Mr. ZorG
WTP team member
for some reason everyone forgets about the Town Guard .. at the very beginning it is a good unit so that there are no uprisings in the cities. and at the end of the game it's imba
you just need to think a little
Turn 135 and Only Two Cities?
- Thread starter rap33042
- Start date
you just need to think a little
Derek Brown
Chieftain
for some reason everyone forgets about the Town Guard .. at the very beginning it is a good unit so that there are no uprisings in the cities. and at the end of the game it's imba
you just need to think a little
I'm a big fan of town guards all the way to the end. They allow very cheap protection for inland cities that don't have any threats while freeing up more valuable units armed with guns to the front lines. As I expand I always equip town guards to occupy the interior cities and move the line infantry / col militias / experienced units on coastal and border cities.
Derek Brown
Chieftain
Here's a few tips. Ray covered the phases of the game pretty well and I'll add what I've learned. I've decided to share this much not only to help new guys but also the mod team might be interested as feedback to how the mod is working (assuming anything below is novel which may not be). I've been playing on revolutionary difficulty, gigantic map size, slowest speed, and with different nations. Usually win WOI by 1695 with 40-60 cities, 5-8 great universities, 4-6 giant tool factories / great armories, a navy at start of WOI of 2-4 frigates / 2-3 MOW's / 6 - 12 SOL's, and usually 2-3 production centers for almost every commodity with level 2 or level 3 production buildings. I'm sure I have plenty of room to play better and may do things suboptimal. So pick and choose. I think overall the best style is the one you have the most fun with.
Early game
- Buy fractions instead of waiting until you can afford a full load. Ie buy 30 horses / cows / sheep and start breeding them. Or if you take a scout after you have a pasture, assign as colonist and then breed some of the horses for a few turns, you'll have extras to then breed all you need
- Scouting - attack an animal if he's in open terrain. Use the first upgrade for mobility / visibility. I go out in ever expanding half circles from the first coastal city instead of a straight line, that way I'm not wasting time revealing tiles too far away. So I manually explore rather than auto explore.
- If you have other Europeans nearby you need to expand aggressively to claim your territory. You will be very vulnerable though but it's worth the risk. Worry about the roads later.
- I like to prioritize food over cash crops. Train the free colonists in the villages. Even if you don't find the close village skills to be useful now, go ahead and train for future before these villages are killed off later.
- When I do have money I like to buy military instead of specialists at least so I'm not falling behind the other Europeans in strength. Trying to grow by building a profitable trading empire early on and neglecting military may get you killed off
- Different strokes for different folks, but I cash in all treasures as soon as they hit the coast rather than wait to transport myself when galleons come later. Time value of money thing - I'd rather get less money immediately than more money later. The earlier in the game you get a farmer, for example, the more total people he creates.
- I build bells in the government buildings but not in the lumber mill early on. It allows stronger city growth but I do lose out on early FF"s. At certain times though I'll make pushes to get Sor Juana and other education oriented ones. Personal preference though
- I build my biggest city inland
- Never too early to start looking for clusters of peaks that are far from the coast. Even though you don't need much stone now, that will become a bottleneck in late game. You probably can't settle there yet if they're far but use that to plan your growth direction
- Usually you'll get asked to go to war. I almost always take it. Getting a MOW early solves the problem when that first privateer starts harassing your coast.
- I'm usually too weak to trade with natives early on
- If you have a lot of money and think the king is going to ask for some and there's nothing really pressing to buy, then shed excess cash to any natives you want to keep happy
- I regularly buy the furs or whatever the natives offer to keep them happy.
- Keep going for LJ's / Carps / Farmers / Fishermen. I always want to be #1 in hammer production early on. By end of game I'm usually 10X-15X hammer production than #2
Middle game - start producing tools and finished goods. ~1620 - 1660
- Sell to Europe until prices drop. Then start building your internal markets. Distributing goods will be one of your busiest tasks.
