dalgo
Emperor
As I play the game I make a note of any features I might want to remember later. They have built up to this jumbled list of hints. Others may find some of them useful.
At start turn toggle ‘show resources’ on. Use F11 for more options.
Have your main trading colony just 4 tiles from the sea-lane to Europe, (more than one Colony if possible). That way a Merchantman can dodge the blockade during the final war. A Privateer with extra moves and visibility is handy for checking there are no enemy ships hidden in the fog (Note: 5 tiles with the patch).
The best spacing for your colonies is CxxC, although CxC is OK on a diagonal (only one tile in common). Then there is no land conflict between colonies and when you add Lewis & Clark to Congress your wagons can do a return trip in the one turn.
For a larger map see the ‘map sizes’ thread in the forum. I have used this to make huge maps 2½ times bigger. Your starting position is fixed (3 down the coast) so if you want an early war head south and annoy the Europeans landed there – can attack on turn 21.
When designing your colony emphasise width rather than depth. 2 or 3 colonies on the East coast is ample for trade and means one stack of dragoons can defend the whole colony. Build further colonies inland.
Swapping World Maps does increase your exploration points (presumably for both of you).
If you use a Jesuit Missionary in your colony be sure to make him a missionary again before you send him to a village.
Keep horses available in your main port so you can equip new colonists as scouts to get them to their destination faster.
A Seasoned Scout is equally productive as a scout or as a dragoon. One advantage of making him a dragoon is you can then attack opposing scouts.
To make sure you can get both Cabral and Minuit need to work hard at political points (two statesmen) and trade points. Sell your starting guns to the local Indians and consider buying whatever goods they want (eg cloth) even if you don’t make a profit on the deal. If you can limit your initial exploration below the Ponce de Leon trigger you will get offered Minuit first so it is possible to get all three outstanding early FF. The other AI do not explore aggressively but they will pinch Minuit off you if you aren’t careful so he has to be taken second.
Make sure you promote one of your early dragoons to a surgeon.
If a wounded unit is promoted it regains a small amount of health. Best result on dragoons at 2.6 to 3.0 health as it allows them to fight the same turn.
Wounded units heal faster in a settlement, or with the help of a surgeon, and fastest with both (an Indian village counts as a settlement).
Note that one bell per turn will ultimately produce 25% rebel sentiment in one citizen. Can use this to calculate your ultimate rebel sentiment as follows:
RS = Bells x 25/ Total population (ie All Units – No Profession from Military Advisor)
When native converts get their extra movement point late in the game they make excellent pioneers because they can often move and build at the same time. Link four or five of them together for best effect. If the invading REF destroy a road it may be possible to sacrifice surplus converts to rebuild it.
It takes four turns for an ordinary colonist to build a road in most terrain (two turns for a hardy pioneer). The only exceptions are desert and marsh, which take five turns.
Only pop ancient ruins/burial grounds with seasoned scouts. If you only have a colonist scout either wait until he is ‘seasoned’ or train him in a village.
If you want to buy cheap soldiers and cannons from the King you have to accept all his demands, and it will increase the REF.
There is no advantage in avoiding tax increases, do not take the ‘tea party’ option. The first tax increase is triggered by trading (ie buying or selling) a total of 201 tons of any goods, either to Europe or the natives.
Valuable Founding Fathers
Peter Minuit (Trade) is available early and makes buying colonists in Europe 25% cheaper.
William Penn (Religion) adds 3 crosses for every Town Hall. It doubled my total crosses.
Lewis & Clark (Exploration) give +1 travel for Wagons and halves the number of tools for your Pioneers.
Pocahontas (Religion) makes a huge difference in Indian relations. All Indian tribes went to ‘pleased’ except the one I was at war with which made peace and changed to ‘friendly’.
Indians normally move 1 but if they have relevant promotions (mountaineer, ranger etc) they can (and will) move 2. They also have tribal traits (see military screen). Note that this cannot apply to the REF as they can’t get those promotions, and in fact don’t even get the normal terrain bonuses on defence.
You can ‘shelter’ your ships in an Indian village to avoid attack (from a Privateer but not a MoW). It is not possible to ‘hide’ a Privateer under a Frigate. ie a neutral Man-o-War can make a selected attack against the Privateer.
