Watermelon
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2021
- Messages
- 9
Hi guys, first of all, thank you for this incredible mod. I randomly stumbled across Dylan's videos which inspired me to try this mod and quickly I was blown away by the complexity and staggering amount of choices you have in the mod. Figuring out the best choices for maximum efficiency really tickles my senses - and oh boy this mod does have some difficult to analyse choices. Unfortunately they are really not a lot of guides, which I usually rely on, but I'm happy to share my own thoughts and feedback on the mod and balancing while playing on Normal Speed, Revolutionary and usually "massive" Maps (which I find offer a good combination of offering the feeling of a (mostly) empty new world, while still having competition between colonies over particular lush areas and also performance/speed of moving units).
For reference, I only beat the game once on the settings as the Spanish against my King at about 1700, my first WOI I actually did start and where I also realized that my regular units are just trash against the royal units, but 100+ line infantry will get the job done eventually.
Many other games were abandoned after the micromanaging got too annoying. So after playing a great number of games I feel my balancing thoughts to be solid enough to be shared, although keep in mind it's very min maxing, but not so much I micro all my spare ships to sell guns after the mid game:
1. The biggest balancing offender IMO is buying Whale Fat in Europe for the Rendering Plants instead of only relying on your own supply. It's rather easy to setup, it makes obscene amounts of money for the work, and it's scaleable. Buy Whale Fat for 4 or 5, ship it to your Train Oil Maker (who are really not that expensive), and he'll make close to 20 Train Oil for 12 Whale Fat in your main cities, which are worth about 20 in Europe (Tax is still pretty low, or sell it at home). So he does about 400 - 60 = 360 in profit per turn, close to a gold mine, with only a bit of shipping involved. So in the mid game, just build a rather cheap rendering plant, and add close to 3 gold mines to all your coastal cities. Whaling Boats cost a ton, are slow, need whales, are privateer fodder and a hassle to build with their requirements. Rushing them to have home built Train Oil is still pretty strong but nowhere as overpowered. Also opens strategies of whaling outposts on small islands to have short trips for the boats, so you can ship the Fat yourself in bulk. I suggest raising the buy-price for whale fat to about 15, to make buying the fat similar to other refining professions. Keep the sell price or raise it just a bit.
2. Missionaries in villages are IMO just a bit too slow for anybody but a maxed out French player with lower costs and the right founding fathers. They are more expensive the Native traders (vastly more in the early game) and they convert about every 15-20 rounds (?) on no bonuses. A native traders gets you 1k treasure every 12-15 turns, which is way stronger. Put differently: 600 + Colonist for a - maybe - every 15 - 20 turns for a new colonist (though converted natives are good) is just not worth it in the early or even mid game. Mind you, you also need a colonist for it, so it needs 15-20 just to break even. Way too high opportunity cost. Missionaries in monasteries are better, as monstaries also give +Crosses in the cities.
3. Higher level religious buildings suck (mostly). Religion is not weak. But the religious buildings cant really keep in any way up with the emigration counter. The max level cathedral needs 3 cathedrals which need each 2 abbeys. Abbeys+ are expensive buildings, priests in larger number than provided by villages or quest are also expensive people (even when schooling them). When I built abbeys in my 3+ cities my counter was already at 250 without hurrying anyone at the dock and playing the English (so religion and the buildings were a priority), so a expert preacher in the abbey pulls around 15 crosses a turn and requires about 17 turns to make a random person (could also be a indentured servant or olive picker) move to my colony. Assuming a 1k worth of colonist on average he is making 60 gold a turn, which is okay but not really for a colonist of the most expensive category and a potentially not fully filled abbey. Contrast a random refiner: Cigar maker, buy tobacco for about 3 or 4 in Africa or Europe, max level Factory (which is on par to abbey) he does 20 cigars on 12 tobacco. 20 * 8 (tax at this point still low or countered by domestic market somewhat higher price) - 12 *4 = 112 gold a turn. So a random refiner (whatever you have considering you can buy the input at this stage), makes you double the money than the preacher, who is way harder to get. My Point: by the time you have more than 1 abbey/cathedral it's hardly worth it anymore to use expert preachers instead of shoving them into a school or go plant tobacco to reduce micromanagement, the highest level building is never worth it considering the opportunity cost, and the quest for 5 abbeys very very seldom worth it. Your counter is not that high when building the higher level religous buildings? Well, opportunity cost in missed early game boost and empty chapels and churches I guess.
