My outline to Victory

[Carrion]

I love strategy games and this is my first attempt to make public my methods. They may not be very impressive but hey they are mine!

Take a look at this and let me know if it is helpful to you at all. This is intended to be an overview with not so many nitty gritty details as those are usually dictated by variable once you start actually playing the game.

I put it in word 2003 and a text. The text is kind of ugly though.

[HermannLombard]

Sounds like a viable strategy for those who want to play all of the game rather than grab a quick&dirty win. You wrote "a. Put at least 2 Elder Statesmen in every city, even the Podunk ones" so if you're putting them in Town Halls early you'll be in for a long war (=big REF) due to early/ongoing generation of LB.

[Carrion]

Long wars are what all the cool kids are doing! Seriously I really enjoy long drawn out civ wars. I suppose I like micromanaging games.

[pajeg]

"5. Save Save Save for my first Galleon"

buy another caravel, set sail with some horse/guns, you just got your galleon much faster (or bring your explorer faster to get gold yo buy gus for you galleon)


"4. Diversify your economy with at least 3 manufactured goods to export back to Europe, and upgrade as many warehouses as possible."

it's not a good idea to drop the price of all goods, just sell 1-2 and put the rest in warehouse expension, you'll get more over time (especially the silver, it drop very fast)

[Bloink]

Originally Posted by pajeg

"4. Diversify your economy with at least 3 manufactured goods to export back to Europe, and upgrade as many warehouses as possible."

it's not a good idea to drop the price of all goods, just sell 1-2 and put the rest in warehouse expension, you'll get more over time (especially the silver, it drop very fast)

This is just exploiting game mechanics, I wouldn't get used to it as a strategy, I'm quite sure it will be fixed in the first patch.

[the reverend]

If you want to fight a massive REF, make sure you have a few good cities inland (one that produces guns would probably be a good choice). Coastal cities are almost impossible to defend from the King's forces. Also, you'll probably want to have a port on the opposite side of the continent, so you can have a safe harbor to sail to Europe. Also, don't leave your entire armada in a coastal city that might be captured. I did that once and lost 3 frigates, a ship of the line, a galleon, 2 merchantmen, and a caravel.

[Darkness]

Originally Posted by pajeg

it's not a good idea to drop the price of all goods, just sell 1-2 and put the rest in warehouse expension, you'll get more over time (especially the silver, it drop very fast)

Besides silver, the prices don't drop much anyway. I've not seen it drop more than 2 over the length of an entire game for cigars, rum, coats or cloth...

[pajeg]

Originally Posted by Darkness

Besides silver, the prices don't drop much anyway. I've not seen it drop more than 2 over the length of an entire game for cigars, rum, coats or cloth...

it's not the case when you sell thousands in revolutionary

[HermannLombard]

Originally Posted by the reverend

Also, don't leave your entire armada in a coastal city that might be captured. I did that once and lost 3 frigates, a ship of the line, a galleon, 2 merchantmen, and a caravel.

Ouch.

In Civ3 I once landed a huge invasion force at a volcano. I named it "Mount Murphy."

[Carrion]

Originally Posted by pajeg

"5. Save Save Save for my first Galleon"

buy another caravel, set sail with some horse/guns, you just got your galleon much faster (or bring your explorer faster to get gold yo buy gus for you galleon)

I'll give that a whirl and see how it works thanks!

[glee]

Thanks for your suggestions.
Here are some comments.

Opening Phase:

- you want a spot with lots of fish / crabs (as we all do!). But how long do you search for this? (Every turn you spend exploring with no Colony costs you both income and crosses on the European Docks.)
- my first Colony has never gone above 10 (smaller colonies get Rebel Sentiment quicker)
- if your Colony is close to a Native Village, your Cultural Expansion will eliminate it (unless you allow it to survive).
- if you sell your initial guns, another European Power can easily take out your Colony.

Exploration:

- if you stockpile treasures, you will lose money when the King raises the tax rate.
- you can 'Save Save Save for my first Galleon', but the money can be spent elsewhere. Early on, this makes a big difference.
Yes, you pay 50% tax otherwise, but until you have exported 6000gp worth of treasure, you're not even making a profit.
- 'I really like to buy Elder Statesmen and Jesuit Priests'. But if you buy just one Elder Statesmen, you can train many others in a School for just 500gp (instead of buying them for 2000gp each). Also Criminals and Servants can be converted to Missionaries, which is a fine way to make use of them.

Independence:

- 'Declare independence when you have 75% or more rebel sentiment '. Well that's nice of course, but the King builds more troops because this alarms him.
I've found 60% to be fine.
- 'I generally prefer more soldiers than Dragoons as I like to fight a guerilla war.' Dragoons are best in my opinion. Also I've never lost a Colony - since I attack the King's troops as soon as they land.
I generally win around 1650 (although just for fun I won a Pilgrim game in 1576. )

[teks]

I normally have population 12+ towns and I can get them to 50% in ~10 turns with newspaper press and 2 statesmen. I always thought it was harder to raise the smaller towns because they either lack the manpower to make newspaper, lack enough spare food for statesmen, or I have to turn useful workers into makeshift statesmen.

Large towns can afford to place statesmen, and can build the newspaper in a few turns. Large towns also have expanded warehouses for 450 guns, the ability to build cannons, and plenty of people to spare. On the coast they still make lots of extra food even with 12 people.
Also I need less statesmen for a few large colonies then i would if i had many small colonies, and it pisses the indians off when you go nuts with the colonies. If the large colonies wont go up turn a few people into soldiers and the liberty rating will instantly skyrocket.
I normally also grab a few FF's that increase liberty bells. They are worth it when the king cant raise his army before you declare.

[HermannLombard]

Originally Posted by teks

If the large colonies wont go up turn a few people into soldiers and the liberty rating will instantly skyrocket.

I think that's wrong. You have to generate a percentage of your population and it doesn't matter whether they have guns in their hands or not. You can delete units to raise your percentage (as in the "40 turns at Revolutionary" thread), but you can't simply arm them.

[Edit] I just did a quick test, loading a save where I had one town with 4 population and 4 cannon plus a caravel with two more cannon. I had 100 guns and 100 horses in the town. The percentage was 40%. I turned two of the people into dragoons and the percentage stayed at 40%. I then deleted the two dragoons and the percentage rose to 68%. Deleting one more person (leaving only one) raised the percentage to 100%. [Apparently caravels and cannon don't count toward the unit total.]

[teks]

I reloaded my game and made a few dragoons. The rebel sentiment did skyrocket, but I see now that it doesnt effect the total % which stayed at 47%.
In my game I managed to hit 50% in 13 turns I had 12 units of dragoon outside my settlements the whole time, and 6 soldiers garrisoned at each of the 3 harbors. The soldiers count idea explains to me why I'm at 47 percent when most of my towns are already at 100%. still it doesnt explain why I managed such a quick revolution.
I accidently took ben franklin early, and he forced me into my revolution all of my villages had newspaper, and all but 1 had 1 statesman each, which happened to be my main settlement. All of my towns were great builders, so I got john jay and samuel adams as fast as I could. I think I owe the revolution to them. 3 colonists with a newspaper made 44 liberty, and to think If i had statesmen like i was supposed to.
blah blah blah
Lets get to the gist of all of this now.
whats more effective?
-building newspaper in a 12 population town and giving it 3 statesmen
-building newspapers in 3 different 4 population towns with 1 statesmen each
I'm routing for the big town, but this would be a cool theory to try out sometime