[AOD2] Early military/power production

[omglazers]

Playing on Patriot finally after successful games on Govenor as the French and Dutch. Playing again on the dutch, I had a FANTASTIC start and thanks to an early scout and some careful planning and plotting I had about six fantastic cities with tons of silver and resources and more food than I knew what to do with. However, I realized my dreams of ever doing an early military strike were worthless once I saw how many dragoons the Portugese had to the south. Stuck on a crappy little island with meager resources and tight cities, it honestly looked like they might be ripe for a picking off but once I saw their military I ran back, bought two privateers and prayed I could slow them down [I've tried to bring an offensiveness to Civ4Col but honestly it seems more like a business sim than anything military-like].

Later on, out of the blue the Mayans randomly declare war [I think an ancient ruin event triggered it]

My six soldiers were not going to be worth a damn. I retired there, and knew I was beaten.

The Chinese seemed to provide a healthy fight when a native tribe declared war on them, and at a much earlier time.

The power info screen says it all:



Two things: 1) How on earth do I keep up with power/soldiers/whatever in my games of Civ4Col or is it pointless to bother and 2) Is an early attack/offensive game even possible?!?

With civs like the Spanish [and others] ENCOURAGING military action, it seems nigh effin impossible to ever conduct a military action aside from fighting off the REF

I like micromanging and playing Col but conquering the trade aspect and praying noone wants to slap me with a musket seems like a poor strat.

HELP!

P.S. at the time of the war I was working on building an army, and had two gunsmiths working at the guns as quick as I could, but looking at that power info screen I *must* be missing something. Hell, even the Dutch 'King' wouldn't give me any help !

P.P.S Looking at the chart, I expect Georgie-poo to be at the top, but everyone else?
[Saves and screenshots available upon request]

 

[Feyd Rautha]

In a game about resource management that also has an AI that cheats worse than in regular Civ 4 it seems that a power chart like that would be a pretty common thing.

 

[Crighton]

Only advice I can give (three months late) would be to ambush the other guy and bribe a native tribe join in, keep your goals limited to poaching a few cities (and looting the colonists). Last game i played Champy kept trying to found a line of settlements right along my CLEARLY ESATABLISHED borders, jerk. I fought a total of 6 wars with him, I razed two or three cities each time.

 

[Mizral]

Only advice I can give (three months late) would be to ambush the other guy and bribe a native tribe join in, keep your goals limited to poaching a few cities (and looting the colonists). Last game i played Champy kept trying to found a line of settlements right along my CLEARLY ESATABLISHED borders, jerk. I fought a total of 6 wars with him, I razed two or three cities each time.

I'm also very new to Colonization but I found this strategy works great!

I'm a fairly good Civ 4 player and my cousin and I just started our first LAN game of Colonization. He never uses warfare in this game however in Civ 4 I'm usually the one looking to axe another Civ before a religion is formed.

In our first Colonization game I went to war on my own. I found the most effective route in this game was to simply buy cannon from the old world to join my roving war-band of 3-4 soldiers & a few Dragoons. This worked but only to a point as the opponents eventually destroyed my cannon and that was that.

The second game however we simply asked native groups to go to war with the wicked French (guess they hated them too!) and simply walked into French cities after the natives destroyed them. What was interesting about this strategy is that it meant the AI was attacking native units outside of their own city tiles. This meant my dragoons could sweep in and destroy these units and led to my opponent having just a small number of troops left. This was easy to take afterwards.

I'm still refining my game though. Upgraded units seem to be really important in Colonization - one powerful Soldier is far more effective than 2 or three weak ones. Because of this I feel if you want to go to war and take lands you have to be quick about it and pray your high powered units don't fall on poor odds.

 

[Raliuven]

I've been trying to figure this out too. I have a long history of avoiding wars when possible - I am a builder first and Civ4Col seemed a nice way to manage resources with war as a backdrop.

Recently the Spanish dropped a city right in my path of expansion. When my scout rolled up he saw that there was a worker in the field and no troops. My scout took the worker and waited for a solider to appear in the city. Nothing. My scout rolled into town and caputured it without trouble - and seized the 80 guns and 100 food inside the city (and some gold). Score! My scout upgraded to a dragoon just as a lone solider appeared on the coast.

As I had no other military units in the area, I prayed I wouldn't get bad odds and that my dragoon would win against the solider so I could keep my new city. Suddenly the solider founded a new city only two tiles away.

I mentally shrugged and rolled into town, destroying it and capturing some gold. Now, whenever Spain shows up, I harpoon them for some more units and gold. They have funded my expanision to a point that I had not previously experienced. At practically no cost to me, I gained a city (population 1 indentured servant), 100 food in the city for a quick additional citizen, 80 guns and 30 tools and about 50gp. I also grabbed their pioneer at the start of the war. As for Spain, they are a second rate power that I can continue to beat on for more colonies, etc.

That has convinced me more and more than an early war with a European power can be a big boost in the early game.