Attack Colonies or not?

[tour86rocker]

I have a question about early game strategy. If a rival colony plops down right next to you, do you attack or not?

So far my answer is to chance attacking them. I knocked out both colonies of the Dutch within 10 turns of beginning my most recent game, but attacking another soldier with mine was pretty risky.

I'd never try it against a human player if they were armed...I think it would be a quick way to lose.

 

[Polobo]

You might as well pick up a couple of cannons in Europe and then take them out. You won't be using the land right away and the odds for cannon are great, just bring along a couple of soldiers to guard the cannon.

 

[Andvare]

Attack!
The AI always settle it's soldier, so just kill him before he gets a chance to get a second citizen in (that way he can mobilize his soldier).
And it works against the humans as well, if he is stupid enough to settle his soldier next to you, and let his pioneer wander around.
BTW, there are no drawbacks to this strategy.

 

[Gliese 581]

The way it currently works you can very easilly cripple the AI for the rest of the game by doing this. They don't defend at all.

 

[Colonel_Flagg]

Spain was to my immediate south in my last game and they were encroaching on my territory, so I took them out...with 1 INFANTRY and 2 CANNONS. Put them all in one group, find a defensible tile next to the city (forest or hill), DEFEND with the infantry, and ATTACK the CITY with the cannons. Do it quickly, and you won't have to worry about counterattacking units if you completely wipe them out (actually this might only apply to natives, because the Spanish kept coming back, which was annoying).

 

[tour86rocker]

Ah yes, the cannons are a good tip. Even in the very beginning you can afford perhaps two.

An annoyance for me is when a faction has nothing but doesn't disappear from the diplomatic roster. This can happen because technically almost every unit is a settler, but I really think I've seen the Dutch linger for the course of a whole game with just an empty merchantman.

At least this game isn't bad about letting the AI continuously restart like Col1 was. In Col1 when you attacked a defenseless town they usually came back in force to kick your butt (AI cheated badly).

 

[mzprox]

If you attack an ai settlement, especially in the beginning their king should send a force to tkae it back. as it is now these are just free colonies to the human player ( i havent attacked them in my games, not my style but it could be a valid tactic)

 

[Andvare]

I have, in five games so far, effectively cut off all three other European powers, so that the only thing they did for the rest of the game, was to cruise around with their starting ships (which was okay, didn't bother me, and in the end, they traded their maps with me, so all that annoying black uncharted territory was revealed).

 

[woodelf]

I feel guilty attacking the other guys since it's a horrible exploit in the game. Maybe 10-20 turns of forced peace would be a good game mechanic.

 

[Andvare]

That would at least delay the destruction, have let the others get at least a little gold to purchase a few colonists more.
But unless a new AI comes around, it's only delaying the inevitable. When you want space, you take it. There is no consequence to attacking them (unless you are *really* desperate to be good friends with the natives, which sometimes actually like the newcomers), and they don't fight back in any real way.
It's also the only way to stop pirate attacks for good.
BTW, there really should be free pirates in the game, why the hell isn't there any barbarian-style pirates here? It's the bloody Caribbean! Home of the Buccaneers!

 

[woodelf]

BTW, there really should be free pirates in the game, why the hell isn't there any barbarian-style pirates here? It's the bloody Caribbean! Home of the Buccaneers!

Dale's mod has a pirate civ.

 

[Andvare]

Dale's mod has a pirate civ.

Yeah, I noticed.
I'm just surprised that there aren't any pirates ala Civ in this game. They seem far more appropriate here than in Civ actually.

 

[Colonel_Flagg]

When I beat my first game and thought I had wiped out the Spanish to the south of me, I opened up World Builder to see what was going on. The 1st time I destroyed them, I razed their cities, but they settled in the same spot. The 2nd time, I kept a city, so they went up WAY north to be protected from me by Washington. At least it has some semblance of intelligence.

 

[Gliese 581]

When I beat my first game and thought I had wiped out the Spanish to the south of me, I opened up World Builder to see what was going on. The 1st time I destroyed them, I razed their cities, but they settled in the same spot. The 2nd time, I kept a city, so they went up WAY north to be protected from me by Washington. At least it has some semblance of intelligence.

I wouldn't go that far, they will relocate yes but this seems more based on proximities than any strategy, he probably spawned close to the new location. I've often seen them relocate to a landmass in the middle of the map which is just plain stupid, a long way to europe in either direction.

 

[Raisin Bran]

I started a game as the Dutch and found a nice place to settle where there was 3 fish ressource available for a settlement. Right when I get to there to settle the french outrun me by one turn to settle exactly where I planned to do so.

I just sent my pioneer away 1 spot so he would not get attacked and attacked Quebec with my lonely Veteran inf. The french sent out their pioneer to cut a forest outside of the city, so My Vet did not have any opposition whatsoever and took the city in one turn and the turn afterwards I got out of the city and grabbed their Pioneer.

never heard for the French after that!

 

[tour86rocker]

They should bring back the "War of ____ Succession" event and just make it merge a failed AI with another.

 

[Gliese 581]

I'm testing out Ellestar's mod right now that changes REF a bit and I'm not far along yet to tell if it needs tweaking or not but I've already quit the game.
I took out both my opponents early on, netting me a couple of free citizens and 2 cities, plus 2 free city spots (founded on ruins, land is apparently still bought from indians).
Now they're both located on the mid-part of the map while I have ALL the eastern coast.. they have like 2 cities I have 6 cities and it's not even been 30 turns.
It just got boring.. I can't imagine any tweak to the REF that would offset this start enough to defeat me even though I'm playing on revolutionary. In fact the only thing that could stop me now I feel is if the indians attack. They are the real danger on high levels since they become pissed so fast.. so perhaps I should have played french instead of dutch..

In any case the game really breaks down when you exploit this weakness, I'm going to wait for a fix to both this and the REF issue before playing any non-test games again.

 

[Feannag]

If a CPU settles near me within 3 - 5 turns I usually attack them, take the colony and capture their pioneer. They usually never come back.

 

[Rockstone]

I did the same thing with the English, playing Dutch. Acutally they kept on comming. I took Jamestown three times (renaming them after capture allows the same name to be used more times). I waited a while before attacking, each time taking the pioneer. My little colonial empire grew enormously.

There are two drawbacks, as far as I can figure out. The first is a little one, but the costs of new settlers in the homeland keeps increasing as you capture more (here English) units. Secondly, the local natives - I forgot which tribe - declared war on me. This may be a coincidence, but I think I pissed them off.

Also a little lesson. I was looking for a good spot to start, when the French landed and founded Quebec. I figured nice spot and conquered the place. Then I wanted to settle my own capital colony nearby - getting two colonies quickly - only to find that the natives wanted to sell the land. Lesson here is that when you plan on capturing a settlement early, found your first colony first. That way, the second one is for free (regardless of its size - appearantly the first (capital) colony of is not automatically razed, even at size 1).

 

[MasterDinadan]

I usually attack the other colonies even if it's not right away. They are not useful like natives, and you can actually keep the cities you capture. You don't even have to pay off/anger natives to get good lands if your neighbor already claimed it for you...
I've always found it ridiculously easy with a few cannons, but then again I have usually played on the easiest difficulty. I just wish the REF was as dumb as the other colonies were...