Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
.. or a field study in exploit pwnage of the King of Spain.
After discussing some of the broken features with people in this forum and pondering how to exploit it I decided I might as well put it to the ultimate test and start a revolutionary game.
The settings were me as Simon Bolivar of Spain on a new world map standard speed revolutionary difficulty.
I started out by establishing a colony on Tupi/Arawak lands with my soldier and quickly found a second spot on non-indian land for a second colony with the pioneer. Both cities were set to generate maximum trade income.
First city had 2 food resources and became a food farm city and second was unimpressive in most regards but had a mountain tile for a little early silvermining.
It turned out George Washington was a close neighbour and he settled just south of my position. I quickly attacked him with my veteran soldier (that spain start with) and took Jamestown and Plymouth (which was razed by default at size 1). GW proceeded to found Roanoke 1 tile away from a scout of mine and I captured and kept that city as well for an early 4th.
After this I founded my 5th and last city in a silver/fur spot.
Strategy was to play nice with indians and train some farmers etc which I did. The indians seems to get pissed off at you easilly at revolutionary so I quickly established missions in all villages with the colonists born in my food city.
I didn't bother with much infrastructure, just got up docks warehouses a couple of wagons then set all but 2 cities on building political points which was enough to quickly secure Peter Minuit. The 2 cities where I did get some infrastructure got all carpenters and lumberjacks and tools and ultimately cranked out some cannons but most cannons were bought in europe from trade income. After I had gotten the farmers and such I wanted from the indians I killed off any nearby villages to avoid surprises later and for a little extra cash two ggs and some experience.
After I decided I had enough cannons (22) I decided to push for independence. I had gotten 2 veteran soldiers from the dock queue so I decided to buy one extra to make it 4 in total with the one I started with. I also bought an elder statesman and had a schoolhouse in my food farm teach a second.
Almost ready to push for independence:
I started the push by deleting every citizen but my 4 veteran soldiers and 2 elder statesmen who were split in my 2 infrastructure cities that had each built a printing press and newspaper in anticipation of this, putting me down to pop 6 from about 50.
I had made sure they had some spare food as well as extra wagons with food for after independence so they could starve for a while generating bells.
After deleting all unwanted citizens of New Spain I gifted my other 3 settlements to George Washington (fair is fair). You might notice that I didn't bother to build any defenses around the cities (stockades etc). There's no point at all since the king can just bombard your defenses down to nothing so either you defend with no fortification bonuses or you attack him first, luckily I was able to do the latter.
Up to this point I hadn't generated a single bell in any of my colonies and only bothered to get Peter Minuit (though my political point building had accumulated another 1000 pps or so, not that I ever got any use out of it).
The REF was thus unchanged since the start of the game the turn before I got my first bells.
It took me 6 turns to get both cities to 100% rebel sentiment and the king added 1 unit each turn.
I was a little bit concerned still because I read here and in the civilopedia that the rebel sentiment bonus only worked on defense. This however turned out to be incorrect.
As the king landed his troops I had a minimum of 75% odds for attacking his troops from inside my settlement (or just outside it). Even for unpromoted cannons (str 3) vs promoted artilley (str 4). I didn't even get attacked by the whole fleet at once, first he sent 3 ships then the last.
But funniest of all is that before I got to kill all of his land units I sunk his entire fleet of 4 man-o-wars with a combat4 frigate that had been protecting my waters from privateers all game long. The first two it took down one by one (healing in between) at 75% odds.
Then I baited the last 2 with my galleon and merchantman which they killed but wounding them in the process allowing me to attack and kill the third.
The last ship tried to escape to europe but I hunted down and killed him on the subsequent turn ending the WOI in victory!
Now I might have won a revolutionary victory with 2 puny cities in 1675 but I didn't get a very high score.
So what to say? Didn't the beta uncover these exploits? This clearly shows how fundamentally flawed two portions of the game currently are. I didn't even micromanage very well in this game and could probably have ended the game much earlier if I had focused from the start on what to do but I made up particulars of the strategy as I went along and thought about it. This is the first time I finished the game so obviously this could be developed even further..
The two main concerns:
1) The ridiculously bad defense of AI colonies. I might only have temporarilly stopped GW in my game but he was totally crippled after this and behind me in score all the way right up until I deleted all those citizens. Meanwhilst Peter Stuyvesant was accumulating FFs like no tomorrow which ultimately didn't do squat for him.
2) The REF can not be tied to bell generation like it currently is. There needs to be a linear progression of unit buildup that is intense enough at revolutionary that you need to exceute some remarkable fortune and empire building skills in order to overtake the kings buildup progress, declare independence and fight of his army before the time runs out or you are defeated by him or an AI colony.
In contrast that should be very easy on pilgrim of course.