Privateers are best used in pairs. They lose too many 1-on-1 battles against Merchantmen, Galleons and especially other Privateers. If you have two privateers and lose one then the other can still make the kill.
It is possible to capture colonists as well as goods with a Privateer but you need to take a cargo ship along (I’ve tried both a Merchantman and a Galleon). The capture is noted in the log and the colonists appear in the cargo ship. Both ships need to be on the same sea tile when the attack starts. Another advantage is that if you attack a full Galleon and have a Galleon of your own handy then all six cargos will be loaded into it (none in the Privateer).
You can capture enemy an Great General, I took three off the Dutch King once.
To check which leader you selected at the start toggle on ‘scores display’ and mouse over your name.
If you capture an enemy colony and keep it, you also get that nations negative Indian sentiment. If it is close to home it may be better to raze it.
Indian Training – This is a very strong feature of the game. You can train Colonists, Convicts and Indentured Servants even if they are scouts or dragoons, and a village will train multiple times. (Note - Patch removed converts from training in villages)
When trading with Indians by Merchantman only take 100 of each type of goods (guns, horses, trade goods etc) because you cannot split the cargo for sale. Eg if you have 400 guns you can only sell all or none (unless you take a wagon train with you).
It is possible to trade with an inland village on a different island or continent to your home colonies. Load an empty wagon train and the goods you wish to trade into a transport ship. Sail this into a coastal Indian village and unload the wagon train. Then select the goods and load them into the wagon, which can now move inland to trade.
You can use native villages as a canal if your town isn’t adjacent to water (patch removed this option).
If your Merchantman is attacked but escapes to port, it may retain any goods loaded aboard (unless they are captured) but will lose any units it was carrying.
Those silver resources are hard to find but aren’t really necessary. River next to mountain is powerful. Mountain + river+ mine=3 silver (6 from specialist). You can often find a river running alongside a huge range of mountains!
The movement points used in an attack are equivalent to that which would have been used if you had moved to the tile where the attack took place (i.e. ½ for a road, 2 for a forest etc). However for some reason a withdrawal uses an extra point.
You can check the combat odds before an attack by using right click and drag. Once the battle starts you can see the outcome immediately from the colour bar above your units name on the bottom right of the main screen.
Promotions that only apply to a soldier (eg Ranger, Minuteman etc) will be lost if he is made a scout or dragoon, but only temporarily. If he is changed back to a soldier the bonuses reappear. Because you don’t know which of your dragoons has these hidden promotions until you switch him back it is best to rename him.
The Formation promotion (+25% against mounted units) is only useful to defensive units such as soldiers because when you attack an AI stack it puts up the best defensive unit against your attacker. So Formation on a dragoon is wasted because the enemy dragoons won’t face it.
To rename a unit, select it and click on the name in the yellow box.
If the arrow keys won’t move your unit it will be because you don’t have NumLock on.
Late in the game you can build small 2-statesmen colonies that are very productive, taking advantage of all the FF bonuses you have acquired. Because these include production bonuses you don’t even need a lumberjack or carpenter. Building queue: Printing Press, Church, School, Warehouse, Stockade, and Trade Wagons.
Use Alt – S to label a map tile (eg for a colony site), and Alt – S again to remove the label. Ctrl A runs the automatic moves for that turn. Insert key enters nearest Settlement.
Cannons can bombard enemy colony defences and they have a huge 100% settlement attack so are very effective against Indian villages too. They are not much good in the open though.
Add a second building to the building queue with shift/click.
Building a Dock increases the food available from the sea by +2, building a Dry-dock or a Shipyard does not increase this.
Trading ships gain experience and promotions too! If you use a Great General in a port any ships will share in the exp. Promotions include Navigation 1 (+1 visibility), Navigation 2 (+1 movement) and Navigation 3 (+1 movement).
You can swap an injured dragoon with a colonist working in a colony. The new dragoon is uninjured and the colonist will heal.
No Sugar Planter and no handy sugar resource – no problem. With Cyrus McCormick in Congress (+50% sugar) three Converted Natives supported 2 ½ Master Brewers.
30 Braves! The Iroquois settled a new village on the edge of my territory (after my boundaries had absorbed all their villages) with 30 braves in it. Luckily they are ‘pleased’ (at Conquistador level). The list of defenders for that village showed ‘Native (20)’ at the end.
