Browsing through and it seems like most of the guides cover the base game. Trying to get into the TAC mod now and looking for strategies.
My approach so far:
-Food is tighter. Inland colonies are almost impossible to run without food shipments. Docks + expert fishermen are pretty mandatory.
-I usually try for a colony spam approach, where five size 1 colonies are better than one size 5 colony. My reasoning behind this is that you get one "free" tile harvested with each colony, so five size 1 colonies can harvest up to 10 tiles while one size 5 is only going to harvest 6. I only ever try building up colonies once all the free land is gone (don't have to pay natives) or the native payoff cost gets too high.
-For leaders I usually go with the French guy who gives immigration AND native conversion bonuses. The huge population boost seems most helpful. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but you can turn converted natives into colonists by having them live amongst the natives to turn them into (colonist) experts. It's helpful gameplay wise but it seems bizarre that the natives don't start with the skills from their home village which they must live in longer in order to turn into full fledged paleskins o
-I usually play Civ games on a small map. I'm not too sure size scales well with this though. The expeditionary force on small only seems to be two-thirds the size of the one from a huge map, where you'll have many many more resources to fight it.
My approach so far:
-Food is tighter. Inland colonies are almost impossible to run without food shipments. Docks + expert fishermen are pretty mandatory.
-I usually try for a colony spam approach, where five size 1 colonies are better than one size 5 colony. My reasoning behind this is that you get one "free" tile harvested with each colony, so five size 1 colonies can harvest up to 10 tiles while one size 5 is only going to harvest 6. I only ever try building up colonies once all the free land is gone (don't have to pay natives) or the native payoff cost gets too high.
-For leaders I usually go with the French guy who gives immigration AND native conversion bonuses. The huge population boost seems most helpful. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but you can turn converted natives into colonists by having them live amongst the natives to turn them into (colonist) experts. It's helpful gameplay wise but it seems bizarre that the natives don't start with the skills from their home village which they must live in longer in order to turn into full fledged paleskins o

-I usually play Civ games on a small map. I'm not too sure size scales well with this though. The expeditionary force on small only seems to be two-thirds the size of the one from a huge map, where you'll have many many more resources to fight it.