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Colonization is one of my favorite of the older games.
I just wanted to say two things quick, with the orginal US version, you can be granted your independance without a war. It involves making a LOT of librety bells.
Also, their is another cheet I am not sure if everyone is aware of. If you want, you can play all four of the great powers in a single game. To do this, make a new game and in the powers selection screen (spanish, english...), select one of the powers and then drag it to the bottom of the screen. The graphics will go weird and you are all set. The graphics will be fine later on, but the game does seem to act funny if I remember correctly.
Good luck, happy gamming, and thanks to the people who run this site!

Ravewood

[Old School Gamer]

One defensive strategy I always use is to build my town and leave the land that is adjacent to the ocean alone. So when the Kings Army land I get the bonues of the terrain as an ambush. The only bad thing is that the AI/europeans likes to slash and burn all the trees & plow around their towns, so when you take over their towns.....the King likes to attack those towns first. So I like to capture an enemy town and then abandon it. It only works if they don't have a stockade, fort etc.
I like to leave a mixed assortment of armies guarding my cities. Example: If your Continental Army loses, send in your Criminal/Dragoons and they MIGHT just win. :bleh:

[laiocfar]

U can buil roads and maintain the ambush bonues, its a good strategy. But use canons for defence in forts and M.C.A. for ambush, never run low in horses and can defeat the king easy

My favorite stragity is to take the caribian islands (and killing all the indains on the islands). Once you clear the islands, you are safe from indain attacks (they always get ticked off and attack me anyways). Movement is faster over the sea and the alantic is right there for shipping back to europe. Then you can fish all you want and they cannot fortify next to your cities to block your fishing due to fort/fortress attacks. There is also only one or two squares that they can land on and you can attack at your own pace. Any cross town shipping (or reinforcements) can be done by leaping from port to port so your merchants are always safe. Also, I always have a massive fleet alowing me to sink their boats and trap half their army back in europe!
The downside is once they invade, you lose your wood source and only get 3 moutains or hills to work with.
Lastly, don't try to fill all the squares on the islands as the attack forces will just ignore whatever you have there and land anywhere. It will work against the other three powers though.

I also recomend keeping large merchant ships fully loaded with horses so you cannot run out.

I was wondering how do you guys that don't destroy the indians get money? Sure, on the easier difficulty levels it's not that hard, but on governor or viceroy I just can't get enough money by trading (yes, there are the Lost City Rumors, but even with Hernando de Soto you only get about 2 cities of Cibola per game). The price of muskets quickly rises to ridiculous levels, forcing you to manufacture your own. I simply cannot get enough gold to raise an army on governor or viceroy unless I destroy the Incas or Aztecs (or both).

[laiocfar]

Seasoned scouts recives gift by talking by first time with peacefull indians 200-800 gc. Also no buy to europe, steal it from other europeans. Rush attacks are best. Holland got a better market but anyway at end better sold them muskets and no rum. Use horses as the key of military equiment,.

[Gelfo]

Originally posted by Guest_guest@Jan 31 2006, 08:44 AM
I have no idea how to load treasure and units onto ships.

It may be worth noting that you need an empty galleon to transport treasure.

Otherwise, as said, it's just a case of moving the unit onto the ship on the map screen, or dragging them onto it on the town screen.



Regarding someone's earlier question about how to make money without slaughtering Indians. Set up trade routes for your wagons to Indian villages (find out what they need with scouts first) and later on, other european colonies. But don't give indians horses or muskets. Then it's just a case of visiting as many indian villages as possible and uncovering all of the Lost Citys. Use Seasoned scouts for this, and if you can wait.. there's a founding father who improves the outcome of your findings..I think he increases the movement rate for scouts too. (Can't remember who atm) Oh and of course there's trading with your home country as well.. trade the most expensive things and stock pile the things that are cheap or rapidly decreasing in price (one game for me silver became cheaper than sugar) and save them until the price raises again if you can afford to.


After a while, there comes a point where I dont need money because my colonies are self sufficient and can produce everything I require myself. I think I've posted this earlier in the thread, but I'm quite pedantic that I use professionals for all the jobs and normally end up with 3 carpenters working at a lumber mill in every colony.

In response to someone posting a tactic about not modifing the land surrounding your colonies so to gain attack bonuses.. I couldnt do that. I work the land like a hardy pioneer on speed.

[laiocfar]

Use Seasoned scouts for this, and if you can wait.. there's a founding father who improves the outcome of your findings..I think he increases the movement rate for scouts too.

Francisco de Soto is the one who let ya found the fountain of young always. Remember that the only in some icon can ya found the fountain, others are deafaultd as treasures, gold, ect, etc, etc. He doesnt icrease the moves.

Magallanes increase the moves at the sea but in land... just i dont know :bleh:

[Kon-Tiki]

Played this one again a few weeks ago, with the French. Although it's historically incorrect, I won every battle (except two during the war against Europe) and the other Europeans didn't stand a chance. France winning even one battle's amazing, but all of these

Anyways (I hope no French read this :whistle: ), good trick's to send out a Scout to visit each Indian village. You'll gain alot of money this way. First thing to do with that (or the moment you got 2000 gold), is to buy a privateer. Keep that one to guard the sea passages above and below the main land nearest to the European waters.