Make sure your territory is fully roaded before DoI.
Clearing land doesn’t remove a resource. Eg Hill/Forest/Tundra with Deer gave 1 food, 6 lumber, 5 fur or 3 ore. After felling the forest (for 20 lumber) it was Hills/Tundra with Deer and gave 3 food, 2 fur or 3 ore.
Silver Outpost: Usually in a hilly area so food may be tight, but even one plain or grassland hill is enough for an expert farmer to support two silver miners. Pioneer needed for mines etc.
Best treasure captured = 2488 (from the Dutch)
Independence
1. Carry out normal colony tasks
2. Make sure every colony has at least 100guns/100 horses
3. No ships in Europe or in transit (note a west coast merchantman in transit survived)
4. Declare Independence (All Men are Free)
5. Go through each colony making indented servants into dragoons (+ any other spare colonists). Send them to a central collection point.
6. Strip any isolated colonies of men and material and gift them away (can wait a turn)
7. Hit next turn – no action so can finalise defences. Cancel all automated trade routes and re-route to avoid coastal tiles or colonies.
8. Hit next turn, and the REF arrive (and you can operate your trading ships again)
Note – if defending ports with soldiers have them fortified 4 turns prior to REF arrival
Expect the King to use approx 10% of his ships for the initial landing. If there are any amphibious attacks you will get your full colony defence bonus for that first turn, the bombardment only starts after the landing.
You only need to defeat the ground units; you can leave the ships alone. However they may cause a problem with your exports so it is handy to have a few SoL available.
All landings will be on the coast close to a colony. Not necessarily a port though, they may land beside an inland colony where it is within one tile of the coast.
Undocumented Patch Changes
1. It is no longer possible to use a coastal native village as a ‘canal’ to reach an inland colony, or vice versa.
2. Goods traded with a native village count towards the tax increase threshold.
3. All tax boycotts are lifted after Independence.
4. The starting position on a random map is fixed with two European powers to the north and one to the south.
Shortcut keys
Alt/S to enter a signpost
C or middle mouse button to centre on the active unit
Bare map icon to clear map (no shortcut key)
Ctl/A to force automatic moves
At start turn toggle ‘show resources’ on. Use F11 for more options.
Have your main trading colony just 4 tiles from the sea-lane to Europe, (more than one Colony if possible). That way a Merchantman can dodge the blockade during the final war. A Privateer with extra moves and visibility is handy for checking there are no enemy ships hidden in the fog (Note: 5 tiles with the patch).
The best spacing for your colonies is CxxC, although CxC is OK on a diagonal (only one tile in common). Then there is no land conflict between colonies and when you add Lewis & Clark to Congress your wagons can do a return trip in the one turn.
For a larger map see the ‘map sizes’ thread in the forum. I have used this to make huge maps 2½ times bigger. Your starting position is fixed (3 down the coast) so if you want an early war head south and annoy the Europeans landed there – can attack on turn 21.
When designing your colony emphasise width rather than depth. 2 or 3 colonies on the East coast is ample for trade and means one stack of dragoons can defend the whole colony. Build further colonies inland.
Swapping World Maps does increase your exploration points (presumably for both of you).
If you use a Jesuit Missionary in your colony be sure to make him a missionary again before you send him to a village.
Keep horses available in your main port so you can equip new colonists as scouts to get them to their destination faster.
A Seasoned Scout is equally productive as a scout or as a dragoon. One advantage of making him a dragoon is you can then attack opposing scouts.
To make sure you can get both Cabral and Minuit need to work hard at political points (two statesmen) and trade points. Sell your starting guns to the local Indians and consider buying whatever goods they want (eg cloth) even if you don’t make a profit on the deal. If you can limit your initial exploration below the Ponce de Leon trigger you will get offered Minuit first so it is possible to get all three outstanding early FF. The other AI do not explore aggressively but they will pinch Minuit off you if you aren’t careful so he has to be taken second.
Make sure you promote one of your early dragoons to a surgeon.
If a wounded unit is promoted it regains a small amount of health. Best result on dragoons at 2.6 to 3.0 health as it allows them to fight the same turn.
Wounded units heal faster in a settlement, or with the help of a surgeon, and fastest with both (an Indian village counts as a settlement).
