Cost effective way to keep the natives happy?

[Bloink]

I'm playing the Western Hemisphere map on Conquistador. Logan has ~15+ colonies completely surrounding me along with 3-4 mixed in with my colonies....

Needless to say he gets pissed around 1600 and forces a brutally long battle that ruins my taste for fighting a WoI.

Any tips at keeping him happy without stiffling my growth would be appreciated.

PS: Added a save from 1602

 

[scottfreitas]

Trade with him. Give him gifts of gold (1000 or more), along with free rum, cigars, whatever. Buy everything he offers for sale. Get Pocahontas and every other Founder you can who helps improve Natve relations...

 

[dalgo]

Yeah those FF really help, but only for a while. Get used to being in a long war and use it to give your troops experience ahead of the WOI. I found it best to push his borders back by using cannons to raze the closest villages.

 

[Bloink]

Trade with him. Give him gifts of gold (1000 or more), along with free rum, cigars, whatever. Buy everything he offers for sale. Get Pocahontas and every other Founder you can who helps improve Natve relations...

This doesn't seem to be a very cost effective method, I would bet they will end up attacking me the moment I start my WoI.

Yeah those FF really help, but only for a while. Get used to being in a long war and use it to give your troops experience ahead of the WOI. I found it best to push his borders back by using cannons to raze the closest villages.

This is what I ended up having to do, clearing the nearest villages so that I could immediately resume my trade routes. It slowed the game down a bit but ultimately I got 2 GG's and several quality veteran units that made the WoI fairly easy. I did lose a few specialists but noone that was too critical.

I was wondering, if I had put missions in all the closest colonies and had a church/cath with a Firebrand, would that have made a difference?

 

[dalgo]

I was wondering, if I had put missions in all the closest colonies and had a church/cath with a Firebrand, would that have made a difference?

I did have missions in all the nearby colonies and they still attacked. My problem was that I had taken over a couple of Spanish colonies so I inherited their negative sentiment. However the Incan empire was so powerful (they had 23 villages in my game) that my few cannons didn't impress them enough to keep the peace. Like you I lost a heap of time where I was spending all available cash on military instead of building infrastructure. It did keep the game interesting though.

 

[pajeg]

a mission in the village near your colonies calm down the native a bit (the way of life malus)
giving them product they need in a village too (the cheapest the better for you)


but some native are eagier to fight, does'nt matter who or your relation with them

if you don't have troops to kill them, the better thing to do is to bribe them to fight someone else (too bad they won't attack someone that would destroy them^^)

 

[scottfreitas]

Try playing the French sometime. I always play the French, and I can build a huge colony smack dab in the middle of 15 Aztec / Arawak / Whatever villages and have no probs at all the entire game. In fact, soon as my Influence causes my borders to expand, the Natives will always GIVE me their settlements (if i want them; which I don't. I just tell them "it ain't happening" so they stay right next to me and can help attack the REF during the WoI).

I've tried playing other Civs and always go back to the French. Having every tribe on the map in love with you, always willing to help fight the other Europeans and the REF soldiers, is just too addictive...

 

[pajeg]

Try playing the French sometime. I always play the French, and I can build a huge colony smack dab in the middle of 15 Aztec / Arawak / Whatever villages and have no probs at all the entire game. In fact, soon as my Influence causes my borders to expand, the Natives will always GIVE me their settlements (if i want them; which I don't. I just tell them "it ain't happening" so they stay right next to me and can help attack the REF during the WoI).

