I'll be happy to answer strategy questions while I work on a guide

[thelibra]

I keep seeing post after post about how this game is sloppy, unplayable, broken, unfun and unwinnable. And while I will fully agree it could definitely use a little spit and polish here and there, I consistently win at this game and have a lot of fun doing so. So much so, that either I'm doing something seriously wrong, or there's a lot of people out there who are trying to play the game they want instead of the game it is.

My most recent win will be on a Conquistador level game. I say "will be" because in about 3 turns I've decimated the kings forces to about half of what they were, while only losing a handful of my own combat units, and have yet to lose a single colony. So I anticipate my current game will only last another 10 turns or so, tops. So I'm still trying to hit that difficulty level that I can't win at the first attempt at. This isn't intended as a brag, but rather as a case for the camp that says "the game isn't that bad, and isn't impossible to win".

Anyway, I figured I'd start writing a strategy guide for the game for CivFanatics. I guess I just "get" this game, but in the meantime, since that will take awhile, I'd be happy to help anyone with any strategy-based questions they have. Please don't post complaints about the game or that this and that is broken. This thread is for advice on how to play the game that it is, not the game that it "should" be.

So if you'interested in playing Col2 and improving your strategy, or want to just discuss hypotheticals, I'd be happy to help as best I can.

 

[David Webb]

Wow. I've never seen one so big.

 

[Antilogic]

I keep seeing post after post about how this game is sloppy, unplayable, broken, unfun and unwinnable. And while I will fully agree it could definitely use a little spit and polish here and there, I consistently win at this game and have a lot of fun doing so. So much so, that either I'm doing something seriously wrong, or there's a lot of people out there who are trying to play the game they want instead of the game it is.

Well, I agree on the spit and polish part...and I like Dale and Snoopy's patchmod for adjusting a few small things. Beyond that, I'm like you: playing it, winning, and having fun.

If that's what you are doing, then I'd say you got the game right.

My main piece of advice to new players is this: do not expect to win your first couple games. It takes a little puzzling and reading on these forums to figure out what you have to do. But if it didn't take some cerebral work, then it wouldn't be a strategy game!

 

[ArnoldSiemsen]

I have spent many hours trying to figure out how to get a lumber jack to saw trees in a forrest and getting a farmer to start farming in a good farming area. Can't find an icon to accomplish these ends. Is the strategy book coming along? I need a general orientation to the program. Thanks

 

[Antilogic]

When you put a guy into the field for the first time, a pop-up menu appears in the upper left that lets you select his job. Just drag and drop him over the empty "slot", and the computer should give you the option to assign people manually.

 

[barricade643]

I am patiently awaiting your strategy guide as I cannot seem to pull of a win no matter what I do. I am one of the several people here that is in need of a good guide. I mean I understand the mechanics of the game and everything, but it seems like I always am just starting to have a stabilized economy and a somewhat consistent cash flow by 1650 or so at the earliest. So frustrating

Looking forward to your guide!

 

[ArnoldSiemsen]

Is there anyway to print out the Civilopedia? I do not understand the mechanics of the game. Any way to learn the mechanics? Need a guide.

 

[maverique]

Hey, first post here

I'd be happy if you clarified to me, a god damn way of making a decent colonization game. Every strategy I've tried so far failed miserably. Last time I tried to establish two fast settlements, one that would produce tons of mineral and wood, the other based solely on food. Didn't work, trying to establish them took more money and resources than I had. I'd like the basics, please. I don't know how to establish my idea of a successful country, that is, to have an automated trade that connects all the cities and enables for their functioning, with sufficient weapons production and hammers for building ships and buildings in general. I'd actually considered the specialist towns before coming here, on my own quiet time, but it seems to be a popular way of starting the game, I just don't know how to make it work.

In any case, cheers, I've been looking in gamefaqs for a kind soul to upload a guide to this great game for ages now, apparently you'll be the first. Good luck with it

 

[lroumen]

I've never played Colonization 1 and Civ4 Colonizations was a gift from work (lucky me). I've tried to start a game but each time I get stuck not knowning what I'm exactly doing and wondering whether I'm doing something wrong or right. I've tried to build up, but I have no clue as to the purpose of my moves (when to trade or fight and such) and all the different types of resources that are soo much unlike Civ.

There are analogies of course, but they aren't very clear. I would be VERY happy with an analysis of some of the basic questions that I can come up with and have little clue on how to handle.

1. What are good options for your first soldier and colonist
Do you make 2 cities?
Do you make 1 city with your soldier and place the colonist inside to both work food or wood or what?
Do you make 1 city with the soldier and are you to work the land with your other colonise such as farms, mines, roads or ....?

2. What do you do with your galleon after you put them on land
Do you sail around exploring a bit?
Do you go immediately back to europe?
Do you use it to sell goods in europe or to the natives?

3. When do immigrants become attracted to your new land?
What do you need to construct in your first city? Food? Bells? Crosses?... I have no idea

4. When do you settle a new city?
First new colonist? Second colonist? 5th? 10th?
Do you settle new cities at all?

5. What are you looking for in a city site?
It's 9 squares... what would you like to work with in these 9 sites?
Which to emphasise in all cities?

