If there was ever an online colonization community who discussed this game like we do about civ2, then I definately missed it.

But I want to start over.

Here's a little tip from my last game:

<u>Maximizing gold in selling to the mother country.</u>

This needs the customs house so you can sell off a couple of thousand tons of a commodity.

If you can produce this much of anything you'll probably hate the way the price starts to drop and never really recovers once you start to sell. You get this especially with silver, for which this tip was developed. Simply store up as much of the stuff as you can, and when you have enough, transport all of it to your main colony with the customs house. Unload everything and tell the customs house to sell it. Next turn you'll sell all the silver at 19 gold - the maximum you can get.

The only caution is that the game can't handle huge oodles of cash. I initially sold so much it went past the maximum and into negative figures, wiping out my treasury instead. I think the cut-off point is about 25000.

So my advice is to slowly build up a reserve of each commodity you'll want to sell. Use warehouses, extra ships and extra wagons for extra storage. I didn't store more than 200 tons of anything in any one colony, so that was a full wagon load to take.

Silver will thereafer drop like a stone to 1 gold and never recover, so if you have more, see this quickly on subsequent turns while you can still get some cash. Cigars, Rum, and Cloth will slowly recover their price, though probably not very far.

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Ideological conviction quickly degenerates into insistence based on ignorance.

unlike civ, the navy plays an important role, as it does in real life. build one! privateers are the most economical. a privateer has a more than 50% chance to take out a frigate if it is the protaganist, and they have lots o movement, and can prey upon friendly ships. of course one needs a core of a few frigates, but privateers should be the mainstay of your navy. one can have 5 privateers for every two frigates. which combo would you rather have?

Good idea to sell all you have on one turn but that seems to be not working for silver in most cases since the price drops so quickly if only one enemy nation sells some in europe .

There are some other Colonization groups you could try:

news:alt.games.microprose.colonization (not much used group)

news:alt.games.civ2 (Colonization often discused here)

Here you can view and participate in debates with other Colonization fans. If you don't have a news server on your Email you can view newsgroups at dejanews on-line.


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Edited highlights

Note it is not wise to have more than 4 privateers at any one time as more than that and they tend to drop like flys. I think there's something in the game code that drastically reduces their chances of victory even with Drake beyond this number so as not to make the game to easy.

I instinctively think that loosing a Privateer might be worth it sometimes just to reduce the tax rate by 8%. But then again I've never actually sat down and worked out the maths involved (unlike many other bits).

Incidently, has anyone managed to get a city with a two-square radius? I'm sure the manual suggested it was possible, but I've never seen it.

Two square radius is not possible .
I read an article from the designers about it some time ago . They (Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds) abonded this feature about one month before finishing the game , because two square colonies tend to become all purpose colonies , while one square radius garuntees that almost every colonie will have a special purpose like making weapons or ships , make goods for selling in europe , supply others with food , educate citizens .

I think they should've put the option to have 2 squares radius. As in history, some of the English colonies were self-sufficient around the 1750s, therefore could produce almost everything themselves.

It's been a while since I played Colonization, largely because of this strategy,which makes it too easy to beat the British.

Build only one port, make all other cities inland. Defend port to the max. The British will attack there and beat themselves to death. Piece of cake. Too bad. Play Civ 2.

My guideline:
1. Build printing presses and other liberty stuffs very aggressively,employ statemens from the very beginning. this is the key to vitory
2. Build temples and employ priests-> Immigration
3. Raid on other colonizations and steal their citizens
4. Only the dead indian are good indian.
5. Independence war:
just a matter of horse supply. Make tons of horse inventories in ships and wagoons. Then arm all your cities with 2 guns. Leave one city without military and that city must be beside a hill (+200% ambush). Stand units everywhere else to the coast. So the invasion force will land on the hill, and you shouldn't do anything else just keep attacking them with cavalry. The units that lost their horses must be directed to the closest city and mounted again.

6. Sell muskettes to europe. This is the only business worth troubling.
7. Train fishermen and farmers and boost popuklation.

Major tip
DO NOT ever start a revelution until you are ABSOLUTLY sure you can win <trust me i know>

I always play in America. South America specifically, near the very tip of the continent. Then you can trade with the Incas and get some silver from them.
(I know probably a lot of people do this, but I wanted to post it anyway.) Get a regular colonist or an indentured servant and find an Incan city where they can learn to be silver miners. Then, find a large deposit of silver. Start a colony. Mine the silver deposit(s). Sell the silver in Europe. When the silver deposit is exahusted, dispand the colony and find another deposit. You can make a lot of gold that way. Sooner or later though, the silver prices are going to tank, never to recover. Oh, well.