- Start building teams of pioneers. You'll eventually need about 40-60 hardy pioneers. At this point about half building roads and half converting tiles. Many can be captured via war. Sometimes I try to plays as a pacifist since winning wars is pretty overpowered - in that case I just train a bunch of pioneers. Don't work unimproved tiles - put that person as a pioneer instead. In other words, if you find yourself having people work unimproved tiles, then you don't have enough pioneers.
- On the other hand I regularly put free colonists to work. As you start producing goods your happiness will rise, speeding up LBD. If a colonist has at least 40 turns, then I don't replace him with an available specialist
- I almost never buy medics. Just let them LBD
- Start planning ahead for a way you could smuggle items during the WOI - Pacific route / maybe you can stretch far north/south
- Best to always process in the same city that you collect raws
- You can avoid overproducing by projecting your raw production. Ie if you have 3 LJ's with lodges and a full wheelwright workshop, you may be losing 7 lumber per turn. But if you're at 15% sentiment you know as that climbs and the tiles upgrade you'll eventually match then exceed production. So just let the rising productivity take care of that over time instead of adding another LJ. Better to add an ES in that scenario.
- Here or later in this phase you'll get galleons. Be sure to merge treasures to 9000 prior to sending to Europe so you don't waste slots
- Around this time or even earlier I stop giving the king money. I have internal market built so his taxes don't bother me and I've got other happiness positives to offset the unhappiness due to tax
Late game - first custom house and WOI preps
- Once you get your first custom house up you can start shedding off excess material. You may still have 4,000 or so furs. You could just use them in the coat factory faster than you're hunting for new ones and get rid of them that way. I don't do that because I'll forget and run out. Even when I have an excess of raws I still produce to match the factory demand and just send the excesses to the custom house
- You may still be building cities in strategic points. You can rush build them by delivering lumber so you can improve farms before lodges and put in carpenters before LJ's. You should rush build the first few buildings before the price goes up. Build directly to the WWWS then specialize the city. If all FF's are taken you can also pull LJ's and carpenters out of established cities into new cities to grow, especially if these are on the coast and may be captured. Otherwise they're building political points for nothing.
- Build as many cities to Government Palace as possible so you can build more great universities
- Start rehearsing where invasions can happen. If I have extra pioneers I like to cut down forests in a line to stop the king's army
- My last game I built a lot of carriages and created a rapid reaction force. I was able to dispatch them to two different places far away. You could also do this with a pool of guns/swords.
- Build your Continental Congress inland
- Since I'm building the church up later in the game, I'm sending the galleons back and forth picking up immigrants at the docks which are packed now. I immediately buy free colonists and indentured servants until the slot turns into an expensive unit and then let the bells buy them. I don't want the bells wasted on FC's and IS's when I can make them town guards and colonial militias for defense or train them up. Plus this builds your total population more
- You should have a waiting list of free colonists / political refugees / IS's outside of great university cities waiting to be trained. IS's are last priority to train and first priority as military when no veterans available. Every now and then I go city by city and make a list of needed specialists and then prioritize it since you can't check needs when you get the graduation pop up.
- If you haven't already, you need a war to give your units experience
- Mend your friendships with Europeans via gold, free maps, or using the Archbishop to win favor. You'll want them offering CG's at random times plus military when you declare.
- I've forgotten before to pull my ships protecting whaling ships off duty and to a safe coastal city. So check the unit map for all forgotten naval units. By now you've probably put in 100 hours into the game over the last few weeks. If you think your navy may be captured, considering starting the WOI with them in an allied city until you figure out where the king is going.
- If you're lucky enough to have Pacific coast cities then be sure to get a custom house there so you have at least one intact one during the WOI
- Don't worry if the king outnumbers you > 3:1 when you start the WOI. My last game I started off outnumbered about 4:1 on CG/Hess/LI to his LI/Hess.
- Keep your offensive cannons far away from the coast. You don't need them in your first line of defense or counterattacks until you're ready to take back cities. You really only need 2-5 of these.
