Col4 TAC Armies

[Juanholio]

I've started playing Col4 as I used to love the original years ago when I was a lad. Back then though, I didn't really know what I was doing and just liked building up the colonies.

I've started playing TAC since various posts I've read have described the remake as unsatisfying. I've played a few games and usually end up giving up in frustration, I won one with a fairly isolated start and a small european war. Since then I'm having much more difficulty with the natives.

If I start near another AI they plant colonies everywhere and usually have a decent army to attack. They are stupid, though and are generally easy to defeat with a handful of units if you attack their colonies. If I keep the winings I end up pissing off the natives and end up in a war against huge numbers of units which are practically impossible to kill with the various defensive bonuses.

Muskets take ages to produce and buying units is so expensive. I've only done relatively well so far getting lucky with treasure enough to buy a galleon and a decent army. Once I get a DoW from a native it's particularly annoying since they can pillage everything and unless they attack a city are very difficult to remove with the few numbers I have. I must be going about this the wrong way.

Help please!

 

[Commander Bello]

Once I get a DoW from a native it's particularly annoying since they can pillage everything and unless they attack a city are very difficult to remove with the few numbers I have. I must be going about this the wrong way.

The highlighted part describes (one of) your problem(s).

You will need to have some troops to go onto the attack and - especially in the beginning - you must be willing to sacrifice some of them. Any unit surviving can be promoted and then will have much bigger chances.
Due to the way in which the map is created, the forest and jungle promotions are very helpful, and after having some units with those you need to create a good healer.
Obviously, cuirassiers aren't bad, either.

In total, after you have defeated the first wave of the natives, go for their villages. Any village destroyed means less new natives being produced.
And unfortunately there isn't much of an incentive to stop the war once you're on the winning path. An opponent you've killed will never sneak attack you again... so go for the final victory against that tribe.

 

[dalgo]

If you are having trouble with combat then choose a leader that will help you with that. For instance Martim Afonso de Sousa provides for quicker promotions (the first promotion level needs just 1 xp) so your troops become stronger. He also provides exploration and mercantile bonuses.

Founding fathers are important as well. If you can get the Exploration FF Malinche he provides two Native Mercenaries which come with +75% Forest and Jungle attack and occasionally native tribes offer to sell you more of these mercs. These are extremely valuable so take up every offer that you can afford. After a couple of promotions (Ranger I & II) that goes up to a whopping +120% forest attack and they get double movement in forests as well (for jungle fighting choose the Swamp Fox promotions).

Cannons also are extremely important for attacking native villages (or other European colonies) because of their +70% Settlement attack. After two Explosive promotions that goes up to +115%.

When preparing to attack, if you right click and hold on your unit, then drag the cursor over your enemy you will be shown your Combat Odds for that battle. You can use this for several different units to see which has the most chance of success and this will help you decide what unit to attack with.

 

[Windfoot]

Another technique I use is after I get all the colonists and supplies from a colony I turn the colony back over the the original European player. That way I reduce my threat and get to keep the colonists and supplies.

 

[Juanholio]

I found the later parts of this thread really helpful (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=492979). I knew I was going wrong and now I can put my finger on it. Simply my colony development was far too slow.

I underestimated the power of utilizing the church for immigration and to quickly get as many missionaries to as many native settlements for population. Getting that first galleon early helps to build the army so I focus on buying horses (if there are no scouts in the queue) to scout for as much gold as possible. It's annoying when the difference of one turn can mean the king asking for 10gold or 1000, but I've refused a couple of times early and it doesn't seem to hurt that much (slighty higher tax hike?).

The other big point I've learned is the promotions system - knowing the best pick for each type, eg explosives, ranger, etc. Now I understand how and when to fight you can preserve your troops and they fare much better. You do have to be more patient than you would in say Civ5. I try to avoid using troops unless the odds are in the 90s or I have good numbers. I sometimes use pioneers to chop useless forest to limit some defensive bonuses.

Getting a school house early and training natives (so they can become colonists and therefore soldiers) seems to help and buying guns with early gold seems to be a good strategy. Following all of the above I've played two games and performed much better. No native DoWs as my colonies have been strong (and more judiciously placed).

Strangly the second time I beat the kings forces I didn't get the victory screen just 83 man-o-wars moving every time I click next turn. Is there some sort of time limit I've missed?

 

[Juanholio]

The balance does seem to be a little odd though. Cannon are *so* good against colonies if there is a much greater european force it's easier to evacuate the colony (especially if it's one of theirs so they won't burn it down) alow it to be captured and blast the defenders at much higher odds than anywhere else on the map.

 

[Windfoot]

You can also check out this post (blatant plug)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=496551

I'm not sure about the bug you ran into...I save often and just restart if I run into bug problems (which is very, very rare in my experience). I'm glad you like the school house but for me it seems to take way too long. By the time I get a University my economy is rolling full steam and it's easier for me to just purchase the experts.

Yeah cannon/artillery are over powered for that strategy. I usually avoid that situation by killing the enemy's mobile force before taking over his cities.

 

[Juanholio]

Nice plug! I'll check it out. From (an albeit brief) look it seems I'm doing a combination of scout rush, church rush and bell rush which seems to be working.

As for the schools they do take a while but with the native villages seemingly exponential rise in training times I find them very useful spread across multiple colonies periodically spitting out farmers, carpenters etc. It works well as a kind of pipeline, freeing up the major colonies for elder statesmen and veteran soldiers. I tend to spend my later gold on hurrying buildings. Although I'm only playing on Conquistador so far.