Win by raising a huge army of freed slaves

[prolefeed]

The REF won't generally attack cities located in the interior or on the side of your continent farthest from Europe. And, if your constitution frees the slaves, you get two indentured servants (ISs) from the freed slaves upon declaring independence. So, before declaring independence, colonize this "safe" area with tiny cities of population 1, each worked by a converted native (or a junk unit if you run out of CNs.) Park wagons loaded with guns (and to a lesser extent horses, if you colonized the city with a scout) in these cities. When you declare independence and get your two bonus citizens, run the wagons around from city to city, immediately turning the ISs into dragoons and rushing them off to the coastal cities that need to be defended, then scoop up all the remaining horses and guns in the wagon and go to the next city with ISs to be equipped.

Thus, each CN (who can't be used as a military unit) can generate two combat units. Plus, with the Betsy Ross FF, you'll generate enough cloth and saleable goods from the city square plus the square being worked that (depending on the tax rate and productivity of the squares worked) every 10 or so of these cities will generate enough cash from trading with Europe to allow you to buy a reinforcement from Europe per turn.

Obviously, you'll want to have monarchy in your constitution and at least one port city that is usually unblockaded to maximize this strategy.

 

[HermannLombard]

Ah, I hadn't seen the idea of using one CN to generate two IS combatants. Cute trick, and the CNs don't run up the headcount that has to be brought to independent spirit.

You mention the back side of your continent. Ports on that side will usually be unblockaded...though my WoI is usually over before merchants can make a round trip.

 

[dalgo]

... CNs don't run up the headcount that has to be brought to independent spirit.

What does this refer to?

You mention the back side of your continent. Ports on that side will usually be unblockaded...though my WoI is usually over before merchants can make a round trip.

One of the advantages of this game is the varied way it can be played. I prefer to play long games on a really big map so in my latest game for example my capital is 35 tiles from the West Coast at it's closest point, which is then 15 tiles from the Europe sea lane. Not really an option for an export port

However I do have plenty of time to send a Merchantman all the way around the continent (there is usually a gap at one pole) and then trade with the Indian tribes on that side. My games average 40 hours play each.

As I said, there are many ways to play this game.

 

[prolefeed]

In the game I recently won, I had three port cities 4 squares away from the Europe border. The two cities in the middle of the continent were constantly blockaded and under assault by the REF, but the one near the southern tip of the continent was never attacked at all, so I ran all finished goods to Europe there, and then rushed back reinforcement troops on the return trip.

 

[HermannLombard]

What does this refer to?

Sorry, that was both obscure and far from profound. I was just musing that when you're trying to get rebel spirit high enough, a town with a population of one doesn't slow things down (as opposed to, say, an army of 20 dragoons, or a large town).

And fully agreed: many ways to play the game. It's a little bit sad that when some players find one way to win they dismiss the whole game and all the other ways to play.

 

[Crime Doesn't Pay]

I've wondered about this tactic before. Wouldn't this be considered an expoilt? All you have to do then is get all your colonists to form it's own little colony. Use the money from your economy to get enough guns for everyone. Since REF size is based on bell production, you'll be multiplying your colony and creating a huge army. The only hard part would be getting bell production for each settlement.

IMO the bonus for freeing the slaves should be based off a percentage of your population.

 

[HermannLombard]

Wouldn't this be considered an expoilt?

IMO the bonus for freeing the slaves should be based off a percentage of your population.

Yes, I'd say it's a bit of an exploit.

Now that "percentage of your population" seems like a good idea! Oh, D-A-L-E...

 

[Crime Doesn't Pay]

DALE TO THE RESCUE!

I have no programming or modding skills but what happens if the servants added were 10% of your current population and your population was 23. Wouldn't you get 2.3 slaves? How would the rounding work?

 

[jenks]

think Dale's already on it dealing with any exploit there - in the new education/colonist development system, indentured servants and criminals can no longer become soldiers or dragoons (coming in 1.07)

however, if you can hold off the king for 20 turns they will 'earn' their freedom

 

[Wheldrake]

think Dale's already on it dealing with any exploit there - in the new education/colonist development system, indentured servants and criminals can no longer become soldiers or dragoons (coming in 1.07)

As I said in another thread, to me, that's counterintuitive. As Gibson said in "The Patriot" - "These are just the sort of men we need!"

After all, during the war of independence, even slaves could earn their freedom by... *becoming soldiers*, so I just don't see the logic in preventing them from gearing up to be soldiers and dragoons in the game.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[Crime Doesn't Pay]

^Agreed.

In the original you could arm the indentured servants and criminals. However unlike a regular colonists they did not become veterans after combat. A criminal would become a servant and a servant would become free in situation were a regular colonist would become a veteran.

