Just finished my third full Marathon game but it is the 2nd in a row of the three games that I gave up 100 turns to the end. This game is so punishing in the late game with the ridiculously high tax, immense micromanaging, inability to trade for any profit via native or europe and the crazy REF that skyrockets to 150 units while you try and build bells.
I realize most of my mistakes, I like to build big and I like to have great wonderous colonies with it all. I still have task oriented colonies but I still like to build big. Last game I had one major port and a minor port beside it; both at about 14 pop, the major port built Coats, Rhum, tools and weapons while the minor port built cigars and cloth. Several colonies inland (all inland no more ports) supplied the two ports with raw goods. I had two other key colonies, one dedicated to ore, building tools, mining silver and ultimately planned to be a fortress for the final stand if I lost my ports to the REF once I claimed independance. The other key city was in the plains dedicated to build horses where I built a ranch, all the area surrounded was turned into farms so it also pumped out new colonists. In that city I had trained every colonist into farmers in nearby native villages to be expert farmers.
All in all this was the original plan, I thought it was a decent plan, here's what happened, some my mistakes other problems were just the way the game goes:
This game was played on the Huge New World Scenario map (North and South America,) I settled where Loisiana would be and built northernly to the great plains and great lakes.
Listed numerically but not by importance
1. I thought going for silver mining would rock and I'd get big coin but the market fell ridulously fast and never recovered. All the rest of the game silver stayed at sell1/buy2 (I thought that this was ******ed.)
2. I had 4 other european opponents, once I met them I went after them with extreme predjudice. Taking them out paid off by capturing a few pioneers and other colonists but the game won't seem to let them die. The whole game you don't see them but apparently they are still there (stupid.) I mean the french guy I killed off 3 times and then I got his caravel so I thought for sure he'd be wiped out but noooo he stayed around for the whole game.
3.The biggest mistake I made came mid game, I had established control over North America; however the Dutch player had 3x better score than I did I assume by building bells. I decided to attack him and his French neighbour down near Venezuela or Brazil would be and wipe them out in case the game turned into a time victory. Originally I thought I'd just wipe them out but the temptation to gain all they had built overwhelmed me and I ended up keeping 5-7 of his major colonies. I gained tons of goods (including 600+ silver in 3 cities) not to mention two of his cities that were thoroughly stacked with expensive buildings (newpapers and factories.)
4. There is the dilema as you can plainly guess, I doubled my size as well as split up my major colonies one North and one South, independant of the other, fully finctional but also needing one army each.
5. The next big mistake or possibly the biggest was going full out with the military spending. I made so much in my conquests that I spent it all on buying heaps and heaps of troops. After I had beaten the French and Dutch in the South two indian tribes declared war on me. I fought them for many turns gaining lots of rich treasures for taking out there settlements. Almost every time I'd take out a settlement I'd gain a converted native and one sometimes 3 treasure units. During all these battles my northern settlements were cranking out the trade with the king and the natives; additionally I sold all the captured goods from the south settlements. In return for the profit I bought tons of farmers, fishermen or ore miners turning them into soldiers. Near 3/4 of the way through the game I had 50 Infantry, 14 Dragoons and 6 cannons; the king still had his original 8/4/4.
6. So nearing the end of the game or ther declaration of 100 turns left, 7 of my approximately 15-18 colonies have newpapers and I decide to go for it with the libety bells. I place every colonist I can spare into building LB's.
End Result: by the time I got to 50% and able to declare independance the king had 3 times what I had for troops.
So I just said to h3ll with it, clicked end turn to finish up with what I thought would be a time victory.
Note: It might have been attemptable if I hadn't split up my colonies North and South. Fighting both in South America and North America did not seem winable. Ultimately, I was demoralized that after all that affort the king still managed to build a REF that was 3 times my force even though I had roughly 5x his force when I started building liberty bells.
Ironically, the dutch player won as he had more points than I had, even though I had wiped him out and even though I must have built more LB's than him (******ed.)
I realize most of my mistakes, I like to build big and I like to have great wonderous colonies with it all. I still have task oriented colonies but I still like to build big. Last game I had one major port and a minor port beside it; both at about 14 pop, the major port built Coats, Rhum, tools and weapons while the minor port built cigars and cloth. Several colonies inland (all inland no more ports) supplied the two ports with raw goods. I had two other key colonies, one dedicated to ore, building tools, mining silver and ultimately planned to be a fortress for the final stand if I lost my ports to the REF once I claimed independance. The other key city was in the plains dedicated to build horses where I built a ranch, all the area surrounded was turned into farms so it also pumped out new colonists. In that city I had trained every colonist into farmers in nearby native villages to be expert farmers.
All in all this was the original plan, I thought it was a decent plan, here's what happened, some my mistakes other problems were just the way the game goes:
This game was played on the Huge New World Scenario map (North and South America,) I settled where Loisiana would be and built northernly to the great plains and great lakes.
Listed numerically but not by importance
1. I thought going for silver mining would rock and I'd get big coin but the market fell ridulously fast and never recovered. All the rest of the game silver stayed at sell1/buy2 (I thought that this was ******ed.)
2. I had 4 other european opponents, once I met them I went after them with extreme predjudice. Taking them out paid off by capturing a few pioneers and other colonists but the game won't seem to let them die. The whole game you don't see them but apparently they are still there (stupid.) I mean the french guy I killed off 3 times and then I got his caravel so I thought for sure he'd be wiped out but noooo he stayed around for the whole game.
3.The biggest mistake I made came mid game, I had established control over North America; however the Dutch player had 3x better score than I did I assume by building bells. I decided to attack him and his French neighbour down near Venezuela or Brazil would be and wipe them out in case the game turned into a time victory. Originally I thought I'd just wipe them out but the temptation to gain all they had built overwhelmed me and I ended up keeping 5-7 of his major colonies. I gained tons of goods (including 600+ silver in 3 cities) not to mention two of his cities that were thoroughly stacked with expensive buildings (newpapers and factories.)
4. There is the dilema as you can plainly guess, I doubled my size as well as split up my major colonies one North and one South, independant of the other, fully finctional but also needing one army each.
5. The next big mistake or possibly the biggest was going full out with the military spending. I made so much in my conquests that I spent it all on buying heaps and heaps of troops. After I had beaten the French and Dutch in the South two indian tribes declared war on me. I fought them for many turns gaining lots of rich treasures for taking out there settlements. Almost every time I'd take out a settlement I'd gain a converted native and one sometimes 3 treasure units. During all these battles my northern settlements were cranking out the trade with the king and the natives; additionally I sold all the captured goods from the south settlements. In return for the profit I bought tons of farmers, fishermen or ore miners turning them into soldiers. Near 3/4 of the way through the game I had 50 Infantry, 14 Dragoons and 6 cannons; the king still had his original 8/4/4.
6. So nearing the end of the game or ther declaration of 100 turns left, 7 of my approximately 15-18 colonies have newpapers and I decide to go for it with the libety bells. I place every colonist I can spare into building LB's.
End Result: by the time I got to 50% and able to declare independance the king had 3 times what I had for troops.
So I just said to h3ll with it, clicked end turn to finish up with what I thought would be a time victory.
Note: It might have been attemptable if I hadn't split up my colonies North and South. Fighting both in South America and North America did not seem winable. Ultimately, I was demoralized that after all that affort the king still managed to build a REF that was 3 times my force even though I had roughly 5x his force when I started building liberty bells.
Ironically, the dutch player won as he had more points than I had, even though I had wiped him out and even though I must have built more LB's than him (******ed.)
