Winning at Revolutionary on an XL map

Updated for Patch v1.01f

This is my favourite style of Colonization game and so far I have won 10 and lost 3. It makes for a very long game and is not for the faint-hearted, you could end up fighting a REF of up to 500 troops. My comments are based on the patched version of Colonization and a normal length game, but probably apply to other types of game too.

The XL Map: - There is only one really large map that comes with the game, the Western Hemispheres (Huge) scenario which is 72 tiles wide by 100 tiles deep, although a lot of it is water. Also it is the same map and same starting point each time. The biggest random map available is the 'Huge' Custom map, which is only 38x60 tiles, and I recommend changing this to 60x96, which is 2½ times as big. You make the change in the Civ4WorldInfo.xml file. On my system that is found at:

Program Files/2K Games/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Col IV etc/Assets/XML/GameInfo

Before you change this file make a copy of it. Then use 'open with' and choose Notepad (although any text editor will do) and scroll down until you see 'WORLDSIZE HUGE'. Below that change GridWidth from 38 to 60 and GridHeight from 60 to 96, and save the file. It's that simple. Now every time you start on a huge custom map you really will have a huge map to explore.

Pros and Cons: - There is one major advantage with using an XL map, heaps and heaps of gold. There are many more burial grounds and ancient ruins to plunder and a lot more Indian villages to visit. If you combine the XL map with a low sea level there are usually about 85 Indian villages in total. This generates a lot of wealth and you will have a steady cash flow coming in for more than 100 turns.

So what is the downside? Well all those Indian villages combine to make extremely strong tribes, and at Revolutionary in particular they are very aggressive. Expect at least one surprise attack, and it may come early in the game. The other European powers are even stronger and with such a big map you often don't find them until late in the game so it takes a major assault to defeat them.

This will be a very long game, not something you can run through in an afternoon. Depending on your own individual preferences that may be an advantage or a disadvantage.

Bugs: - I have found the patched version of the game to be free of any serious bugs, but there are a couple of minor problems that can be annoying. Your starting position on a random map is fixed and you usually have two other European powers to your North and one to the South. Also trading with the natives will still result in tax increases from the King even if you aren't actively trading with Europe.

Starting Nationality/Leader: That is up to the player although the Spanish have a clear advantage with their military strength. However France's improved relations with the Indians might prevent that surprise attack, the English benefit by increased immigration and the Dutch are worth a look too because of their trading advantage and their merchantman. Once the game starts it is imperative that you find an initial colony site that is just 5 tiles from the European sea-lane (preferably with room for a second colony at the same distance). There should be a good number of suitable sites available but if all you see is an endless ocean or if you have landed on an isolated offshore island it might pay to restart.


Initial Strategy

Scouts first: The initial strategy is all about getting your scouts away. There is plenty of gold just waiting to be picked up, but only if you get there first. You should aim at having 4 scouts in the field by turn 40, preferably all seasoned scouts. Seasoned scouts get better results from visiting native villages and they can enter ancient ruins or burial grounds safely. There are three practical ways to obtain seasoned scouts. If you are lucky you may find one in the immigration queue. Your ordinary scouts can safely visit Indian villages, and there is a random chance that they will be 'seasoned' by the village. Finally some villages specialize in training seasoned scouts. Once you find such a village you can send your scouts there for training. When your scouts gain experience choose Explorer I and II as your first promotions.

Treasure: Treasure units can safely be sent back to your base unescorted (except through enemy territory), but I would advise against putting them on an automatic 'go to' The problem with this is that the AI has a bad habit of routing them through burial grounds or ancient ruins on the way and they are liable to die (or worse still, start a war with the local tribe). It is a pain to move them turn-by-turn but unless you can be sure that they will follow a clear route home it is much safer. Then store them in your capital until you can buy that first galleon, no sense in wasting money by giving it to the King.

Defence: This emphasis on scouts will leave your capital virtually empty; any spare colonists are given horses and sent away. That is fine, colony development is low priority at first and a single colonist working as a statesman is sufficient until you have a full complement of scouts in the field. But your sole colony should not be left undefended. Start a stockade as your first building and as soon as you have 500 gold buy a cannon. Don't wait for Minuit, just grit your teeth and pay up.

Meeting your rivals: It is possible that another European power will have built his capital close to your territory. If so plan to attack that colony as soon as possible (ie on turn 21). His soldier will have settled the colony but it will probably have been re-supplied so you will need a dragoon or a cannon to make sure of your victory. It is a bad idea to let any rival prosper nearby and encroach on your territory. Keep attacking any colonists that land until he gets the message and finds somewhere else to settle.

