Post your tips and tricks here

[Andrew Livings]

If there was ever an online colonization community who discussed this game like we do about civ2, then I definately missed it.

But I want to start over.

Here's a little tip from my last game:

<u>Maximizing gold in selling to the mother country.</u>

This needs the customs house so you can sell off a couple of thousand tons of a commodity.

If you can produce this much of anything you'll probably hate the way the price starts to drop and never really recovers once you start to sell. You get this especially with silver, for which this tip was developed. Simply store up as much of the stuff as you can, and when you have enough, transport all of it to your main colony with the customs house. Unload everything and tell the customs house to sell it. Next turn you'll sell all the silver at 19 gold - the maximum you can get.

The only caution is that the game can't handle huge oodles of cash. I initially sold so much it went past the maximum and into negative figures, wiping out my treasury instead. I think the cut-off point is about 25000.

So my advice is to slowly build up a reserve of each commodity you'll want to sell. Use warehouses, extra ships and extra wagons for extra storage. I didn't store more than 200 tons of anything in any one colony, so that was a full wagon load to take.

Silver will thereafer drop like a stone to 1 gold and never recover, so if you have more, see this quickly on subsequent turns while you can still get some cash. Cigars, Rum, and Cloth will slowly recover their price, though probably not very far.

------------------
Ideological conviction quickly degenerates into insistence based on ignorance.

unlike civ, the navy plays an important role, as it does in real life. build one! privateers are the most economical. a privateer has a more than 50% chance to take out a frigate if it is the protaganist, and they have lots o movement, and can prey upon friendly ships. of course one needs a core of a few frigates, but privateers should be the mainstay of your navy. one can have 5 privateers for every two frigates. which combo would you rather have?

[Martin Schmidt]

Good idea to sell all you have on one turn but that seems to be not working for silver in most cases since the price drops so quickly if only one enemy nation sells some in europe .

[dledgard]

There are some other Colonization groups you could try:

news:alt.games.microprose.colonization (not much used group)

news:alt.games.civ2 (Colonization often discused here)

Here you can view and participate in debates with other Colonization fans. If you don't have a news server on your Email you can view newsgroups at dejanews on-line.


Colonization Mailing List
Thomas Bako has started a Colonization mailing list on listbot.
Send submissions to colonize@listbot.com
Subscribe with a simple blank message to colonize-subscribe@listbot.com
Edited highlights

[dledgard]

Note it is not wise to have more than 4 privateers at any one time as more than that and they tend to drop like flys. I think there's something in the game code that drastically reduces their chances of victory even with Drake beyond this number so as not to make the game to easy.

[Andrew Livings]

I instinctively think that loosing a Privateer might be worth it sometimes just to reduce the tax rate by 8%. But then again I've never actually sat down and worked out the maths involved (unlike many other bits).

Incidently, has anyone managed to get a city with a two-square radius? I'm sure the manual suggested it was possible, but I've never seen it.

[Martin Schmidt]

Two square radius is not possible .
I read an article from the designers about it some time ago . They (Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds) abonded this feature about one month before finishing the game , because two square colonies tend to become all purpose colonies , while one square radius garuntees that almost every colonie will have a special purpose like making weapons or ships , make goods for selling in europe , supply others with food , educate citizens .

[CoolUserName]

I think they should've put the option to have 2 squares radius. As in history, some of the English colonies were self-sufficient around the 1750s, therefore could produce almost everything themselves.

[Alan_Nicoll]

It's been a while since I played Colonization, largely because of this strategy,which makes it too easy to beat the British.

Build only one port, make all other cities inland. Defend port to the max. The British will attack there and beat themselves to death. Piece of cake. Too bad. Play Civ 2.

[gaborka]

My guideline:
1. Build printing presses and other liberty stuffs very aggressively,employ statemens from the very beginning. this is the key to vitory
2. Build temples and employ priests-> Immigration
3. Raid on other colonizations and steal their citizens
4. Only the dead indian are good indian.
5. Independence war:
just a matter of horse supply. Make tons of horse inventories in ships and wagoons. Then arm all your cities with 2 guns. Leave one city without military and that city must be beside a hill (+200% ambush). Stand units everywhere else to the coast. So the invasion force will land on the hill, and you shouldn't do anything else just keep attacking them with cavalry. The units that lost their horses must be directed to the closest city and mounted again.

[gaborka]

6. Sell muskettes to europe. This is the only business worth troubling.
7. Train fishermen and farmers and boost popuklation.

Major tip
DO NOT ever start a revelution until you are ABSOLUTLY sure you can win <trust me i know>

I always play in America. South America specifically, near the very tip of the continent. Then you can trade with the Incas and get some silver from them.
(I know probably a lot of people do this, but I wanted to post it anyway.) Get a regular colonist or an indentured servant and find an Incan city where they can learn to be silver miners. Then, find a large deposit of silver. Start a colony. Mine the silver deposit(s). Sell the silver in Europe. When the silver deposit is exahusted, dispand the colony and find another deposit. You can make a lot of gold that way. Sooner or later though, the silver prices are going to tank, never to recover. Oh, well.