- You may have about 400,000 gold and a bunch of galleons. You could make a last trip to Europe and buy up military. I've stopped doing that due to realism. But stone is a good one to stock up on.
WOI
- Trying to hold on to coastal cities will likely cause you to lose an army. Let him take his early victories while you keep building guns/swords/light artillery/etc, improving the ratio in your favor. The longer the war lasts the better your odds are. Not only does your army build up but your revolutionary score builds up improving your combat odds
- Never go for 50:50 risks. Never match him in a battle with even strength. Even though he has more total, you can find ways to maneuver to attack his smaller groupings when you're outnumbering him 2:1 at the point of attack. Don't ever fight against the terrain. Even if it means you have to retreat and lose another city. It is usually not as dire as it looks. But if you fight really disciplined you can usually only less than 10 fatalities in the whole war. I usually don't attack if the odds of dying are 5% or more unless the situation dictates it
- Bring some medics with you in your large armies for faster healing
- If you want to sink his navy, attack from a city safe from invasion - wait until his ships unload and he's hovering around another city when his ships are sitting ducks. Hopefully you can safely get to it. Attack / heal & you'll gain experience. Plus you'll capture about 5% of the ships you sink. Over time a single untrained ship of the line operating from a port can sink or capture over 40 ships. Don't forget he hides loose ones around the ocean so don't assume you're safe to cross the open ocean if not in a wolfpack. Don't forget that speed is as important as strength even if you're popping him from the coast. If he moves to another city that is 6 spots away and most of your ships are 5, then your ships won't be able to do anything.
- I keep graduating blacksmiths/gunsmiths over veterans until I'm making enough guns to equip about 3-6 line infantry per turn. Your bottleneck at the start of the war is guns/swords more so than trained troops. Once I've got my blacksmith/gunsmith slots filled then I go for more veterans.
- Once his loose units are defeated he'll wait in cities until he's finished off. By that time you may drive him off the coast with an army of 150+ line infantry. Even so, don't get lazy and oversplit your army if you want to minimize losses. He'll make some desperate charges and wipe out dragoons if you're trying to clean up the map and get lazy.
Early game
- Buy fractions instead of waiting until you can afford a full load. Ie buy 30 horses / cows / sheep and start breeding them. Or if you take a scout after you have a pasture, assign as colonist and then breed some of the horses for a few turns, you'll have extras to then breed all you need
- Scouting - attack an animal if he's in open terrain. Use the first upgrade for mobility / visibility. I go out in ever expanding half circles from the first coastal city instead of a straight line, that way I'm not wasting time revealing tiles too far away. So I manually explore rather than auto explore.
- If you have other Europeans nearby you need to expand aggressively to claim your territory. You will be very vulnerable though but it's worth the risk. Worry about the roads later.
- I like to prioritize food over cash crops. Train the free colonists in the villages. Even if you don't find the close village skills to be useful now, go ahead and train for future before these villages are killed off later.
- When I do have money I like to buy military instead of specialists at least so I'm not falling behind the other Europeans in strength. Trying to grow by building a profitable trading empire early on and neglecting military may get you killed off
- Different strokes for different folks, but I cash in all treasures as soon as they hit the coast rather than wait to transport myself when galleons come later. Time value of money thing - I'd rather get less money immediately than more money later. The earlier in the game you get a farmer, for example, the more total people he creates.
- I build bells in the government buildings but not in the lumber mill early on. It allows stronger city growth but I do lose out on early FF"s. At certain times though I'll make pushes to get Sor Juana and other education oriented ones. Personal preference though
- I build my biggest city inland
- Never too early to start looking for clusters of peaks that are far from the coast. Even though you don't need much stone now, that will become a bottleneck in late game. You probably can't settle there yet if they're far but use that to plan your growth direction
- Usually you'll get asked to go to war. I almost always take it. Getting a MOW early solves the problem when that first privateer starts harassing your coast.