6. What are priorities for your city residents to work with?
If my city has sites that give me 4 food max, 6 wood, 5 iron max, 4 tabacco max... which should I work first? What are priorities for each resident? Is wood good? Is iron important?

7. How can we best specialise each city?
If you have a city where you work 7 tabacco, do you stockpile it to trade it or do you use a master sigarmaker to make sigares and stockpile and trade it?
What about the other resources?

8. What resources are there and what can be done with each of them?
The booklet mentions very little and to dig through the civilopedia takes a long time.
And related... what do master colonists accomplish for you? What is their bonus exactly? +2, *2 or something?

9. What is required to build up decent forces?
How do you emphasise your resource gathering to build proper attacking units.

10. What buildings to construct?
When to build buildings, when and how to build cannonunits or tradeunits, when to build something else.

11. What do you do with the native?
Trade, convert, destroy....

12. Founding Fathers are like Great Persons?
Do you except them all? Why should you not accept them? What's their limitation?

13. How to grow your rebellion rate.

14. Do you keep your cities well-defended?
How many defense units does it require? Will natives attack?

15. How do you get more ships?
Where do you build them or buy them?

...
...
...

Basic questions indeed, eh?
Okay, to some questions I already have a fair idea on the answers, but I know I'm missing some very vital information. As you can see, I haven't gotten very far before confusion struck me.
This game makes me feel terribly stupid whereas I can play Civ4 with my eyes closed. When I start to play a game I'd like it to be clear on HOW to begin. The manual, however, (I've read it 5 times now) is very confusing and it doesn't explain many of the mechanics on what's a good idea to start out with. After reading it so many times from cover to cover I STILL don't get it! Why?!? Is that because I'm used to Civ1to Civ4?

I will appreciate any input (or links to threads that can give me answers to these questions). A guide that addresses these questions and more would be most welcome.

 

[Wotan1105]

I wouldn't mind some more answers myself. But in the mean time I'll try and answer what I can with what I've learned so far until someone else comes around.

1. What are good options for your first soldier and colonist
To each his own, if you put the soldier into a city that will free up his guns to trade/sell to the natives for tons of cash. Pioneer will dump his tools if you put him in a city. Best is to settle them both and use the goods to get some quick cash to buy stuffs from Europe. Bonuses aren't superb so probably isn't worth putting him to work outside just yet, many different strategies to win tho.


2. What do you do with your galleon after you put them on land
Do a little of all three usually. Will spend more time going back and forth to europe right off the bat with stops to close native towns to make some quick cash. Generally I don't worry about exploring the sea too much just want a scout asap to explore the land.


3. When do immigrants become attracted to your new land?
Not sure but think it has something to do with crosses. The message you get says religious unrest, and on the europe screen the immigration bar at the bottom grows off crosses. I'm usually not patient enough to max produce crosses to see how much it effects immigration. Labor is usually cheap enough I just buy it and don't rely on the immigrants after the game gets going a bit.

4. When do you settle a new city?
You'll probably need additional cities, seems people like specialized cities, one here to do ore and guns, one there for food, one for tobacco, etc.. You can do more than one thing in each city but I always have a hard time keeping up with the amount of food and lumber required for very large growing cities. Would love to see some more strategies on how this pans out. But I usually end up with 3-5 cities. Usually span out for a second or third one pretty early on in the game.


5. What are you looking for in a city site?
fewd fewd fewd. I always look for a city spot I can get 2 specialist tiles out of, and always look for a place with at least half food tiles so I can ratchet up food production if I have to. Can't always find a spot with 2 specialties on them but seems to happen a lot.

6. What are priorities for your city residents to work with?
Food is always my main priority. Tobacco will earn you money and cigars trading with europe, you don't need it. Iron is for making ore for guns, which you will need to win the game. Also need tools to make buildings.

7. How can we best specialise each city?
Any good like cotton and tobacco I try and turn into the specialized good to sell to europe. I will dump excess when I have it, but generally I try and ramp up production of cloth and cigars so I can sell those only. Depends on how much you have coming in, etc.. But would think it'd always be better to sell the expensive good.


8. What resources are there and what can be done with each of them?
no idea what master colonists do, figure they're kind of a jack of all trades, not sure.

9. What is required to build up decent forces?
Need lots n lots o guns and if you like, horses. When production is ratcheted up you can store excess guns and horses in wagon trains and dump them into cities when required. You'll need guns to convert your citizens into soldiers, and a lot of them probably.

10. What buildings to construct?
Whatever you want to focus on?

11. What do you do with the native?
I usually try and get specialized training after the converted natives pop up. Expert planters, trappers, etc.. stuff you can't get in europe.

12. Founding Fathers are like Great Persons?
There is a founding fathers screen you can access from the top right, been a while since I played so I forget how many you can have. Is it one trade, one military, one explorer, etc...?

13. How to grow your rebellion rate.
Not even gonna try, other treads out there dedicated just to this.

14. Do you keep your cities well-defended?
I haven't had any problems with natives attacking unless I settle too close to them too often. And the euro AI is not aggressive so I generally don't defend much if at all. Can buy cannons cheap in europe tho so sometimes I'll be more defended.

