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Welcome to Colonization nephrahim.

After you have visited an Indian village and talked to the Chief a small icon will appear beside the village name showing what goods that village wants (you might need to zoom in a bit to see it). Another way to view this is by using the display icons on the left hand side of the map screen. If you toggle on ‘Resource Display’ and then select ‘Map View’ (or use F11) you will see a global view with an option to change the information displayed to ‘Native Goods Requests’.
 
Ignore the icon telling you what the natives allegedly want -- they lie. What all native civs want, and will pay top gold for, are guns and horses, and to a lesser extent tools and trade goods.

Obviously, selling guns to a nearby native civ is risky, since that increases the combat strength of the units from 2 to 3. Selling horses to the natives is somewhat less risky, since that increases the mobility of the unit but still leaves them with only a combat strength of 2. Selling guns AND horses to the same native civ is a terrible idea unless they are so far away that they pose no threat to your cities if they declare war on you, since then you will be facing mobile units with a strength of 4.

There's no military downside to selling tools and trade goods to native villages, though you can only sell a few hundred quantity of each to any given native civ before they quit paying you a good price for it. You make more money selling horses and guns than tools and trade goods, but try not to arm native civs you'll likely go to war with, especially the native civ with villages closest to your first two cities.

It's almost obligatory to sell the guns from your initial military unit in order to get the cash to buy less risky commodities such as tools, trade goods, and horses -- try not to sell horses also to that native civ, and if it doesn't consume too much ship travel time, try not to sell that first load of guns to the native civ right next to your first two villages, since you'll likely have to fight them sooner or later in order to expand your civ.

Selling manufactured goods like cloth or rum to native civs doesn't get you much of a price -- unless your tax rate in Europe is completely out of control, sell those goods in Europe.
 
I stumbled across another path to victory in my first play through. Game was on the lowest difficulty, so this may be less viable higher, but if you kill off all of the King's navy (warships, listed on the Revolution force list), you will win by independence regardless of how many land units remain in the table! Someone earlier on this thread said that building lots of ships makes the king prioritize naval vessels when he adds to his force, so keep that in mind. What I did was built 4 shipyard cities, each with 3 carpenters and sufficient tool/gun/lumber support from other cities. Right about the time I started my liberty bell run-up (putting the statesmen to work, getting those presses/newspapers built, etc), I started repeat-building ships of the line in all 4. By the time the invasion started, I had a tidy fleet of 8 warships, enough to sink all 4 transports in his first wave (2 before they landed troops, as an added bonus). Initial odds were around 25%, so I lost 3 (the 4th got lucky and won his first fight), then killed the cripples. By killing off the men-of-war, each successive wave was actually smaller, with only 2 ships in each of the last 2 waves. With the shipyards still cranking out new ships (4-5 turns to build, so about 1 new hull per turn) the rest was cake. Only one past wave 2 survived to land troops, and none returned home. I was concerned I would have to leave one alive to go home and ferry all 30+ remaining ground units, but lo and behold, when the last one died, victory!

Must be late, that rambled longer than intended. Anyway, hope someone finds it useful.
 
Clearbeard -

I was going through some old threads and someone that actually looked at the code (?, protocol, whatever) said that it is not true that the King counters your build up appropriate units. It is all randomized. It may seem like it counters you at times, but it really doesn't. Logically, it makes sense. The computer would have no way of knowing how many dragoons and soliders you plan to make out of the horses and rifles you have in stock. How would it know how many cannons to build?

One note about killing off the King's navy, though - you can catch his ships in port if they have captured a city. Take the city and you kill the ships.
 
Clearbeard -

I was going through some old threads and someone that actually looked at the code (?, protocol, whatever) said that it is not true that the King counters your build up appropriate units. It is all randomized. It may seem like it counters you at times, but it really doesn't. Logically, it makes sense. The computer would have no way of knowing how many dragoons and soliders you plan to make out of the horses and rifles you have in stock. How would it know how many cannons to build?

One note about killing off the King's navy, though - you can catch his ships in port if they have captured a city. Take the city and you kill the ships.

Figured you could kill his ships that way. In my one game to date, he never took any of my cities, so it never came up. :D
 
Thanks for all the tips

Definitely would not have won the WOI on my first try without them.

I played on Normal Speed - with the Western Hemisphere board on Pioneer

Decided on doing the two continent strategy.

