The Strategy: It's clearly all about money, and the quickest way to make money is going to be silver and guns, so everything I did was focused on getting as much as possible of those goods. Expanding for the sake of it would be a waste of cash, so focusing everything on valuable production will be key. Once I'd seen some of the map it was clear that tobacco and cigars would also be useful, but only as secondary goods. I'm interested on other's views on guns, as they take a large resource chain to build, but silver always devalues quickly, so I couldn't just rely on it.
The Business Case: There was always going to be a balance between spending money on expanding (and so building a greater longer term income) and halting expansion to use that income to build the bank balance up. The secret is working out where that sweet spot is. Or rather, every time you wish to spend some money, deciding if it is worth doing so in the long run. The equation works something like this:
($100,000-current bank balance) / (total income per turn x (1-tax rate)) = number of turns left to win
Therefore, lets say you want to buy a master tobacconist for $1200, if your maths says there are 50 turns left and he will produce 6 cigars/turn at $11/cigar and 10% tax that means he is worth ($6x11) x .9 x 50 = ~$3000 over the rest of the game. $3000>$1200. So he's clearly a good investment. If you are later in the game when there are only 25 turns left then no. And of course you might need an expert farmer to support him, tax rates will go up, cigar prices go down, etc, etc. So it's complicated, especially if your supply chain isn't up to the job of selling everything you make, as you then lose money on lost goods. But that's the basic idea. I used a tax rate of 20% for the maths, as I thought it would be about the mean tax rate for the game, and devalued the price of the goods to be sold by $2 to factor in devaluation - not sure if I was right.
Silver plummeted once I was at peak production, and I didn't factor than enough. I also sold guns to the natives at a massive mark up a couple of times which must have saved me a turn or too. Losing a galleon was a big hit - £3000 odd to replace it - but without the transport you really start losing money in lost goods.
War: The second question is whether you are going for an early war or a late war with the natives. As I started next to Logan (I assume everyone will have done the same) it was always going to happen. I didn't want a big army as it would represented wasted money both in terms of guns I could have sold and cash spent on cannons. I also didn't want to expand any further than totally necessary due to the return on investment equation above meaning small is beautiful. So I decided to go for an early war to clear away enough space to be able to live peacefully.
Actually, once I had done that I realised I had earned a bit of cash through the war and I also had some cannons and soldiers that were sitting idle. So, being the war monger I am (and also aware that if one of the other nations declared independence I would lose) I went on a war of extermination against Logan and then rather randomly invaded New France. Not sure I made a huge profit but it passed the time
Other events: Pirates were annoying - I lost a couple of galleons that cost me a few turns. The natives to the south were friendly, so I sold them plenty of guns and routed all my treasure caravans south through them to avoid Logan. It took longer (in which time the tax rate went up slightly) but I was in no hurry and I valued safety over speed. I estimated I was making about $1000 per turn from my industry, so each large treasure saved me almost a turn.
One thing I didn't do was buy any priests or use crosses to get more people. Someone else might have tried that as a cheaper method of building population in place of buying them from Europe. That would save a lot of money and might have finished the game sooner. Also an active strategy of selling more to the natives might have helped. Or perhaps going to war with them in the south for more gold?
Finally, on my last turn I stopped in the village Logan has on the island (which I never attacked as it seemed pointless) and sold a job lot of guns to him at a massive and unexpected profit. I was left on something like $99,996. I then realised I had a galleon in Europe which I could sell for $1000 or so, which pushed me over. If I had though of this I would have dumped guns on Logan a few turns earlier and then sold my fleet, shaving another couple of turns off. Just shows there is always a bit more you can do!
Guys, thanks for a great game!
