Lots of questions...can you help?

[Simanim]

Hey everybody.....I am a big Civilization fan so I had to get a copy of Colonization.I stupidly thought it would be similar to Civ IV. Boy,was I wrong. I really want to play this game,but I am having a lot of problems with it.I cannot find any detailed tutorials anywhere online. I have found a few guides,but they are not as detailed enough.I need step by step instructions amd so far I can't find that. The in game tutorial isn't very helpful. Anyway,on to my questions.......and please bear with me,I am new to Colonization and I am ignorant as can be.
1. What is the first building you should build?
2. Why is it that every time I assign someone to a building,they pop up on the next turn,waiting for orders? case in point....I picked up a Jesuit Missionary at the docks and assigned him to the church. Every turn he popped up asking for orders. Why?
3. How do I produce goods? I have the factories staffed but they don't seem to make anything. If I do somehow manage to make something, how do I get it to the ship?
4. Why can't I find any pioneers? I need them yet I never seem to be able to find any.
5. I'd like to focus on education so I can make my own experts. Is the school the best first building I should use for this?
I know these questions are tedious,but everyone on this site seems to know so much and I really want to learn how to play this game because I love the concept of it. If there ae detailed (and by that I mean REALLY detailed) walkthroughs,can you tell me where to find them?
Thank you so much in advance.

 

[atc_chief]

1. What is the first building you should build?
2. Why is it that every time I assign someone to a building,they pop up on the next turn,waiting for orders? case in point....I picked up a Jesuit Missionary at the docks and assigned him to the church. Every turn he popped up asking for orders. Why?
3. How do I produce goods? I have the factories staffed but they don't seem to make anything. If I do somehow manage to make something, how do I get it to the ship?
4. Why can't I find any pioneers? I need them yet I never seem to be able to find any.
5. I'd like to focus on education so I can make my own experts. Is the school the best first building I should use for this?

I'll take a crack at your questions, though of course there are many ways to play so opinions will vary...

1) I base this on the intent of the city. IE, if there's a lot of ore in the area then a building to convert ore would be a smart choice. In general though, sawmills are very important because the are required to unlock certain other buildings. Use this in cities you intend to grow to a large size.

2) If you actually drag and place a unit on a building in a city then it shouldn't request orders. Maybe you set something in options to always ask for orders? I've never encountered this issue.

3) You need someone in a resource gathering plot (tobacco, sugar, cotton, etc) to supply raw materials. Then, you need someone in a production facility (cigar shop, rum distillery, cloth weaver) to turn the raw materials into finished goods. You should see + and/or - next to the goods being used/created in the bottom display.

4) Sometimes you can get them from the docks. Otherwise you can take any colonist and give them tools and make them a pioneer. You can do this by double-clicking them at the doc in Europe, or by selecting 'change career' after clicking a city with colonists in it.

5) Schools do create experts, but will only create the type you have in the town to start with. IE, if you have fishermen or lumberjacks in a town with a school, then those are the two experts the school will generate. I don't think schools are the best use of resources, but that's just my opinion.

 

[otrfan]

Hi,
I'm new to this game also and had the same questions. With question #3, how do you get the goods from your city to the ship?
Thank you very much.

 

[Mutineer]

2) most likely you do not have enough food in city. If you can not feed workers they leave city.

 

[dalgo]

Hi,
I'm new to this game also and had the same questions. With question #3, how do you get the goods from your city to the ship?
Thank you very much.

Click and drag the goods to your ship's hold. If you want to select a partial quantity use Shift/click.

 

[otrfan]

Click and drag the goods to your ship's hold. If you want to select a partial quantity use Shift/click.

Thank you much dalgo, I'll try that.

 

[Malkaviel]

1. Depends on the city. Coastal cities generally I will build dock/warehouse, depends on if good food resources are in the water or if i have an expert farmer, and how often a ship or wagon train will visit. Inland cities similarly wagon train, or if i have one or 2 of those, warehouse, or stockade. Some cities, such as one near 3 or 4 mountains and/or silver resource I will build only stockade, ever. Also lumber mills are very time consuming and inefficient to build if you never intend to build particularly large buildings. It's a bad idea mathematically to put them in "all cities" or even "most cities". Once you understand this, you'll also play civ better, too.

2. My guess also is you're running out of food. Also jesuit missionaries are not for churches, as they get only as many crosses as any other free colonist or specialist (save firebrand preachers x2 cross production). Jesuits are for increased likelihood of converted natives in village missions.

3. Raw materials don't need to be produced on site. With ships and wagon trains you can produce for example tobacco in other town(s) and transport raws to your town with the tobacconist/shop/factory. Ultimately the fewer units you have performing a task, with the most yield is how you will get ahead.

4. atc_chief covered this

5. You only want one city with school/college/university. In game mechanics ultimately there's little no no benefit of education in multiple cities because training duration is universal throughout your colonies. In other words, if it takes 12 turns to train in a city, it will not reduce if you build a school in another city. If this seems counter intuitive because you have alot of colonies and are wanting to train 50 billion specialists consider you could have won the game 100 turns prior.