You rang, my Lord: The King is only involved in the game in two ways. He either requests money or raises taxes. If you accept his requests for funds you will delay increases in the REF and perhaps be able to buy cheap military units from him. If you want to do this you can try and keep your cash reserves low so you don't get hit up for an exorbitant amount. Personally I just refuse all requests; I've got better things to do with my money. Tax increases are a lot harder to avoid. You have to be able to continue trade with Europe so only refuse a tax increase if you are certain you do not want to trade in those goods. However all boycotts will be lifted when you declare independence so as you approach that date you can afford to refuse tax increases and store the boycotted goods until you can sell them again

Liberty Bells: A lot of game strategy revolves around liberty bells. There are clear advantages to producing them. Your borders expand, displacing Indian land or even whole villages. This makes it cheaper to build your own colonies. The liberty bells add to your political points, which are necessary for all Founding Fathers. As your colony rebel sentiment increases so does your production in that colony, and a high global rebel sentiment is required for your eventual declaration of independence. Naturally there is a downside. As your borders expand the local tribe will become unhappy, and when your rebel sentiment increases the King will feel threatened and increase the size of the REF.

I favour a 'medium' approach to liberty bells. Place your first colonist in the Town Hall every time you build a colony but don't upgrade them to elder statesmen until well into the game (however if one turns up in the immigration queue by all means employ him). Build printing presses early but don't hurry for newspapers. You need to keep up a regular supply of political points for attracting those Founding Fathers.

Education: There are plenty of Indian villages that will train your farmers and fishermen for free and once you have Peter Minuit safely in Congress you can afford to buy specialists from Europe. You should also build a schoolhouse in every colony and use them to train more farmers, planters etc and later elder statesmen and veteran soldiers.

Trading with the Natives: Until your own industry gets started this will be your main trading activity, and the Indian tribes are very well heeled at the start of the game. They will pay best for guns and horses, but be wary about trading guns to your local tribe, as you will probably have to fight them at some stage. You can often buy fur and silver cheaply too. When you can afford it buy a merchantman solely for trading and use it to visit distant tribes who are less likely to use their guns against you. Eventually take this trading ship right round one of the poles so it can continue trading on the West Coast. Once you have discovered the Pacific Ocean you can send more ships directly there to trade. They can still meet up with your other ships in Europe if you want to swap goods between them (hint: rename your trading ships to avoid any confusion about where they came from). The Aztecs and Incas in particular are very wealthy with 12,000 + gold each available from the start.

Early game (up to turn 100)

Founding Fathers: They are crucial to the winning of the game at any level but especially so at Revolutionary. Know which FF you want and what you need to do to get them. The first to offer will be Pedro Cabral around turn 15-20. Accept him immediately. Cabral is an Exploration FF, which is why he turns up so quickly. He cuts travel time to Europe in half and if your trading centre is correctly sited a merchantman can do a return trip to Europe in just four turns (three turns with a later FF). After Cabral, turn down all other offers until Peter Minuit comes along. He is a Trade FF so put an early effort into trading with the natives to earn those points. To be specific, you need to amass 561 trade points by selling (not buying) goods. You get (gold x 0.15) trade points for sales to the natives and (profit x 0.30) trade points for sales to Europe. Minuit reduces the cost of recruiting units in Europe by 25% so that first galleon will cost you just 2250 gold instead of 3000. He is probably the most important FF in the game so watch your political and trade points carefully to make sure you don't miss out on him. Don't hesitate to buy finished goods such as cloth, rum etc in Europe if a local village wants them. You may not make a profit on the trade but it will give your trade points a big boost. After that, in no particular order, I like the early Founding Fathers John Winthrop (+1 crosses), Diego de Cuellar and De Sepulveda (both offer free units when you are usually short of colonists), Lord Baltimore (more crosses), Thomas Hooker (three missionaries), De Bermudez (faster trading ships, very important), Jan de Wit (less tools), Pocahontas (improved relations) as well as Ben Franklin and Samuel Adams (increased bells).

Later take anyone who increases the speed of your units (especially Francisco de Coronado), those which offer free promotions (except Pizarro) and any you can get who increase the production of liberty bells, crosses or production. I usually have 25 to 35 Founding Fathers by the end of the game. You will be competing with the other European Powers so take a 'checkerboard' approach and deliberately leave gaps on the board that the others will fill in, using their points up on less important FF. Eventually though the only way to stay ahead of them is by a more direct approach, but that is for the future.