This is just my little plan for financial well-being. It can provide a good start.

[IareBorg]

I love selling guns and horses to the Indians that are near the other colonies. Very fun to watch.

[Achinz]

The quickest way to promote a Petty Criminal to a specialist is to equip him with horses at the European docks (only 100 gold in the early game) and send this scout visiting Indian camps. After a few visits to different camps, one of these will promote him to a Seasoned Scout.

[Achinz]

In the early game, if you are lucky enough to chance on a rival power's undefended colony and you take it with your scout, keep him there for a few turns (even if you abandon the colony itself). There is a high probability that their Caravels will drop off colonists intended for the original colony. It's a source of free colonists (often desirable specialists like Carpenters and Lumberjacks). In one game I captured 3 specialists in this way before they got wise and chose an alternative landing point.

[BiBaBo]

This tricked worked for me when i was playing with the French and it mainly dealt with selling silver to the Dutch, who bought it at 13 gold per ton

1. find a source of silver
2. start mining it as much as you can
3. transport it to Europe and sell it
4. sell it so much that the price drops to 1
5. start buying silver from Europe
6. sell it to your rivals in the New World

The trick had an interesting twist to it....i not only sold the cheap silver to the Dutch, but as i had naval superiority, i attacked their caravels and merchants trying to transport those huge amounts of silver to Europe, and after doing that, i sold the same silver to them again and again

This one is also nice

1. start a war with one of your rival nations
2. build about 10 scouts
3. bring them near to one of your opponents' weaker colonies
4. start meeting with te city's major and demand money from them
5. do that with every scout you have
6. sit back and enjoy

One of the older tricks

when pressing the U-key to unload the goods in Europe, the tax is not added.

A thing to do in the beggining of the game

1. If you happen to have a certain amount of money and some (5-6) colonists in Europe, try equipping them with tools, as the tool prices are really low in the beginning. This enables you to build some enchancements in your town and also increased plowing and clearing of forests. Keep in mind that while you buy in large qualities, the prices rise at the same turn, but when you equip your colonists with either tools or muskets the price remains the same, although it rises steeply during the next turns.

I have played colonization for about 7 years now, not during the last 6 months, but i think that colon is by far better game than civilization, it is a real pity that colonization 2 is not developed.


I also managed to discover one additional unit in the game, which was professional teachers....it happened when i edited one of the ini (?) files which contain game information, but as it was about 5 years ago, i don't really remember any details

[Simon Darkshade]

Use meatgrinder tactics in the revolutionary war, and it becomes quite easy.
Make your ports big and well defended.

Expand all the way, and build as many colonies in good positions as possible. Build them up to be the utmost best.

On the North American map, the bay is a very good place for a colony, with land on three sides and often fish. Also chances of food, fur, ore and cotton in the same area.

In big colonies, bring in 300 tons of a material that is not produced in the colony, and then set three specialists to work converting it. Even with custom houses, it never sells it all. Can get a size 32 colony this way.

Veteran artillery in fortresses, plus Sons of Liberty bonus is the way to win the war, also preposition forces to ambush. Inland big cities can make the liberty bells you need.

[Johan Lackland]

I've got two cheats for you guys:

1. If you click beneath the flags on the screen where you choose your country, you can play as all four countries.

2. Press Alt+W+I+N during a game to reveal the cheat menu. Here you can chance the country you are playing, reveal the map, create new units etc. You can also find out what squares the computer value highest as colony sites.

[gatomarado]

I have one single strategy.
1) Take over the other european colonies. (Without colonies they won't get powerfull so they won't attack you)
2)The Unload in europe as mentioned up (gives you colonies & colonists)
2a)At a certain time all products will be boycoted or you do not have products "to be trown to the water" (Boston tea party). I pay to release one single boycot (ussually horses because i tend to have lot´s of them and selling them in europe will lower their prices so if they're cost is 1, i just have to pay 1000 gold)
3)As soon as you get "all missionaries expert" place a mission in every indian city(they won't attack you and will offer you things).
4)Docks are first, then a school for teaching how to get fish (or lumber mill if already have fish) then some production improvements. When there's no urgent building, build church, printing press and newspaper, fort, fortress, college, university, drydock, shipyard,etc...,and artillery or don't build nothing at all.
5)Try not to lose ships (save the game before attacking).
6)As indians become alarmed when you have lot's of military units, try to have the extra military in an island without indians or way from them.
7)Always have:
- high production cities (lumber and tools) for ships, artillery, weapons and tools to other colonies.

That's all i can remember now.
By the way, as any one of you saw the other nations colonies become independent?

Cheat: If you have won the independence war(score over), and still want to build colonies, attack the others, etc... In the cheat menu try "Show colonie sites" . Sometimes it works (you'l notice because your colonies flag changed). You can also trade in europe again.