Mid-Late Game Strategies?

[RTSCombatForCiv]

I have played many differant games in Col with AOD2, and have gotten to a point where I can get a strong economy up and running in the early game. Now I have no idea what to do next. What are some good strategies for mid-late game?

1.)In the game I am playing now, I have gotten to a point where the only money that I need is for schooling. Should I still export my goods, and what should I buy?

2.)Once my main industries are constructed, what should I build? Should I spend hammers on PP or Navy?

3.)What type of army and defenses do you need to fight the WOI? Do you arm your settlers or do you school veteran soilders? Do inland cities need as much protection as coastal cities?

4.)How does RS work in AOD2? Do I need to make bells in every city, 50% of cities, or high pop cities? When should I start producing bells? I have read strategies that say to only make them alot and all at once. What if I need some for culture?

5.)What strategies do you use for trading with natives? Is there a way to keep them demanding trade goods instead of guns? Do you ever buy resources from them?

Thank you for all of your help. I really enjoy the build up stage of this game but have not played any games beyond that. Any strategies that you can give will be really useful.

 

[craigdh]

The mid-late game strategy in AOD2 is much more flexible than in Vanilla IMO. Trade is useful for longer. What I do is just start building as many food producing cities as possible. These will have 7 farmers, 1 lumberjack, 1 carpenter, 1 elder statesmen. All are bought from europe minus the statesman which is worth educating at home. Get a half dozen or more of these cities depending on the map size. I've had cities producing a surplus of over 100 food per turn, which means a free colonist every two turns.

The rest of your infrastructure should be focused on guns. Some horses too, but the big thing to do is pump out guns and people. The king can't tax your agriculture / gun based economy, so it gets very efficient.

I don't bother with a navy... if I have no buildings to build, I pump out cannons. You'll put them in your coastal cities with fortresses to sink ships and defend. You can never win a toe-to-toe naval battle with the king, as man-o-wars are too fricken strong and numerous. You'd need dozens of ships of the line (I shouldn't say never, I've done it once, but it was super annoying as they send man-o-wars to all odd corners of the world and you have to sink them all).

 

[Wheldrake]

While you don't *need* to attack the AI colonial nations, that is often one of my mid-game strategies. Build an invasion force of 12-18 units and wipe out the other nations one by one.

Another thing you can shoot at is collecting a huge number of guns (and some horses) stored in wagons, in readiness to convert 75% of your population into soldiers on declaring independence.

I've been trying to grab all the cool FFs, but that's really an early-game strategy.

Pumping out huge numbers of canons and veteran soldiers will tend to make you invincible to the King's forces, especially if you have kept the number of your coastal cities to a minimum.

Building dozens of Ships of the Line can be an interesting variant, but generally the amount of resources needed to produce enough SoLs to survive the King's navy can be far better spent on ground forces. Still, it can be fun to try a naval victory, and it's certainly challenging enough.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[RTSCombatForCiv]

Thanks for the quick replies

Do I need to have an elder statesman or produce bells in every settlement? Whats differant about RS and bell production in AOD2 compared to vanilla?

 

[craigdh]

Thanks for the quick replies

Do I need to have an elder statesman or produce bells in every settlement? Whats differant about RS and bell production in AOD2 compared to vanilla?

I'm not sure on the specific mechanics, but it's better for sure in AOD2. In Vanilla it was very hard to build a large army while going for enough RS to declare independence because each new citizen would bring down your RS. It doesn't work that way in AOD2.

You don't need an elder statesman in each city, but it helps.

 

[Antilogic]

Rebel Sentiment seems to build more slowly in AoDII--I need my statesmen working a couple turns before I get even 1% RS. After that, it tends to ramp upwards, especially once the RS bonus to bell production becomes more significant.

In my current game as France, which is by no means efficient or optimized, I am using a pair of galleons back and forth from Europe, fully loaded outbound with all sorts of manufactured goods and the occasional silver pile. I am selling a significant number of guns to the Cherokee, my native allies, and refusing his offers to give up a city near the coastline between my cities (in the hopes that he will draw some of the king's fire when the Revolution starts...he has about 20 armed braves now). I am still purchasing statesmen in Europe as well as training a few in the colonies. The above food/gun strategy is important--I'm still founding inland cities towards the Pacific coast, and putting a bunch of farmers in charge of generating a good troop base.