4. Latest game was a non-slavery-run as the English and I think I found one of the stronger strategies (well add the slavery), pulling in about 10k+ a turn in domestic market profits alone at 1610. (Obviously the exploration with multiple scouts and selling the natives literal boatloads of guns and only guns - and keep doing it - apply to any strategy) As the English rush immigration (well duh) but keep all the experts you get - sure we all keep the fur traders or cigar makers, because the inputs are basically everywhere - but I'm asking you to keep the random leather worker, who needs goat skins or chicken feathers, basically stuff nobody has, because I need clay or iron, which requires the same hill-tile a goat herder needs. When you start to have spare ships, when the natives have no more money to buy more guns (for now), send this guy (and maybe his friend if you have them) into your second or third city and build him a nice 2nd level Leather Workshop and just ship in the skins and inputs from Africa.
The 2nd level Leather Workshop is not too expensive and your leather worker can now work making two 3 or 4 gold priced inputs in something like a 14-15 gold priced output, about 12*8 = 96 gold a turn. Some random expert cotton famer might only get you 10-11 cotton a turn, each maybe 4 mostly 3 gold at this point for a paltry 30 to 40 gold a turn and considering you need an expensive pioneer to build a plantation for him. Dial this up to 11 when you consider the leather worker has a higher domestic demand, that Leather boots make the population happy, a happy population has a quite substantial chance to increase market prices for a time, that makes boots sold there about double as expensive as in Europe, which is more than double the profit as the input costs stay the same.
Household goods trader excel at this, cause you need the market for happiness and domestic demand anyway, and his goods are always some of the most demanded and he needs two inputs which makes domestic market events very powerful for him. Considering you have a medium sized colony with some markets, buy exotic wood and goat skins for 3, domestic market prices for the household goods (or was it field tools?) maybe around 22, employ him in your capital market, he makes a cool 20 * 16 - 12 * 3 * 2 = 248 a turn, basically an employable silver mine.
5. Buying goods for your own domestic market in Europe seems also pretty good, if you cant produce it easily. Coffee and Salt though hav an absurd demand (compared to other goods, basically triple any other good, I'd advise to balance it more). I was regulary shipping galleons full of coffee and salt to my capital during increased demand, as it was gobbeling up 35 coffee a turn alone, each with a 10 gold difference between buying and selling it there. Coffee costs 9 to buy, sells for 18-19 during increased demand, depending on how micromanagy you are, a good sized city (50) has the potential to yield 1000-3000 gold a turn if you have the capital and ships for the goods. Prices also dont seem to increase regarding buying goods. Despite me only buying and buying roasted coffee, its price only ever went down.
6. Never built a larger ship, like a Merchantman, never used an expert from port royal ever. Maybe because...
7. Slavery. It'sgood profitable and helpful. Max price slave costs 300 gold. And on regular tiles he is just one yield worse than an expert farmer at farming food, sorry one yield worse than a lumber jack, oh no, meant basically a slightly worse miner... Sorry did I say worse? For just 1,5k or luck by tribal hut, you get an overseer who just multiplies all the output to be 40% higher, completely blowing so called "experts" out of the water, producing way way much more for a way way smaller price and being completely flexible. Need more food? Just slap some slave on water to fish, he is better than a professional fisherman. Completely undeveloped backwater overfilled with people and starving? More slaves. Need ungodly amounts of wood or ore? Slaves. Slave on a lumbercamp with overseer might produce about 15-16 wood a turn. Wood sells for maybe 4 gold in Africa, so easy 60 gold a turn (remember our preacher?). 5 turns working a slave gets you a new slave. Rinse and repeat.
