Tips for a half decent player at vanilla

Evil Beejeebers

Warlord
Joined
Oct 23, 2008
Messages
144
Location
In a bush outside your window.
Dear boys and girls,

My friend and I play hot-seat col quite often, we have installed this mod recently, he own's the game so gets a bit more practice plus much better starts.

Do you have any pointers to help me develop a solid early game start? how many settlements should I have by turn 50, 100?

Best leaders when you have rotten luck?
 
I do not play multiplayer, but here is my starting strategy.

I always go straigt back to Europe at game start.
Sell the equipment of the starting units and make myself as many scouts as I can.
(make them from free colonists or indentured servants - never from anyone with a profession)
When I get back to "The New World" I let the first unit in my ship get a promotion from some flotsam so it gets "Eplorer I" and "Explorer II".
When the first unit is promoted I drop him of on land and do the same for the next scout.
Then I let the scouts explore cities until they become seasoned and from there on explore the rumors.
This way I get alot of money to buy new units.

I never settle until I find a spot close to mountains where I can eventually mine for stone. I like to have all my settlements close to each other - much better when I eventually fight for independence.
How many settlements you have by which turn is pretty much irrelevant - much better to have 5 cities where you have proper people mining and producing things you can sell in Europe..
 
There isn't a set plan and the boring answer for "number of cities" is "it depends". This isn't Starcraft 2 where you HAVE to set up these many bases by x no. of time. A well developed and defended colony can be more profitable than having small settlements all over the place. Sometimes, you would like to expand more depending on the resource tiles - say you have a main colony with good food tiles which you're investing a lot on and then you find a silver\gold\gem deposit which you'd like to settle and get a good start.
I generally have only 1-3 colonies early on (around turn 50). By 1650 I would probably have close to 10.

One good thing you could do is to build an early chapel and produce crosses. Early immigrants means cash. I also like to get a scout and explore! Treasures and other artifacts can boost your treasury a bit, so don't leave it for later. Also, try to invest in a pioneer (probably tools+servant\slave if you can't afford a hardy pioneer) and start developing your resource tiles as well.
 
I don't bother with scouts anymore. (unless there's one on my bench and comes real cheap)
I just use an indentured servant and at the first free experience give him ranger 1 and ranger 2. With all the forests before the euros chop them down, he'll move just as fast as scout. A few of these can scout the world quickly and if you lose one to revenge, you don't get as angry. And if they go through a village offering a good profession I'll spend a few turn learning it so when he finally hits the western shore he has a good skill to start a city. And if he's found a conq in a hut along the way the city is ready to go and be defended. Besides, at the upper levels, the huts usually cause more evil than good. (unless you're the spanish and looking to be at war with all the natives.)
 
Howdy Rah, I didn't know you were a RaR guy as well.

Hadn't played in a few months since I got my new computer, decided to see what if any changes had been afoot since then.
 
Yeah, I'm playing 2.1. I haven't upped to 2.2 yet. Ming and I are playing MP (a more cooperative then competitive mp game) We've gotten a little bored with MP BTS. This is a nice diversion.
 
Yeah, I'm playing 2.1. I haven't upped to 2.2 yet. Ming and I are playing MP (a more cooperative then competitive mp game) We've gotten a little bored with MP BTS. This is a nice diversion.

After I burn myself out on BE and other distractions, I'll definitely be going back to RAR. Might even try my luck against the twin terrors.
 
Yes, the game is definitely different when you're competing for the favored FFs.
When I first started SP I always rushed for the free scout and extra movement but now I pass him by and save those points for others.
 
Hey Guy... Good to see another friendly face.

And as far as the "twin terrors" go in MP, Nahhh. In R&R MP, we really don't go after each other. Maybe if all the colonial civs were played by real people it would be a different story. Instead, we just race to see who can do better faster.
 
On the subject of multiplayer, is there a forum or mechanism to find other MP players on the internet? Clearly Gamespy isn't the answer any more...
 
Based on what I've seen here, there is very very little MP going on. And what there is seems to be more quasi coop play instead of head to head kill MP.
 
Based on what I've seen here, there is very very little MP going on. And what there is seems to be more quasi coop play instead of head to head kill MP.
I never go against human players and I never play with people I don't know in real life.

I think being on the same team is the best option if two players aren't equally good. It doesn't matter much if one does better than the other because wars, pacts, founding fathers and a number of other features are based on team rather than player. In other words what matters is your combined size and strength, not how it is distributed between you. My personal experience tells me that it isn't always the same player, who ends up being big. Random terrain and natives have a great impact on stuff like that.
 
