[Religion and Revolution]: Tips and Tricks

raystuttgart said:

I have started a new game and heavily changed my strategy for the beginning.

I much more focus on Trading with Natives.

I try to sell 200 Trading Goods to each Native village in reasonable range.
(It takes quite a while until they have "consumed" that amount.)

While at these villages I buy whatever they offer.

I use the "New Bargaining with Natives" of course.
(I try to improve prices 3 or 4 times.)

This new strategy turned out to be extremely profitable.

Also, the Natives are really happy due to the trading.
(Remember: Attitude in RaR is much more important than in other mods !)

Spoiler :

My colonies have not yet grown enough to sell bigger amounts of produced goods to the Natives.
But I will try that later on as well.

Buying produced goods in Europe just to sell them is not interesting to me.

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I'm new to the mod and really loving it but am having a hard time finding specifics on how diplomacy works, specifically with regards to how to improve relations and advantages/disadvantages of it with natives and other powers.

Any advice on where to look would be appreciated!

I believe I have found a trick that is bordering 'exploit' to me, so I'm not using it in practice. If you click on one of the 4 colonists on the Europe dock, you'll pay it at most as much as if you bought it from the specialist list...

BUT the colonist in the specialist list will not have his cost increase! This way you can work around the R&R feature of having even free colonists with a cost increase...

Now, as you can also buy tons of food in Africa and 'convert' it to colonists, that's not a big exploit, just a convenient way

Vorpal+5 said:

I believe I have found a trick that is bordering 'exploit' to me, so I'm not using it in practice. If you click on one of the 4 colonists on the Europe dock, you'll pay it at most as much as if you bought it from the specialist list...

BUT the colonist in the specialist list will not have his cost increase! This way you can work around the R&R feature of having even free colonists with a cost increase...

Now, as you can also buy tons of food in Africa and 'convert' it to colonists, that's not a big exploit, just a convenient way

Click to expand...

This sounds like something you'd want to do only when you max out on your cross limit, or you waste your crosses. At that late game stage, food is relatively cheap wrt your treasury anyway, so doesn't seem too much of an exploit.

Teppicommom said:

Some people call it a feature, others say it´s inbalanced.
On hand you need to have money to deal with other factions especially with the offers your king comes around. Especially the offer for elder statesmen and nobles are imo overpowered:

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It's a trade-off. Let's say you choose to stockpile huge amounts (going lean on your treasury is the opposite of below)

Advantages

1. Ability to buy units
2. Flexibility in strategy

Disadvantages

1. King and pope's cash demands are excessive - invariably have to turn down offers, which deteriorates relationship.
2. Indicates lack of timely investment in your colonies

I just finished my first RaR on Explorer and learned a lot. The level of detail makes me think of politicians debating as opposed to kings issuing commands.

In the end game I've been using the Naval strategy. I started with 10 Ships of the Line, all with at least two Veteran promotions from reserving Great Generals.

I found that GGs won't promote ships but, if two ships happen to be on a port tile with only one land unit, they'll get promoted along with it. Adding the effect of bells in the 55-70 range, my ships always sank or drove back the King's Men of War. I don't think I lost a single ship during the end game.

Over 17 turns I sank 52 of the King's 58 ships, half of them before the troops could land. Most of my navy protected the capitol leaving a corridor to only one open ocean tile.

For the troops that did land I had a bait city I'd captured earlier from Portugal. The king lost a lot of troops taking the bait city. When the survivors moved inland they were scattered and vulnerable.

Now that I've got some of the basics I'm starting my second game. I'll see if I can be more efficient. I've gone up to Conquistador so maybe this time the King's ships will beat me.

AI & Independence

When does the AI wins? At 100% independence (see in the victory progress) or after x turns, simulating its war of independence?

Because I don't think I'll see AI king fighting AI rebels, right? That would be awesome though

So should I kill the AI that is going to 100% independence within 20 turns or just declare mine and hope I'll beat it to the race?

Vorpal+5 said:

AI & Independence


Because I don't think I'll see AI king fighting AI rebels, right? That would be awesome though

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I saw AI play WoI (in an earlier game version). That reminds me that I wanted to report that AI can make peace again with his king (I payed him to do it ) which was kinda odd, though most often not a used feature.