This is just my little plan for financial well-being. It can provide a good start.

I love selling guns and horses to the Indians that are near the other colonies. Very fun to watch.

The quickest way to promote a Petty Criminal to a specialist is to equip him with horses at the European docks (only 100 gold in the early game) and send this scout visiting Indian camps. After a few visits to different camps, one of these will promote him to a Seasoned Scout.

In the early game, if you are lucky enough to chance on a rival power's undefended colony and you take it with your scout, keep him there for a few turns (even if you abandon the colony itself). There is a high probability that their Caravels will drop off colonists intended for the original colony. It's a source of free colonists (often desirable specialists like Carpenters and Lumberjacks). In one game I captured 3 specialists in this way before they got wise and chose an alternative landing point.

This tricked worked for me when i was playing with the French and it mainly dealt with selling silver to the Dutch, who bought it at 13 gold per ton

1. find a source of silver
2. start mining it as much as you can
3. transport it to Europe and sell it
4. sell it so much that the price drops to 1
5. start buying silver from Europe
6. sell it to your rivals in the New World

The trick had an interesting twist to it....i not only sold the cheap silver to the Dutch, but as i had naval superiority, i attacked their caravels and merchants trying to transport those huge amounts of silver to Europe, and after doing that, i sold the same silver to them again and again :)

This one is also nice

1. start a war with one of your rival nations
2. build about 10 scouts
3. bring them near to one of your opponents' weaker colonies
4. start meeting with te city's major and demand money from them
5. do that with every scout you have :)
6. sit back and enjoy

One of the older tricks

when pressing the U-key to unload the goods in Europe, the tax is not added.

A thing to do in the beggining of the game

1. If you happen to have a certain amount of money and some (5-6) colonists in Europe, try equipping them with tools, as the tool prices are really low in the beginning. This enables you to build some enchancements in your town and also increased plowing and clearing of forests. Keep in mind that while you buy in large qualities, the prices rise at the same turn, but when you equip your colonists with either tools or muskets the price remains the same, although it rises steeply during the next turns.

I have played colonization for about 7 years now, not during the last 6 months, but i think that colon is by far better game than civilization, it is a real pity that colonization 2 is not developed.


I also managed to discover one additional unit in the game, which was professional teachers....it happened when i edited one of the ini (?) files which contain game information, but as it was about 5 years ago, i don't really remember any details :)

Use meatgrinder tactics in the revolutionary war, and it becomes quite easy.
Make your ports big and well defended.

Expand all the way, and build as many colonies in good positions as possible. Build them up to be the utmost best.

On the North American map, the bay is a very good place for a colony, with land on three sides and often fish. Also chances of food, fur, ore and cotton in the same area.

In big colonies, bring in 300 tons of a material that is not produced in the colony, and then set three specialists to work converting it. Even with custom houses, it never sells it all. Can get a size 32 colony this way.

Veteran artillery in fortresses, plus Sons of Liberty bonus is the way to win the war, also preposition forces to ambush. Inland big cities can make the liberty bells you need.

I've got two cheats for you guys:

1. If you click beneath the flags on the screen where you choose your country, you can play as all four countries.

2. Press Alt+W+I+N during a game to reveal the cheat menu. Here you can chance the country you are playing, reveal the map, create new units etc. You can also find out what squares the computer value highest as colony sites.

I have one single strategy.
1) Take over the other european colonies. (Without colonies they won't get powerfull so they won't attack you)
2)The Unload in europe as mentioned up (gives you colonies & colonists)
2a)At a certain time all products will be boycoted or you do not have products "to be trown to the water" (Boston tea party). I pay to release one single boycot (ussually horses because i tend to have lot´s of them and selling them in europe will lower their prices so if they're cost is 1, i just have to pay 1000 gold)
3)As soon as you get "all missionaries expert" place a mission in every indian city(they won't attack you and will offer you things).
4)Docks are first, then a school for teaching how to get fish (or lumber mill if already have fish) then some production improvements. When there's no urgent building, build church, printing press and newspaper, fort, fortress, college, university, drydock, shipyard,etc...,and artillery or don't build nothing at all.
5)Try not to lose ships (save the game before attacking).
6)As indians become alarmed when you have lot's of military units, try to have the extra military in an island without indians or way from them.
7)Always have:
- high production cities (lumber and tools) for ships, artillery, weapons and tools to other colonies.

That's all i can remember now.
By the way, as any one of you saw the other nations colonies become independent?

