Final analysis. Current problems and sugestions how to fix them.

[Mutineer]

Final analysis.

After playing around and trying to experiment with different strategies I conclude that game is incomplete and poorly balanced.

Points:

REF formula is very strange. Because of geometrical increase of REF Game become procedure of minimising REF. Any other strategy is ineffective.

Economical development is very strategically limited. Main problem is scaling education.
Using education for anything but training Elder statesmen is counterproductive.
It is really limited possible strategies and make -25% bonus of baying specialists from mother country essential.
Make education how it should be, faster with better education facilities and level depends on education facility will open option of self education and will make unit discount mach less important.
As I sad previously. Game should provide economical incentives to declare independence!

Conquest of natives! What happened to getting treasure from destruction of Indian village and getting converted Indians, one per attack removing one population/turn of attack?
This did make playing Spanish attractive and give option of quick buck from Indians instead of benefiting more slowly from missions/trade. Right now one get 70 gold treasure from destroying Indian village! LOL!

Economical independence. I really like idea of workers start to consume products in order to benefit from increase of productivity from rebel sentiment.
Statesmen/preachers/students consume tobacco, professionals consume cloth, raw material worker coats and converted Indian alcohol. They should pay for in half of mother country priced and this income taxed until independence.

Trade - I believe Indian trade should not effect taxes, making trading and exploiting Indians mach more effective, as counterbalance of quick buck conquest strategy. May be modify Indian village to make them grow and become more productive in some conditions.

Right now I found game have very little of replay value because of extremely limited amount of effective strategies.

 

[B.B.Shrooms]

I agree with most of what you have written EXCEPT the part about economic independence.

If you look at the historical background the economy in the colonies totally collapsed during the war of independence because it was utterly dependent on the trade with the UK. Internal consumption of goods other than food was simply way too low for the economy to work as it was totally geared toward exporting to the mother country and there wasn't even much in terms of actual currency in the colonies. In the short term the US War of Independene was a disaster for the colonies economically, obviously in the long term it's a different story. Because of this I think the overall approach towards economics in the game makes sense.

HOWEVER I do agree that for gameplay reasons the economic system should be tweaked because as you said: It isn't much fun to have exactly one way of winning this game. At the least the game should allow for possible trade with the other European nations. As long as you're a colony you are obviously only allowed to do the European trade with your native country. However once you declare independence you can at least attempt to trade with other nations homeports as well. Provided of course you can get your ships through any naval blockade by the REF. This would make a lot of sense historically (as the US colonies did just that) and it would also make a lot of sense in terms of game play as economics wouldn't simply go to hell every time you declare independence.

 

[Refar]

I think we might be better of with REF growing as function of the game time (With some minor random variation and perhaps a few additional major effects / triggers).

REF:
Start at a bigger size than it is now (to prevent Indy-Rush).
Grow slowly with time.
Add a few additional bursts of growth as Random events, historical events or - meaningfully - tied to some player actions. (For example: Refuse Tax, Reach 25% / 50% Rebel Sentiment)

This would "free" most of the other game concepts (LB production, FF, Diplomacy with the King) from the REF ballast allowing for more flexible strategy. And it would not penalize the player for building up colonial economy.

At the same time it would put some pressure on the Player to develop the Colonial Economy fast, to beat the King before the Ref become too large.

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I fully agree on Education.
I am thinking perhaps flat-rate education time, but slowly increasing gold cost for advanced specialists (per type - as with buying soldiers/cannon) might do the trick.

Natives need to generate some gold, to prevent them from running out too fast.
Or - maybe better - barter goods instead. So i could sell them some Booze for some food. This could make them a economic factor.
As it stands now, they run out of gold after a few trades. Then they run out of converts - becaue it tales forever to convert/train another guy in a village.
At this point they are uselless for anything but beeing squashed.

 

[Thundercracker]

I like all those fixes except the economic independence one. It seems irritating to me to have my colonies start sucking down goods I could sell for more elsewhere.

REF should start bigger and grow more slowly, but still needs to be connected to overall colony size. Otherwise spamming population becomes the best solution, and that would suck. Eliminate the per-turn LB check, and maybe make it grow at certain LB milestones (10%, 20%, etc).

Make conquering indians useful for more than training your army.

Make guns/tools/horses prices more volatile in Europe. They start and stay so low throughout the game there's no point in ever making any yourself. Its vastly better to focus on refined goods and then use the massive profits to buy all the guns you need. Prices for those goods should rise quicker so a tipping point is reached partway through the game.

Make European Colonies AI better. Has anyone ever seen a successful AI WoI? Or felt threatened by one militarily, even at higher difficulty levels? They're barely worth the effort of paying Indians to wipe them out.

Not really a fix but an additional feature that would make the game much more interesting: Wars with other colonies should be declared at random times by your king. Historically during the colonial period, wars usually started in Europe and then spilled over to the Colonies. It'd be interesting if your king popped up every so often and told you you're now at war with New France. It would force conflict between the colonies.

 

[B.B.Shrooms]

Not really a fix but an additional feature that would make the game much more interesting: Wars with other colonies should be declared at random times by your king. Historically during the colonial period, wars usually started in Europe and then spilled over to the Colonies. It'd be interesting if your king popped up every so often and told you you're now at war with New France. It would force conflict between the colonies.

That was a given in the original game. I can't for the live of it figure out why they dropped it.