15. How do you get more ships?
On the top right of the euro screen you can buy new colonists, soldiers, cannons, and ships of your choosing. Can also build the drydock which lets you construct the same ships you can buy overseas.

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums maverique.

 

[Old Coot]

5. What are you looking for in a city site?

I look for a coastal site located between two indian coastal cities. Hopefully, there will be one or more good fishing squares, and the remaining squares will be level. The square containing the settlement should produce at least two food and three of some resource - tobacco, cotton, whatever.

6. What are priorities for your city residents to work with?

Use soldier to establish the settlement. Then assign him to producing cigars, cloth, or whatever. Have pioneer start improving the other squares to farms.


8. What resources are there and what can be done with each of them?

Let's take a plains square as an example. Hover over it and you will see that if a colonist is assigned to work that square, it will produce 3 food or 3 of some resource - let's say tobacco. Now if you have a pioneer improve the square to a farm, that square will now produce 4 food or 4 tobacco. Then if you assign an expert farmer or an expert tobacco planter to that square production will double to 8.

From the civilpedia:

" All units with the word "Expert" at the beginning of their name are raw materials producing specialists. These specialists, when assigned to to the profession that allows them to produce their material of choice will produce - in most cases - double the usual amount.

All units with the word "Master" at the beginning of their name are specialists skilled at creating enormous amounts of manufactured goods. When assigned to the profession that lets them create their goods of choice, Masters will create double the usual amount provided they have access to sufficient raw material."

 

[Polobo]

The fastest way to get a bunch of native settlements scouted quickly is to use your caravel with a colonist loaded and send them to nearby coastal settlements. Usually you have enough warehouse room to store resources and you can build a quite a few buildings without needing to purchase more tools from Europe. You will want to balance this with retrieving new colonists from Europe so don't sail off to the other side of the world, just go a ways north and south of your initial settlement(s).

 

[Polobo]

3. When do immigrants become attracted to your new land?
Not sure but think it has something to do with crosses.

The first immigrant requires 5 crosses (you produce 1 cross-per-turn automatically - after founding the first settlement) and each subsequent immigrant requires 25% more crosses than the last (rounded down). You can increase cross production in you colony AND/OR you can spend some gold (look elsewhere for the formula) to rush one of the three waiting immigrants to the docks.

4. When do you settle a new city?

I had been getting 8-12 colonists in the first settlement then usually split off four or so to found a new settlement. Often I wait until I get some of the core buildings produced and then send off the woodcutter and carpenter to assist the new settlement while back-filling their role in the original.

11. What do you do with the native?

With Pocahontas - make babies (though I guess this may be HOW you got them to convert ); with all others it depends on if you play with the unofficial patch. Basically converted natives can be used without any training to increase land resource yields. You can training them to become experts/masters as well but I wouldn't waste the resources unless everyone else is already trained - just let them work any land tiles already being worked by a normal colonist.

12. Founding Fathers are like Great Persons?
There is a founding fathers screen you can access from the top right, been a while since I played so I forget how many you can have. Is it one trade, one military, one explorer, etc...?

As many as you can generate points for and beat the AI to (up to something like 55 total FFs in the game)

 

[ArnoldSiemsen]

How can I build a Galleon?

 

[Mutineer]

Build a ship yard first

 

[Refar]

I prefer to hurry getting menuit and then just buy the Galleon (early). Most of the time the 2.something K gold easily pay for them self by not having to share half of the treasure with the King.

 

[lucytash]

It's refreshing to read that I'm not the only one struggling to work out how to play this game & look forward to the guide. Civ 4 is much easier to grasp the basics.
My problems are:
1. How do I get soldiers & do my cities really need defence in the early stages? The natives don't seem to invade like the barbarians!
2. How do I get the wagon train to carry goods? I try to do import & export but them just drag & drop goods into the wagon & go looking for a buyer. The natives never want my excessive surplus of furs!

The constant red flashes each turn, telling me that I'm losing stuff due to lack of storage drives me insane as it takes 30 turns to build a wharehouse!! How can I hurry up buildings?

Many thanks to any helpful replies!

 

[Polobo]

1) Most colonists can become soldiers, they just require 50 guns (normal speed). If the settlement they are in has the guns available they will be able to choose the solider profession. Furthermore, if the settlement also has 50 horses available the dragoon option will be present (horses without guns only give you scouts). All normal speed.

2) You need to click on the "load" icon for the wagon train and then you will be given a selection of goods you can load. Alternatively (and required if you want to load less than 100 units of a good) you can go into the settlement screen and drag the goods you want to load onto the desired wagon (or ship). If you hold shift down before clicking and dragging you will be given a selector to choose how many goods to load.

3) In order to build things faster you need wood and a carpenter (or multiple). Also, when your warehouse gets full you are generally advised to load the goods onto a ship/wagon (see response #2) and send them either to Europe or another settlement for selling.

 

[lucytash]

Thanks Polobo, that was a quick reply!