- I'm usually too weak to trade with natives early on
- If you have a lot of money and think the king is going to ask for some and there's nothing really pressing to buy, then shed excess cash to any natives you want to keep happy
- I regularly buy the furs or whatever the natives offer to keep them happy.
- Keep going for LJ's / Carps / Farmers / Fishermen. I always want to be #1 in hammer production early on. By end of game I'm usually 10X-15X hammer production than #2
Middle game - start producing tools and finished goods. ~1620 - 1660
- Sell to Europe until prices drop. Then start building your internal markets. Distributing goods will be one of your busiest tasks.
- Start building teams of pioneers. You'll eventually need about 40-60 hardy pioneers. At this point about half building roads and half converting tiles. Many can be captured via war. Sometimes I try to plays as a pacifist since winning wars is pretty overpowered - in that case I just train a bunch of pioneers. Don't work unimproved tiles - put that person as a pioneer instead. In other words, if you find yourself having people work unimproved tiles, then you don't have enough pioneers.
- On the other hand I regularly put free colonists to work. As you start producing goods your happiness will rise, speeding up LBD. If a colonist has at least 40 turns, then I don't replace him with an available specialist
- I almost never buy medics. Just let them LBD
- Start planning ahead for a way you could smuggle items during the WOI - Pacific route / maybe you can stretch far north/south
- Best to always process in the same city that you collect raws
- You can avoid overproducing by projecting your raw production. Ie if you have 3 LJ's with lodges and a full wheelwright workshop, you may be losing 7 lumber per turn. But if you're at 15% sentiment you know as that climbs and the tiles upgrade you'll eventually match then exceed production. So just let the rising productivity take care of that over time instead of adding another LJ. Better to add an ES in that scenario.
- Here or later in this phase you'll get galleons. Be sure to merge treasures to 9000 prior to sending to Europe so you don't waste slots
- Around this time or even earlier I stop giving the king money. I have internal market built so his taxes don't bother me and I've got other happiness positives to offset the unhappiness due to tax
Late game - first custom house and WOI preps
- Once you get your first custom house up you can start shedding off excess material. You may still have 4,000 or so furs. You could just use them in the coat factory faster than you're hunting for new ones and get rid of them that way. I don't do that because I'll forget and run out. Even when I have an excess of raws I still produce to match the factory demand and just send the excesses to the custom house
- You may still be building cities in strategic points. You can rush build them by delivering lumber so you can improve farms before lodges and put in carpenters before LJ's. You should rush build the first few buildings before the price goes up. Build directly to the WWWS then specialize the city. If all FF's are taken you can also pull LJ's and carpenters out of established cities into new cities to grow, especially if these are on the coast and may be captured. Otherwise they're building political points for nothing.
- Build as many cities to Government Palace as possible so you can build more great universities
- Start rehearsing where invasions can happen. If I have extra pioneers I like to cut down forests in a line to stop the king's army
- My last game I built a lot of carriages and created a rapid reaction force. I was able to dispatch them to two different places far away. You could also do this with a pool of guns/swords.
- Build your Continental Congress inland
- Since I'm building the church up later in the game, I'm sending the galleons back and forth picking up immigrants at the docks which are packed now. I immediately buy free colonists and indentured servants until the slot turns into an expensive unit and then let the bells buy them. I don't want the bells wasted on FC's and IS's when I can make them town guards and colonial militias for defense or train them up. Plus this builds your total population more
- You should have a waiting list of free colonists / political refugees / IS's outside of great university cities waiting to be trained. IS's are last priority to train and first priority as military when no veterans available. Every now and then I go city by city and make a list of needed specialists and then prioritize it since you can't check needs when you get the graduation pop up.
- If you haven't already, you need a war to give your units experience
- Mend your friendships with Europeans via gold, free maps, or using the Archbishop to win favor. You'll want them offering CG's at random times plus military when you declare.