Note that one bell per turn will ultimately produce 25% rebel sentiment in one citizen. Can use this to calculate your ultimate rebel sentiment as follows:
RS = Bells x 25/ Total population (ie All Units – No Profession from Military Advisor)
When native converts get their extra movement point late in the game they make excellent pioneers because they can often move and build at the same time. Link four or five of them together for best effect. If the invading REF destroy a road it may be possible to sacrifice surplus converts to rebuild it.
It takes four turns for an ordinary colonist to build a road in most terrain (two turns for a hardy pioneer). The only exceptions are desert and marsh, which take five turns.
Only pop ancient ruins/burial grounds with seasoned scouts. If you only have a colonist scout either wait until he is ‘seasoned’ or train him in a village.
If you want to buy cheap soldiers and cannons from the King you have to accept all his demands, and it will increase the REF.
There is no advantage in avoiding tax increases, do not take the ‘tea party’ option. The first tax increase is triggered by trading (ie buying or selling) a total of 201 tons of any goods, either to Europe or the natives.
Valuable Founding Fathers
Peter Minuit (Trade) is available early and makes buying colonists in Europe 25% cheaper.
William Penn (Religion) adds 3 crosses for every Town Hall. It doubled my total crosses.
Lewis & Clark (Exploration) give +1 travel for Wagons and halves the number of tools for your Pioneers.
Pocahontas (Religion) makes a huge difference in Indian relations. All Indian tribes went to ‘pleased’ except the one I was at war with which made peace and changed to ‘friendly’.
Indians normally move 1 but if they have relevant promotions (mountaineer, ranger etc) they can (and will) move 2. They also have tribal traits (see military screen). Note that this cannot apply to the REF as they can’t get those promotions, and in fact don’t even get the normal terrain bonuses on defence.
You can ‘shelter’ your ships in an Indian village to avoid attack (from a Privateer but not a MoW). It is not possible to ‘hide’ a Privateer under a Frigate. ie a neutral Man-o-War can make a selected attack against the Privateer.
Privateers are best used in pairs. They lose too many 1-on-1 battles against Merchantmen, Galleons and especially other Privateers. If you have two privateers and lose one then the other can still make the kill.
It is possible to capture colonists as well as goods with a Privateer but you need to take a cargo ship along (I’ve tried both a Merchantman and a Galleon). The capture is noted in the log and the colonists appear in the cargo ship. Both ships need to be on the same sea tile when the attack starts. Another advantage is that if you attack a full Galleon and have a Galleon of your own handy then all six cargos will be loaded into it (none in the Privateer).
You can capture enemy an Great General, I took three off the Dutch King once.
To check which leader you selected at the start toggle on ‘scores display’ and mouse over your name.
If you capture an enemy colony and keep it, you also get that nations negative Indian sentiment. If it is close to home it may be better to raze it.
Indian Training – This is a very strong feature of the game. You can train Colonists, Convicts and Indentured Servants even if they are scouts or dragoons, and a village will train multiple times. (Note - Patch removed converts from training in villages)
When trading with Indians by Merchantman only take 100 of each type of goods (guns, horses, trade goods etc) because you cannot split the cargo for sale. Eg if you have 400 guns you can only sell all or none (unless you take a wagon train with you).
It is possible to trade with an inland village on a different island or continent to your home colonies. Load an empty wagon train and the goods you wish to trade into a transport ship. Sail this into a coastal Indian village and unload the wagon train. Then select the goods and load them into the wagon, which can now move inland to trade.
You can use native villages as a canal if your town isn’t adjacent to water (patch removed this option).
If your Merchantman is attacked but escapes to port, it may retain any goods loaded aboard (unless they are captured) but will lose any units it was carrying.
Those silver resources are hard to find but aren’t really necessary. River next to mountain is powerful. Mountain + river+ mine=3 silver (6 from specialist). You can often find a river running alongside a huge range of mountains!
The movement points used in an attack are equivalent to that which would have been used if you had moved to the tile where the attack took place (i.e. ½ for a road, 2 for a forest etc). However for some reason a withdrawal uses an extra point.
You can check the combat odds before an attack by using right click and drag. Once the battle starts you can see the outcome immediately from the colour bar above your units name on the bottom right of the main screen.
