Number of Cols...

[chitz]

I've been a long time Civ, and Col player, since the days of Dos, and Windows 3.1, and well this is a question that I've been wanting to ask people for a while... how many colonies are you averaging a game.

In the old Col, it was nothing to build 13 - 20+ Colonies, and control the entire continent, but in my second match of Civ4: Col, I won with 5 colonies, I'm curious as to what peoples averages may be, and if this is the way the new game is just balanced to play.

 

[1EyedKing]

I'm averaging about ten. It all depends on how much favorable territory you find, and how many doubloons you have in your coffers.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I used to finish with as few colonies as possible. The only thing you need to win in the original is a wide enough food base to produce as many horses per turn as you lose. So the king would land about 6 units per landing, and your worst odds are while the king is on flat land, so his dragoon vs. your continental calvalry is 5 strength (plus 50% attacking bonus) against 6. You can do the math, but that generally means you won't lose more than four times a landing. Four losses = 200 horses. Landings come every three turns or something, and the maximum number of horses you can produce per turn is like 23. So you can beat the entire expeditionary army with about 10 continental calvalry and four colonies, provided they can manage to turn a 23 food surplus per turn, which is not difficult.

I haven't finished a game yet of the new version, but I suspect you need many more colonies, because instead of just needing to produce horses to have an invincible army, you also need to produce colonists and muskets. My prediction is that the bottleneck will be colonists to hold the guns and ride the horses you're producing.

And naturally this assumes the king will land in a nice controlled manner like in the original.

 

[Delm]

And naturally this assumes the king will land in a nice controlled manner like in the original.

Its been years since I played the old colonization so I don't remember. In the new col the king in my games have sent attacks on 3-4 different cities (Always on the east coast of my continent though)... sometimes he even attack cities straight out of the ships

 

[65604267]

I finished a pioneer game with 4 colonies. I didnt realize how insanely difficult it would be from the original colonization, and I found out after declaring independence the first time that turtling does not work like it did earlier.

Lost a colony and I had to reduce population by all the colonies down to 1 to fend off the last waves. I won with 2 regular soldiers remaining :-D

 

[misterslack]

Specialization is a lot more important in this game, so you typically need a few more cities. If you plan on building Ships of the Line to counter the REF's Man of War fleet, then you'll probably need 1.5-2 specialized tool/gun cities per lumber/carpenter city producing the ships.

 

[Gliese 581]

I used to finish with as few colonies as possible. The only thing you need to win in the original is a wide enough food base to produce as many horses per turn as you lose. So the king would land about 6 units per landing, and your worst odds are while the king is on flat land, so his dragoon vs. your continental calvalry is 5 strength (plus 50% attacking bonus) against 6. You can do the math, but that generally means you won't lose more than four times a landing. Four losses = 200 horses. Landings come every three turns or something, and the maximum number of horses you can produce per turn is like 23. So you can beat the entire expeditionary army with about 10 continental calvalry and four colonies, provided they can manage to turn a 23 food surplus per turn, which is not difficult.

I haven't finished a game yet of the new version, but I suspect you need many more colonies, because instead of just needing to produce horses to have an invincible army, you also need to produce colonists and muskets. My prediction is that the bottleneck will be colonists to hold the guns and ride the horses you're producing.

And naturally this assumes the king will land in a nice controlled manner like in the original.

You don't just lose the horses in col2, the whole unit is killed if defeated.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

You don't just lose the horses in col2, the whole unit is killed if defeated.

That makes sense, actually, but it really means the war for indeendence becomes difficult, which it wasn't in the original.

I take it you also no longer can get a lot of colonists simply by capturing soldiers from the rival civs? That was one of the sillier features of the original game.

Where I live (in Sweden), there's been a glitch in shipping the game from England, so we won't get it until late next week, at BEST. Grr!

 

[tour86rocker]

I don't know who one would want more than three cities in Col1...it was very winnable with three.

However, I haven't yet won NewCol. I'm really not getting something, can't wait for the first comprehensive guide to be written. I'm definitely not growing as fast as other people who play.

 

[Oerdin]

In the original colonization one of my favorite tactics was to build one coastal city (my capital) and then 5-8 inland cities for raw materials. The King would always attack the one coastal city so you could pile your defenses there and win very quickly.

 

[Joeexplorer]

I just started playing COL. I wanted to bring this question up again since it has been a few months that people have been playing, and maybe there is a clearer answer to this.

 

[5cats]

In Old Col I'd always get slaughtered by the REF. True but sad!
In New Col there's a couple of tactics. Cheats (really early revolution so there's only a tiny REF) and strategies (produce no Liberty Bells until late in the game) to help.
I started playing with LOTS of towns, but the REF grew to 5-600! Oh sure, they only landed like 100 at a time... owie!
Now I try to keep the town ## low, and the Liberty Bells later. This helps a lot!

Overall, the sheer number of towns isn't all that important, more a matter of playing style. The key is to keep the REF small, and your defences sharp! The New Col will go after your best cities, even ones not close to your Capital. So free those slaves, and have lots of Guns and Horses to make them Dragoons!

 

[dalgo]

I usually build about 8 colonies, which is more than I need but I like colony management. Late in the game I will add 2 or 3 specialist 'statesmen' colonies (just 3 elder statesmen and a farmer) to increase liberty bells before independence.

 

[glee]

I build 2-4 colonies and have won 16 games so far (playing each country at each of the first 4 difficulty levels).

 

[HermannLombard]

I think the number of cities is a function of your desired play style for the particular game. So far I've been in the mood for relatively easy colony management, so I've kept my number of towns down. I think the most I've bothered with is six with two of them very small. The more towns--correction, the higher the headcount, including troops--the slower the ramp-up of rebel spirit so the larger the REF. That means if you want 10-12 towns you're going to be facing a very large REF.

If I want a quick game I'll go with two (or usually three) towns, only one on the coast, and use the "Late LB" strategy.

Just for grins I did the one town on Revolutionary, lightning-fast (about 45 turns), but that's serious exploitation of the mechanics! It is amusing to see that normalized score over 10,000 up there, but I can't take credit for it!

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums 65604267.

 

[phoulishwan]

City Specilization is pretty key, you'll want at least 3 big towns, for me these towns get to around size 20 by the end.

1. Producing Horses, so much food double this up as your university town.
2. Producing Ore/Tools
3. Producing Guns/Cannons

With the Free Men civic though, build a ton of other small towns with just a church, warehouse & printing press, you only need 3 pop in each of these towns, one for a food tile, one for a lumber tile and the last working the woodshop, these can produce nothing but political points after these 3 buildings are built. Distribute a warehouse full of horses and guns to each of these towns. When you Declare Independance, you'll have an entire army of indentured servants and can then keep your entire current infrastructure fully functional and pumping out full bore so you can easily replace your losses when the King lands his troops on your shores.

 

[PeaceGuy]

Two colonies are enough. Enough for the needed troops, enough to supply the money to equip them (about 10k) and enough to raise your rebel sentiment to 50%.

I have tried one colony too, it can be done but it takes a long time to raise the rebel sentiment. You have to disband colonists in the end.

As the game is now there is no particular reason to use ranchers, blacksmiths, gunsmiths unless you really want to.

 

[HermannLombard]

There are a lot of complaints on the forums that the game can only be won one way, but it's nice that the strategies of both phoulishwan and PeaceGuy can work. One produces weapons and horses, the other produces *no* weapons or horses. I've been following the latter strategy mostly, including exporting ore rather than reducing its value by making it into tools...(??)

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums PeaceGuy.