Eventually you have so many slaves, they just over time amass into a large amount of freed slaves, which can be easily be trained in school or employed on the battlefield. Sure they might be a bit more unhappiness causing but not much and they sometimes just disappear. Just get a dragoon (please dont try single move units, you will get crazy) to mostly get them back. If you have a native village nearby training farmers and/or fishermen, yeah slaves will be nice but not essential, if you don't you will constantly run into food problems, and every colonist producing food is not one forging tools, mining ore, gathering lumber or building buildings, and buying farmers or fishermen gets expensive quickly and training them is time consuming and costly in the regard you need carpenters or refiniers, which cost even more than the farmers. Only disadvantage? They don't demand as much on the domestic market and generating gold instead of goods you need for new experts, soldiers, goods, hurrying etc. is difficult if your raw ressources only sell for 3 minus tax, when you have too many slaves.
I'd suggest raising the price of slaves a bit.
8. Forts and defenses suck in the WOI (atleast in my game), because you cant stack enough troops in them. Max level fortifications incl. Fort next to capital, filled to the brim with line infantry and some light artillery. The 30 Artillery pieces landing next to me blow all the defensives in a single round, royal infantry walks in like nothing due to me not risking leveled veterans a in a siege, taking nearly zero casulties, because the withdrawal chance for even fights is pretty high. Next fresh infantry then mops up my wounded infantry. Had I been able to station more men in the city I could atleast not be mopped up so easily. Forts are even less usefull in that regard: defense is easily bombed, 4 units max, gets reked by any royal troop consisting of more than 5 units and artillery, which was basically every troop movement of the king. Solution: Park an army quintuple the size of what fits into the largest garrion and fortification of the new world (according to the description), man made under incredible costs and planning in some random forest and enjoy an actual defensive advantage. I really tried to use defensive bombardments, forts placed at key junctions and built in cities, but they were close to completely useless (except against those quick royal dragoons). Maybe Forts are suited for smaller maps, lower difficulties and you should never fight the REF in settlements, but it felt stupid no matter how physically possible fortified a city was, with more men than the king, I couldnt defend a city against an incoming stack, unless I attacked them on the way, for which then I dont need the fortifications for.
9. Expansive and the founding father reducing costs of Units in Europe combined is rather ridiculous. Both give you about half priced units/ships, which is your biggest expenditure. Compared to other traits and founding fathers in the similar timeframe it's a real no brainer.
10. Tax doesnt really matter. By the time you have higher tax you can just get a couple of slave barges to sell things to Port Royal, or you sell everything on the domestic market and only buy things in Europe. You therefore still have easy access to money, and can buy things in Europe instead of producing it by yourself, which is less efficient (e.g. ships or even military)
Some food for thought and I'm keen to hear your favourite strategies and balancing thoughts
For reference, I only beat the game once on the settings as the Spanish against my King at about 1700, my first WOI I actually did start and where I also realized that my regular units are just trash against the royal units, but 100+ line infantry will get the job done eventually.
Many other games were abandoned after the micromanaging got too annoying. So after playing a great number of games I feel my balancing thoughts to be solid enough to be shared, although keep in mind it's very min maxing, but not so much I micro all my spare ships to sell guns after the mid game:1. The biggest balancing offender IMO is buying Whale Fat in Europe for the Rendering Plants instead of only relying on your own supply. It's rather easy to setup, it makes obscene amounts of money for the work, and it's scaleable. Buy Whale Fat for 4 or 5, ship it to your Train Oil Maker (who are really not that expensive), and he'll make close to 20 Train Oil for 12 Whale Fat in your main cities, which are worth about 20 in Europe (Tax is still pretty low, or sell it at home). So he does about 400 - 60 = 360 in profit per turn, close to a gold mine, with only a bit of shipping involved. So in the mid game, just build a rather cheap rendering plant, and add close to 3 gold mines to all your coastal cities. Whaling Boats cost a ton, are slow, need whales, are privateer fodder and a hassle to build with their requirements. Rushing them to have home built Train Oil is still pretty strong but nowhere as overpowered. Also opens strategies of whaling outposts on small islands to have short trips for the boats, so you can ship the Fat yourself in bulk. I suggest raising the buy-price for whale fat to about 15, to make buying the fat similar to other refining professions. Keep the sell price or raise it just a bit.
