How to win on revolutionary in 40 turns.

[guare]

I was good enough to lose.

I got 7 cannons, 100% bells and two dragoons. Tried to defend sneak into the jungles and then counter attack, but my city was razed and I lost my bell-bonus. I loaded and tried to defend my colony but they outnumbered me.

Does this really work and I'm just plain stupid or this is just a math-probability strategy that won't guarantee victory, instead it will just increase your odds a little and you got to try until you win?

 

[Palomino]

Double click a guy on the docks in Europe to equip them with tools, guns, horses, or guns/horses.

I just played this and won without deleting any colonists though I did send one off to found a mission with a native village. The main divergence from the basic strategy for me was being aggressive about selling guns/horses to several different native nations to raise a lot of cash. I didn't have much luck with treasures with my scout and only got about 1200 gold combined from two. Once I got Peter I bought a galleon, loaded it up with cannons and more guns/horses and made a few trips back and forth with my caravel doing the same with guns/horses to visit natives. I first built a stockade and then rushed a printing press after that to increase bell production. Once the printing press finished I switched to producing military points though I never had anyone working in the carpenter shop. If I recall I got the FF with +25% settlement defense before independence.

I think when I declared independence it was around turn 43 and had 50% rebel sentiment. I had my galleon and caravel in my town with some extra guns/horses. I chose all men are free and equipped the indentured servants and some other colonists. Then I fortified them in town along with my 10 or so cannon. I was slightly outnumbered but since the REF could only land half their forces I had the edge vs each wave. My dragoons ended up dying which raised my rebel sentiment to 100% or near it and then it was over quick as my cannon mopped up the remaining REF.

I won the game in 1546 AD with a score of 388 and normalized score of 5363.

 

[davecheeney]

... The biggest problems with the game can be fixed in a few easy steps:

1. Make it so that Rebel Sentiment cannot be raised by loss of colonists.
2. Make the REF much larger to start the game.
3. Make the AI keep at least one soldier guarding every colony.
4. Make the foreign powers way more aggressive.

I like these ideas because they can be used to reflect the true history of the period (at least for the British-USA experience. I'm not sure how this plays out in terms of the Spanish or Portuguese experience in S. America).

Starting with #4 - "Aggressive Foreigners" The French and Indian War was the primary "trigger" of the independence movement in the British colonies (USA - not Canada). The Brits had to send over a large REF to fight off the French and their Indian allies, and then had to raise taxes in the colonies to pay for this costly war. The "ungrateful" colonists turned around and bit the hand that had saved them from the French (or at least that's how it seemed to the British). It was the taxation thing that drove the rebellion (seems like its always about the pocketbook!).

1. Make the other powers declare war on each other
2. Then have the "mother country" send over a small REF to intervene
3. Then have the King raise taxes through the roof to pay for his war of protection

#3 - "Keeping Small REF in the Colonies" This makes sense - have the King keep a small REF around once the colonies reach a certain size. Quartering soldiers on the local population (making citizens pay to house and feed Royal troops) also raises rebellious feelings.

#1 - "Deleting Citizens" You could consider this as banishment and not outright murder. Send all those Tories back to Halifax! Kick them out of Boston (or New York...). Allow the player to banish a unit which sends it back to the homeland, or sends them off to a loyal colony.

I used to play the original version for weeks and weeks. It was never about winning the game then, it was all about setting up the largest and most self sufficient colonial nation possible. It was "just one more colony over there to grab that silver...oh, I need some more cotton so just one more over there"...and so on until 3 AM and now I need to think up some good excuse to skip going to the office!

[Go Hokies!]

 

[Dwarfskinner]

Greetings,

I see I'm not the only one somewhat disappointed with the 'scope' of the game

Some things I would like to see addressed which I think would benefit the over-all arc of the game...

1. Random events/quests.

I know they do this in civ so it should be no big deal. Say...sell 1000 furs to europe in x # turns; get a merchantman.

2. Trade with natives for scouts,warriors

The native angle is pretty good now...but they should go back to the graphic of the !!! from green to red and allow you to trade with the indians for braves/converts

3.Need I say...europeon powers are sad. They don't even play to their supposed strengths

Well here's hoping...I'll pick up the game again once theres a mod or patch thats suitable for the great strategy that this should be.

....or when I get tired of Fallout3

 

[guare]

I like these ideas because they can be used to reflect the true history of the period (at least for the British-USA experience. I'm not sure how this plays out in terms of the Spanish or Portuguese experience in S. America).

Well, I can pretty much say that there were no war for independence in Brazil.

It'd be pointless to, you modders out there, add Portugal Colonies in this game, unless there's some way to buy your independence.

This is not a very bad idea tho, but it doens't belong to this thread.

 

[Turinturambar]

I was good enough to lose.

