Things that make a good start

[Babibo]

Hello everyone,

Just started playing the game, and enjoying it as well (mmmh of course, the school time increase bugs me, but that's essentially because I liked the way it worked in civ1).

As a civ IV player, I consider the start to be the most important phase in the game. In the first 30 turns, you have to find ways to get as much money as possible so as to increase the size of your colonies, buy your first galleon, etc... I think that I won my first Conquistador game because of the very good start I had :

1. An elder statesman on your docks in the beginning is very nice. You'll be first to get Peter Minuit, and other important founding fathers (such as the one who always gives good results to indian huts, or something like that)

2. Having a scout on your docks is even more powerful. Have him visit all tribal villages (nice bonuses), get all burial villages, etc... You'll gain lots of money, information about what type of specialists villages can train, and, last but not least, a bunch of exploration points.

3. Buy a couple of dragoons, and kill your neighbor. I played my first game at conquistaoor level, and I found the AI deceiptively easy to kill. You'll gain military points, some colonists (if you don't like the city, either raze it, or just give it back to your neighbour as soon as you took his goods and his nice specialists)

Other ideas for a good start ?

 

[mzprox]

A few tips:
-look for rivers, they are better than special resources
-better to make more city in the begining. i usually settle both my soldier and pioneer and start producing whatever i can from the city's tile resource
-getting a scout or two early is essential, so if you dont get seasoned scout a normal one will do as well.
-i dont pay to the natives for the land. In my experience they only declare war at once if you put your colony next to their village. from that money buy a cannon instead and they wont attack you later.
-Peter Minuit should join as soon as possible, b4 buying anything from europe.
-trading trade goods and tools with the natives early gives a good cash. (you can sell horses and guns too but i prefer not to do this )

 

[pvt chaos]

Good tips.
For a bit of money in the early game trade with the native's as soon as your caravel has dropped of your colonists. Usually you can buy some furs or cotton and sell it with a profit. Use this money to rush buy from the docks and to equip with horses for an early scout.

Buy a 2nd caravel early which only goes back and forth to the new world with trade goods and tools and buys back raw materials. Also horses are very profitable, but off course you are running a bit of a risk here.

Watch for native village's which have silver next to their settlement, usually they sell silver at a very low price making for huge profit back in Europe.

Any tips for when to buy the galleon ? If you do it too early you have a slower start, but if you do it too late your treasure will be taxed alot. Is there an optimum time ?

 

[tour86rocker]

I tend to buy the galleon as soon as I have the money because I tend to have 6+ treasure wagons waiting already. It pays for itself and then some.

Unless it doesn't pay for itself, that is. If your treasure chests don't add up to more than the cost of the galleon, i'd delay the galleon until it's needed for commerce.

 

[elihoya]

I've just started the game, but played after reading this advice. How, exactly, do you buy a galleon? I looked in the Europe screen (when my ship is trading in Europe), and I'm not able to find a galleon for sale.

 

[Sarmatian]

On Europe screen, click on purchase and scroll down. Ships are at the bottom of the line.

 

[trytogrowupkid]

I've just started the game, but played after reading this advice. How, exactly, do you buy a galleon? I looked in the Europe screen (when my ship is trading in Europe), and I'm not able to find a galleon for sale.

above the 3 immigrants at the top right, where it says purchase, click that. scroll all the way down to the boats

 

[Feannag]

Any tips for when to buy the galleon ? If you do it too early you have a slower start, but if you do it too late your treasure will be taxed alot. Is there an optimum time ?

If you have a coastal town with some expert carpenters and plenty of lumber a galleon can be built in enough time to be feasible. Usually I do that, especially when you have 4+ treasure carts sitting in your colonies waiting to go. Build a galleon, load them up, and truck them to Europe for mad money.

