So I am up late watching speeddemosarchive raise many thousands of dollars for cancer research ($95k as I am typing!) and I started thinking about how much fun making the Civ4 walkthroughs I did was. Then I sort of wanted to go back and read them, but I was all… wait… that will take a long time. The logical thing to do was simply to make a new one and I could read it as I wrote it. It turns out this takes longer though. Awkward.
Welcome to Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization. This is for the most part a direct port of the old Colonization (1995? I don’t know) with Civ IV graphics. There are a few tweaks but I probably know not that much more about them than you do, so I’m not going to attempt to explain them. I used to play Colonization as a kid and beat it on the hardest difficulty but I am pretty sure I was saving and reloading “liberally” (every battle).
Looks like Revolutionary is the hardest difficulty now. (Used to be Viceroy). Let’s see what happens! I’ve played the first 100 turns of a few games on this difficulty before and think I managed not to get killed in at least one of them? Should be good. Everything else is default except for Huge size and Low sea level; give me lots of land to explore and colonize!
I roll this guy, who is Cooperative and Enterprising. And French. I have to look up what Cooperative and Enterprising are. One of them makes the natives not get angry at you as quickly and speeds up how quickly colonists can learn skills from them by 50%, and the other increases the speed at which missions in native camps create converts by 100%. Guess I should probably be friendly with the natives then this game. My sense, by the way, is that this guy sucks balls. I do also get a Hardy Pioneer, who improves terrain twice as fast as a regular dork. Because I’m French.
The game begins in 1492 AD with, as was historically the case, exactly four European powers discovering the Americas simultaneously. One of the worst things about rolling the French is that it means we have to deal with the Spanish trying to kill us. Hopefully we aren’t too close to each other. It looks like we rolled the Southern(?) entrance. I hope we’re by Antarctica and not the Arctic because I’m about to head North, no way I’m settling in that tundra.
Okay, looks good. I got a little excited when I saw that forest with bright green tobacco in it and a nice little dent in the coastline (ideally I’d like a colony sited next to one water tile and a money resource) but the Green dudes got there first. We don’t actually get close enough to say hi.
Continuing NW we hit the Sioux the next turn. Nice hat! They look forward to many years of peace unless our settlements are unfortified in which case the two years of war will be even more satisfying for them.
Oh thanks, big guy!
We found Quebec on turn four. Theoretical fastest founding with a Caravel start (the Dutch start with a Merchantman, which moves faster and can get colonists to land one turn sooner) is turn three. So, not bad. We also found a pretty damn good spot for a hub city; two forests provide ample lumber for construction, hills to the east for ore for tools and eventually muskets, and four plains squares, all by a river, to grow cotton to sell back to Europe. There’s even a fish resource in the harbor for a ton of food. I’m quite happy with the city. The only problem is the selling back to Europe part, because it looks like it’s going to take three turns just to get started heading back on the high seas; that’s a huge setback in a regular speed game.
The first order of business is to build a Church. Churches are absurdly poorly balanced in this excellent game, allowing colonists to produce 300+ gold per turn at the beginning of the game before becoming completely irrelevant. For comparison putting a colonist on a plains tile producing cotton to sell back to Europe would net me 16gpt. Nice. So, Church it is. Lumber and Hammers, thanks.
The Tupi mosey over to say hi a few turns later. Usually seeing a bare chest helps a lot more in the guy or girl game.
Lumber is only necessary to build building insofar as it is turned into hammers. Since I can produce 7l(umber)pt with a colonist on a heavy river forest but only 3h(ammers)pt at the Carpenter’s Shop I do a little juggling to make sure I’m not ending up with a trillion excess lumber. If my city wasn’t by a river I’d only get three food from it and have to juggle a colonist onto food every now and then too. The important part is just to get the Church out as quickly as possible so I can start singing the praises of the Lord and have some devout pilgrims head over to join me from Europe.
Here’s the first, arrived just as our Caravel got back to Europe! As you can see at the bottom of the screen, we have zero of six crosses towards the next. This is a Free Colonist. Each immigrant is random but you can see the three which the next will be chosen from and once one is chosen the other two possible remain. Sometime in the future we can expect a Master Blacksmith (worthless until late game), Free Colonist (vanilla), and a Jesuit Missionary (actually pretty awesome with our leader, we can get a mission going and start winning over native converts).