I got 7 cannons, 100% bells and two dragoons. Tried to defend sneak into the jungles and then counter attack, but my city was razed and I lost my bell-bonus. I loaded and tried to defend my colony but they outnumbered me.

Does this really work and I'm just plain stupid or this is just a math-probability strategy that won't guarantee victory, instead it will just increase your odds a little and you got to try until you win?

It depends a bit on the initial city placement. If the city is placed in a way that the king is forced to make lots of amphibious assaults, it's bad for you since the penalty for attacking from sea is only 20%, and the king's troops gets an insane attack bonus. Usually the king will do only very few amphibious attacks though and winning land fights is not a problem.

Of course with combat decided by randomness, winning is not guaranteed, but it's very likely to win using this strategy.

You can go for a faster win with the dutch(turn 33 is my best), due to starting with a merchantmen, but you need a lot more luck winning the WoI

 

[Izmir Stinger]

Not necessarily a broken game mechanic... Just because you can use that to increase sentiment; then again, players look for all methods to exploit the game. - If you have a problem with this, simply don't do it...

For those of us that picked it up to see if it is as fun to play multiplayer as Civ4:BTS, it is broken. If you don't do it, you loose.

 

[HermannLombard]

I used this on a "try it once, then get back to playing the game" and I had a few problems. Strategically, I think I had one too many colonists which delayed things by a turn or two. The first problem was that when I deleted colonists I deleted all of them (except one in town, 3 dragoons, and 6 cannon) and it only brought me up to about 62% rebel sentiment. I declared on turn 35, and the REF arrived on Turn 37.

The first wave of the REF was scary as there were more of them than there were of me. I beat them, losing 1 dragoon and 2 cannons. I was nervous about facing the remaining 11 units with my 6 units. 50 turns later I was frustrated as the Men of War sailed back and forth in front of my town, doing nothing since I had no fortifications.

Somewhere around Turn 90 a quick save/reload jarred the REF into action, and the MoW sailed away. They returned with the remaining units and a desperate struggle ensued, coming down to 3 of my battered units against 3 of theirs. Two of my units survived for victory, around Turn 100. So much for 40 turns!

I decided to reload the Turn 35 position to see if the game would let me do better. This time the first wave left me with 3 dragoons and 3 cannon. The second wave never came. No matter how often I tried the quicksave/reload trick, or shutting down and relaunching the game, or moving units out and into the town, the ships just milled around in my coastal waters. Very frustrating.

I wonder if this would work better with the Snoopy/Dale PatchMod.

 

[HermannLombard]

winning land fights is not a problem. Of course with combat decided by randomness, winning is not guaranteed, but it's very likely to win using this strategy.

In my sample size of about ten tries *with* a lot of reloading, it's not very likely to win at all. I won that first time and didn't realize how lucky I was, I never came close again.

The basic experience is that the first landing of the REF outnumbers the entire rebel army, and the rebel sentiment will start at about 75% and go down from there.

Most recent endgame:

Turn 34, deleted all units except for my veteran soldier, bringing the rebel percent up to 100%, declared, and chose "All Men are Free." The two new units immediately brought the percentage down to 75. Created two "indentured statesmen" so all 3 units are in the Town Hall.

Turn 35, percentage rose all the way to 76. <sigh> Now I mounted one of them and the vet to prepare for the invasion. I have 2 dragoons (1 vet) and 6 cannon, the REF has 10 infantry, 6 dragoons, and 4 artillery.

Turn 36, the REF lands 4 infantry, 4 dragoons, and 2 artillery, with 8 units on open ground on one side of town with 1 dragoon and 1 artillery in the woods on the other side. Percentage has dropped to 71. I attacked the units in the open, killing 2 infantry, 3 dragoons, and 1 artillery while losing 2 cannon. All my other units are wounded.

Turn 37, percentage is down to 66 and the REF attacks, destroying all 4 cannon and mangling the dragoons. 3 of the 4 REF units are completely undamaged. I have the choice of throwing my horses onto their bayonets or waiting to be massacred in the town. RIP.

Note that the REF didn't even need amphibious assaults to inflict this disaster.

 

[Turinturambar]

Something strange is happening in your games that rebel percentage drops below 100 percent. Do you put everyone to work on bells all the time and make sure that no settlers are left on the docks in europe?
And are you playing with any mods?

In my games the two indentured servants you get never lowered my rebel sentiment below 100%. Of course if your units get only a 32 percent bonus instead of a 100 percent bonus winning the war requires a lot of luck, but in my games I always had the full 100 percent bonus. You might try deleting an indentured servant and only fight with cannons.

 

[HermannLombard]

Maybe I'll give it another go. In one game there was someone left on the docks in Europe. I don't think I could delete him there so another caravel trip would have been required, giving the King several more turns to reinforce his goons. I think that only happened once. Yes, everyone was at work on bells all the time except once the REF was active.