Expansion: Once your scouts start sending back cash and treasure you can look at expanding your colonies. It is a good idea to closely examine the territory around your capital (which should be fully explored by now) and select all your future colony sites. I prefer CxxC spacing. The capital can build ships, there should be one colony earmarked for the production of guns, others for industry with one colony for each product for which raw materials are available, a second port and also colonies for horses and tools. Each should have a forest available for lumber. I would advise establishing the colonies that are going to save you money (ships, guns, horses, tools) before those that make you money (cloth, cigars, coats, rum). Also try and diversify your finished goods, if you sell too much of one type of product the price will drop all the way down to 1 gold. I use the command Alt/S to put a permanent signpost on each colony site on the map; marking what goods that colony will produce. Once this is done you don't need to go through the process again, just build the colonies as you get enough colonists to man them, and as you can afford to buy the land.

You need to have a second port to give you a better chance of beating the blockade after independence but whether you have more than two depends on how close together they are. It is your ports that will come under the heaviest attack during the War of Independence and you need to be able to defend them all with the same stack of dragoons.

As you expand your colonies make sure you provide plenty of defence against surprise attack. Buy a cannon for each colony, build a stockade as your first building, and store 50 guns and 50 horses in each colony when you can afford them. Pioneers are also important. You should aim to clear unwanted forests adjacent to your colonies and build roads. Clearing forests removes the defensive bonus of those tiles and the roads enable you to attack and retreat to your colony on the same turn.

Silver: Silver is a valuable resource to develop early. The two best sources are Mountain Peaks near a river or a Silver bonus on a Tundra Hill. Both yield 2 silver/turn undeveloped. With a mine and a silver miner this adds up to 6 silver/turn. You may sometimes find these resources grouped together (ie two silver deposits or two peaks) which makes a colony there even more profitable. However it is unlikely that will occur near your home territory so to make use of the silver you will need to build a separate mining colony. It needs to be on the coast so a trading ship can service it, however if the best site is inland you may be able to use a coastal native village as your port, you can load the silver directly from your wagon to a ship there. While your scouts are exploring keep an eye out for any suitable site. This will be a temporary colony just to exploit the resource; you won't be taking it to Independence. It would still pay to provide it with a cannon for defence and start building a stockade. However don't produce any liberty bells there because you don't want your borders to expand and annoy the locals, it is probably too far away for you to protect.

The Indian Wars: The local tribe is going to attack you at some stage so pick your time to strike first. Once you have around 6000 gold in the bank from all those treasure wagons you can afford to buy 4 cannons, 2 vet dragoons plus some guns and horses for your colonists. That should be enough to start the war, but keep a ship handy in case you need to bring in more reinforcements from Europe. Attack the Indian villages with your cannons and choose Bomb I and II for their promotions. Keep one soldier with them for defence. Use dragoons as support and to pick off any isolated braves. It is important to give dragoons the Explorer I promotion (-1 terrain movement cost) so they can attack and retreat on the same turn. At least you will be carving out a lot of fresh territory for yourself, and any captured native converts can be used to establish new colonies. Best of all you no longer have to buy the land.

Middle game (turns 100 to 200)

Consolidation: Your scouts will have uncovered most of the map by now leaving a steady stream of homeward bound treasure trains behind them. To hurry up your FF recruitment you should be able to start replacing your statesmen with elder statesmen although no more than one in each colony for now, and you can start building Newspapers. Don't neglect your preachers either; build Churches in all colonies and Cathedrals in one or two where you have enough food to support three firebrands. Most of your colonies will now be established (I usually have around 8 by this stage of the game) and you can probably use some extra colonists to fill them. The best source of this extra manpower is the European colonies that your scouts have discovered. An added bonus of taking them out of the game is that they will no longer compete with you for Founding Fathers and you will also remove the risk of them achieving independence first.