I've tried playing other Civs and always go back to the French. Having every tribe on the map in love with you, always willing to help fight the other Europeans and the REF soldiers, is just too addictive...

if you don't extend your colonies too fast, they won't bug you (it must go down after some time, like the steal land thing)
if you create lots of colonies in their land, whithout creating missions to calm them down or giving them some cheap goods as a gift, they may go berserk


adams is better for huge empire than sam i think
3 statemen in a food colonie get all the land around it
why build a lumberhill? i hurry the press&journal, and build wagons non stop (to get food from the village, i'll get the gold back with some horse or whathever)
all the colons it generate create missions near my colonies, by the time i get some converts to create more colonies (why train them? at this point you don't have farmer everywhere, they can do the job, or chop some wood for the charpenters)
you get the ff faster (baltimore & hamilton give a huge boost, the sooner you get them, the better)


the king will have more troops, so what, i have lots of wagons full of food/musquets/horse to greet him thanks to the ff

 

[benfp]

If I want to avoid fighting natives (which I usually want if I use a french leader because of the natives-linked bonuses), I will usually:
- Sell them goods that make them happy (that would be Rum, Cigars, Tools, etc. (check XML)), except guns (because guns give them power, and I suppose one of the factor affecting their decision to go to war or not is the power ratio between their "team" (i.e. them + their allies + your ennemies) and your "team" (i.e. you + your allies)
- Do missions, dozens of them. Usually by mid-game, I get so many colonists I have no idea what to do w/ them so they do missions. I don't think a jesuit missionary will give you anymore relation bonus than standard missionaries, so I don't buy any, and I don't really want any. I just mission spam everywhere.
- some Founding Fathers improve relations with natives, I grab them.
- I always build up some military power, that means buying cannons every once in a while.
- I always pay when settling. Why would I mind anyway? The money I give them I get it right after by trading a few tons of goods which wouldn't be sold to a high price in Europe anyway (cos European prices decrease and never go back up)
- I don't push them off w/ LB until WOI and by then, I have built enough soldiers so they won't take the chance.

Now if you play Spanish, you may want to kill natives in order to use the spanish leaders military-oriented traits.

IMHO, except if you play Spanish, having wars w/ natives is bad idea because:
- Native are the only way to get tile-working specialists. I mean, except if one native nation teaches only fur-to-coats specialists on its two villages, you will decrease your global potential output of raw goods if you kill natives.
- Natives are the only consistent way to make money in the game. The Trading with Europe thing lasts for a few dozens years but then you get taxed by your ugly monarch and prices drop for ever.
- It distracts you from what you should really do 1/ Build up your economy 2/ Prepare for the WOI then 3/ Do the WOI

 

[pajeg]

I don't think a jesuit missionary will give you anymore relation bonus than standard missionaries, so I don't buy any, and I don't really want any. I just mission spam everywhere.

a farmer get more food than the basic colon
same thing for a convert (1/3 faster to get a convert)

 

[pajeg]

I get so many colonists I have no idea what to do w/ them so they do missions

here's a tip, stock your extra food in wagon along with your guns and horse, you'll get a lot more soldier for the revolution with no impact on the ref (they don't exist yet)

 

[benfp]

a farmer get more food than the basic colon
same thing for a convert (1/3 faster to get a convert)

Yes they do. But they are prohibitively expensive compared to a std missionaries spam. I will keep a few villages un-missioned tho in the event I get jesuit missionaries from the docks.

here's a tip, stock your extra food in wagon along with your guns and horse, you'll get a lot more soldier for the revolution with no impact on the ref (they don't exist yet)

I have a hard time building enough guns to get every of my spawned colonists into soldiers. I never throw guns away. I always use them to build up soldiers, but even doing so, I still have too much food on my hands.
You highlighted a very interesting point: As long as your power rating is enough to scare natives so they don't attack you (cannons should be enough in most circumstances), you should avoid building soldiers because they count in your total population and therefore slow you in declaring the Independance and therefore slow you in winning the WOI. On my next game, I'll try to start mass-producing soldiers only after declaring using stocked Food & Guns. (It seems quite expensive tho as for every 4 soldiers, you will need 5 wagons: 4 wagon full of food and 1 full of guns).

 

[dalgo]

Try playing the French sometime. I always play the French, and I can build a huge colony smack dab in the middle of 15 Aztec / Arawak / Whatever villages and have no probs at all the entire game. In fact, soon as my Influence causes my borders to expand, the Natives will always GIVE me their settlements (if i want them; which I don't. I just tell them "it ain't happening" so they stay right next to me and can help attack the REF during the WoI).