On Conquistador I found when I built my second Ship of the Line the King added five Men of War. Since it looked like the balance would only get worse fast I declared independence immediately.

The King's first attack was repulsed and I sank all the invading ships but the Royal Infantry took out a lot of the defenders in my capitol before the last Royal Artillery was eliminated.

The King's second attack was the big difference compared to Explorer. I replayed it several times, shifting troops and build sequences, but no matter what I did I lost a city. My only choice was which port city to lose.

My navy is still effective against the King's ships but I think the King's army will wreak havoc inland before it's beaten.

So what if he takes a city or a few? Just take it back later. You have a lot more than 15 cities right? War of independence is meant to be a challenge.

You're right. I shouldn't wimp out. You can't fight a war without taking losses.

I just finished my first Conquistador game: England, RAR America, huge map, rebellion from January 1701 to October 1707. This is my first game where the King managed to disembark all his land forces. He captured two of my port cities and kept them as long as he had Men of War.

I had 8 cities, not 15. I'm still nervous about building cities after suffering through the massive native attacks in TAC. Native leaders are still a threat here but they're not as apocalyptic as in TAC.

The first half of the revolution was spent thinning out the King's navy. My ships almost always withdrew before they sank, unlike TAC and Vanilla. That may be due to rebel sentiment being 100% by the time the King's first ships arrived. The second half was spent manufacturing guns and swords, and moving units to the threatened remaining ports.

In October 1704 I had an unpleasant surprise. Hartford (my horse, sheep and cattle town) suddenly had the health indicator go from +6 to -13 and all the residents were frozen in place. Production ceased. Goods couldn't be delivered or picked up.

The previous two turns the town was unprotected. The last garrisoned unit, a native mercenary, left to kill a wolf. There was a message when the turn began that the King had sent a Vice-Regent to argue against the rebellion. I wonder if the lack of protection and the King's decision caused the town to withdraw from the revolution.

After replaying the two turns with a dragoon moving to the unprotected town, the health and population stay normal, so it looks crucial to keep every town garrisoned at every stage in the game.

I'm feeling like some general tips for gameplay that are always helpful like selling lumber in Africa as a viable source of early game income - maybe all mention our favorite tips in game

That's a good one...I'm playing first game through on RAR and have been selling lumber for next to nothing in Europe. Thanks!

Wondering if anyone has tips for trading with the natives...? This part of my game is sorely lacking and I can't quite seem to figure out what to trade to them and it seems if I ask for a higher price just once they get mad and refuse to negotiate. Thanks in advance!

Dan4GS said:

That's a good one...I'm playing first game through on RAR and have been selling lumber for next to nothing in Europe. Thanks!

Wondering if anyone has tips for trading with the natives...? This part of my game is sorely lacking and I can't quite seem to figure out what to trade to them and it seems if I ask for a higher price just once they get mad and refuse to negotiate. Thanks in advance!

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Way I've found is to get your attitude with them up as high as possible and buy trade goods in Europe and sell to natives you will get double the price usually and even more with good negotiating skill

I came back to civ4col after recommendation from a friend about RAR. What an amazing gem . I need to first read through the sticky posts.

Yeah I usually only trade with the natives early in the game before my own cities have something worth trading. Especially with the tribes that don't rip you off. I don't bring stuff from europe to trade early because those slots are always full of recruits. I sell my initial blades in europe and my initial horses to the Indians. I may trade some horses with them later but the price drops down too fast. And their horse units are weaker usually. I've always found it's not a good idea to trade them guns unless they're closer to someone else.
And by the time I've ramped up any gun production, I have more lucrative things going on.

On Patriot, conquering the other colonies looks preferable to fighting the King who has a navy triple the Explorer numbers. The disadvantage increases rapidly after 1705. Once it's possible to transport an expeditionary force of 10-20 units there's a good chance to defeat another colony.

The Amerayca Gigantic map is fun to explore but distant cities founded there end up too separated to coordinate vs the King. It's tricky to time ships travelling for 15 turns.

Gold is a good reason to establish a city, as are ore and trees, but gems and silver are mainly early-game advantages, ultimately not as productive as train oil and coloured cloth.

My domination games are over well before that time. And I only play that highest setting.
Or if you build on a single square island and keep to one city, you can usually win with just what the other nations give you at the time of independence.