- I've forgotten before to pull my ships protecting whaling ships off duty and to a safe coastal city. So check the unit map for all forgotten naval units. By now you've probably put in 100 hours into the game over the last few weeks. If you think your navy may be captured, considering starting the WOI with them in an allied city until you figure out where the king is going.
- If you're lucky enough to have Pacific coast cities then be sure to get a custom house there so you have at least one intact one during the WOI
- Don't worry if the king outnumbers you > 3:1 when you start the WOI. My last game I started off outnumbered about 4:1 on CG/Hess/LI to his LI/Hess.
- Keep your offensive cannons far away from the coast. You don't need them in your first line of defense or counterattacks until you're ready to take back cities. You really only need 2-5 of these.
- You may have about 400,000 gold and a bunch of galleons. You could make a last trip to Europe and buy up military. I've stopped doing that due to realism. But stone is a good one to stock up on.
WOI
- Trying to hold on to coastal cities will likely cause you to lose an army. Let him take his early victories while you keep building guns/swords/light artillery/etc, improving the ratio in your favor. The longer the war lasts the better your odds are. Not only does your army build up but your revolutionary score builds up improving your combat odds
- Never go for 50:50 risks. Never match him in a battle with even strength. Even though he has more total, you can find ways to maneuver to attack his smaller groupings when you're outnumbering him 2:1 at the point of attack. Don't ever fight against the terrain. Even if it means you have to retreat and lose another city. It is usually not as dire as it looks. But if you fight really disciplined you can usually only less than 10 fatalities in the whole war. I usually don't attack if the odds of dying are 5% or more unless the situation dictates it
- Bring some medics with you in your large armies for faster healing
- If you want to sink his navy, attack from a city safe from invasion - wait until his ships unload and he's hovering around another city when his ships are sitting ducks. Hopefully you can safely get to it. Attack / heal & you'll gain experience. Plus you'll capture about 5% of the ships you sink. Over time a single untrained ship of the line operating from a port can sink or capture over 40 ships. Don't forget he hides loose ones around the ocean so don't assume you're safe to cross the open ocean if not in a wolfpack. Don't forget that speed is as important as strength even if you're popping him from the coast. If he moves to another city that is 6 spots away and most of your ships are 5, then your ships won't be able to do anything.
- I keep graduating blacksmiths/gunsmiths over veterans until I'm making enough guns to equip about 3-6 line infantry per turn. Your bottleneck at the start of the war is guns/swords more so than trained troops. Once I've got my blacksmith/gunsmith slots filled then I go for more veterans.
- Once his loose units are defeated he'll wait in cities until he's finished off. By that time you may drive him off the coast with an army of 150+ line infantry. Even so, don't get lazy and oversplit your army if you want to minimize losses. He'll make some desperate charges and wipe out dragoons if you're trying to clean up the map and get lazy.
darklurkers
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2020
- Messages
- 16
town guards should require some 20 blades also for more realistic presentation...
Elirector
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 21, 2021
- Messages
- 49
You fooled us. It is not "a few tips" it is rather "the best WtP guide ever". It is definitely worth being somewhere on top of WtP forum branch, in a sticky thread. @raystuttgart @Nightinggale what do you think? May be start some sort of "Tips and gudes" if it is possible?
I'm glad I asked this question. It's been great!!
This is a great help! Thank you!!
Uraeus
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2021
- Messages
- 25
You welcome Rap
After 2 or 3 games using these tips, you can try to choose the nation and the leader according to their attributes, according to your tastes.
And then you can come back to this page to read the " little guide " ;-) of Derek Brown who has the merit of being in phase. What he says there is not too bad; in any case enough to move forward well, to make you your own experience and who knows, may one day be your own guide.
Good game!
After 2 or 3 games using these tips, you can try to choose the nation and the leader according to their attributes, according to your tastes.
And then you can come back to this page to read the " little guide " ;-) of Derek Brown who has the merit of being in phase. What he says there is not too bad; in any case enough to move forward well, to make you your own experience and who knows, may one day be your own guide.
Good game!
