Most Difficult Meier game yet / Thread for the Vanquished

[Turkic]

This ain't an easy game folks. I'm a colonization and civilization veteran of ladder rank prowess, and I haven't beat this game on Explorer yet.

It offers various dilemmas early on. Can you afford missing Founding Fathers by not generating liberty bells? And if you can't, how will you ever defend against the eventural HORDE of Tory units that the King spurs on?

Ships of the line are absolutely pointless against Man-o-War's. Tory Regular stacks make short work of a 20 population dug in city with 20 armed defenders...

What to do...

Well I have two strategies I will try out right now:

a) Employing Washington for his very underrated but apparently EPIC advantage of lesser arms required.

b) Converting more natives for military duty and getting Powhatan for a killer combo.

c) Making sure I don't become crazy infamous early game...


--T

 

[cephalo]

I lost my first two games on Conquistidore level. The first game I developed way too slow and never made it to declare independance.

The second game I learned that when you do declare independance, you can't count on holding a particular city, especially coastal ones. The enemy artillery will massacre you inside cities with an attack strength of 10 with bonuses. No matter how pumped up your units, artillery will take them down in a city if you let them attack. You need to spread your defense industry to many colonies. I focused all my guns and horses production in my initial city right on the coast, and when the King's navy warped in, I couldn't get colonists to safely move there to pick up weapons, and I lost my only military production city.

 

[Darklighter]

Lol, that happed to me too. Chalk it up as a lesson learned. I'll be spreading out my war making machine and using inland colonies for it.

Although I don't think it was the enemies artillery, it is the bombardment rating of the Man-O-Wars that brings down your city defenses (like Civ4). My first coastal city changed hands three times during the struggle for Independence. They did have a heck of a time trying to take one of my inland colonies though. I managed to hang onto that one.

 

[defjam]

too bad there's No Hanging Gardens in Colonization...

 

[Oddible]

Wow, i'm gearing up to declare in my second game (my first wasn't going to make it to declare in time) and I only have 1 major arms city and one major horse city, both coastal. Looks like I'm breaking out the lumberjacks and master carpenters to build up an armory and ranch in an inland city before I declare.

 

[chitz]

Long time Civ, & Col player, and yes this game is tough... old Col strats won't work here all the time... that said I found in my second game (I ran into the time problem as some of you did with my first) that attacking is a far better defense, for 2 reasons,

1. Dragoons get a + to attacking Artillery (veterans), plus Art. in the open field get a disadvantage

2. Mon-O-War bombardment virtually leave your defences useless...

3 (Bonus). This is more a balance issue, and i'm not the only one that has noticed it as I have read in numerous reviews, that through out the entire game your units seem to be more effective attacking then defending.

I easily won my second game by attacking the kings units before they attack me. Also the ratio I seemed to find, unless you don't have a promoted ship of the line, it take about 2.8 ships of the line to take out a Man-0-War. with a promoted one, it takes about 1.8.

 

[weidbrewer]

I gotta be missing something....I've been playing Sid games for years, and I can't even win one freakin' game on the $#@$^%'n easiest level. I've read the manual cover to cover, read stuff on here, played six times, tried different leaders and the result is always the same: Either I wait until I've got good defenses, and then don't have enough time left, or I declare earlier and get my ass handed to me. At this point, I just don't care any more - win or lose, the game's just not fun.

Also, judging by the fact that 2K Games has a dead link to the game, and Firaxis has a very "meh" page for it, obviously they don't really care either.

 

[Hammurbabble]

I'm still figuring this out, but I have discovered (in theory) how to beat the King's army.

First -- don't defend. Attack. The Redcoats get a bonus when they're attacking your cities, but if you're attacking them, the bonus favors you. You get a bonus for your rebel percentage, plus with the right FFs, you have a bonus when attacking in forest.

That's counter-intuitive for Civ players, because you expect enemy units to get defensive bonuses in forests. Not this time. The advantage is yours. (YOU get defensive bonuses in forests, but you get bonuses when attacking, too.) Actually, you get bonuses all over the friggin' place, EXCEPT when the redcoats are attacking your cities. Then, they tear you a new one.

Second -- you can't outnumber the expeditionary force. The King can build it faster than you can. But it doesn't come at you all at once. It comes in waves. Not terribly big waves at that. So you can concentrate fire, kill off all of the attackers in one wave, and wait for the next one.

Ergo, as I see it, there are two keys to winning independence. One, build lots of roads. And two, have a big force of mobile attackers, heavy on the dragoons, but soldiers are good, too.