Along with that, make enough colonies right away along the coastline nearest of Europe (For now these can even have only one colonist in them) and make sure there's at least one dragoon per couple of colonies. Use these to capture any and all Europeans that set foot on land there.

You'll gain a crapload of colonists in no time this way, and won't give the Europeans a chance to even start bothering you. It's even better if you have three privateers (one for the top, one for the bottom, one for all-around... and if there's an inbetween, one for there as well)

Tip #1 - The two most important congress members.
Ok I played this game a decade ago and it surprised me how so many 'experts' completely failed to mention something.

Factories that can only be built after Smith joins the congress do not require any resource to make stuff unlike their lower level cousins. (Amazing bug huh? The factories are intended to have a 1/3rd bonus... but the original coders F'ed up and simply added successful production. This means in a supplied place you get 24 instead of 18 for instance. But in an empty place you get 6 instead of 0.)

Custom House once built still sells stuff (automatically yet!) even if there is a boycott and you never need to worry about trade routes or building/buying ships. In this way you never have to worry about spoilage. Do yourself a favor and make Stuyervescent your first congressman every single time and make a bloody custom house in every city you build.

This makes Smith and Stuyervescent the 2 most important members of your congress. With them even if you intentionally get no one else into the cabinet you can win any game making thousands each turn without any work or any botherring with 'micromanagement'. These two members make money a non-issue and Smith's Iron Works (with accompanying bug) makes tools and muskets a non-issue as well.

Tip #2 - Taxes are for the idiots to pay.
Always toss your goods into the ocean. It might seem like a waste but the money you lose on sales later will amount to way more than the sell value of the lost goods.

Tip #3 - A Horse is a Horse, of course, of course.
NEVER EVER EVER buy horses. Just wait until an expert scout or dragoon shows up at your dock. Land the scout in a city (city with a stable is even better) and making more food than it consumes, for one turn make the scout do something besides scouting. This puts 50 horses which after that one turn will have left behind enough horses to rebreed. Now make the scout back to a scout.

Tip #4 - Save when you're close to getting a new congress member.
Earlier in this thread someone came up with the idea of not selecting a member and just waiting until next turn. Well.. yeah... if you want to waste time. You can get the same exact result by just reloading the game each time to just before the first selection comes up. Each time you wait a turn or more that's a turn or more of liberty bell production wasted.

Tip #5 - Beware the endless games!
Once in a while you'll run into a peculiar and incredibly annoying bug when fighting for independance. The bug comes when your fort/fortress manages to sink one of the royal galleons before all land troops have been deployed. Once all the other ships have landed their troops you'll finally run into the annoying as heck bug's end loop. From then on you will run into an endless loop where the game tries to run the royal expeditionary force turn but can't land troops. Even though you are kicking their royal hineys you will never win independance since you didn't kill off "all" the troops.

Tip #6 - Beware vanishing units!
If you attempt to surround your city's landing area with ships to keep the galleons away it will not work. Instead the galleons will occupy the square without a fight and your units will all vanish from that square. Even if you have 8 privateers there they will all still vanish under the might of that single galleon.

Tip #7 - A careful editor is rewarded.
If you decide to edit the movement cost part of the .txt file to make all your land movement instantly travel around the continent... do NOT build roads. Units that travel along roads or riverways will still cost 1/3 a turn instead of that 0/3.

Tip #8 - Iron works work best!
Since Iron Works can make tools even when absolutely no ore is present and can make a ton in an adequately ore supplied colony with full expertise x3... buying tools OR muskets is incredibly foolish. Even a single 'ore colony' with a full compliment of expert blacksmiths and gunsmiths will make enough weapons to supply more than a single dragoon every turn (while still leaving an extra 30 or so tools each turn for supplying pioneers or building projects), and that's assuming you don't make tools/weapons in any other colony. Personally I stick an Iron Works in every single colony regardless of whether they have an ore supply (and soon after a rum factory, fur factory, tobacco factory).

Tip #9 - Give me Liberty and I'll give you more heart!
As quickly as possible raise your liberty rating inside colonies. That means the printing press, newspaper, and elder statesmen units are crucial. A city with 49% liberty gives normal production. A city with 50% gives a +1 before taking into account expertise bonusses. A city with 100% gives +2. These bonusses get applied to all things - food production, lumber, crosses, everything... even to more liberty bells which gradually compounds the increase.

Tip #10 - For those who appreciate a good free colonist over yet another worthless expert.
There's an option to forget a colonist's profession which will turn it into a normal free colonist. If you run out of free colonists but want to train a profession you can use this to remove that wasted silver miner in a colony with no silver (or whatever) and make him into yet another expert soldier or elder statesmen or whatever (with time and good teaching).

Tip #11 - The last person you want in congress...
The absolute last member you ever want to add is the guy that removes all boycotts. With custom houses you can sell even though its boycotted... but by removing it the lousy king can force you to waste goods a second time. Some might say this makes it a good member to get early on... but personally I feel it's a waste of a perfectly good member's spot. By leaving him for last you can time it so that you won't have to worry about much time before you achieve independence (in reality you should most games win way before getting a chance at this guy...)