first Building

[defjam]

which should be the first builidng? dock , church or warehouse??

 

[Trackman20]

I always build Dock then Warehouse.

The most important part of the beginning to me is settlement growth.

 

[ipris]

I always build Dock then Warehouse.

The most important part of the beginning to me is settlement growth.

I agree trackman20 here. what's less clear is what to do next. I suppose it depends on the situation. If you're not going with a wagon train what is the value of a church vs. a schoolhouse? Perhaps even a drydock?

Generally after i have Dock and a warehouse i get lost in getting experts to ramp up trade and found new towns.

 

[defjam]

I agree trackman20 here. what's less clear is what to do next. I suppose it depends on the situation. If you're not going with a wagon train what is the value of a church vs. a schoolhouse? Perhaps even a drydock?

Generally after i have Dock and a warehouse i get lost in getting experts to ramp up trade and found new towns.

yeah i got the same problem..

but wagon train makes sense after dock, warehouse...

after that is up for debate to me...

i'm not doing too well in this game so far..

 

[Darklighter]

yeah i got the same problem..

but wagon train makes sense after dock, warehouse...

after that is up for debate to me...

i'm not doing too well in this game so far..

Since Col2 is quite different than the original, In the sense that buying colonists is almost out of the question. 12,000 gold for a fisherman in the late game from the hurry up dock! The units in the purchasing panel actually become more viable here.

I tend to go with a Dock if the settlement is on the coast (of course) then a Church. Crosses are more important in this game. Especially if you are playing as the English. Then I purchase a Hardy Pioneer and shoot for producing food (seems to be easier to produce food than in the original version) to get more free colonists. They where sprouting up all over the place in my first game. Then concentrate on upgrading buildings that produce the finished goods.
This worked well. My only problem was I got caught up in the huge REF (bug, feature problem) by producing liberty bells too early.

I only build a wagon train if I have a colony off of the coast first. I haven't bothered trading with the natives since there prices seem to be wierd/low?

 

[rabottens]

I use some of the old col strategy. Build specialized cities. Usually my starting city is a food producer to assist in spinning off additional colonies. I look for a good mining location and start an ore/tool/guns/cannon colony usually in the interior to avoid an early knockout by all the kings men. Then I focus on production cities and feeder cities to feed raw materials to the production cities. All locations must produce liberty bells and crosses if you are ever going to get enough support for a revolution. Even at the easiest levels this game is a bit more difficult than its predecessor. Careful planning and execution is the name of the game.

 

[frosty2k]

After my first full game, I didn't realize how powerful having a ton of food was until late in the game. I managed to set up a city close to the last 100 turns, that did nothing but food, and suddenly I had more colonists than I could find towns for.

My next game I plan on putting down my first town around a lot of food. If I have lots of water tiles, the first building would be the dock, if not, then definitely schoolhouse so I can train up all the colonists I'm generating into expert farmers/fishermen.

If you make your first city all food, except for perhaps one tile for wood, you will have more colonists than you know what to do with. If you have a expert farmer/fisherman native village nearby, then go with the church for the first building as you wont need to train your colonists internally and this is a good way to gain free specialists early on. Also, because churches loose their punch after the mid game, it's a good idea to have them going full tilt as early as possible and then phase them out later.

As for the second city, I plan on setting that up as a production and training centre for professions other than food production. Sort of a 1, 2 process to funding new colonies.

I will be trying this strategy out later tonight after work, but from what I saw, it seemed quite powerful if I could get it set up early on. In the game I'm almost finished, my army went from almost nothing, to 3-4 defenders per town in a very short time. (Given that I'd set up a big weapons factory before having all the extra colonists)

 

[Trackman20]

I've found that "Warehouse Expansion" should be my first goal of each game. It seems to really open things up and keeps money coming in, without sending out wagons or ships to Europe.

 

[Lord Ben]

Yeah, I just send all my colonists into a Native village to learn to be a fisherman. I never build schoolhouses.

In Capital city I build the dock first, in the rest I build a warehouse first. Once I have a warehouse and dock both built and 3-4 wagon trains I switch over to political points usually and pump those out asap.

 

[The Fjonis]

Can schools also train expert "goods processors", like blacksmiths and cigar makers? If they can only train raw material producers (like farmers and fishermen) then I'd say building a school early on doesn't sound like a good idea, since you can just send them to native villages instead..

 

[Lord Ben]

For the few blacksmiths, etc that you need it's much easier to simply buy them than to build a school and then train them. At least IMHO.

 

[much2much]

Church.

Money instead of rushing immigrants use it to buy goods and guns to gift or sell to natives. Certain specialists are worth rushing but if you get church first the docks will be very busy: a caravel will be hard pressed to get them all over. Hoard and trade until you can get a merchantman. Try to make heaps of trades with Indians and buy all their stuff except food if you can carry it back to Europe.

 

[Gliese 581]

Church.

Money instead of rushing immigrants use it to buy goods and guns to gift or sell to natives. Certain specialists are worth rushing but if you get church first the docks will be very busy: a caravel will be hard pressed to get them all over. Hoard and trade until you can get a merchantman. Try to make heaps of trades with Indians and buy all their stuff except food if you can carry it back to Europe.

Or just play the dutch?