Huge Invasion Force... Is that normal?

[JBryan314]

So, I was playing Colonization for a while and having a really hard time getting my people to the point of revolution. It took a really long time. Long enough for the English to amass a giant force to invade. I'm talking 40+ Man-o-Wars, and that was the smallest part of their force. I had several cities and defensive pacts with all of the local tribes. Needless to say, we got rolled up. Badly. I scored some early victories by aggressively attacking their initial landing forces (dragoons, mostly), but they had about 20 times more of them to follow. All of the Indians got destroyed and my cities, were wiped out. Is it normal to have such a huge invading force against you? Granted, it took FOREVER to trigger revolution. How can I get to the point of revolution faster so the landing force is more manageable?

As for the Naval side... I don't see how I can win that battle. It took me 2 privateers, 2 frigates and my ship of line to sink just one Man-o-War. I attack with the privateers and frigates and they all died, but the English ship was weakened, so the ship of the line sunk it. But there were 40+ more to follow.

 

[dalgo]

First question - do you have the patch installed? One of the problems with the original release was that the REF increased to an unrealistic level late in the game. The patch toned this down somewhat.

That said, I am used to defending against a REF led by 40 - 60 warships and have no trouble winning the game. In fact the number of warships is irrelevant because after you beat all the King's land forces you win the game regardless of the number of ships he has left. However I do play a long game on a very large map at Revolutionary level so I expect to see that size force arrayed against me. At lower difficulty levels you shouldn't face the same problems.

Your production of liberty bells has a major influence on the size of the REF. The more you produce the more the King feels threatened so he increases his troops. If you limit the number of bells in the early game the REF won't grow as fast, then you can increase your production rapidly late in the game and declare independence before he can catch up.

 

[Antilogic]

My recommendation is to hide all your ships in a neutral port, preferably on the Pacific, for the entire war. They will be mostly useless to you. The King will control the waters, and without a foreign intervention mechanic there is no way for the player to achieve naval dominance with practicable means.

If you are in a patched game, I think you are able to produce liberty bells throughout and still hold off the King. It's especially important to pick up the later military leaders, as they give bonus promotions that are very useful.

However, you need to be planning far in advance, literally from your first colony, how to fight the revolution. You need a significant food and ore-processing base to get the troops required, and you need to keep some coastal forests or build near hills in order to give your troops a combat bonus. Defending cities is usually a losing endeavor, the King's troops are far superior to your own in that regard. Take them back after the bulk of his forces have been wiped out in the rough terrain.

 

[dalgo]

Defending cities is usually a losing endeavor, the King's troops are far superior to your own in that regard. Take them back after the bulk of his forces have been wiped out in the rough terrain.

I find my best tactic is to wipe out the King's troops as soon as they land so they cannot attack my colonies. It is very rare for the REF to make an amphibious attack directly on a colony. They usually land their troops first and make easy targets for my dragoons.

 

[JBryan314]

I don't have the patch installed. What patch is it? Or where is it, I should ask?

 

[dalgo]

There is only the one patch and you'll find it here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11915

 

[Antilogic]

I find my best tactic is to wipe out the King's troops as soon as they land so they cannot attack my colonies. It is very rare for the REF to make an amphibious attack directly on a colony. They usually land their troops first and make easy targets for my dragoons.

They only make amphibious attacks if they can't make a landing near a coastal colony due to your troops being in the way or in the rare case where your colony is on a peninsula and they are coming from the opposite direction like this:

XXO
XCO
OOO

...where X is land, C is the colony, and O is the sea. The King would be approaching from the SE corner. Any X could also be an O but the NW corner and it would probably work the same.

Even with the direct ambush tactics like this, I've had a few situations where they survived my initial onslaught, took the city, and then dropped off more reinforcements. I generally only lose a coastal city or two, and win the war once they start moving inland.

 

[JBryan314]

Well, just finished a game... The invasion force was way smaller. 22 regulars against my 21 soldiers (5 vets and 16 militia). 20 dragoons to my 8 (not good). 8 artillery to my 1 cannon. They had a few warships, but I ignored those like you guys said, since they don't have to be beaten to win.