North America was my main 2 cities and 2 inland cities as support

South America had 1 main coastal city and and inland.

One thing I didn't do was fight any Native. I sent two scouts exploring everywhere and got so much gold from them and as the game went on thanks to missionaries I sent out they kept on sending me more converts.

Gained battled experience by fighting the Spanish on North America and killing off the French early in my game. I traded with the Dutch on the south continent.

I didn't think the game was going to go anywhere because I was constantly adjusting good manufacturing and trade and with 60 turns left my Rebel support was less than 10% but then I just put everyone on liberty bell creation and then I started to get all the political founding fathers. My support skyrocketed very quickly and I started to buy cannons in Europe and build some in the colonies. Able to declare independence with maybe 20 turns left.

I think the 2 continent strategy made it possible. The king landed all his troops at first in South America, I let him easily take my coastal city but then came at him in the jungle tiles and was able to wreck shop - especially with Ethan Allen so every troop had forest attack defense bonus.

He finally landed in North America but was down to only half his army and once again I let him easily take my coastal city but just came out with the cannons and dragoons.

I didn't bother building a navy except for a galleon and a couple of caravels and it never seemed to matter. I was always able to sail my galleon to avoid the man-of-wars to send troops from South to North America - just had to sail via the Gulf of Mexico to avoid the Atlantic barricade.

So a game that I thought I didn't have a chance ended up in victory. The key above everything was the native support, I think in the old Col game I would always kill the natives but the benefits of getting them on your side just makes everything easier. One weird thing was eventually they started to just give me their cities and land as gifts but after I accepted it the city had disappeared.

Also I never gave the king money but I did always allow him to raise the tax rate except if the tea party was a raw goods - since I could just sell him the manufactured good. Though i made sure to get the founding father than would match religious sentiment with your tax rate so you get cross bonus every time the tax rate is raised.

great stuff though

thanks again.
 
SINK ALL OF THE KING'S SHIPS AND HE MAKES PEACE - YOU WIN

While I was playing this time and my very first colony had a lot of spare resources and working power I was able to build 3 ships of the line before declaring independence.

However - I was able to sink all of the king's ships. Although I read enough of not building war shipsh at all I did so.
I should propably mention that I was playing on average difficulty and playing a Spanish leader (Jose de San Martin -50% experience for unit promotion)

What I did was just to use the great generals in colonies I had those ships, to give them XP so the were stronger than the king's. I had to fight about 100 of the 150 REF soldiers. But after sinking the last of the king's ships he made peace and I won.
 
I have written the Colonization development team at 2k games about producing another colonization game. As Im sure you probably know, Civ 4 Col is the result of heavy pressure from fans to develop another Colonization game.

I ask all current players to contact 2k games and request yet another Colonization game!

This is the reply sent to me by 2k games...

Raul G, Apr 18 05:59 (PDT):

Hey Andrew,
Thank you for contacting 2k Support, and many apologies for taking so long to get back to you. At the moment we have no information on any Colonization game coming out, but I will definitively tell our team that there is interest for another one."
http://www.facebook.com/2kgames
Best regards, and thanks for your support.
Raul G

You may contact 2k about making the next Colonization game at.... support@2k.com

Lets make it known that There is a huge fan base for this game and we'd love to see more done with the series! And feel it makes sense for 2k games to pursue the next
installment.

Thankyou TAC team for MANY hours of great games :)
 
Does anyone know if there is a keyboard shortcut to make all automated units move at the start of the turn? That way I can have all my transports move their goods and then manually take stuff to Europe, etc.

Thanks!

PS: I figured it out, it's CONTROL-A.
 
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This is a fun yet neglected part of the Sid Meyer game catalog. There are lots of variations mentioned above that are fun to pursue, like concentrating on building a navy. But if you are focused on maximizing your victory points, I have found only one path to do so. If I can't achieve these steps, I know I'm not going to get a entry in my hall of fame.

1. You need to have one of the earliest scouts out collecting treasure. Don't worry about converting that treasure to cash immediately, but if your AI competition gets to the great majority of native villages before you, you are not going to do well. You need this head start to win big.

