Post Short Tips/Tricks Here

[Chibiabos]

It does if you play with Dale's AOD II mod. (King's negative relations with you worsen the REF growth with the mod, as I understand it)

 

[HermannLombard]

Yeah, that's my understanding and I normally play AOD II, I should have specified "if playing vanilla."

 

[FlowKey]

Having acquired COL2 only yesterday, I was reading through the tips in this thread. A few remarks

1. A lot has been claimed about how to deal with (=avoid) rising taxes or otherways paying the King. Although most of the claims (all?) are correct, one should always take the 'phase' of the game into consideration. Which goods will be the object of you 'party' depends on the volume of the trade in Eu. This means there's no harm in trading massive amounts of raw goods (furs, tobacco, sugar) in the early stages. By the time you feel compelled to throw a goods party, you should be in a position to limit trade to finished goods.

2. An obvious remark, but not made yet: the choice between a tax raise and a goods party must be considered on a case by case basis: how large is the proposed tax raise? which goods are party candidates? how much of this will actually be lost? etc.

3. COL is not CIV! Although I agree that one or several 'food' colonies can come in handy, never forget that immigration is the main foundation of your growth (especially if you play the English), not autonomous growth.

4. As for killing off rivals in the early stages: I haven't tried it, but I recall from COL1 that this trick only worked in the lower levels of play!

I'll be back if I have experimented some more ...

EDIT: forget point 4 and start killing your European rivals! It works!

 

[Dale]

FlowKey:

I disagree with your comment on food colonies. Having a couple well placed colonist farms will nett you MANY more free colonists than immigration will. The only benefit to immigration is that you'll get specialists too.

I always have at least 2-3 colonist farms going by turn 100 (normal speed).

 

[FlowKey]

@Dale
I don't think we really disagree; it's more a question of strategy. My remark was meant to be no more than a general pointer for those who are familiar with CIV I-IV (but not COL1) and may put too much focus on autonomous growth in the early stages.

I have to admit tho: things start changing when hurry costs for religious migrants skyrocket. But even then an ore miner still costs you *only* 800g, while little else remains to spend your gold on.

 

[Dale]

True, new players should still focus on immigration, whilst perfecting the colonist farm comes with practice.

 

[prolefeed]

You should have several distinct stages of population growth:

Immigration should get you rapid early population growth, but it becomes so expensive later in the game that it transitions into getting population via colony farms, several key FFs giving you "free" units, and eventually the powerful "privateer/merchantman combo capturing pioneers" exploit once you've got your "ship farm" city churning out those units (after first building a galleon to ship treasure units, natch). The final stage of population growth should occur after declaring independence, when you immediately start converting your huge cash hoard (you did hoard cash for this, right?) into an endless stream of cheap units (Fishermen, Lumberjacks, Ore Miners, and Farmers are all just 450 gold on the Quick setting with Peter Minuit) bought in Europe to be armed with guns (and sometimes horses, depending on terrain) and fed into the hopper to replace combat losses with the REF.

Getting a cathedral up should be a HUGE early game priority.

 

[Dale]

Getting a cathedral up should be a HUGE early game priority.

I only do this if I get an early master firebrand, otherwise it's not worth the resources. I'd rather use those resources on missionaries and get free NC's instead if I don't have a firebrand.

 

[HermannLombard]

Lately I've been pushing hard for a cathedral, especially in AoD II where I can't train NCs in their villages. I don't push very hard on NCs because most of the time I play a minimalist game where I only have 2-4 towns and I want experts in the harvesting slots. Maybe I should rethink the emphasis, but this is working well for me.

 

[Cristobal Colon]

1 - Right after start, get your caravel (+Soldier + Pioneer) to scout all the coas in search for other european nations.

2 - Wwhen you find them, they will be loosely defended, use your soldier to atack the city, then use it to capture the pioneer (Which usualy hangs by).