Invasion: Check out the enemy first by sailing a ship close to his colonies so you can see what units he has as defenders. If there are only a few soldiers on hand you can attack with a mixture of cannons and soldiers by landing them on a strong defensive position (a forested hill is best) and reducing his defence with your cannons. However if he already has a stack of dragoons it will be a very tough fight. Prepare by buying at least two frigates (three would be better) and support these with any privateers you have available. The spearhead of your attack force will be those cannons that were promoted during the Indian wars. For the moment they can be stored in Europe, send your cargo ships to the battleground empty in case of loss. When you reach your target look for the most heavily defended port, probably the capital. What you want to find is his supply of dragoons. Then declare war and start reducing his defences with your frigates. You won't have it all your own way; there will be enemy frigates to contend with too. Soften these up with your privateers so your own frigates can finish them off. Once you have reduced the defence to zero collect your troops from Europe and attack from the sea with your cannons. They will suffer a 50% amphibious attack penalty but this will be negated by the two Bomb promotions. Do not land any units while there are still enemy dragoons left. When you have captured the capital fill it with all the troops you have available - cannons, soldiers and dragoons. A hint to protect your top surgeon; put him aboard a ship in the colony. He can still heal from there but won't be considered a defender if the enemy has any dragoons left to attack with. With a firm foothold in enemy territory you can consolidate your position, heal your troops, and then proceed to take out the rest of the enemy colonies. Once the threat of enemy dragoons has been eliminated you can attack with your cannons from land, without the amphibious penalty. One European power down; two to go, the REF will be a breeze after this!
Note: With regard to buying warships, once you have Minuit in congress a privateer costs 2250 gold and a frigate 3750. Each further privateer costs an extra 450 gold but the frigate cost is fixed. Eventually your privateers cost more than a frigate, so it is probably better to buy frigates but build privateers.

If the captured colony is a valuable one with production buildings already in place then hang onto the colony and its colonists and either link it up to your own colonies by road or provide it with a merchantman to trade with Europe. Leave behind a cannon for defence. If the colony is not worthwhile, strip it of all men and merchandise and leave it empty apart from one lone colonist. No defence is necessary, as you don't mind losing it. The captured colonies will not be part of your War of Independence and will be disposed of later.

Promoting Merchantmen: This may seem a waste of a Great General, but will prove invaluable in the long run. Your ports should be as close to the Europe sea-lane as possible but that still means they are 5 tiles away. In order for a ship to reach those lanes and sail to Europe on the same turn it needs 6 movement points. A privateer can reach that through combat, but you need your privateers for other purposes and your merchantman have more cargo space anyway. A merchantman starts with 4 mp and once you have de Bermudez in congress it can move 5. To get the extra movement point it will need two promotions (Navigation I and II), which require 5 xp points (less if your leader is San Martin). To do this you will need to have a GG and I suggest 3 merchantmen available. Clear the port of all other units except for a vet soldier and activate your GG, adding him to your soldier. Give the soldier Surgeon I and II and the ships Nav I and II. From now on your merchantmen can go to and from Europe in complete safety, regardless of any privateers or enemy frigates patrolling your seas. After Independence they can dodge the King's Man-o-War's too.

Trading: As your tax rate in Europe increases you should look for other outlets for your trade. By now you should have met all 8 Indian tribes and be able to trade with them. In particular, instead of selling them guns and horses look for villages that want to trade for the goods your own colonies are producing. You will get better deals from the natives than you would from Europe because there is no tax to pay. Also if you reduce your trade with Europe the tax rate will not climb as fast. For trading with distant inland villages, take a wagon in your trading ship and offload it in a nearby coastal village. You can then load goods from your ship directly into the wagon.

Auto-Wagons: To save some of the micro-management that is a feature of the game you can set up automatic trade routes for your wagons. The first one to set up is for food. Pick a central colony and move excess food to it from the surrounding colonies. Set up one trade route for every two to three colonies. This will result in a steady stream of new colonists appearing. Keep this colony supplied with horses so you can turn the new colonists into scouts and send them to Indian villages for training as farmers and fishermen resulting in more food and more colonists. You can also set up trade routes for raw materials, taking them to the production colonies where they can be turned into finished goods. Later you can set up trade routes to take those goods to your export port.

Building FF Points: There is an option to use a colony's production to build FF points and although I am reluctant to switch from that colony's primary role, sometimes it is necessary. You will never be short of exploration points and you should also have a steady stream of religion and trade points coming in, but military points stall out when you don't have a war on and you just never seem to have enough political points. Each point of production produces 3 FF points. This becomes more crucial later in the game when you are approaching independence, especially for the key military Founding Father Dom Pedro. He provides a free Veteran promotion for both your dragoons and soldiers, and a free Minutemen promotion for your soldiers, as well as halving the time between the appearances of Great Generals. This is such a huge advantage by itself that I would suggest you don't declare independence without him. Unfortunately he is rather expensive and you may have to build extra points to get him in time. If necessary you may have to skip some other useful military FF also (you didn't really need that extra frigate did you?). You may not need to use your core colonies to build the necessary FF points however; a captured colony with a lumber mill and nearby forests can serve instead if you supply it with lumberjacks and carpenters.

