught in college(2 at a time). Universities can teach everything, but your teacher must be a specialist of some kind. You can also put three different specialists in university as teachers, for example farmer, blacksmith, statesman.

Many times I will have my major ports simply be university centers to educate new immigrants, grow lots of food, and generate mega liberty bells.

I try and get a college built in my tobacco town asap too because it seems tobacco planters are hard to come by.

Any way, pay for ore miners.$600 a pop., clear them in the new world and educate them how you choose.

Dont get me wrong either, I will buy specialists in the old world too, but not the quantity I need for statesmen.

Also, the higher your liberty bells/sons of liberty, the faster the education.

ok thanks alot! :) need to know information right there

The size of my navy depends on the number of towns that I build. In a general game with about 6-8 towns including 3 coastal towns, I'll generally have two galleons going between the coastal towns and the old world and to carry found gold. I try and build up a rather small fleet of frigates (normally no more than 4) more for protection than attack.

Why buy 600 buck ore miners when you can recruit immigrants from the pool for MUCH less than that. Or better yet, get crosses and get 'em for free. I mean, the only time I shell out that kinda money is for cannons!

Originally posted by covok48
Why buy 600 buck ore miners when you can recruit immigrants from the pool for MUCH less than that. Or better yet, get crosses and get 'em for free. I mean, the only time I shell out that kinda money is for cannons!

That aint necessarily so. It is true that generating crosses gets em for free, but often the free colonist, indentured servant and even the petty criminal can cost more than the lowly ore miner, particularly if you buy them by the galleon load, 6 at a time.;)

Well I happen to keep an eye on the passage price when that happens...I'm a penny-pincher and I think paying for anything at the Royal University only to demote them to regualr colonist is a total rip...even if he'll be a specialist soon!

Yeah, but it increases my score, I have tons of citizens at the end of the game. and through custom houses or indian trade manage to rack $30,000-$60,000 during the revolution anyway.

I also sell a lot of my guns and horses right before the end of the revolution (when I know It will be over soon)if I want to really get a financial boost to my final score.

Yes i am having a grand game as the English in South America, i'm raking in so much money i seriously dont know what to do with it, i haven't played it in over a month now due to other things in my life, but i think i'm gonna start it back up once i get my current college situation handle

Remember don't buy too much ship in one time in europe even you have a lot of money.
The carpenters in europe are rush to complete the order and the ships are in low quality.
I was once bought 8 frigates from europe in one time. they were easily destroyed by the privateers. obviously, the shipmakers gave me some low quality ships.

Well the game happens to set up a formula to sink ships. It goes as follows:

The More Ships You Have = The Higher Rate They'll Get Sunk.

I think its true. :s When I have 6-7 frigates I get them sunk more often than I do when I have 3-4.

I also agree. I used to buy quantities of privateers and was amazed at how poor they became in numbers. so I stopped buying them. Frigates or nothing... for pillaging that is. even so 6-10 is my max, 14 if im feeling lika a marriner, or a glutton for punnishment

I think Prifaters are good, you can steal your friends stuff

Frigates can actually sink/damage the Men of War class during the Revolution.. good to have one guarding close to every port... but not too near as the Royal Navy will confiscate them on the first turn if they are too close and thats the end to them...

navy I build up my navy slowly first I buy privater Later i but a galeon if I have a Treasure to transport or found the Fontain of youth when I can i buy 1 or 2 Frigate try to build my Own ship but never again always build one or more Drydock to repair My ship by the end of the game have 10-12 Privater 1 or 2 galeon
and 3 or 4 Frigate and maybe some Man-o- war if the price on the Dock for recruting is hight I Buy some Ore miner modt of game buy one Blacksmith in the academy befor training the other

1 Gallon
1 merchant ship
2 frigates
and as many Pirateers as you can buy

You can buy man-o-war???

Well you can't "buy" it persay. But we all know how to get it (if our wars last that long).

cant u win them?

Originally posted by #1 Person
1 Gallon
1 merchant ship
2 frigates
and as many Pirateers as you can buy

You can buy man-o-war???

no . but somtime you get some in the revolution .
somtime I buy soldier and artilery from another king if they propose ,the price is better than the academy .
last games did not buy privater

only 3 frigat 3 galeon and 1 merchant
some treasure and twice the fountain of youth

The Man-o-War can only be obtained through the intervention force of one of the other 2 powers. When you declare independence, one of the other powers will offer to supply you with trained forces if you can produce a certain number of liberty bells (your congress is filled when you declare independence). When this happens, you recieve one or more Man-o-Wars, depending on the difficulty level.

Originally posted by Doubtful Teeks
When this happens, you recieve one or more Man-o-Wars, depending on the difficulty level.

Are you sure about this? I always play on viceroy, and I usually get between 2 and 4.

One thing many people doesn't realize is, how useless the vessels are. Think about it: What do you do with your brand new frigate? You sail all the way to your enemy to sink a couple of his galleons! What do you get from the galleons? In the best case scenario you get tools, muskets and horses, but in most of the cases, you just get rum and stuff that you can sell... and what do you do when you've earned 5000? You buy another frigate! And by this time, your old one is probably going to sink anytime.

During the war of independence, frigates are useless, unless you are a complete amatour and let the enemy attack you. I always kill every unit the same turn they arrive to avoid that nasty man-o-war bonus and obtain that terrain bonus. When all the land units are killed, you win. In theory, it's possible to win the game without a single ship.

Also, this may be off topic, but buying ore miners? What a waste of time! First, you have to produce a lot of cash to buy them... and that takes time. It's much more effective to live near an inca or aztec capital (that can train farmers) and make your own population grow with 4 farmers or more in every city. By the time of independence (1650-1700 in my games) you should have 3 preachers in every city and then you get more units than you can handle anyway (at least one self-produced and one from the port)

Anyway, I always have a bunch of Galleons and frigates (to store horses) and maybe slow down the enemy progress by sinking a few of his ships for fun.

1 Merchantman or Caravel (depending on what you begin with)
3 Galleons
2 Privateers
4 Frigates
2-4 Man-o-Wars

Bad Brett, it is very possible that you always receive more than one Man-o-War. I didn't bother to check, and you always get at least one to transport the troops, so I guess one of more is correct, although not necessarily very precise. While the intervention force tends to be smaller on higher difficulty levels, if the two are proportional, I do not know.

Regarding the ore miners, I agree with you. I have never payed for the fare of so many colonists that the price has exeeded 600, so I have never had the need to buy ore miners.

That's interesting... is the intervention force random in some way? Because some games, when I'm really powerful, I get 4 ships that I really don't need... And sometimes, when I'm really weak and really need that intervention force, I get 2 man-o-wars...

What I really like about colonization is that it takes some time to realize what the game is all about. The firsts years I played it, I bought tons of artrillerys, killed the incas and the aztecs, and sold muskets for 19 gold... but after hundreds of games played, I learned that the key is to become indepent, it's more important to produce food and liberty bells than to produce things to sell. Basicly, all you have to buy ever is 2 horses! Selling and buying is just a waste of time. Especially ore miners... ;)

This may seem off topic! Not really, because my whole point is that the navy is pretty worthless. (except to store horses, but wagon trains are better, because they can't be damaged by those indian raids)