We can also buy anyone we want that Europe can offer (except Jesuit Missionaries, weirdly). You can’t get Master Fur Trappers, Sugar Planters, Cotton Planters, or Tobacco Planters from Europe; those have to learn their trade from the natives. Notice that the cheapest guy is 800 gold, while the next immigrant costs 6 crosses. Yeah. That’s why we’re building a Church.
Not much else to do here really. We could buy a few Trade Goods to try to swindle the natives, but we’re going to be too busy sailing back and forth with Europe to do much trading with them. Our 100 gold is not exactly going to go very far.
Oh look, it is the wonderful King of France. To get off on good footing with his daring explorers he demands 90% of our gold for unspecified purposes. I am assuming bad things happen to me if I say no so I’m not going to. He will continue to occasionally be a giant nuisance and we will have no other interaction with him (I think you can rent troops? I have never wanted to. Maybe that’s why I keep dying).
The Church is done on turn 15. Next up is a Dock. Since our best food tile is ocean anyway the +2 food from ocean tiles will pretty much just be +2fpt, and it’s super cheap. It also gets us a few trade points, more on that later.
With the Church done our priorities become staff the Church and nothing else really matters in comparison for quite a while. Those colonists in the Church are currently earning 400+gpt each, which is quite a lot more than the 16gpt they would be getting on other squares. Each immigrant increases the number of crosses required for the next, though, so this lucrative arrangement will be fairly short-lived.
Our Caravel returns to Europe to find a horde of complete misfits clambering over each other to get to the holy new world. We have two Master Gunsmiths (I may use one of these as a gunsmith 120+ turns from now) and an Indentured Servant (a Free Colonist who gives -1 yield when on a building). At least there is a Jesuit Missionary, who I am assuming is not completely terrible, although I do not actually know this for sure. We sell our Cotton for 160 gold and leave with the Missionary and a Gunsmith.
Because we’re settled so far from the high seas I’ve decided my colonists will be doing some walking. There isn’t anything I want to buy right now, so I don’t need my Caravel to head all the way to Quebec. Just dropping my colonists off as soon as possible and sending the Caravel back makes it a six turn round trip, which is a lot shorter than the ten turn round trip I’d be doing otherwise. To make sure I’m still getting quick impact from the colonists I’m building a road to hasten their voyage. It costs me 20 gold per tile, but I can use the native village as a free tile and it will speed up my colonists by two turns, so even if they’re only making 16gpt it’ll pay for itself quickly. Not like there’s much else to do with my Hardy Pioneer right now anyway.
Sitting Bull recognizes that I am doing poorly. Thanks Sitting Bull.
I drop my colonists off and send the Missionary North to explore a little. I don’t want to create a mission in the nearby native village because my colony is going to have border expansions which will probably wipe it off the map quite quickly. My Master Gunsmith drops in on the village on his way to Quebec and finds out that they’re in need of Horses (hey, me too!) and can teach anyone I want to be an Ore Miner. I can buy Ore Miners in Europe. They’re the cheapest profession to buy specialists of.
Even with the shortened route the docks are overflowing even more by the time my Caravel gets back. We have a Master Weaver who will create cloth from cotton, which is nice because Quebec is situated in a good spot for growing cotton (in fact it’s already producing four a turn from the city tile), another Hardy Pioneer complete with 50 tools, and a new Free Colonist, plus the two guys I left behind last time.
The Weaver turns 6 cotton into 6 cloth each turn (before buildings and other bonuses). Cotton sells for 4 and cloth sells for 12 so that’s 48gpt… on you get! I also grab the Free Colonist, who is going to do a little foot-scouting until he finds someone to teach him to be something better.
Okay, the Tupi also notice we’re doing awfully but they are dicks about it. This is the Colonization equivalent of writing a check for two cents.
Now that the Gunsmith is in Quebec I have three colonists there but only two can work at the Church. I decide to just send the extra Free Colonist SW to see if the Tupi know any exciting skills.
The Dutch! I have no idea how I hit this frame but is that a subconscious middle finger?
Our Missionary arrives in a village to the NE who specialize in cotton planting! Sweet! This sets us up for a good economic base with Master Cotton Planters and a Master Weaver in Quebec. Guess I know where the Free Colonist on my Caravel is going now.