I've tried playing other Civs and always go back to the French. Having every tribe on the map in love with you, always willing to help fight the other Europeans and the REF soldiers, is just too addictive...

This map is a lot bigger and the indians a lot stronger than other maps. In my current game the French were wiped out by the Aztecs.

 

[pajeg]

Yes they do. But they are prohibitively expensive compared to a std missionaries spam. I will keep a few villages un-missioned tho in the event I get jesuit missionaries from the docks.



I have a hard time building enough guns to get every of my spawned colonists into soldiers. I never throw guns away. I always use them to build up soldiers, but even doing so, I still have too much food on my hands.
You highlighted a very interesting point: As long as your power rating is enough to scare natives so they don't attack you (cannons should be enough in most circumstances), you should avoid building soldiers because they count in your total population and therefore slow you in declaring the Independance and therefore slow you in winning the WOI. On my next game, I'll try to start mass-producing soldiers only after declaring using stocked Food & Guns. (It seems quite expensive tho as for every 4 soldiers, you will need 5 wagons: 4 wagon full of food and 1 full of guns).

you can train jesuite missionaries at school

lots of low pop colonies are better than few big pop colonies
- you only have to build the usine in the one that will produce goods
- only the warehouse in the one that harvest
- after that... wagons or political points
- when you're about to get ff that give extra for a building, build it everywhere (hamilton is very nice with a large empire)

and it's faster to get every colonies at 50 % rebel sentiment

 

[benfp]

you can train jesuite missionaries at school

lots of low pop colonies are better than few big pop colonies
- you only have to build the usine in the one that will produce goods
- only the warehouse in the one that harvest
- after that... wagons or political points
- when you're about to get ff that give extra for a building, build it everywhere (hamilton is very nice with a large empire)

and it's faster to get every colonies at 50 % rebel sentiment

About jesuite missionaries at school, yes you can. But as we both agree 10x1pp colonies is a better thing than 1x10pop colony, we will need more elders statement, hence training jesuite missionaries looks like kind of a waste, doesn't it?

About centralizing or decentralizing your economy, you're right, decentralizing is better (e.g. a city produces goods from with what it harvests) but it requires a lot of tools and thereby a careful planning.

Just like you said, the Hamilton+Madison+Ross combo on a huge empire is a killer.

 

[pajeg]

i can't buy tobbaco/coton/sugar planters or jesuite from europe, so i only use my university colonies for them

if i don't need them, it's time to create more colonies, or stock my food and create bells everywhere

 

[Bloink]

Well, I started another Western Hemisphere game(Dutch/Governer) with a much better start. I immediately plopped down 3 cities(careful not to upset the natives too much) and promptly put them to work on LB's and Political points. This made the first 40 turns or so fairly boring but it ended up getting me Pocohantis and the Arawak love me. I also put missions in all the surrounding villages and am trading so heavily they ran out of money!
This strat was made far easier by having 2 Seasoned Scouts out making me a small fortune to finance this all.

As it stands I will end up with a fairly small colony compared to my normal strats(7 cities is all) but it looks like this should be a fairly easy win.

 

[rf900]

here's a tip, stock your extra food in wagon along with your guns and horse, you'll get a lot more soldier for the revolution with no impact on the ref (they don't exist yet)

oh.. cheap trick, I like it. Could this be considered an exploit? I was doing the horses/muskets part but didn't thought about food. The DOI and RS is trully screwed up.

 

[pajeg]

oh.. cheap trick, I like it. Could this be considered an exploit? I was doing the horses/muskets part but didn't thought about food. The DOI and RS is trully screwed up.

there's a feature in your colonies to store food instead of creating new colons, as i use wagons to bring all my extra food in on central colonie (to get colons faster), i do the same when i no longer need colons (i have to use these wagons for something, and it's easier to know how much colons i will have this way)