Cheat: If you have won the independence war(score over), and still want to build colonies, attack the others, etc... In the cheat menu try "Show colonie sites" . Sometimes it works (you'l notice because your colonies flag changed). You can also trade in europe again.

I try to build a lumber mill in each town asap. I will even unfortify guards or dragoons or send in a scout or two to bring a population up to 3 so I can build one then refortify or remount. It really gives a nice little boost to early construction of other things.

I also do not investigate rumors until I get De Soto and Cortez. Then there is always something and if its gold I can build a quick town to ship automatically, then remount and desert the unnecessary town.

My favorite place to build my civilization is down near where Argentina would be. There's a small lake there, and that's where I put the core of my colonies. I think, if I recall correctly, I can get tobacco, sugar, and fur in that region (thus, I can produce cigars, rum, and coats). Close by should be a silver mine. There's bound to be a few timber-rich squares, as well as a fishing area. Maybe some wheat (?) and game (?) as well. Then you're also close to the southern tip of the Incans (a rather stable tribe to be near, unlike the Aztecs, who will attack you on the drop of a hat), with whom you can trade. The tribe that lives in the Amazon jungle can be a pain, but just kill off their capital.

I'll have to try the cheat to play all 4 colonial powers. I don't know if my version will allow it, though.

Hey pragmatic,
Argentina is one of the best places because of the concentration of all the diverse resources. And the Incas are the best trade partners, often giving silver for 50g or buying tobacco for over 3,000 g. If you like to play an isolation style, avoiding other europeans, this is also the best location.

Frigates instead of privateers. but be ready for war. I tend to not use privateers any more, there are more important founding fathers than drake. And the frigate takes more cargo.

My very first action is to search the coast for another nation's colony or colonist. Free colonist. A few turns later, another free colonist will land nearby. And so on. So long as that nation can't build a colony, it's supply of colonists is unlimited. This seems like cheating.

I almost always settle in upper North America. Best lumber, ore and food by far, and that wins the game.

A few tips:

- equip your first colonists with horses, and if possible muskets. Be sure to leave horses in each of your colonies long enough for the horses to grow to at least 52. Then when you send out your scouts, the horses will continue to breed. Repeat for all towns, and you won't have a horse-problem ever.

- Just before declaring independence, build at trap city near your strong ones for the british to capture. The redcoats always land near the colony with the most loyalists, so just remove all statesmen.

- Visit those indians!!

I like to start a farming town early, and eventually build a farmer's college there. The function of the town is to produce new colonists (it has an enormous food surplus) who become expert farmers and go on to start their own farms. And so on.

I played colonization alot when it first came out, and now im rediscovering its greatness :)

I saw a couple tips here i dont nessecarily agree with tho, one being "Only the dead indian are good indian."

While attacking villages can yield high profits, I've found it very useful to establish alot of missions. While converts can't work 'in town' jobs very well, they are very good as all purpose outdoor workers. Also I think when you destroy native villages, your score takes a hit (not 100% positive but I believe this to be true). Native villages are also good to trade with... A good early game tactic is to purchase 100 trade goods with your first 200 gold, they sell to indians for very high prices (up to 600g sometimes). After the first time you do this it doesnt work as well anymore however.

Another one i saw was "Sell muskettes to europe. This is the only business worth troubling."

I never sell muskets to europe because first off, they aren't even that valuable until later in the game. Secondly, when they do get valuable you should be at a point where you are stocking up for a revolution. The way I see it, the object of the game is to accumulate wealth as quickly as possible in order to build a powerful military. Selling your military power for wealth is a step backwards.

Lots of good tips on this thread ;)
btw gaborka, I agree with you 100% on the rest of your points, nothing personal :)

The only time I ever sell muskets is to indians next to rival europeans. rarely, I will sell them to indians in my local area before revolution, only if we are on very good terms, and I looks like I could use a hand.

I also will build a quick little colony between two major fortresses right before the revolution. I name the town "Target" The red coats seem to usually attack the weakest coastal town first. Since it is next to well stocked fortresses with galleons full of guns in port, the red coats tend to take a serious beating by the colonials.

Easy Tip: Don't wate time fighting rival Euopeans if given the option, trust me, you'll need all your troops for the REF, especially at the tougher levels.