Promotions that only apply to a soldier (eg Ranger, Minuteman etc) will be lost if he is made a scout or dragoon, but only temporarily. If he is changed back to a soldier the bonuses reappear. Because you don’t know which of your dragoons has these hidden promotions until you switch him back it is best to rename him.
The Formation promotion (+25% against mounted units) is only useful to defensive units such as soldiers because when you attack an AI stack it puts up the best defensive unit against your attacker. So Formation on a dragoon is wasted because the enemy dragoons won’t face it.
To rename a unit, select it and click on the name in the yellow box.
If the arrow keys won’t move your unit it will be because you don’t have NumLock on.
Late in the game you can build small 2-statesmen colonies that are very productive, taking advantage of all the FF bonuses you have acquired. Because these include production bonuses you don’t even need a lumberjack or carpenter. Building queue: Printing Press, Church, School, Warehouse, Stockade, and Trade Wagons.
Use Alt – S to label a map tile (eg for a colony site), and Alt – S again to remove the label. Ctrl A runs the automatic moves for that turn. Insert key enters nearest Settlement.
Cannons can bombard enemy colony defences and they have a huge 100% settlement attack so are very effective against Indian villages too. They are not much good in the open though.
Add a second building to the building queue with shift/click.
Building a Dock increases the food available from the sea by +2, building a Dry-dock or a Shipyard does not increase this.
Trading ships gain experience and promotions too! If you use a Great General in a port any ships will share in the exp. Promotions include Navigation 1 (+1 visibility), Navigation 2 (+1 movement) and Navigation 3 (+1 movement).
You can swap an injured dragoon with a colonist working in a colony. The new dragoon is uninjured and the colonist will heal.
No Sugar Planter and no handy sugar resource – no problem. With Cyrus McCormick in Congress (+50% sugar) three Converted Natives supported 2 ½ Master Brewers.
30 Braves! The Iroquois settled a new village on the edge of my territory (after my boundaries had absorbed all their villages) with 30 braves in it. Luckily they are ‘pleased’ (at Conquistador level). The list of defenders for that village showed ‘Native (20)’ at the end.
Make sure your territory is fully roaded before DoI.
Clearing land doesn’t remove a resource. Eg Hill/Forest/Tundra with Deer gave 1 food, 6 lumber, 5 fur or 3 ore. After felling the forest (for 20 lumber) it was Hills/Tundra with Deer and gave 3 food, 2 fur or 3 ore.
Silver Outpost: Usually in a hilly area so food may be tight, but even one plain or grassland hill is enough for an expert farmer to support two silver miners. Pioneer needed for mines etc.
Best treasure captured = 2488 (from the Dutch)
Independence
1. Carry out normal colony tasks
2. Make sure every colony has at least 100guns/100 horses
3. No ships in Europe or in transit (note a west coast merchantman in transit survived)
4. Declare Independence (All Men are Free)
5. Go through each colony making indented servants into dragoons (+ any other spare colonists). Send them to a central collection point.
6. Strip any isolated colonies of men and material and gift them away (can wait a turn)
7. Hit next turn – no action so can finalise defences. Cancel all automated trade routes and re-route to avoid coastal tiles or colonies.
8. Hit next turn, and the REF arrive (and you can operate your trading ships again)
Note – if defending ports with soldiers have them fortified 4 turns prior to REF arrival
Expect the King to use approx 10% of his ships for the initial landing. If there are any amphibious attacks you will get your full colony defence bonus for that first turn, the bombardment only starts after the landing.
You only need to defeat the ground units; you can leave the ships alone. However they may cause a problem with your exports so it is handy to have a few SoL available.
All landings will be on the coast close to a colony. Not necessarily a port though, they may land beside an inland colony where it is within one tile of the coast.
Undocumented Patch Changes
1. It is no longer possible to use a coastal native village as a ‘canal’ to reach an inland colony, or vice versa.
2. Goods traded with a native village count towards the tax increase threshold.
3. All tax boycotts are lifted after Independence.
4. The starting position on a random map is fixed with two European powers to the north and one to the south.
Shortcut keys
Alt/S to enter a signpost
C or middle mouse button to centre on the active unit
Bare map icon to clear map (no shortcut key)
Ctl/A to force automatic moves
In the end it comes down to how you like to play the game.