A Liberty Bells 'Holiday': With the possibility of building FF points and less competition from your rivals you may be in a position to reduce your liberty bell production for a period in order to limit the size of the REF. Give your statesmen real jobs as farmers or fishermen and leave your town hall empty. This won't eliminate your production of liberty bells completely, your FF bonuses will still apply, but it will slow it down.

End Game (turns 200 +)

Your Colonies: This is what your settlement should look like; or be working towards: Your factories should be working at full capacity with 2 or 3 specialists in each factory and raw materials being shipped in from the surrounding countryside. In all colonies your expert farmers will be working on developed farms and your coastal tiles should have expert fishermen. Your gun supply should be secured with ore and tools available for your master gunsmiths working in an Arsenal. If you are not breeding enough horses yourself you should import extra from Europe so you can turn each new colonist into a dragoon. Shipbuilding should concentrate on privateers and ships of the line. As well as developing farms etc your pioneers should have built roads on every tile in your colony, especially the coastal tiles. If it looks like they might not be finished in time put your army to work, give them tools and finish the roads as a rush job before putting them back into uniform. If your building program is complete in a colony don't pension off your carpenter, set him to making cannons instead. While they are of little use on attack they can contribute to your port defences.

Global Rebel Sentiment (GRS): You are now preparing for the War of Independence. You will have newspaper in every colony and a least one elder statesman available, even if not currently working in the town hall. They will be assisted by the Founding Fathers who increase your liberty bell production. Your GRS will be increasing but will still be short of the 50% required to declare Independence. However this is just the minimum, you want to declare at a considerably higher level. For that you need more elders. You can now choose to train them in your colonies, just make sure you have an elder statesman in residence, and enough gold available at the end of each turn. You will also pick up 3 more elder statesmen when Nathaniel Hawthorne turns up so you shouldn't need to buy any in Europe. Do not put these extra statesmen into a Town Hall just yet though, make them farmers or carpenters for the time being. The reason for this is to limit the size of the Royal Expeditionary Force. Liberty bell production affects both GRS and the size of the REF, but in different ways. The REF relates to total accumulated liberty bells over time while the GRS depends solely on bells per turn. This means it is better to put all those extra statesmen to work at the same time producing a late surge in your bells per turn, increasing your GRS quickly so you can declare independence before the REF can catch up.

You can calculate your maximum GRS as follows:
GRS = bells per turn x 25 / total population.
Your overall rebel sentiment will trend towards this value over time. You can add up your bells per turn from the Domestic Advisor, while your total population is 'All Units' minus 'No Profession' from your Military Advisor.

If you have a small number of colonies you may not have enough Town Hall space for the statesmen you wish to employ. To overcome this you can build some small 'legislative' colonies and staff them with elder statesmen and a farmer. Keep them away from the coast so you don't have to defend them from the REF.

Footnote: The concept of rebel sentiment is one of the least understood parts of the game, due mainly to the lack of information provided. One way to consider it is to look on liberty bells as the maintenance needed to support your troops. Other games (such as Civ) regulate the size of the army you can support by charging a maintenance cost in gold or food. In Colonization this maintenance cost is liberty bells, and because almost any unit can join your army it is charged against your total population rather than just your fighting forces.

Outlying Colonies: You are only going to defend your core colonies so you should plan for an orderly disposition of your overseas assets. Strip them of all men and materials, leaving just a single colonist in each colony (a good way to get rid of your crims), and then gift them back to the European nation you captured them from. The timing of this is important; if the colonies are far away you need to leave enough time to ship everyone home before the REF arrives. However for those colonies that are close at hand you can delay the handover until the turn you declare independence. The reason for this is that they will then qualify for the two extra indentured servants. Have enough horses available for everyone and they can immediately set out for home before you hand the colony back (you did think to build a connecting road didn't you?). This disposition includes your silver colony; unless it is on the West Coast. In this case you can retain it if the silver price has held up and you want to keep selling silver in Europe.