I have Derek's tips bookmarked, too. I'd never played on Marathon before. I bought what I expected to be a hundred tools and Bang! 2400 gold!! I didn't expect that hit!
Anyway, I have a lot to learn...
On another point, at the docks, didn't it used to be that hovering over the resources would show you what you had stored at "home"? I thought that was handy.
Last edited:
raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
No, that feature ("Europe showing you Yield amounts in Colonies") never existed.
But somebody may program it of course. It is actually really "beginner's level" for a programmer.
(It is basically just looping through the Cities and summing up that Yield.)
Maybe that was in TAC, then. I don't think I've gone totally senile-- at least not yet.No, that feature ("Europe showing you Yield amounts in Colonies") never existed.
But somebody may program it of course. It is actually really "beginner's level" for a programmer.
(It is basically just looping through the Cities and summing up that Yield.)
raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
I would know that.
I was TAC member myself.
We also did not remove anything useful from TAC.
But again:
It is pretty easy to implement if somebody invests the time.
(It is about 2h of effort to make it look pretty as well.)
OK, then. I trust you Ray, but I would have bet real money that I had seen that feature somewhere along the way.I would know that.
I was TAC member myself.
We also did not remove anything useful from TAC.
But again:
It is pretty easy to implement if somebody invests the time.
(It is about 2h of effort to make it look pretty as well.)
Maybe I should take some meds...
Thanks for your help,
Richard
raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
Boby
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2016
- Messages
- 10
@Derek Brown Great !
Thank you for the tips !!
Thank you for the tips !!
I will check that out. Thanks!
I don't have to take my meds after all.I would know that.
I was TAC member myself.
We also did not remove anything useful from TAC.
But again:
It is pretty easy to implement if somebody invests the time.
(It is about 2h of effort to make it look pretty as well.)
At the docks, when you hover over a destination for your ship, the resources show the amounts in that city plus how much storage space you have.
That really had me going for a minute there...
Richard
I want to thank you, Derek, for the wonderful tips you have provided.
As always, there are more questions. I have been trying to follow along and am coming up on what you cal "Midgame" at around 1620. I am curious about how many cities you have running at that point?
I just want a comparison to see how I'm doing.
Thanks again for all this help,
Richard
I'm an idiot and don't know what WWWS stands for. And how about IS? Many of these abbreviations are useless for a newbie.
Otherwise, great tips, and thank you for the help.
IS is Indentured Servant.
I love this game - have played thousands of hours with so much to learn still. But I actually play differently than most people because I almost never play for WOI, so I'm not as focused on bells and military as you have to be playing that way.
My enjoyment comes from exploration and creating a nation. I like to play with the Portuguese for the Seasoned Scout and getting a second one from the first FF and accumulating money, treasures and units (as well as getting an advanced lay of the land) to jump-start my city-building. I rush to build 5 cities with 3 inland to get the 4 free Hardy Pioneers. If a European nation is close by, I'll start a war early on, before they've gotten too settled/fortified, to capture a city or two and move them out of my territory. From there, it's building up the nation over time. I usually only play to high score since on the biggest maps, I can never get a domination win.
I've thanked the mod team many times, but I want to thank them again for creating such a wonderful game.
I love this game - have played thousands of hours with so much to learn still. But I actually play differently than most people because I almost never play for WOI, so I'm not as focused on bells and military as you have to be playing that way.
My enjoyment comes from exploration and creating a nation. I like to play with the Portuguese for the Seasoned Scout and getting a second one from the first FF and accumulating money, treasures and units (as well as getting an advanced lay of the land) to jump-start my city-building. I rush to build 5 cities with 3 inland to get the 4 free Hardy Pioneers. If a European nation is close by, I'll start a war early on, before they've gotten too settled/fortified, to capture a city or two and move them out of my territory. From there, it's building up the nation over time. I usually only play to high score since on the biggest maps, I can never get a domination win.
I've thanked the mod team many times, but I want to thank them again for creating such a wonderful game.