8 tries were un-modded, the last two used the Snoopy/Dale PatchMod.

It does seem to be best to put the town more than 5 tiles from "Europe" so the REF can't assault the town directly the first turn on the map, but ampib assaults weren't my problem.

[Edit] OK, gave it another go, and it worked like a charm *without* deleting the town populace...because I got an Elder Statesman on the docks. On Turn 33 I deleted the caravels and the scouts, retaining my vet soldier, elder statesman, and lumberjack in the town of Flashinthepan. The percent went right up to 100% (and was 82% prior to the deletions). So I declared independence but kept slavery, not needing the manpower. REF: 11/5/6.

T35 the REF landed 3 units 5 tiles away in a native village (?), and on T36 8 more units landed adjacent to my town...and died. None of my units was worse than 2.0/3. On T39 the three strays walked up...and died, giving me a general.

T43 the second wave appears, once again landing 3 units over in Teotihuacan (good rum?). The other 8 units land adjacent on T44 and my sallies killed 7 of 8, losing one cannon. The 8th died attacking the town on T45. On T47 the last 3 REF units could have moved adjacent, but instead re-embarked on a Man-o-War. However, on T48 they landed again, and died. Finish date 1540, normalized score 10,746 (Revolutionary/Normal/Standard). The game would have taken fewer than 45 turns if all the units had landed adjacent to my town.

Proof of concept! Thanks, Turinturambar.

 

[joelwest]

Turns 25-35:
Once you get Minuit, buy a second caravel and cannons in Europe. You should be able to buy ~6 cannons and 100 muskets/horses. Once your caravels are back in the new world, delete all your colonists until you have 100% rebel sentiment. Declare independence, pick all men are free and the bell-enhancing civics. Your veteran soldier and one of the indentured servants become dragoons. With 6 cannons and 2 dragoons sporting a +100% combat bonus defeating the Royal Expedition force is trivial.

I tried this proposed combat and did not find it to be "trivial". *(I was in quick game speed mode and playing rev diff.)

I do not question your strategy worked for you. I just do not know what you did to make it work during the combat phase

the king will come ashore with 9 units and you only have 8. hence each matchup must count. you need to at least wipe out all the dragoons and artillery in attacks you make from inside your city during the first combat round

cannons do only one thing "well", bombard a settlement to reduce its defenses 12% per turn. in that your strategy does not involve losing your only (coastal) city, I found the six cannons to be worthless in comparison to dragoons when attacking REF Vet 2 Dragoons and (unpromoted) Artillery (the bulk of the landing force) from inside the city

"2 dragoons sporting a +100% combat bonus"??? my dragoons can get up to a 50% bonus from rebel sentiment (100% - LB rate for colony, not city) which is larger than the Vet 2 promoted dragoons, but the combat odds around 78%, not infallible

Civ 4 Col unlike Col 1 does not allow you to pack up your tent and leave a colony empty (that does not have a stockade). given that fact would it have been feasible to have built an inland second city with a fort on defensive terrain to force artillery by themselves to reduce the city defenses without the help of the ships? in that case you would have to wait until the first city was captured to get your colony LB rate up to the desired 100%

in another game I tried abandoning the coastal city and moving inland about five tiles as soon as the King landed in the first wave. strangely enough it took the REF quite a few turns to show up inland and also to hunt down on the open seas my now departed caravel and merchantman. enough time for the inland city that if I had had more than one colonists to get my liberty bell rate up I might have got up to 100% LB rate. (in that game I only had one dragoon and 6 cannons left when I departed the coastal city)

--------------

in summary I would have been better off spending the cannon money on buying vet soldiers at the dock

what is the advantage of your strategy (which I could not make work) versus having 8+vet soldier dragoons fighting the REF instead?

or taking the time to get those 8+ vet soldier dragoons promoted to at least Vet 2 fighting natives or Europeans? (in which case San Martin would be a better leader due to double XP rate for combat units)

btw I found out the hard way a stockade and fort are worthless for a one coastal city strategy such as you outline since the King's warships will wipe out your fleet (if it ventures out of port) then bombard the city's defenses to zero in only a few turns. the King is also likely after the first wave to try amphibious attack of units from his ships, one of which wiped out one of my cannons (which are much weaker units than dragoons inside cities)

the only improvements useful for a coastal city in 40 turns are the dock (to help with food problem) and a warehouse (or wagon trains) to store excess guns and horses (bought in Europe). if you had more time a printing press and newspaper would be useful, as would be buying an Elder Statesman form the dock

 

[joelwest]

I think when I declared independence it was around turn 43 and had 50% rebel sentiment.

I had my galleon and caravel in my town with some extra guns/horses. I chose all men are free and equipped the indentured servants and some other colonists. Then I fortified them in town along with my 10 or so cannon. I was slightly outnumbered but since the REF could only land half their forces I had the edge vs each wave. My dragoons ended up dying which raised my rebel sentiment to 100% or near it and then it was over quick as my cannon mopped up the remaining REF.