I play Colonization DOS version...
I Always play as the Dutch and as viseroy
I dont load / save after 15years in to the game, only at start to get good start position and get the corect europeans close to me.
I also "hack" the game and get some extra inca indians and some less tuipi. after that i dont "cheat" (edit the tribes txt file)

I play in south amerika but i want to start the game in the caribean, if you start up there its very likley that 2 of the 3 europeans will start in the south. The first thing i do if the horse price is 1/2 is to go back to Amsterdam and sell te tools and by horses for my soldier. then i kill off France and Spain with my dragon (must be france and spain cuse they grow 2 ritch in the north if you leave them up there alone for 40years) By killing france and Spain (with the boats in the colony) i get more units and tools and sometimes wepons and horses. but most important for late game and end score the will grrow slowly. While killing off the "others" i build 3 colonies down south. 2 port towns and one mining town, the port towns are for trade and food and the miningtown is for tools. after a cuple of turns i have about 15units in my citys and i need to build more to handle all my new units that the "others" suply me with. they move the spot where they land further and furrther away from me but it only takes about 5dragons to control the south part af the map.

Its important to start everything fast, trading with the incas (tradegoods, tools and tobaco/rum) this will earn you 30-40k without breaking a sweat early game. So build a wagon train in one of your colonies from year 6-8 and continue to do so until you have 2-4 use these to transport tradegoods and silver back and forth to the incas, also make sure you have horses in all colonies. and take all the surplus food from 2 of your colonies to the third one for fast groth (200+ food = colonist) I hardly ever produce and sell goods to europe the first 100years... sell to the incas and flood europe with silver thats what i do. After i have made my start money i focus on other things than wealth. (all you nead gold for is to get extra score...)

Another thing i do early is to send a tradeship(4cargo, cant remember the name) to the north with 2 dragoons and 200tons of horses, this is to kill off england and to control the north. every second turn i check the forein afairs advicer and if the european powers have more than 4 colonists i have to find them so i can take down the colonie before they build walls (they need 3 to build it but they always have units doing silly . .. .. .. . aswell so no panic if under 4)

I always get 2-4 scouts so i can get all that free gold from indians, the first one i get before i get the tradegoods, the first thing i do in Amsterdam is to get a scout. (pay for it with . .. .. .. . from spain/france colonies) the scout then go visit the inca and will hopefully get some good tribute to pay for tradegoods and tools. I dont load/save but i get the "no more criminals @ dock" FF and the "only good stuf at rumors" FF. before i go look up them rumors (if i do my job with the "others" well i dont need to wurry about them taking them) You still get 1-3 fountains and 3-5 tresure/gold citys, i never load/save cuse its boring, not cuse i have morals...

This is things i do early game, before i build anny buildings and they are all very important to my gameplay. So: /kill the others in the south /scout /trade /kill the north/ all at the same time but prioritize in that order...

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In mid game i focus on maintaining a firm grip on the other powers, buying only muskets and some ships perhaps some horses and using all the crap units i get from the "others" to train more soldiers. They like smal islands so put one unit on the smalest once like easter island and the one on the far south/east corner of the map so they cant hide a unit there, then I populate the islands of the eastcoast of central amerika, all off them. build wepons on the big one with 2 hills and raise horses and colonists on the other 6 islands this is where my army comes from. my wealth comes from the south where i trade with the incas and build "real citys" I block the others from landing on my islands with indian converst (the only thing they are good for befor the become free and can be trained, otherwise they only take up space as they count like units and the max unit in the game is low...) I also build 6 more colonies in the south and start perfecing my "real" country... sending peole to the other side of the world to get the expert tobaco/cotton farmer and training all my units building only the building i nead and then pumping out artileries from colonies the lumberbunus. the rest of the colonies forests will be plowed, all of them, if they need lumber for factorys i will import from others...

After a while the incas are more problem than good nabours so i kill them off for gold (-2 score at viseroy for killing a village and +1 score /1000gold, with cortes inca village gives 10k+ gold so minimum +8score to kill them) and i get good place for 2 more colonies west of montain, for mining towns... and finaly peace and cuiet...

So: dont let the europeans get 4+ colonists / Build an empire in the south / build army base on central islands / and trade/kill off indians thats what i do most off the game time. Since i have played this game for some time i find it boring just to build and train and so on so i need the war part of the game to balance the "in colony strategy" with some big map action.

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Late game i perfect the defence of my to south american port towns with 50+ artilery and 20+ dragoons / town and about 40000horses in ships and wagontrains and more coming from the other 7 colonies to win the war. I also make sure all colonies have 3 statemen and newspaper and that they all pump out horses. the central americans islands will slow down as the max unitcount will be hit (even without europeans) So no new colonists can be made but the food can be sold to europe for 1gold : ) (no horse production here cuse i cant be botherd to move them when im at war)

I also kill off all indian capitals (that gives more than 2000gold) for extra gold/score

by now the "others" have loong since given up there dreams about america and if they have anny collonies they can have fun, 10 of there units vs my 1000, aslong as they dont come down and block my paths with there inferial units so i cant send horses to my ports...

when I feal ready and I have my 800000 or so gold i declare independence...