Edit: Added save, just attack the MOW to win.
After discussing some of the broken features with people in this forum and pondering how to exploit it I decided I might as well put it to the ultimate test and start a revolutionary game.
The settings were me as Simon Bolivar of Spain on a new world map standard speed revolutionary difficulty.
I started out by establishing a colony on Tupi/Arawak lands with my soldier and quickly found a second spot on non-indian land for a second colony with the pioneer. Both cities were set to generate maximum trade income.
First city had 2 food resources and became a food farm city and second was unimpressive in most regards but had a mountain tile for a little early silvermining.
It turned out George Washington was a close neighbour and he settled just south of my position. I quickly attacked him with my veteran soldier (that spain start with) and took Jamestown and Plymouth (which was razed by default at size 1). GW proceeded to found Roanoke 1 tile away from a scout of mine and I captured and kept that city as well for an early 4th.
After this I founded my 5th and last city in a silver/fur spot.
Strategy was to play nice with indians and train some farmers etc which I did. The indians seems to get pissed off at you easilly at revolutionary so I quickly established missions in all villages with the colonists born in my food city.
I didn't bother with much infrastructure, just got up docks warehouses a couple of wagons then set all but 2 cities on building political points which was enough to quickly secure Peter Minuit. The 2 cities where I did get some infrastructure got all carpenters and lumberjacks and tools and ultimately cranked out some cannons but most cannons were bought in europe from trade income. After I had gotten the farmers and such I wanted from the indians I killed off any nearby villages to avoid surprises later and for a little extra cash two ggs and some experience.
After I decided I had enough cannons (22) I decided to push for independence. I had gotten 2 veteran soldiers from the dock queue so I decided to buy one extra to make it 4 in total with the one I started with. I also bought an elder statesman and had a schoolhouse in my food farm teach a second.
Almost ready to push for independence:
I started the push by deleting every citizen but my 4 veteran soldiers and 2 elder statesmen who were split in my 2 infrastructure cities that had each built a printing press and newspaper in anticipation of this, putting me down to pop 6 from about 50.
I had made sure they had some spare food as well as extra wagons with food for after independence so they could starve for a while generating bells.
After deleting all unwanted citizens of New Spain I gifted my other 3 settlements to George Washington (fair is fair). You might notice that I didn't bother to build any defenses around the cities (stockades etc). There's no point at all since the king can just bombard your defenses down to nothing so either you defend with no fortification bonuses or you attack him first, luckily I was able to do the latter.
Up to this point I hadn't generated a single bell in any of my colonies and only bothered to get Peter Minuit (though my political point building had accumulated another 1000 pps or so, not that I ever got any use out of it).
The REF was thus unchanged since the start of the game the turn before I got my first bells.
It took me 6 turns to get both cities to 100% rebel sentiment and the king added 1 unit each turn.
I was a little bit concerned still because I read here and in the civilopedia that the rebel sentiment bonus only worked on defense. This however turned out to be incorrect.
As the king landed his troops I had a minimum of 75% odds for attacking his troops from inside my settlement (or just outside it). Even for unpromoted cannons (str 3) vs promoted artilley (str 4). I didn't even get attacked by the whole fleet at once, first he sent 3 ships then the last.
But funniest of all is that before I got to kill all of his land units I sunk his entire fleet of 4 man-o-wars with a combat4 frigate that had been protecting my waters from privateers all game long. The first two it took down one by one (healing in between) at 75% odds.
Then I baited the last 2 with my galleon and merchantman which they killed but wounding them in the process allowing me to attack and kill the third.
The last ship tried to escape to europe but I hunted down and killed him on the subsequent turn ending the WOI in victory!
Now I might have won a revolutionary victory with 2 puny cities in 1675 but I didn't get a very high score.
So what to say? Didn't the beta uncover these exploits? This clearly shows how fundamentally flawed two portions of the game currently are. I didn't even micromanage very well in this game and could probably have ended the game much earlier if I had focused from the start on what to do but I made up particulars of the strategy as I went along and thought about it. This is the first time I finished the game so obviously this could be developed even further..
The two main concerns:
1) The ridiculously bad defense of AI colonies. I might only have temporarilly stopped GW in my game but he was totally crippled after this and behind me in score all the way right up until I deleted all those citizens. Meanwhilst Peter Stuyvesant was accumulating FFs like no tomorrow which ultimately didn't do squat for him.
2) The REF can not be tied to bell generation like it currently is. There needs to be a linear progression of unit buildup that is intense enough at revolutionary that you need to exceute some remarkable fortune and empire building skills in order to overtake the kings buildup progress, declare independence and fight of his army before the time runs out or you are defeated by him or an AI colony.
In contrast that should be very easy on pilgrim of course.
Edit: Added save, just attack the MOW to win.