So that problem is solved. No more fighting a force of a million men. Still have an issue though... I could barely win a battle. Even dug in inside my city walls, it didn't seem to help at all. In the end, the English still had 13 dragoons, 13 regulars and 2 artillery (seems I was only effective against artillery, and they actually didn't kill my cannon until they were down to 2 artillery themselves). I had defensive pacts with the natives, but they got shredded like usual. The only reason I got them down to 13 of each was because I had 3 or 4 miracle wins at the end against long odds.

Do I need to have a significantly larger force in numbers to win? I actually think in my game where I fought against insane numbers, I killed more enemies than I did in this one. I wanted to be able to fight in the rough terrain like it was mentioned earlier, but my force didn't *seem* large enough to spread out like that. Was my problem with my numbers?

BTW, I have the patch now, thanks a ton for that.

 

[Antilogic]

Well, just finished a game... The invasion force was way smaller. 22 regulars against my 21 soldiers (5 vets and 16 militia). 20 dragoons to my 8 (not good). 8 artillery to my 1 cannon. They had a few warships, but I ignored those like you guys said, since they don't have to be beaten to win.

So that problem is solved. No more fighting a force of a million men. Still have an issue though... I could barely win a battle. Even dug in inside my city walls, it didn't seem to help at all. In the end, the English still had 13 dragoons, 13 regulars and 2 artillery (seems I was only effective against artillery, and they actually didn't kill my cannon until they were down to 2 artillery themselves). I had defensive pacts with the natives, but they got shredded like usual. The only reason I got them down to 13 of each was because I had 3 or 4 miracle wins at the end against long odds.

Do I need to have a significantly larger force in numbers to win? I actually think in my game where I fought against insane numbers, I killed more enemies than I did in this one. I wanted to be able to fight in the rough terrain like it was mentioned earlier, but my force didn't *seem* large enough to spread out like that. Was my problem with my numbers?

BTW, I have the patch now, thanks a ton for that.

I'm usually outnumbered. Are you fortifying in hilly forests near their forces? You might want to add an extra couple cavalry units with the withdrawal promotion to soften up their troops before the infantry attack. More artillery collateral damage also helps.

For a quick boost in troops at the beginning of the war, I often pick the anti-slavery idea to get an extra couple indentured servants in every colony, and I have tons of guns stockpiled in each colony. The moment the revolution is declared, each colony mobilizes a minimum of 2 additional infantry, usually I have the stockpile and manpower to do at least 2 infantry and 2 cavalry in each settlement.

 

[JBryan314]

So, placing my troops in forests and hills around my city... Should I allow England to attack me? Or do I attack them from those forests and hills?

 

[Windfoot]

Attack them on the beaches!

Go for alot of Dragoons and attack the out of them when they land. Done properly and you will completely wipe out the landing force each time.

The size of the REF is directly related to your liberty production. So, you have two strategies...limit your bell production or produce max bells.

With limiting your bell production you can still get your founding fathers by switching your cities production to political points. Then once you are ready max your bell production to quickly raise your rebel sentiment to 50% as fast as possible. Done wisely the REF will be small.

The other end of the spectrum is to max your bell production and damn the REF size. The REF can only land so many troops at a time. So you only need enough dragoons to weather his landing forces. You can have significantly less dragoons than what the REF has. The key is to have enough dragoons to weather the waves and not have to attack at terrible odds. With most of the founding fathers you should have alot of the military FFs which will make your dragoons strong initially (being spanish helps with this). When your units get promoted they partially heal which helps greatly. The drawback is it can take a long time to kill all the REF so be prepared to start the revolution earlier than with the other strategy.

 

[JBryan314]

Ugh... Just "finished" a game. Couldn't get my people above 36% support for independence, so I just had to quit. I went all the way to the mid 1900's. By that time, the REF was too massive again for me to have any chance. It's like every time I added a military unit, my % would go from 37 down to 36, and eventually it just stayed at 36. I started flying through 20 or 30 turns at a time just to see if it would move and it never did. It seems like most of the time, I can't even get my people to revolt, and IF they do, my military gets blown away in just a few turns. Maybe I should stick to Warlords. I'd love to win a game in Colonization, but after 6 weeks of playing, It's a big accomplishment just to get to the point of revolt, much less win a few battles afterward.

 

[Windfoot]

Ah, you don't have enough bell production.