2. Missionaries in villages are IMO just a bit too slow for anybody but a maxed out French player with lower costs and the right founding fathers. They are more expensive the Native traders (vastly more in the early game) and they convert about every 15-20 rounds (?) on no bonuses. A native traders gets you 1k treasure every 12-15 turns, which is way stronger. Put differently: 600 + Colonist for a - maybe - every 15 - 20 turns for a new colonist (though converted natives are good) is just not worth it in the early or even mid game. Mind you, you also need a colonist for it, so it needs 15-20 just to break even. Way too high opportunity cost. Missionaries in monasteries are better, as monstaries also give +Crosses in the cities.
3. Higher level religious buildings suck (mostly). Religion is not weak. But the religious buildings cant really keep in any way up with the emigration counter. The max level cathedral needs 3 cathedrals which need each 2 abbeys. Abbeys+ are expensive buildings, priests in larger number than provided by villages or quest are also expensive people (even when schooling them). When I built abbeys in my 3+ cities my counter was already at 250 without hurrying anyone at the dock and playing the English (so religion and the buildings were a priority), so a expert preacher in the abbey pulls around 15 crosses a turn and requires about 17 turns to make a random person (could also be a indentured servant or olive picker) move to my colony. Assuming a 1k worth of colonist on average he is making 60 gold a turn, which is okay but not really for a colonist of the most expensive category and a potentially not fully filled abbey. Contrast a random refiner: Cigar maker, buy tobacco for about 3 or 4 in Africa or Europe, max level Factory (which is on par to abbey) he does 20 cigars on 12 tobacco. 20 * 8 (tax at this point still low or countered by domestic market somewhat higher price) - 12 *4 = 112 gold a turn. So a random refiner (whatever you have considering you can buy the input at this stage), makes you double the money than the preacher, who is way harder to get. My Point: by the time you have more than 1 abbey/cathedral it's hardly worth it anymore to use expert preachers instead of shoving them into a school or go plant tobacco to reduce micromanagement, the highest level building is never worth it considering the opportunity cost, and the quest for 5 abbeys very very seldom worth it. Your counter is not that high when building the higher level religous buildings? Well, opportunity cost in missed early game boost and empty chapels and churches I guess.
4. Latest game was a non-slavery-run as the English and I think I found one of the stronger strategies (well add the slavery), pulling in about 10k+ a turn in domestic market profits alone at 1610. (Obviously the exploration with multiple scouts and selling the natives literal boatloads of guns and only guns - and keep doing it - apply to any strategy) As the English rush immigration (well duh) but keep all the experts you get - sure we all keep the fur traders or cigar makers, because the inputs are basically everywhere - but I'm asking you to keep the random leather worker, who needs goat skins or chicken feathers, basically stuff nobody has, because I need clay or iron, which requires the same hill-tile a goat herder needs. When you start to have spare ships, when the natives have no more money to buy more guns (for now), send this guy (and maybe his friend if you have them) into your second or third city and build him a nice 2nd level Leather Workshop and just ship in the skins and inputs from Africa.
The 2nd level Leather Workshop is not too expensive and your leather worker can now work making two 3 or 4 gold priced inputs in something like a 14-15 gold priced output, about 12*8 = 96 gold a turn. Some random expert cotton famer might only get you 10-11 cotton a turn, each maybe 4 mostly 3 gold at this point for a paltry 30 to 40 gold a turn and considering you need an expensive pioneer to build a plantation for him. Dial this up to 11 when you consider the leather worker has a higher domestic demand, that Leather boots make the population happy, a happy population has a quite substantial chance to increase market prices for a time, that makes boots sold there about double as expensive as in Europe, which is more than double the profit as the input costs stay the same.