3 - Do that to the other european

4 - You have a continent european free.

They always start the colony with the soldier so they are sitting ducks in early game. Using this strategy you can start a game with 3 soldiers, 3 pioneers, and the best no europeans.

It does sound like cheating to me though...

I started to play yesterday and I have exactly that same perception.
Conquering other European settlements right from the first turns, even before founding your own first colony, is crucial for a head-start ...
And it also works well at higher levels ("revolutionary") because your opponent is absolutely defenseless in the very first turns!
(and then buy a privateer asap )

 

[Cristobal Colon]

It makes sense that minimizing your treasury minimizes the amount the King can demand, but refusing those demands for cash has absolutely no negative consequences (beyond losing the ability to request military help from the King).

Indeed. I may miss something about the consequences but I always refuse payment demand from the king.
Just produce my own goods and trade mostly with the natives or pillage other European settlements and cargo at the beginning of the game.
The only issue in trading purely with the Natives is that they have a limited wealth (between 10 k and 50 k) and do not seem to renew it fast ...

 

[HermannLombard]

Mighty Googa and C.C.: yes, destroying or crippling the other Europeans makes victory easier, especially if you want to monopolize the FF. However, in vanilla they have virtually no chance of winning a WoI so they aren't much threat. In AoD II, on the other hand...

[PLUG]...first of all you can't attack another European for the first 20 turns, allowing them some time to defend themselves, and the Europeans pump out military before declaring independence, so in fact they may very well beat you to victory. (Lots of other improvements, too.) [/PLUG]

 

[Cristobal Colon]

can't attack another European for the first 20 turns ???

 

[Cristobal Colon]

Sorry: I just figured out it is indeed a feature of Patch 1.01F that I am currently downloading.

Except that there are apparently two different versions of the patch...
And through the updating feature of the game you only get the patch for the retail version (the version protected by SecuRom).
Which, of course, does not work for downloaded version of the game !

 

[cardgame]

Do not underestimate the benefit of a colony plot with at least 3-4 mountain peaks combined with a few farmable plots. With a combination of expert farmers and silver miners, you have a cash cow. Silver starts at around 2x the price of the most expensive manufactured item. The difference being that you did not have to create any raw goods first. Yes you will never have the volume of a cigar factory with 3 specialists, but considering silver runs about 2x the price of cigars, you have the same cash flow with a lot less infrastructure.

Problem is, silver dropped down to 1 gold in my game

 

[dalgo]

Problem is, silver dropped down to 1 gold in my game

Yes, but before it did that you would have made a lot of gold selling silver. When the price drops to 5 or 6 I convert my silver colony into something more useful, usually tools/guns as I have the mines already in place.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I often use inland cities to get resources and use wagon trains to move the goods to the port city. Sometimes I use WorldBuilder to change the unit to name it. so I know which is which (e.g. "Cloth" or "Rum")

 

[cardgame]

I often use inland cities to get resources and use wagon trains to move the goods to the port city. Sometimes I use WorldBuilder to change the unit to name it. so I know which is which (e.g. "Cloth" or "Rum")

That's a great idea, thanks

 

[dalgo]

I often use inland cities to get resources and use wagon trains to move the goods to the port city. Sometimes I use WorldBuilder to change the unit to name it. so I know which is which (e.g. "Cloth" or "Rum")

I do the same but it isn't necessary to use WorldBuilder to change the name. If you select the wagon then go to the bottom right of the screen and click on 'Wagon Train' you can change the name there. This is also useful for trading ships especially when you have two Merchantmen arrive in Europe at the same time, one from the East Coast and the other from the West Coast.

 

[nephrahim]

Hello all. I just recently got this game (Long time CiV player, first time Spin off) and after a few practice games I figured most things out, but there is one thing I'm not getting.

Is there a way to keep track of which native village wants what resource? The cities helpfully tell you what specialist they train right on the main menu, but I can't figure out what they want.