2. If you have at least five or six big treasure wagons, you want to get them back to Europe before the taxes go too high. That means buying an expensive galleon. The king doesn't allow you to save much money over time without demanding payments, which makes acquiring a galleon difficult. The best way to get that money all at once is through a silver mine. Two cargoes of silver ore early in the game should get you your galleon. Save up the silver until you can do that all at once. If you can't find silver for a mine, try collecting enough manufactured goods to get that galleon price in one shot. Look for a super food city as well-- usually with multiple fish/crab resources. This may well end up being your stable/ranch city. A silver city and a food city are a great start. If you can't find silver, find a resource (sugar, tobacco, cotton) and try to get manufacturing going (rum, cigars, cloth) in that resource to replace the silver income.

3. Use your new galleon to get all your treasure wagons back to Europe, and use all that money to bring back cannon, horses, and guns for an attack on your weakest colonial neighbor. Those cities will inevitably be better than what you could build, especially at the higher levels. Instead of slowly creating your own factories, magazines, and cathedrals, steal them from the AI competition. This part demands careful planning. A few important things to remember:

a. Look for a way to get your chosen opponent into a war before you attack, or take advantage of any current war they are in. You can bribe natives to attack them, or bribe your target to attack another colonial power or tribe. Get them to move their main force far away from your target settlement (and mauled) before your attack.

b. Cannon do a great job at attacking settlements, with their 100% bonus. Use your galleon to drop cannon next to a weakly defended coastal city and drop a few infantry on top of them to defend them. Use every cargo ship you can. Delivering your army by sea is the best way to surprise them.

c. The way cultural influence works, your newly conquered cities will be mostly useless in the beginning, because you won't be able to work the tiles around it. So you need a plan that allows you to take over every nearby city of your chosen opponent in one war. You'll know the moment you've taken the last city necessary, as the influence marker (the overlaid color) will shift dramatically in your favor. You can end the war then.

d. The AI tends to make four specialized cities: a factory city, a tools/guns city, a cathedral city, and a university city; in that order. They don't tend to make a horse producing city, or a silver mine city. So your founding cities will complement the ones you just conquered. As the price of silver drops, you can eventually shift your silver ore city into an iron ore city to feed your tool factory city.

e. Churn out enough money to buy (or manufacture) the military equipment necessary to go after your other AI opponents. Multiple goods factories are not very useful, just one factory will pump out enough profit to drive taxes up to the point where you need to start your independence bid. (a second tools/guns city can be useful) But the populations of these newly conquered cities will provide you with more specialists to populate your chosen factories, and the general population will boost your final victory score. Use unspecialized colonists in these newly conquered settlements to populate your schools, colleges, and universities, and the native converts to work rural tiles. Remember that factories and some other high-end buildings add 25% each to your liberty bell production. Cities with those attributes need to be stocked with statesmen, printing presses, and newspapers. Use both money and schools to create statesmen. You'll need lots of them to get your rebellion level above 50%. You'll need printing presses and newspapers in all your big cities, which means you'll also need carpenters and lumberjacks as well.

f. If you want to keep your pioneers and universities operational while in rebellion, you'll need money (to pay the "tuition"). And if you can't sell your goods in Europe, because of your declaration of independence choice, or high taxes, you'll want to sell to the remaining native tribes. They start the game with a limited amount of money that doesn't get replenished (unless you buy stuff from them) so it's a good idea to try to "reserve" that source of funding for use during your independence fight. Don't sell too much to them earlier in the game, unless your AI opponent is exploiting that resource and you can't stop them.

4. Once you have control of the main cities of an AI opponent, make peace, and redistribute your specialists to take advantage of the assets of the newly acquired cities. Start pumping manufactured goods to sell in Europe.

5. Use emancipation to create a huge army of militia. Be ready to deploy them with guns in every city, and guns and horses in your inland cities so your new troops can be quickly moved to the coast, where the royal armies will first attack.

6. Prepare for the assault of the royal army. I like to put fortified infantry both in and next to all my coastal cities, and then create a large mobile dragoon force to counterattack successful landings. That means well connected roads. Cannon are no longer that useful (unless you have to retake a settlement). Cities on islands on the east coast will be very difficult to defend, it will also be harder to defend an empire that's separated by water. (The Royal Navy will inevitably control the seas.) Make special plans to safely get dragoon forces from one to the other (ships that can move between ports without ending a turn at sea, for example).

There are lots of fun ways to play Colonization, but the above steps I found are those necessary to get you to your highest victory scores.

It doesn't make much sense in the drive to max your final score to make a huge navy or train veteran soldiers; the investment is too high. That being said, I find it fun to explore these variations, even when I realize they are not the most effective means to the hall of fame.
 
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