What I haven't figured out yet is just how big a force you need. I saved the game before declaring, with 40 units, mixed soldiers/dragoons. Not enough. I clobbered the first three waves, but after that I was suffering too much damage and had lost too many units. (This is at Explorer difficulty. I expect you'd need more units the further up you go.)

I think my next try will be with 60 units. My feeling is that you need to have enough that the units you use to take down the first wave can heal while other units take down subsequent waves.

This is the same strategy I used to use in Col I, but that game didn't have damage; hit the Redcoats with a Continental Army Dragoon and either you won and came out full health, or you lost and turned into a soldier (and then you retreated and got more horses). It was much easier.

This is hard, but I can see how it can be done. Just need to figure out the right number of units.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

nah just save up a huge stockpile of money before the declearation of independence and you will have even numbers with the king.
but yeah independence before the time limit is hard, but possible.

So far earning lots of money is key in sid meiers colonization 2.

Since with enough stockpiled money you can accually outnumber the ref at turn 1 of the war.

 

[1EyedKing]

You just suck.

This game is so easy it's almost boring. Why? Here and here are the answers.

 

[Andvare]

Why thank you.

One warning though, if you do exploit the game to the degree I (and Blackmantle) have done, it does become boring.
Now I haven't tested them on the higher difficulty levels, and I probably wont either, because I now find it boring. Not until a patch comes out. Though I don't think it matters much, as the REF doesn't scale that much.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

You just suck.

This game is so easy it's almost boring. Why? Here and here are the answers.

No, they just don't exploit.

 

[Ellestar]

You just suck.

This game is so easy it's almost boring. Why? Here and here are the answers.

+1
Started my first game on Governor, no AIs on turn 100 (and i didn't even try to rush them ASAP) and a good economy (as i said, i didn't go all-out vs AIs). I made almost no bells at the start, as it was my original strategy in Civ1. Also, most founding fathers in Col2 seem kinda useless compared to their cost, and there is no need to rush for them - there is no AI so they're all mine . So REF is still small, and given information i have now, it will stay small until the revolution. I don't see how can i lose that game so it's kinda boring to continue it. I mean, come on, it's just my first game, it's on Governor difficulty and it's so easy it's boring.

This ain't an easy game folks. I'm a colonization and civilization veteran of ladder rank prowess, and I haven't beat this game on Explorer yet.

--T

And what's your ladder rank?

 

[Turkic]

Well considering you guys are practically exploiting a bug of the game, you shouldnt have the right to gloat about nonexistent skills or stratagem.

 

[apenpaap]

I just got my ass kicked... By Sitting Bull.

 

[Feannag]

Yeah that's partially the trick. REFs warships and artillery excel in taking colonies, Not so much at holding them. You have to go in expecting to lose colonies, and fight in the rough. They need to kill all your soldiers, dragoons, and cannons and they can't do that unless they leave their colonies.

Of course some has done the opposite, citing that if you sink all the REF warships then you win regardless of ground troops. But that's more difficult because they are significantly stronger than anything you can build so you'd most likely have to zerg ships (4 to 5 to 1 of theirs) and it doesn't seem too possible to get that done in a timely fashion.

 

[glee]

I gotta be missing something....I've been playing Sid games for years, and I can't even win one freakin' game on the $#@$^%'n easiest level. I've read the manual cover to cover, read stuff on here, played six times, tried different leaders and the result is always the same: Either I wait until I've got good defenses, and then don't have enough time left, or I declare earlier and get my ass handed to me. At this point, I just don't care any more - win or lose, the game's just not fun.

Also, judging by the fact that 2K Games has a dead link to the game, and Firaxis has a very "meh" page for it, obviously they don't really care either.

Sorry you're not enjoying it.
I've won my first 3 games on Pilgrim without using any 'tricks'.
Here's my strategy:

- have just one coastal town. (The King's Forces usually land near it, which helps you plan your War.)
- this town does all the buildings you want (your other towns are kept simple). Don't bother with any building to improve raw materials - concentrate on the military ones.
- have a few (3-4) inland towns, mainly to use the special resources. These towns don't build anything, but generate political / religious / military points to attract Founding Fathers.
- gradually build up Liberty Bells (because the King's Army increases along with that), but use your School to get cheap Elder Statesmen. Put them to work on farms etc until you are nearly ready for War, then switch them all to bump up your rebel sentiment quickly.
- get a Scout (preferably Seasoned) to visit every village, ruin and burial ground. (This is a huge source of income.)
- trade with each tribe at least once (good profits!)
- when the war starts, attack! (You get a bonus from your rebel sentiment.)
- when you get a Great General, improve one unit only to include all the surgeon healing skills. Keep this unit inside your main town to hela up your injured.

Good luck!