Some of the civ people don't realize that in the old game, even with proper production/manufacture building ships was still very time-intensive. But now with the carpentry and lumberjack specialists and a couple of good lumber tiles you can crack out ships pretty quickly with a Lumber Mill. Save you cash for warships like Privateers, you can build galleons and merchantmen quickly with the rest resources.

 

[KJIOYH]

1) Having a scout in docks - its imba. Means you get all those treasures really fast. Normal dude on horse always gets attacked :/

2) Finding a village right away - means you can sell guns and get 800g to buy more dudes and make dragoons of them and sell the guns and buy more guys with guns and ... then natives kill the king for you lol. Just settle everywhere so king has to walk through jungles.

3) carpenter and lumberjack in docks - they build lumber mill and factories and trains and this makes you rich.

4) preacher - he is imba early game.

5) elder statesman - gives you peter then cuts wood lol.

6) nice rich natives. Incas make you drawn in gold.

7) Multiple europeans settling nearby - like winning a million in lottery, except it happens all the time. Capture them with scout early then make bells to kill "you stole our land" or kill natives aswell. Each gives you a worker and a city with 45 guns and docks. Being dumb retards AI europeans make peace in like 3 turns and give you 10 gold and world map.

8) Having nice treasures - just random.

9) Tundra nearby. Silver+Lubmer+furs. Furs compete with silver easily, just settle one dude on => 2 food place and he can make like 14 furs alone. Or settle near ocean. Same with lumber. Besides small cities are good for making revolution as some genious dude posted.

10) Getting to land on first turn o.0

 

[player1 fanatic]

Besides small cities are good for making revolution as some genious dude posted.

Small towns can also more easily get high rebelm sentiment, which means that whoever works in them gets bonus to production equal to 1/2 of that sentiment.

This works great if you have FF that give free liberty bells to town centers or printing press. You could get high sentiment even without single statesmen in such town.

 

[KJIOYH]

It might be a worthy tactic, but it might raise the REF aswell. I suppose one will need a really small amount of bells though, so one city can operate for a considerable amount of time before raising REF. A single trapper with 100% sentiment will make rediculous amounts of fur o.0 like 30-35 on a good spot?

At the moment, i dont really find any reasons for founding any cities >1 population, except the manufacturing ones. Large cities suffer sentiment penalties, education system doesnt allow for profitable training of producers and they need extra food to support larger population. While a 1 pop city supports itself with food, generates extra raw resources with settlement tile, benefits from certain FF like the one you mentioned and can later be converted into massive sentiment supplier for whole empire. The only problem will be wagons untill each of these cities makes one o.0 Plus you can missionarize whole continent, make good relations with natives and spawn more cities. With some FF its quite easy to get +9 in relations and make Defensive pacts with all natives, then the REF will have to run around the jungles with evil indians around every tree If you zerg whole continent, you dont even need to manufacture anything because you can sell weapons to like 8 tribes, then just sell those raw resources, then buy weapons in europe. Just make sure you buy horses for new colonists, thanks god they are cheap, so they dont spend all their life running . Other europeans are not a problem - one scout can eliminate them all as they settle nearby, or just switch them off because they are more like a bonus now. So they will not clutter the land. The problem might be small map though > buying land from natives and not being French. I dont have any experience in that field lol.


By the way. I am not native English speaker Whats the proper way to call the one's "empire" in colonization ? Colony ?

 

[KJIOYH]

Evrika! I will never get the colonists out of settlements. I fail

 

[Polobo]

For a non-English speaker it is probably most clear to use:
Colony - the empire as a whole, makes it plural "The Colonies" to make it obvious
Settlement - a individual city (or just use City - people will know what you mean)

You will find the word "colony" used to refer to an individual city as well, but the context is usually clear as to how it is being used.

 

[KJIOYH]

Got it. Thx man

 

[Antilogic]

The game menu refers to your entire region, settlements and all territory, as your colony. It makes sense to stay consistent.

 

[KJIOYH]

No wonder, they want independance so much. Being a colonists sounds to me like being a prisoner or a slave.