Yeah... like any civ game, there is a lot of luck involved. Maybe even more so in R&R. The land is critical. And some of the early events can be HUGE. If you get a free ship from an early shipwreck, you are way ahead. The colonists that are available in Europe also make a big difference. An early hardy pioneer, carpenter, lumber jack, medic, statesman... all can give you a quick start. Even the native tribe you start near can be a game changer. If you start next to one of the crazy tribes vs one of the friendly ones can make all the difference in the world. Even the early goods a tribe has can make a huge difference.

There are just so many factors that go beyond simple skill. Granted, you do need skill to take advantage of them, or skill to make up for bad luck. But two equally skilled players won't be "even" if the luck goes for one and against the other.
 
Here are some hints I can give about the differences between vanilla and RAR.

As an introduction, I would say that at the opposite of Vanilla, there's no reason to run for an early independence. From start, the Royal Expeditionnary Force is so huge that it's clearly a deterrent for any quick game. If you want to be able to pick up that fight, you'll need to grow big.

in the first turns, a big novelty is the shipwrecks of course. They can turn out very valuable as long as you avoid your early caravel to get killed by wild sea animals. Don't hesitate to explore shipwrecks even when you have a single boat as if you lose it, it will be replaced by the king.

Then of course you need to build your economy. Producing manufactured good is essential, and as in vanilla, sending settlers to get trained in native villages is very efficient to have quickly good planters. A useful tip, you can train several units in the same village at the same time. That's pretty interesting especially for farmers and fishermen.

Once you get enough schools and colleges, it is time to grow food like a freak so that your population growth would rely more on domestic fertility than immigration. I try my best to fill up all my schools, colleges and universities. Even basic schools deserve to get fill up as we never have enough farmers, carpenters, fishermen and lumberjacks. They all turn quickly overpriced in Europe. To grow food, don't neglect mills and granaries! They can change your life.

As we talk about city growth. Be aware that when you reach from 12 to 14 people, you will need a healer's cabinet. That's very important, because without health all your production, including food, could be reduced by 25%, which means your colony will literally starve. This can happen very quickly if you don't pay attention. The healer doesn't need to be a professional in the early stage, but you need someone in the cabinet.

Among the new ressources, don't neglect hemp. From hemp, you can produce sailcloth and rope which are very beneficial to sell in Europe (besides being necessary to build ships and chariots). In the same way, it is very useful at a certain stage to grow sheeps and cattle because of the food generated by the butcher. The issue is that cow skins and wool are absolutely worthless so you really need to produce quickly leather and woolcloth in order to make them a tiny bit valuable (at least worth the price of a trip to Europe).

Another thing is that you don't only need to produce tools to get the better buildings, you now also need stone (for some buildings and units you can even need other stuff but I won't start on that). The good thing though is that RAR has a great trade route manager which allows you to automatically send your tools and stones in all the colonies that don't produce them. I personally dedicate specific chariots for that.

Later in the game, you will discover the domestic market. Once your goods aren't worth much anymore in Europe (because the prices have fallen), it can be interesting to distribute your goods within your own colonies. Do that only after checking that there is the demand for it. You can even import luxury goods from Europe and distribute them in you colonies demanding them. It can turn out pretty beneficial. To grow your domestic demand, you need markets and stock exchanges.

What I particularly enjoy with RAR is the fact that, the more it goes, the less you actually need Europe. And contrary to vanilla where you had to rush independence because you were getting unsustainable with the crazy taxes, here you trigger independence because... you just don't need Europe! With the domestic market and the custom houses, you have everything needed to get rich at every turn even without Europe.

A RAR game can be very long, but it's really a very complete experience. And at the end, you have a lot more the feeling that you've actually built a self-sustainable nation than you had in vanilla. That's why I believe it's really worth to dedicate many hours on it. :)
 
A RAR game can be very long, but it's really a very complete experience. And at the end, you have a lot more the feeling that you've actually built a self-sustainable nation than you had in vanilla. That's why I believe it's really worth to dedicate many hours on it. :)

Comments like this sometimes let me feel that all the work to build this mod was worth it. :)

I would add 2 major differences compared to Vanilla (or TAC):

1) 2-Plot-City-Radius will allow really big cities
2) Huge number of Yields that demand for a bit of specialization of production in cities
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys!

I am now playing on revolutionary, one thing I have found is that similar professions can be used very effectively in a pinch when starting a new colony for example. I find cabinet makers are pretty decent carpenters.
 
Top Bottom