Analysing the REF: Prior to Independence you should study the REF. First of all don't be put off by the size. You are playing a long game on a large map and producing bells from the start so you can expect a large REF, but you can beat that at odds of up to 9 to 1 if necessary. It is not the size that is important, but the composition, especially the number of warships. This should be the smaller total of the four groups but as they are all produced by a random number generator it is not a given. The reason the number of warships is crucial is because that governs the number of troops that will be landed each turn. I have found that the King uses roughly 10% of his ships to land troops in his initial landing, and continues with that total as an average number for most of the war. So for example if the REF includes 50 warships I would expect to see around 20 troops landed each turn. That would make the war a cakewalk and is your most favourable outcome. However the problem occurs when the composition of the REF is skewed towards warships and you are facing 100 or more. This would mean 40 troops landed each turn and that is much more of a challenge. By contrast it can also be a nuisance if there are too few warships. For instance if the King has a large REF but less than 20 warships then he will take an interminable time to land all his troops. In this case you might consider a naval strategy (details later).

Your own Army: Once you have your colonies filled to capacity with specialists there is nothing for your new colonists to do except join the army, but first send them to school to become veterans. I favour an all-dragoon attack force with just a handful of soldiers in the ports for defence. Garrison your dragoons on an inland tile between your two ports. If you have more than two ports then find a spot from which your dragoons can reach all ports in one turn (with Coronado in Congress and roads everywhere they will be able to move 6 tiles). The soldiers in your ports are there in case of an amphibious attack, and they should be in place well before the war starts. They gain a maximum 25% 'fortify'; defence at 5% per turn, so they need 5 turns to reach the maximum. As a rough guide I'd suggest 6 soldiers per port, supported by cannons. If you turn 6 dragoons into soldiers you end up with 300 spare horses and you will need to keep them handy because if you urgently need attack units you can turn these soldiers back into dragoons first. Then just before the REF lands, turn your fishermen into soldiers to provide additional defence in your ports. They can't fish when the coastal waters are full of warships anyway.

So how many dragoons do you need? This is obviously a crucial question. My own guideline is that I want to be able to mobilise three times as many dragoons as the number of units I expect the King to land on that crucial first turn. 'Mobilize' doesn't mean they are all standing round waiting for the battle to start, many will be just farmers working their fields but with a gun on the mantelpiece and a horse in the barn (if you get what I mean), and it includes the free indentured servants that will come with independence. Using the previous example, if the King owns 50 warships and I expect him to land 20 troops I want to be able to find 60 dragoons if I really need them. That's not just for the initial assault but it is to cover for losses and a lot of wounded men over the next few turns. Meanwhile your colonies need to continue working as normal to produce more new colonists and goods so you can keep adding dragoons to your army, because you'll need them later.

Promotions: You will have received a number of free promotions from your Founding Fathers, ie Vet I for dragoons and up to five promotions for your soldiers including Vet I, Formation and Minuteman I. Combat will increase experience, as will your Great Generals. I suggest you first concentrate on getting two vet dragoons to Surgeon III level and then keep them safe by only attacking weak targets such as artillery with them. Hopefully you may have been able to get at least one promoted to that level from experience earned in your earlier battles against the Indians and the other Europeans. They will be your main healers, base them in a colony and have all wounded men go there for a spot of R&R. Having two surgeons means you can use two colonies as healing bases. For further promotions I suggest Minuteman II for soldiers and the appropriate terrain skills (eg Swamp Fox if the colony is on a swamp etc) and the increasing Veteran levels for dragoons. An alternative path for dragoons is the Skirmisher promotions to increase withdrawal chances. Formation is also an option although the drawback with that promotion is that opposing dragoons may simply duck the battle and put up a soldier instead.

Declaring Independence: There is no correct date to declare independence; you need to balance the forces you have available against the size of the REF. Once you do make the declaration you will have 100 turns available to win the game so there is no time pressure. I usually declare around turn 220 to 240. The King will be increasing both the size of the REF and also the tax rate. These will be immediately fixed in place the moment you declare. But you are also increasing your rebel sentiment rapidly and this will have a marked effect on your first battles. Against the REF (and only against them) you get an additional combat bonus calculated as GRS - 50%. So if you declare at exactly 50% you get a combat bonus of exactly zero. If however you can hold on until your GRS reaches 70% you get an initial combat bonus of 20%, equivalent to two veteran promotions. So it's up to you as to how long you can keep your nerve before declaring. The turn before you declare blow all your cash on guns and horses, load up your ships and send them home.

