[Col] Pioneer speedrun !

[Pifou42]

Hello folks,

I recently got back into Col, and after a few games to understand all those complex things I didn't catch when I was young, I quickly realized how easy (and fun) it was to break the game.

Yet, playing as Viceroy feels too loooooooong for me.
Farming those fellow settler-dispensers, while building an army to put off the (HUGE) REF, bored me quickly.

So I tried a fast indepence as discoverer instead.
... but when I found out that fountain of youth, it came to me that just putting ponies & muskets on those newcomers would probably be enough to drive the REF back into the sea, so I paused my game, and started a new one, hoping for a quick De Soto Cibola/Fountain combo.

That way, I got some quite fast wins already. But I love trying to get the best I can, so I aimed for the fastest reproducible strategy I could find (i.e. without insane luck, like treasuries @disembark).

... and I kicked out the royal piggy thing.


without needing particular exploration-luck tricks !
A bit of cooperation from the landing indians tribe remains more or less necessary, but that's a pretty common thing. Tools price and/or welcome gifts are quite often over 1000°, so one won't need a thousand tries or cheating tool to get such results .

Oh, and as a side note, I accidentally discovered that Arawaks are freaking BASTARDS. They tend to tie-up your scouts for target practice about 10% of the time you visit them, no matter your relations and your scout's expertise. Guess that's a bug...[/spoiler]

Here's the video (with original zmbv file link in description)
Colonization speedrun as Discoverer (5:10)


Update for Viceroy :
Viceroy win in 14:35
Discoverer win in 4.28
While both those runs show some luck, the strategies used here are really solid and easy to reproduce without needing much more time. (i.e. 7 minutes for Discoverer and 20 for Viceroy). Viceroy doesn't even need abusing of the tools buy/sell bug : getting Cortes give you more money, and potentially faster.

 

[Tristan_C]

Yeah, that is impressive. You beat that round in less than 1 cigarette, lol

 

[Pifou42]

I didn't initially think it would be that easy, indeed.


Anyway, I just went one step further, and looked for an infinite money trick to make the Viceroy speedrun fast, since I'm afraid farming some aztecs or incas would take too much time.
Found one !

On the "test game" I played, just to check how fast and efficiently it could possibly work, I got independance in 1550, after less than one hour playing xD.

I'd prefer to polish the strategy (and its improvised execution ^^) a bit more before posting a video. But it's definitely fun to find out how easy it can be, once you are optimizing things a bit :]


Too bad the war for independance remains so long and boring at this difficulty. I'd love the REF to drop his troops a bit faster (or why not... directly into the sea ?)
Improving my early game shall be possible, but I won't be able to do much for the 25 minutes spent clashing ponies and emptying my galleons to restock my veteran/continental failers.


Update : after a few more tries, I got wins in 47 and 40 minutes (even should have had another one in 35 -- stupid bugged RNG).
REF's pace remains a complete mystery, alternating between many full waves and ridiculous ones.

 

[Pifou42]

Ok, in fact, Viceroy difficulty doesn't need to use an infinite money trick at all.
Just De Soto + Cortes.

Knowing the RNG a bit helps too, and gives easy wins under an hour.

Here's one win in less than 45 minutes, where I got some lucky start (getting 20K of Cibolas maybe 5 minutes earlier than the average), and a failed ending, where I left a pioneer on my mountain, losing many resources & time in the process.
While this one will give you time for several cigarettes, I have to remind you : It's bad for your lungs, and every time you smoke one, god kills a kitten. So please, think of the kittens, and consider replacing tobacco with lollypops. (incidentally, I tend to sell more sugar than tobacco, so you'd also help my economy a bit)

Using infinite money remains faster, of course (got a win in 31 minutes...), but feels really ugly to me.

 

[Pifou42]

After some more tries and discoveries, I'm down to less than 20 minutes for Viceroy, even without using the tools-abuse.
This start getting really ridiculous

Among the cool tricks I found, I noticed that keeping from 2 to 4 artilleries in your colony is a huge key to a faster win : it provokes waves with 4 regulars, 1 arti & 1 cav from the REF, which quickly deplete his regulars supply... and this causes him to surrender despite the 12+ cav & artilleries remaining. Very funny.

Here's a brief summary of my best strategy so far :

• Custom new world with large continental land mass to help finding rumours and an ambush-exploitable mountain
  
• Sell starting muskets in europe to lower price (& tools @indians to help buying some early horses, if you can. Consider selling one extra set of tools, and/ore trade-goods/tobacco for money).
• Start with De Soto, and get 2 (max 4) scouts ASAP.
  
• Explore a bit but avoid visiting too much villages, especially if they give useless and time consuming map info, or if you fall upon Bastardwaks. Their biggest use is to tell you when the RNG is in a good mood (when villages grant you guides, rumours are very likely to give you fountains).
• Look for a streak of 2 (max 3) fountains, and some gold (If you get Cortes, you can wait for 12+K gold. Else, just get 4.)
  With 4K and 20 colonists, you can tools-abuse to get the 13K needed for your army : 6K buying muskets & horses for 20 dudes, 4K for 2 extra merchantmen, 2.6K for 4 artilleries.
• Put 2 artilleries in your colony and the rest near your "REF trap" mountain, and you're good to start ambushing.

The tools-abuse consist in buying tools with your settlers on docks, which doesn't immediately alter price (it will then rise by one every 200 tools bought for every passing turn or transaction done, up to its max of 9.
Once you bought tools on everyone (or even less, since you don't need THAT much money), just buy 1 tool with your caravel, 7 times, to get the price from 1/2 to 8/9, and sell at 8, for a 600 profit per stack sold.
Playing as non-Dutch, you may sell tools from your caravel one by one to get the price back to 2 and repeat as many time as you want, which provides an utterly lame way of getting infinite money with a bare 800 gold, 4 colonists, and your starting caravel.


Videos here :
Viceroy win in 14:35
Discoverer win in 4.28
While both those runs show some luck, the strategies used here are really solid and easy to reproduce without needing much more time. (i.e. 7 minutes for Discoverer and 20 for Viceroy). Viceroy doesn't even need abusing of the tools buy/sell bug : getting Cortes give you more money, and potentially faster.