No revolution but I get 99 turns to win

[Congress]

Hello

First post, registered to ask about this thing below.

I was playing Colonization with a South America map (from the scenario menu) because the standard new game makes Colonization crash on my macbook with El Capitan. Around 1750, Spain decided to attack me (the English) because we had two cities very close to each other I believe. I had enough forces and managed to capture most of their cities but in the middle of the war, the Spanish king arrived. I thought he would fight me but he started to fight Bolivar's troops and captured two of his cities (and wiping out Bolivar completely). Now the Spanish are there and I cannot attack them.

Meanwhile, because of my colonial war, the rebel sentiment went down so I could not start a revolution. Nevertheless, I get x turns to win. But win what? When contacting the king, I can only ask for military protection (which he doe snot want to give me).

So: is this normal behavior and how can I win?

 

[dalgo]

Welcome to the forum Congress.

How many turns have you played? I haven't tried that scenario before but I suspect it uses the 'Europe' victory condition which means you have to declare Independence and defeat the REF within 300 turns. That countdown will start at turn 200.

If that is not the case then the trigger may have been Spain declaring Independence which started the 100 turn countdown for both of you.

Either way you can still win the game by declaring independence yourself and defeating the King's men before the countdown finishes. That's shouldn't be too hard, you've still got well over 50 turns to build up your military and your rebel sentiment before declaring independence.

UNLESS another European power wins independence first. From the sound of it that won't be Spain but I'd suggest you check out who else you are sharing South America with and make a pre-emptive strike to make sure they are in no shape to beat their own King (and it will also give your troops experience ahead of the Revolution).

 

[Congress]

It is already 1793 and I did not declare independence so I should have lost already. I only have around 17% of rebel sentiment so even if I wanted to, I cannot declare independence.

 

[Congress]

So i played the game until I got enough rebel sentiment (I had 10 turns left at that point). I continued and declared revolution on the last turn but the next turn, the king had won a Europe victory although he did not sent troops over. So I played just one more turn and then he sent his army but as he had the victory, it did not make sense to continue anymore.

Also: after some settlements of Bolivar had been captured by the Spanish king, I could not trade or get in contact anymore with them.

 

[dalgo]

Tough luck, it is really important to generate Liberty Bells from early in the game to make sure you can declare Independence in time. It is unfortunate that you can't play the Custom Game because that has an option to turn the Europe Victory condition off giving you as long as you like to declare Independence.

 

[Congress]

But I generated enough liberty bis and declared revolution. My understanding was that there should be no King units on the land to win. As they did not arrive after 1 turn, I thought I would win the game.

 

[dalgo]

Not so, you have to defeat all the King's troops. They generally land over about 20 turns so you would have to declare Revolution well before the 100 turn limit.

This applies to all land troops (dragoons, soldiers and artillery) not ships.