Constitution: These are the freedoms I usually choose:

All Men are Free: two free indentured servants in every colony. Make sure you have at least 100 guns/100 horses available so they can immediately be turned into dragoons.

Monarchy: so you can continue to trade with Europe.

Native Rights: Strengthens relations with the natives. This will end any current Indian wars so you can concentrate solely on the REF, and if you have a defensive pact with any tribe they will immediately declare war on your King.

Separation of Church and State: Converts crosses into bells, so all your preachers will be contributing to your rebel sentiment too.

Controlled Arms: + 50% bells in all settlements. This is a huge increase in your liberty bell production and will increase your combat advantage considerably.

The Royal Expeditionary Force lands: All the planning has been done, now the fighting starts. Count up your enemy first, just so you remember it. This is how many you can expect to land each turn, for the first few turns anyway. Then attack with your dragoons. Your intention is to kill every landed unit, and get your own men back to safety. Assuming you have Coronado in congress each dragoon can move 6 tiles on roads. When fighting against an enemy stack on a road the dragoon remain where he is after a successful attack but will lose one of those moves. This should leave him with enough movement to get back to a healing colony (ie one with a Surgeon III dragoon based there). However if the enemy is not on a road, either because they razed it or because you just forgot to build it, your dragoon will lose a number of moves based on the terrain. For example he will lose 4 moves when attacking a stack on a forest or hill (unless he has the Explorer I promotion), and probably be unable to get to a colony for healing that turn. That is why roads are crucial, and why you want to wipe out the entire landing force so they can't cut your roads next turn. A badly wounded dragoon who would take 6 turns to heal in the field will completely heal in 2 turns in a colony with a Surgeon III in attendance (by the way; although the wounded man has to be in the colony for maximum healing, his doctor doesn't, he can be one tile away. This may seem trivial but if you are using a port colony for healing you don't want your top surgeon trying to defend against an amphibious attack by artillery. He can heal just as well from a safer inland position).

The Amphibious Assault: I haven't been able to work out what triggers this. It may just be random. For the most part the REF lands alongside your colonies, intending to attack them on the following turn; only they never get that chance. But in some games one of their landing sites is a port. This means they attack directly from the sea with their massive settlement attack bonus (for artillery it is 150%), although that is lessened by an amphibious penalty of 50%. You can usually survive the first attack OK because they make that attack before bombarding your colony (stupid AI). If you have a Fort, or better still a Fortress, the extra defence helps to negate the REF's attack bonuses. However those annoying warships keep banging away at your defences until eventually they are down to zero and your units are exposed. There are two ways to deal with this. The most honourable tactic is to keep adding soldiers to the port and bringing in any spare cannon available in order to protect your citizens. It will after all only be a proportion of troops that hit the city directly, the rest will continue to land in your fields to be slaughtered by your vengeful dragoons. As your rebel sentiment rises and your units get promoted (and the REF diminishes) you may be able to hang on to the colony until your final victory.

However if it becomes apparent that the city cannot hold it is best to cut your losses early and save as many troops as possible. Move everything out; take your goods away by wagon, move your troops inland and sail your merchantmen to Europe. Any slower ships may be a problem though; hopefully you can try and get them to another port. Then let the REF take the city and attack it in force next turn before withdrawing again. I don't recommend this as a strategy but simply an unfortunate necessity brought on by circumstances. Among other drawbacks the loss of liberty bell production affects your rebel sentiment and may lower your combat bonus.

A Super-Size Landing: With the huge liberty bell bonuses from your constitution your rebel sentiment will soon hit 100% and that means a combat bonus of 50%. Coupled with promotions for your dragoons, both from their own experience and from GG's, they are now nearly invincible. And there is nothing the King can do about it, can he? Well yes, actually, he can. After a number of landing, usually somewhere between 8 and 12 he may suddenly increases his landing force, using 25% (approx) of his ships to land troops instead of 10%. That means where you have been successfully defending against 20 troops you now have 50 landed on your doorstep. Remember those guns and horses you had saved for a rainy day? Well this is it. Convert any available colonist into dragoons, but use your best fighters first to knock the top off each stack, ie take out the enemy dragoons. When you run out of fit dragoons start using your wounded men if necessary. You must kill every one of the landed forces. Fortunately this super landing is just for one turn and then the King reverts back to his normal landing size.