Recently, I've had a BtS flashback when the Aztecs declared war on me. My 10 Veteran Dragoons have been gaining some valuable combat experience that will help me survive the king's forces. I might sack a few English and Dutch settlements because they are starting to generate bells too close to my colony.

Here's a good question for the late game: what do you consider sufficient armament for the Revolution? My gun stockpiles are hovering around 1900 and horses around 800 (standard-sized map), although my new farm settlements should be able to accelerate horse production. Standing army includes 10 Veteran Dragoons, 1 Dragoon, 9 Cannons. I have about 8 major settlements and 6-7 minor ones that are more recently settled.

 

[craigdh]

Totally depends on the difficulty level and size of the REF...

I guess if your question is geared specifically towards the amount of a stockpile, the answer would also depend on how many colonists (in cities) do you hope to take from their jobs and turn to soldiers.

Personally I liked to have an army that's 2/3rds as large as the REF, but I usually end up slaughtering them. 50% is probably fine if you have few or one coastal city and setup your defenses properly.

 

[Antilogic]

I declared against a combined 130-land unit strength REF with about 35 units active, and converted most of my city specialists/free colonists into troops right at the beginning to get 65.

I ran into a strange bug, however. The king had several normal galleons instead of war galleons, and for some reason all the regulars that landed had 1 or 2 strength instead of the 4 strength that I am used to seeing. I won all the land battles but ended up having to build ~10 ships of the line to go and hunt down the last galleon that refused to land its combat troops.

 

[Dale]

The King's troops are now transported to the colonies on War Galleons instead of in MoW's. This was one of the changes introduced a bit ago to help the King land his troops better.

The strength of the units in the REF is tied directly to difficulty level. You were playing a rather low level of difficulty it appears.

 

[RTSCombatForCiv]

I dont know if I will like that the strength of the REF soilders is tied to difficulty level. I have had to scale down the difficulty to combat against early ai expansion. How do you compete with the aggressive ai expansion, on smaller maps, and on harder difficulties?

I have played my current game longer and farther then my other ones. I have got a good production and stockpile of guns, horses, and liberty bells going. I am thinking about taking out my neighbors, but have never fought a war.

When I take an enemy colony by force, can I raze it, or do I have to keep the colony? Can I capture enemy citizens and make them my own? Can my warships capture enemy vessels, or do I just sink them?

 

[kaibayashi]

When I take an enemy colony by force, can I raze it, or do I have to keep the colony?

Either.

Can I capture enemy citizens and make them my own?

Yep

Can my warships capture enemy vessels, or do I just sink them?

Not in AOD, but I think you can in Kailric's Naval & Privateers Mod, which should be getting added to AOFD soon

 

[Antilogic]

The King's troops are now transported to the colonies on War Galleons instead of in MoW's. This was one of the changes introduced a bit ago to help the King land his troops better.

The strength of the units in the REF is tied directly to difficulty level. You were playing a rather low level of difficulty it appears.

I saw ordinary galleons, though, not war galleons. The Tsar of Russia had parked a few in my settlements for over a century.

I was unaware of the change to the REF, and will now be going above the Explorer level for my next game. I was originally concerned because in a few games quit around turn 100-150 my opponents were building up for an economic victory rather quickly, so I turned down the difficulty level, figuring I didn't know what I was doing in this version.

 

[craigdh]

I dont know if I will like that the strength of the REF soilders is tied to difficulty level. I have had to scale down the difficulty to combat against early ai expansion. How do you compete with the aggressive ai expansion, on smaller maps, and on harder difficulties?

I think overall with the beta 2 right now, at any given difficulty level, the natives and other colonies are much more challenging relative to the REF. On a mid difficulty level, the native and colonies are pretty decent, but the REF is a walk in the park. On the higher difficulty levels, it seems the REF is about right, but the natives and other colonies (but particularly the natives as they start out so strong) are just brutally hard. My real challenge on the hard difficulty levels is surviving the imminent Native onslaught very early in the game, not the WoI at the end.

 

[RTSCombatForCiv]

Thanks for the tips!!!

I finally finished a game and am sorry to say that I will not be playing this game again anytime soon. This mod is great and it improves vanilla in a lot of ways, but the problem for me is that the mid-late game became a micro-management nightmare.

In my games I had so many wagons running around that I finally said screw it and let my goods waste away while I fought the WOI. The WOI was not that much fun, not worth the 40 hours I spent micro-managing to get there. I had to go after the King rather then having him go after me.

I like the concept of this game though, and I think that there is still potential to improve it with AOD II. One thing that might help with the micromangement is having more cargo spots in wagons and on ships, and having warhouses with more capacity.