So: Horses to be saved up / Artilleries to be moved / gold to be gatherd to get to 100% score and mass Statemen for last FF. / WAR!

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WAR

this part of the game takes to loong for it to be fun so i normaly do it infront of a good movie... they land, i kill them or they bang there heads on my walls and die. i lose my horses so i mount up again... normaly i kill off all the units they land on my land befor newonce arive.

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Tips and other stuff:

Make every turn count. dont end turns without duble checking everything, dont be lazy : )

have some army depoes in north amerika with missions close to them so you can fast atack the "others"

Dont get the FF that gives 3colonists = wals cuse then you cant remove colonies form the map.

use the inca capitol to train all servants to free colonists (silverminers that you clear profesion from)

make trade routs that transfers food from all colonies to one central one (the universety town) so you get fast pop groth.

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All i can think off now and my Colo download just finished so i will play some.
sorry for all spelling mistakes but im dyslectic !

Have fun gameing, and dont forget to kill off the others, thats where the challange lies.

/Da Nerd

wow massive post, sry for all the text but i find my gameplay to be fun and efective, its worth reading...

got a bit carried away there but i was bored as i was loading the game at my girlfriends and shes sleeping...

early-midgame I use "satilight" colonies, for lumber/ore. just enough to produce the max goods, then ship them to the first "home" city. this allows you to max farmspace and free's up food slots for crafting workers.

I keep producing 2-farmer farmtowns, (16 food a turn) put them in a circular line and then send the first three spaces in a shipping order to pick up the food and dump it at your "home city". It's sometimes a pain since the shipping orders sometimes won't dump the food, so you have to micromanage.

The reason for the 2man cities, is A. you don't need support to feed the two farmers from the city square so the rest is profit. and B. you don't need to worry about when you get LaSalle and the automatic stockade, so you can simply dismantel the cities just before you declare indepdance.

-> this idea, if you want to take 3 carpenter/loads of wood (or lumberjacks) + 3 elders for fur-making 2man cities, after Hudson is discovered (Double fur) you can get Liberty to 100% (when you pull the rest out) + build a Custom House (so no shipping into or out of the city), when you are getting 50+ furs a turn from 2 furriers even at 1gp a fur, it still adds up at 0% tax since its automatic til reveloution, then you cry for the work you are throwing away and roll around in your money.

These ideas work real well when you ahve 20-40 converted indians (from conquest after ...dang it can't think of his name, the guy with the whip) since they are almost as good as farmers/furriers, and just be sure to take La Casas (turn converts to colonists) as late as possible then dismantle the cities drag the colonists back to your main city(ies) arm them up and show your buttocks to the mother country.

In N. America, it's worth killing any village on the closest southern island and putting a 2 man sugar on it, then ship the sugar home for a constant stream of rum to bribe your cherokee & Iroquois neighbors

break up Rum/cigars/trade goods into 1 increment sales when selling 100 tobacco at the same time. so you can buy tobacco from the home country, for 600 gps, sell it to the indians for 900-1300 gps using the 1 (cigar/rum/tradegood) as the buffer trade between tobacco. when you get to the aztec the silver taken in trade + what they will pay for smokes is incredible

if you are playign in N. America, it is sometimes worth sending a scout all the way south to the inca, if the capital is on the coast/1-square away from the coast, it's worth it to make a city, send a ship around the horn loaded with tobacco/goods port into the city, sell to the inca back to home country, and back again.

put 2 colonist just below the carolina river (the straight river about midway down the coast of N. America) as early as possible so by the time you get a college up you should have a tobacco planter then turn from carolina to texas into a tobbaco plantation indians never get tired of lucky strikes and will always buy it...with the added benifit they won't shoot back at you like they do if you sell them weapons/horses.

It's sometimes a pain since the shipping orders sometimes won't dump the food, so you have to micromanage.

There is a bug in the game that affects automatic trade routes. If you have boycotted any goods (dumped it into the sea) rather than accept a tax increase you are unable to sell that commodity in Europe. However the game mistakenly applies that boycott to your own colonies so the automatic trade route will not unload those goods from your wagons. It's a nuisance but at least once you know what is happening you can work around it.