 

[milvang]

I do not see the great benefit here. Yes you can use the freed slaves to man your guns, but usually finding enough population to man guns is not the limiting factor in winning independence. The real reason to spread out your population is that only 3 people can produce liberty bells, and you need to really mass produce bells in the turns before declaring indepence to prever too much REF growth. This is espcially effective when you have +3 bells per town hall.

And those freed slaves count toward your total population, so in order to keep rebel sentiment high you will ahve to generate more bells, even if they initially do not negatively affect the rebel sentiment, they will make it harder to keep it up or raise it, or at least that is my understanding of the mechanics.

I do no see the need to use wagons to store anything. Each city conviently store the 100 guns and 100 horses you want to to those 2 freed slaves into dragoons.

 

[HermannLombard]

I do no see the need to use wagons to store anything. Each city conviently store the 100 guns and 100 horses you want to to those 2 freed slaves into dragoons.

Well, you may want to arm more colonists than your warehouse can supply. Also, if you expect a prolonged war you may want to stockpile weapons and horses for replacement troops.

I primarily use wagons as mobile warehouses based in my principal port. They handle oversupplies of either outbound goods or inbound guns and horses, and in the latter case conveniently roll the guns and horses to a desired storage location.

 

[prolefeed]

Re this: "And those freed slaves count toward your total population, so in order to keep rebel sentiment high you will ahve to generate more bells, even if they initially do not negatively affect the rebel sentiment, they will make it harder to keep it up or raise it, or at least that is my understanding of the mechanics."

First, the freed slaves happen after you declare independence, so they don't hinder you from achieving the 50% rebel sentiment needed to declare independence. Second, keeping rebel sentiment high after declaring independence, for the purposes of maximizing city defenses, is easy -- the rebel sentiment is based on bell production versus number of citizens in the city. Soldiers not working in the city don't count. So, turn everyone in a city into soldiers or dragoons except for a lone Elder Statesman, and you'll quickly shoot up to 100% rebel sentiment. Or, if you're trying to produce stuff after the revolution, turn the freed slaves into soldiers so they don't affect rebel sentiment.

Basically, it's foolish to NOT create a bunch of interior cities just before revolution to get these free soldiers. You can always use more reinforcements against the REF. The only real limit is that you can't build two cities that touch each other.

 

[HermannLombard]

Second, keeping rebel sentiment high after declaring independence, for the purposes of maximizing city defenses, is easy -- the rebel sentiment is based on bell production versus number of citizens in the city. Soldiers not working in the city don't count. So, turn everyone in a city into soldiers or dragoons except for a lone Elder Statesman, and you'll quickly shoot up to 100% rebel sentiment. Or, if you're trying to produce stuff after the revolution, turn the freed slaves into soldiers so they don't affect rebel sentiment.

Soldiers don't affect the rebel sentiment of the town, but they do affect your overall rebel sentiment. Are you saying that overall rebel sentiment has no impact on your combat strength, even with Simon Bolivar? In my attempts at ultra-fast victory it certainly looks like my units suffer when the overall sentiment slips.

 

[dalgo]

Soldiers don't affect the rebel sentiment of the town, but they do affect your overall rebel sentiment. Are you saying that overall rebel sentiment has no impact on your combat strength, even with Simon Bolivar? In my attempts at ultra-fast victory it certainly looks like my units suffer when the overall sentiment slips.

Yes soldiers do affect the overall rebel sentiment, which is based on total population, and the overall rebel sentiment certainly does affect your combat bonus.

However, just as there is a difference between overall rebel sentiment and colony rebel sentiment, there is also a difference between the combat rebel sentiment bonus and the settlement defense bonus.

The manual says (p56) that 'your units receive a bonus to their combat strengths equal to the Rebel Sentiment minus 50'. Although it doesn't say which rebel sentiment it is talking about, this must be the overall rebel sentiment because that is the value shown in your combat log. I plan on this, I use it and I check it frequently.

The CIVILOPEDIA says (under Game Concepts - Liberty Bells) 'Any unit defending a settlement will receive a defensive combat bonus equal to the current Liberty Bell percentage of the settlement minus 50'. This does not appear to have been implemented. As an example I allowed an enemy unit to attack one of my colonies defended by a fortified soldier. My overall rebel sentiment was 84% and my Colony rebel sentiment was 100%. The actual rebel sentiment bonus my defending soldier received was 34% not 50%.

I have been playing this game since it came out and I am still confused about rebel sentiment. The manual and the civilopedia can't agree on the subject. How a newbie is supposed to work it all out I have no idea.

 

[HermannLombard]

The manual and the civilopedia can't agree on the subject. How a newbie is supposed to work it all out I have no idea.

