Wars before WoI

[Captain Pugwash]

I'm playing as Spanish. Those freaking English have built a city too close to mine and their borders are encroaching into my workable tiles. I'm getting mad now

Anyone tried an early war against local deviants before the War of Independence ?

 

[Rockstone]

Yes, playing Dutch I defeated three English colonies. Worked out great, after a few turns of local dismay, it turns out that Jamestown (renamed to Jansdorp ) was in a great location - in fact my best town of all.

Of course the English get a new colonist and refounded Jamestown (which is appearantly possible when you rename). The war is still ongoing obviously but a peace settlement is not that hard. Though watch out for the Incas (and perhaps a few others), they don't much like anyone growing fast too quickly (unless you can defent yourself adequately, this can become problematic).

 

[comtedemeighan]

The other European AI's don't usually defend there cities so I usually just ruin one of them at least every game just to get them away from me. I usually send two soldier units and take all there cities and burn them to the ground. Im sure the patch will fix this...

 

[Refar]

Sure. How are you supposed to train your troops for the WoI, if you dont squash a few fellow colonists first ?
Get a few Veteran Soldiers (they got Leadership promo) and a Cannon or two.
If you got the one spanish giving 50% cheaper promotion (I think it's San Martin, keep mising them up) you can get some really nicely promoted Soldiers out of this.
Avoid taking promotions that will be granted for free by FF - if you plan on getting these FF.

 

[historix69]

Military Experience before you declare Independence is quite helpfull to get promoted soldiers and eventually a Great General (-> Medic III) which will make start of WOI a lot easier for you ...

Negative effect of war with european neighbours is that they may no longer be willing to trade with you ... so you may lose a market for goods which are under boycott in Europe.

Historically seen this is wrongly implemented since all wars before declaration of independence are the wars of your King's Empire against the other European Empires, not your own wars ... the more wars before DoI, the more the european neighbours should try to help you to win independence to weaken your warlike motherland.

 

[Gliese 581]

Use your inital soldier and carve out an empire with him. Works on any level.

 

[r_rolo1]

Use your inital soldier and carve out an empire with him. Works on any level.

And in any speed and map size.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Negative effect of war with european neighbours is that they may no longer be willing to trade with you ... so you may lose a market for goods which are under boycott in Europe.

Also, you will have higher population, after conquering a few towns. Which means a bigger REF later.

 

[Refar]

It starts to annoy me how every thread here ultimately boils down to the size of the REF

Edit: No offense meant @Player1. Your remark is of course correct.
I just dislike how apparently the whole game only has a single noteworthy feature. It's kind of waste of the huge potential. And boring too.

 

[r_rolo1]

Refar, every thread resumes to REF size because the only way to win the game is to beat the REF ( ok you can win by time too if you enable it and disable Europe victory ) .

But I agree with you that as it is , it makes the game very unidirectional ( just not to call it a turn-based shoot-em-down ) and ultimately makes all the other features of the game ( I like the economical part a lot ) a waste of programming efforts.

 

[Refar]

Exactly. Beating the REF is needed to win the game. Might even be fun. The problem is it beeing tied to every game mechanic, making everything you do penalize you right away - ultimately reducing the available and usefull strategic options to a short list of cheesy exploits

 

[Gliese 581]

Exactly. Beating the REF is needed to win the game. Might even be fun. The problem is it beeing tied to every game mechanic, making everything you do penalize you right away - ultimately reducing the available and usefull strategic options to a short list of cheesy exploits

Yes, this and the poor AI makes the game currently unplayable for me. Until it's either patched or modded so that REF is completely or almost completely independent of your actions and based mostly on difficulty level, opponents, map size game speed and such variables and so that the AI can defend itself.
I think the game could be great if this is done carefully.