Beating the Blockade: Even with a tax rate of 60 to 70% you can still make plenty of money trading with Europe after Independence, and the extra horses and guns that money will buy may make a crucial difference. The waters between your ports and the sea-lanes will be filled with enemy ships, but they seldom blockade effectively and there is usually a gap your ships can slip through. If not wait a turn to see if the situation improves. Having two ports available increases the chances too. Only use ships with 6 movement points, any less and they cannot reach and enter the sea-lane on the same turn. That means only promoted merchantmen and privateers need apply. For the return journey, if your way is completely blocked simply return to Europe and try again later. However if you have desperately needed war materials aboard that you must get to port immediately then use your warships to blast a passage. You can probably only do this once or twice so save it for an emergency.

There is another possible way to trade with Europe. The King's Man-o-War's cannot enter Indian villages so you might decide to base your cargo ships in a convenient coastal village. Your wagons can still load goods into those ships and they may be outside the patrol range of the REF's warships.

Fighting a Naval Strategy: If the number of ships in the REF is unusually low you may decide to fight at sea. Initially though it is business as usual. The REF lands, you wipe them out. In this case there will be fewer troops landed each turn and there may be some turns with no one to fight at all. Meanwhile your rebel sentiment is rising and you will get one or more GG's from your dragoons. Normally they would be used to increase the experience of your men, but now you want to use them on your SoL's. Crucially you have to empty the port of everything else. Soldiers, dragoons, trading ships, everything (OK, - not wagons) otherwise they will share in the experience. Once you have 100% rebel sentiment and some experienced ships of the line you can try your luck. Make sure you are targeting a single man-o-war and start with a privateer or frigate to knock his health down a bit, and then finish him off with a ship of the line. Always keep a SoL in reserve so if you do lose one you can finish off the crippled MoW with another. Continue building more SoL's, you have time on your side because the ground troops will not be any threat to you. When you sink the last enemy warship (and you have defeated all landed enemy units) you win the game, regardless of how many more troops are still left in Europe.

What if the REF is really HUGE: Just so you know it can be done I have beaten a 926 strong REF including 115 warships on Revolutionary. Against that force I started with just 110 dragoons available. The first landing comprised 48 units and the largest single landing was well over 100 units. It was a desperate fight and my dragoons never had a chance to fully heal before they were back on the front line again. I lost several colonies (some of them more than once) and because of that I never did hit 100% rebel sentiment. But by micromanaging the other colonies for food, guns and horses, and goods to sell in Europe I eventually won the game. This was in a pre-patch game and the REF buildup is no longer as extreme so you are unlikely to ever see such a large opposing force, but just don't be put off by big numbers on the Revolution Advisorary screen.

Dalgo, that is a great exposition of your strategy. Bravo!

You might want to try it on the larger maps of AoD II including the even larger Faireweather maps.

This strategy article updated for the v1.01f patch.

Great Article.
The *only* thing I would add to this is to have at least 2, better still 3 ports all producing Ships Of The Line. As these come off the shipyards, blockade your own colonies with a warship on every ocean square in a line (not literally every square of ocean) halfway between your coast & the european shipping lanes. This will give you a serious line of defence.
As a second line, have the space between your ship line & the coast also patrolled with Ships of the Line & even frigates can help here, although frigates tend to get creamed by the REF Men O War, they will damage them sufficiently for the bigger warships to sink.
Target #1 needs to be the transport ships. Sink as many as you can - a fight avoided is a much easier win than a full scale invasion, and what better way to avoid the fight than by sinking the King's fleet - if he has no ships, then he cannot land the REF and will sue for peace.

To produce the warships, you'll need at least 3 Arsenals staffed with 3 gunsmiths, and these should be supplied by at least 2 colonies producing Ore, ore & more ore.
The ore/weapon producing colonies will need to be fed by Wagon Trains of food - and morre wagon trains moving the completed guns & tools around that are vital for these ships.

This works. I have managed this several times, and it is my preferred strategy.

Heaps and heaps of gold - as I said at the start. In my current game I was in the fortunate position of having the native villages virtually to myself as the other Europeans either neglected to send out scouts or settled too close to me (in which case I attacked them early). I had my first three scouts in the field by turn 11 and the last of the treasure wagons were still trickling in 150 turns later.

Of the 90 villages on the map I visited 86 of them first to receive the Chief's bonus. The breakdown was: 42 gold (total 9890), 21 treasure (total 25,537), 13 maps and 10 experience for a total of 35,427 gold.

I didn't keep track of the gold I found in burial grounds and ancient ruins but that was probably as much again.