Did you have printing presses and newspapers in your cities?
Were you using Elder Statesmen?
Did you get the Founding Fathers (FF) that add to bell production?

global rebel sentiment (%) = (bell per turn) x 25 / total population

So, one town with a newspaper and 3 elder statesmen can support 36 population to 50% (33 + the 3 statesmen). You don't want this formula to be exactly at 50%...the more the better since a higher rebel percentage will add more to each of your unit's combat power (one of the spanish leaders doubles this advantage)

One thing you can do is set up alot of cities just for bell production. Try to find a location that will get you 4 food so you can put 2 colonists producing bells without the need for a farmer. Make sure these "cities" are away from where the REF will attack. Another benefit of alot of small cities is you can get 2 indentured servants in each one with the right choice upon revolution. If you have a stack of muskets and horses this will then give you 2 more dragoons per city immediately upon revolution.

Another thing that will help is not to make all the dragoons prior to revolution...just have the muskets and horses ready. Once you declare take all those good producers and extra farmers/fishermen and make them into dragoons. That way you maximize their contribution to your civilization.

 

[Antilogic]

Windfoot's notes are pretty good on the political side. I will add that unlike the original Colonization, the new Colonization has fewer turns and it is more difficult to build up sentiment and troops, so there's a time-crunch factor that wasn't present in the original game. Every turn counts.

On the military side, it is great if the British attack you in the hills. However, the real reason I prefer to fight in the fields is that British artillery get a bonus attacking cities, while they don't get squat for fighting you in the fields. If you have a large enough army, as others have posted, you can generally kill their landing parties when they show up, but I typically declare before that point and so I'm in a little bit of a crunch.

 

[dalgo]

Ugh... Just "finished" a game. Couldn't get my people above 36% support for independence, so I just had to quit. I went all the way to the mid 1900's. By that time, the REF was too massive again for me to have any chance. It's like every time I added a military unit, my % would go from 37 down to 36, and eventually it just stayed at 36. I started flying through 20 or 30 turns at a time just to see if it would move and it never did. It seems like most of the time, I can't even get my people to revolt, and IF they do, my military gets blown away in just a few turns. Maybe I should stick to Warlords. I'd love to win a game in Colonization, but after 6 weeks of playing, It's a big accomplishment just to get to the point of revolt, much less win a few battles afterward.

All the different phases of the game are important, if you simply rush to the final war your troops will be hopelessly out-gunned. Learn to play each phase as efficiently as possible and in combination they will produce a winning revolution.

Exploration - The first priority is to get your scouts away to pick up all the free loot.
Trading - The Indians have plenty of cash at the start of the game so take that off them while you build up your production of goods to trade with Europe.
Colony Development - You can't build them all at once but at least plan where they will be sited and what each one will produce. You need tools, guns, horses, ships and finished products (which in turn need raw materials).
Indian Wars - You will probably have to fight the Indians for land to expand your territory and it is also a good way to promote your troops.
European Wars - If you can successfully attack the other European powers you will gain additional colonies or you can use their citizens in your own colonies.
Founding Fathers - As well as everything else you should be planning which FF you need and how to go about recruiting them.

If you can master all of the above then the War of Independence will result in an easy victory.

For more details see this strategy article:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=310533

 

[JBryan314]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm going to keep at it and see if I can pull out a win. This expansion seems to be the one that is more difficult to get a win. One thing I like though, is that the game is fun all the way up to the declaration. So even if I get blown away by the REF, I had some fun maintain a colony. Now to defeat the REF. That will be pretty cool.

 

[Antilogic]

Don't give up! I can attest that even for a veteran of Civilization-style games and the original Colonization, it takes a few games to get a hang of the pacing and the different phases. And it is rewarding when you finally win and force the King off your lands.

 

[Blind Side]

JBryan:

I would also suggest that you read one or two of the strategies posted in that forum section. Does not even have to be mine.

 

[JBryan314]

JBryan:

I would also suggest that you read one or two of the strategies posted in that forum section. Does not even have to be mine.

Wow. I wish I had seen this earlier. Tons of good stuff.

 

[yturk39]

How much does your having a Great General (or getting very close to earning one) factor into your plans for preparing for the revolution?

A few well-promoted units (or the ability to obtain them at a critical moment) could be huge. I'd think Privateers are an absolute MUST for this game, so long as you're careful about actually being at WAR with someone once the Great General appears.