It's like the Microsoft motto: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

No, wait, that was Emerson, but it would explain why what you already know doesn't work in newer software releases.

 

[prolefeed]

I wasn't aware of the overall Rebel Sentiment affecting combat bonuses -- good to know about that -- but it still pays to raise as many freed slaves as replacement combat units as possible when fighting a predominately land war.

To give a ridiculously exaggerated example to illustrate the point:

Game 1: You have essentially no freed slaves and Rebel Sentiment of 100%, with 50 total soldiers.

Game 2: Same as Game 1, except you have half your population composed of freed slaves, dropping your Rebel Sentiment down to 50%, with 100 total soldiers.

In game 2, you can use up half your units whittling down the REF despite the lowered overall Rebel Sentiment, at which point you're back to Game 1's 100% Rebel Sentiment and 50 soldiers, but with a bunch of surviving soldiers with combat bonuses and a much smaller REF to contend with.

Now, if you're fighting a naval war because the ratio of land vs. naval units in the REF is way skewed toward land units, then raising all those extra land units might initially impede your path to victory because it hurts your combat bonuses for your limited naval units. But, it will also mean you will be better able to fend off the land units as you chip away at the REF naval fleet, so you still might be better off overall. And, if you have enough food on hand in your cities, those extra units can be stuffed into city halls until actually needed, generating bells and thus raising the Rebel Sentiment enough to at least partially counter the drop in RS caused by their existence. And, if you have the FF that give bells bonuses for each city hall, that will cause the tiny cities to rapidly increase their RS. On a food rich map, between the FF bell bonuses and stuffing spare units into otherwise empty city halls, you might actually cause your overall RS to be higher after a few turns than if you didn't have all these tiny cities.

 

[prolefeed]

Or, look at it from a marginal perspective:

You've just hit 50% RS and are going to declare independence at the end of the current turn. You are going to fight a predominantly naval war because the REF is like 100 land units and 6 MoWs or some similarly stupid ratio, so you want to rack up the RS combat bonuses over time so your privateers cause more damage. You have 0% combat bonuses from RS right now because you just hit 50% overall RS this turn (D-oh). You have, at the margin, one more Free Colonist you can either turn into a dragoon, or use to form a tiny one person city in the interior of your colony on a grassland square.

If you turn the Free Colonist into a dragoon, you have a dragoon that will drag down your RS over time because it is generating zero bells, and nothing else.

If you turn the Free Colonist into a city on the interior grassland square, then declare independence, you immediately get two free indentured servants in addition to your Free Colonist. You turn one of the indentured servants into a dragoon and send it off to war, getting a functionally equivalent dragoon compared to the above scenario. Since you're concerned about getting high RS, you stuff the original Free colonist and the other indentured servant into your town hall to generate bells, in addition to the various FF bells bonuses applying to the city hall. So, in a few turns your little 2 person city is up to 100% RS and adding extra RS beyond that, versus the continuing drag on RS in the above scenario. You're getting 3 cloth per turn from Betsy Ross, plus 3-4 tobacco or ore or whatnot, all of which you load onto ships and send to Europe to apply toward troop reinforcements, or buying replacement guns and horses, or whatever. And, if your original dragoon gets killed, you have a spare unit in the city hall you can use as a replacement.

You're clearly better off over time, on a marginal basis, building the little city and regenerating a dragoon, rather than just forming a dragoon without the city.

 

[dalgo]

I wasn't aware of the overall Rebel Sentiment affecting combat bonuses -- good to know about that -- but it still pays to raise as many freed slaves as replacement combat units as possible when fighting a predominately land war.

To give a ridiculously exaggerated example to illustrate the point:

Game 1: You have essentially no freed slaves and Rebel Sentiment of 100%, with 50 total soldiers.

Game 2: Same as Game 1, except you have half your population composed of freed slaves, dropping your Rebel Sentiment down to 50%, with 100 total soldiers.

In game 2, you can use up half your units whittling down the REF despite the lowered overall Rebel Sentiment, at which point you're back to Game 1's 100% Rebel Sentiment and 50 soldiers, but with a bunch of surviving soldiers with combat bonuses and a much smaller REF to contend with.

There is another difference between Game 1 and Game 2 - a small matter of 2500 guns and 2500 horses for the extra dragoons. That is unless you really are going to war with just soldiers in which case you only need an extra 2500 guns (and good luck with those soldiers).

However I will concede there are advantages in having a lot of colonies, especially with the likes of Hamilton, Ross, Guerra, Jay, Winthrop, Baltimore, Henry, Adams, Juana and Paine in Congress. Their benefits apply to all colonies regardless of size.

It's really a matter of playing style. Whether you prefer to play with a few large colonies or a lot of small ones you can still win the game easily enough.