Household goods trader excel at this, cause you need the market for happiness and domestic demand anyway, and his goods are always some of the most demanded and he needs two inputs which makes domestic market events very powerful for him. Considering you have a medium sized colony with some markets, buy exotic wood and goat skins for 3, domestic market prices for the household goods (or was it field tools?) maybe around 22, employ him in your capital market, he makes a cool 20 * 16 - 12 * 3 * 2 = 248 a turn, basically an employable silver mine.
5. Buying goods for your own domestic market in Europe seems also pretty good, if you cant produce it easily. Coffee and Salt though hav an absurd demand (compared to other goods, basically triple any other good, I'd advise to balance it more). I was regulary shipping galleons full of coffee and salt to my capital during increased demand, as it was gobbeling up 35 coffee a turn alone, each with a 10 gold difference between buying and selling it there. Coffee costs 9 to buy, sells for 18-19 during increased demand, depending on how micromanagy you are, a good sized city (50) has the potential to yield 1000-3000 gold a turn if you have the capital and ships for the goods. Prices also dont seem to increase regarding buying goods. Despite me only buying and buying roasted coffee, its price only ever went down.
6. Never built a larger ship, like a Merchantman, never used an expert from port royal ever. Maybe because...
7. Slavery. It's
Eventually you have so many slaves, they just over time amass into a large amount of freed slaves, which can be easily be trained in school or employed on the battlefield. Sure they might be a bit more unhappiness causing but not much and they sometimes just disappear. Just get a dragoon (please dont try single move units, you will get crazy) to mostly get them back. If you have a native village nearby training farmers and/or fishermen, yeah slaves will be nice but not essential, if you don't you will constantly run into food problems, and every colonist producing food is not one forging tools, mining ore, gathering lumber or building buildings, and buying farmers or fishermen gets expensive quickly and training them is time consuming and costly in the regard you need carpenters or refiniers, which cost even more than the farmers. Only disadvantage? They don't demand as much on the domestic market and generating gold instead of goods you need for new experts, soldiers, goods, hurrying etc. is difficult if your raw ressources only sell for 3 minus tax, when you have too many slaves.
I'd suggest raising the price of slaves a bit.
8. Forts and defenses suck in the WOI (atleast in my game), because you cant stack enough troops in them. Max level fortifications incl. Fort next to capital, filled to the brim with line infantry and some light artillery. The 30 Artillery pieces landing next to me blow all the defensives in a single round, royal infantry walks in like nothing due to me not risking leveled veterans a in a siege, taking nearly zero casulties, because the withdrawal chance for even fights is pretty high. Next fresh infantry then mops up my wounded infantry. Had I been able to station more men in the city I could atleast not be mopped up so easily. Forts are even less usefull in that regard: defense is easily bombed, 4 units max, gets reked by any royal troop consisting of more than 5 units and artillery, which was basically every troop movement of the king. Solution: Park an army quintuple the size of what fits into the largest garrion and fortification of the new world (according to the description), man made under incredible costs and planning in some random forest and enjoy an actual defensive advantage. I really tried to use defensive bombardments, forts placed at key junctions and built in cities, but they were close to completely useless (except against those quick royal dragoons). Maybe Forts are suited for smaller maps, lower difficulties and you should never fight the REF in settlements, but it felt stupid no matter how physically possible fortified a city was, with more men than the king, I couldnt defend a city against an incoming stack, unless I attacked them on the way, for which then I dont need the fortifications for.
9. Expansive and the founding father reducing costs of Units in Europe combined is rather ridiculous. Both give you about half priced units/ships, which is your biggest expenditure. Compared to other traits and founding fathers in the similar timeframe it's a real no brainer.
10. Tax doesnt really matter. By the time you have higher tax you can just get a couple of slave barges to sell things to Port Royal, or you sell everything on the domestic market and only buy things in Europe. You therefore still have easy access to money, and can buy things in Europe instead of producing it by yourself, which is less efficient (e.g. ships or even military)
Some food for thought and I'm keen to hear your favourite strategies and balancing thoughts