Anyway, thanks for the fun!!! I might check this mod out again in a year to see all the new features.

 

[Elliot]

My strategy has shifted towards early bell production in order to deal with the agressive natives. Picking up the early +native relations founding fathers is big. Also, if a colony of yours is really close to a native settlement you'll get a progressively growing "your way of life is threatening" penalty. However, if you work on lots of bells in that city you might be able to do civ4col's version of a culture flip. If this happens, the natives will grant you the city in the diplomacy screen but what really happens is the city is destroyed. With the city no longer on your borders the "your way of life is threatening" penalty goes away! You've just dodged the bullet and as long as your borders aren't close to any other native territory and you don't steal their land you probably wont get attacked.

For general mid-late game strategy:

I push to build a super coastal city. In that city all the workers do is harvest food in order to support the highest possible population. All raw materials and lumber are imported. Once I get a factory or 2, my next goal is to get 3 elder statesmen working in the city and build the best bell modifier. This is important because I want the rebel sentiment bonus to be as high as possible so I can increase the population further and increase the profitability of my factory workers. I am increasing the REF but I am doing it most efficiently since the rebel sentiment is working on factory working specialists.

To keep my sanity, my wagons are set to automate trade routes. I used to manually set trade routes, but as I play larger games the UI for setting the trade routes has become unbearable. The automatic trade routes aren't that bad either, just build a few extra wagons.

I build a university in the super coastal city as well just because it takes so long to build in any other city. Maybe I should work on rush building the University in another city. I'll also get tools and gun production working in this city around the time I'm building the university. Before the game is over I'll also build another tools/gun city and maybe another factory city. All my other cities are raw materials and food cities.

I produce most of my own guns and always buy my horses in Europe. Don't forget to buy 3-4 veteran soldiers. The first few are a bargain unless you're George Washington.

btw, George Washington is crazy powerful! You need half of the guns and horses needed for revolution! You can declare war so much faster and that means facing a smaller REF! In my last game I built only 7 cities and declared independence on turn 160 on the 2nd hardest difficulty level.

 

[buck beach]

A couple to add (for through-out the game)

I have shifted away telling the King to cram it for tax increases to accepting them as a part of doing business. I strive for the production bonuses which in turn reduce the net effect of the increases. This way I can still unload ANY excess resource and my goods. I am also more flexible with my attitude toward his constance requests for my gold to (again) keep him calm. I spent down my funds on trade goods and things like horses as sort of a savings account to lessen the effect of his requests and the giving in to him will satisfy him for a period. Then I accumulate my gold for purchases needed items like specialist, ships and equipment and for buying native land, dipping into my savings account as necessary by trading the goods with the natives.

I am not accepting any gifted camps from the natives because I want to keep: the training facilities by the natives; a local market for my goods; and the occasional native convert I get from the missions. However, one problem I for-see is that a camp near to a settlement gives them an excellent jump off location for an attack when the tribes can no longer tolerate my presence. I am trying to discourage that by keeping a military presence and not leaving them unprotected (the old "Speak softly, yada yada yada" routine".

 

[Antilogic]

I typically accept tax increases, and will only refuse if its a 5%+ jump and I can afford to not sell that good in Europe. Only goods traded to the king count for tax increases, so sending wagon trains to native villages can net profit and keep European taxes low.

The other reason I keep native settlements is for defensive pacts, especially if they are coastal. The natives won't venture out too far from their settlements, but they do attack neighboring REF. A half dozen armed native units are excellent cannon fodder.

 

[buck beach]

I typically accept tax increases, and will only refuse if its a 5%+ jump and I can afford to not sell that good in Europe. Only goods traded to the king count for tax increases, so sending wagon trains to native villages can net profit and keep European taxes low.

The other reason I keep native settlements is for defensive pacts, especially if they are coastal. The natives won't venture out too far from their settlements, but they do attack neighboring REF. A half dozen armed native units are excellent cannon fodder.

Again, I have found that not accepting the tax increase only hurts my ultimate goal of cash flow (even if the increase is 5 plus percent). The King seems to demand tax/cash more frequently depending on his attitude toward me. I don't have to trade with him but he is there if I need to buy/sell an item (even the lowly trade goods)

I am afraid of arming my local natives or provide them with horses even with a Defensive Pact that can be broken in a heart beat. They eventually become Furious toward me and are just awaiting an opportunity of me letting down my guard.