I won the game in 1546 AD with a score of 388 and normalized score of 5363.

I am amazed you had so much success with the minimal LB rate of 50% meaning your initial set of defending troups had no combat bonus comparable to the Vet 2 promotions of the King's dragoons

 

[HermannLombard]

I do not question your strategy worked for you. I just do not know what you did to make it work during the combat phase...what is the advantage of your strategy (which I could not make work) versus having 8+vet soldier dragoons fighting the REF instead?

Worked for me too after a few tries and some mistakes like leaving someone on the docks in Europe.

The advantage is getting a victory in under 50 turns (and apparently Turinturambar has achieved under 40). As T. said, this is an exploit of the game system.

Having 8+ vet soldier dragoons (with vet being unnecessary) is a different approach that does not have the goal of an ultra-early victory. Of course that force has a better chance of defeating an REF of reasonable size, and would be overkill against the tiny REF of Turinturambar's strategy.

Keep trying and it will work for you. Don't place your town close enough to Europe for amphibious assault. Get that 100% rebel sentiment and keep it there. Note from my game that the REF does not always land more than 8 units next to your city.

 

[joelwest]

Having 8+ vet soldier dragoons (with vet being unnecessary) is a different approach that does not have the goal of an ultra-early victory. Of course that force has a better chance of defeating an REF of reasonable size, and would be overkill against the tiny REF of Turinturambar's strategy.

Keep trying and it will work for you. Don't place your town close enough to Europe for amphibious assault. Get that 100% rebel sentiment and keep it there. Note from my game that the REF does not always land more than 8 units next to your city.

the vet soldiers cost more than the cannons and so it might a few more turns to get say 6 of them and two cannons. but your combat odds go up dramatically

unsure about your comments regarding amphibious attack. most posters say to make your settlement as close to Europe (3 tiles) as you can so that your ships can get to the docks faster. what does distance from Europe have to do with the likelihood of amphibious attack? they did not attack me that until the second wave, but I have read posters who say they tried it on the first wave

I currently am in the midst not of a 40 turn game, but one in which all my dragoons are highly promoted. it remains to be seen it I can figure out a way to get the LB rate up high enough for that additional advantage since I have many cities. will try to build a fortress in an inland city. that ought to make it very hard for the artillery to have time to succeed

joelwest

 

[HermannLombard]

The key to Turinturambar's strategy is reducing the population to precisely one to raise the rebel sentiment to 100%, then convert the two instant indentured servants to dragoons, so you can't have more than two. Cannons don't count as population so they don't drag down your percentage. The sole goal is to win in minimum time.

That's why yours is a completely different approach. Not only does it take longer and cost more gold to generate and equip more dragoons, it takes longer and costs more LB to generate 100% rebel sentiment (not that you need it for your purposes).

In my limited experience, when I place the town within 4 of the European zone I am much more likely to get blitzed by an amphibious assault (in the first wave). If they get to shoot first in this strategy it's a bad thing.

 

[Turinturambar]

"2 dragoons sporting a +100% combat bonus"[/I]??? my dragoons can get up to a 50% bonus from rebel sentiment (100% - LB rate for colony, not city) which is larger than the Vet 2 promoted dragoons, but the combat odds around 78%, not infallible

Do you pick Bolivar as the leader? Because he gets (LB rate for the colony-50)*2 . Of course with only 50% Bonus it's rather hard(but doable with a bit of luck).
The cannons shine when the king stupidly decides to land his troops in the indian settlement (he does that often) next to your colony. You will get a 100% city attack bonus even though it's an indian village. But even in the open the cannon should have a 62% win percentage or higher if I remember correctly.

 

[Sunsoar]

Nevermind, point I was making already made in other replies.

 

[javabrain]

Thanks for posting this thread! It took several tries to find just the right map to make it work (because both food supply and terrain which doesn't provide too much cover seems to make enough difference, at least for me anyway). It wasn't clear to me so it took some experimenting. Like when I rebelled, I had 3 people producing bells, then got the 2 indentured servants, both of which I just killed, because I one person producing bells (and he was luckily a statesman), while the other 2 became dragoons.

This is really nice! After so many tries and so much frustration playing the game normally (and I'm new enough that it's still very difficult even at easy levels), this was pretty cool.

I am confused by the original post about getting dragoons from the docks - that made no sense whatsoever. Also, instead of keeping the soldier in town as per the original post, I sent him out so he got more XP from the natives.

 

[HermannLombard]

I am confused by the original post about getting dragoons from the docks - that made no sense whatsoever.

Assuming you have the cash, you can convert any unit on the docks to a dragoon (or soldier, pioneer, missionary) before shipping them over.