Turn 27 I establish a mission in Isanti. I will be keeping track of how it does because I really have no idea if it’s good or not.
Oh really, you need either guns or horses? I am shocked. On the bright side these Tupi are generous and give us beads worth 466 gold. They also know a lot about planting tobacco. While I’m not in a great spot to produce tobacco it takes all of one turn for my colonist to learn the skill, and it will come in useful later, plus I sort of want him back in Quebec so he can be making food instead of the weaver or one of the church attendants, so I go ahead and ask to live among the natives and learn their trade.
Oh. They were very heavy beads. This is a treasure, which cannot be sold unless I take it to Europe on a Galleon (I do not have a Galleon) or give the king 50% of its value to ship it himself. On the other hand it moves just fine, so I’ll be using it to scout with.
Here are my Free Colonist and Weaver arriving from Europe.
Now that he knows all about planting tobacco I send my Master Tobacco Planter previously known as Free Colonist back to Quebec to do a lot of things which are not planting tobacco. There are a couple of tobacco resources nearby and one of them is not in native land, so I might have a future for him sooner than I expected.
The docks are starting to calm down. This trip I’m getting a Master Tobacconist who decided to emigrate since the last time I was here (turns tobacco into cigarettes, nice with the tobacco planter!) and a Hardy Pioneer. He’ll probably just be hanging out in Quebec but at least he’s carrying 50 tools. There are two Petty Criminals (awful) and a Jesuit Missionary in the selection pool. I’d like the Missionary and don’t want the Criminals, so if I hit him I might be stopping cross production (it’s down to ~80gpt and I have other stuff I want to do now, so I’d be thinking about it pretty soon even without all the criminals on the dock).
Apparently I decided to just switch right now. I’m now weaving and producing liberty bells. Liberty bell production increases rebel sentiment in the colony, providing a passive % increase to all production (rounds down, so I’m not going to see much benefit from it if any at this early stage of the game). It also gives five political points for each bell created, which go towards recruiting founding fathers to aid your cause.
One of the best founding fathers in the game is also one of the cheapest, which is why I’m switching to this mode of production so quickly. Peter Minuet gives -25% cost for recruiting units in Europe, including ships, soldiers, cannons… it’s what you spend most of your money on and he makes that money go far. He requires 1376 gold worth of goods sold to Europe (413 trade points) + my dock finishing construction (100 trade points) + 75 liberty bells (375 political points). I do already have 135 political points but they will be going towards Pedro Cabral, who requires some Exploration points (no problem, I get those just for walking around) and 280 political points.
Basically, all in all, I need to produce 115 cloth (or its equivalent) to sell and 104 liberty bells. I think I’m almost certainly going to be able to get both of them if I commit this early, whereas if I waited a while longer I might miss out on one or both to the AI players.
My Dock in Quebec finishes itself thanks to the city’s base 1hpt. Next up I could go for a Printing Press to boost bell production, but by the time it was finished I’d already be done with them for now.
A better option I think is a Weaver’s Shop. Once I have my weaver going with enough cotton support this will just be worth 48gpt. 48gpt is fine. I also need a Wagon Train to transport goods around without a ship sometime soon, but I start on the shop for now.
The Arawak stop by to come in peace. I have no idea where the guy who made contact with me is, but, well, okay.
Production in Quebec is coming along swimmingly.
Turn 36 I pop Cabral. He basically takes two turns off each trip to Europe, which is immediately useful because it gets your colonists working faster, and continues to be useful for tactical reasons for the rest of the game.
A handsome and intelligent fellow, I would say!
It turned out that it was actually possible to settle near the tobacco resource to the SW without encroaching on any native land, which I’m all over. My pioneer has built a farm near Quebec for future cotton production and is now building a road to the future site of my next city, avoiding forests because the natives get great attack and defense bonuses in them.
At this point my Caravel drops by a native village and I discover that there is no way to find out what goods each native village demands except for the dialogue you have when you first speak to that village. Cool. I try selling some cloth but they’re offering far less than Europe and it’s worth twice as many trade points in Europe anyway.
Turn 37 my mission creates its first convert. If you count him as 600 gold, which is maybe generous (that’s the cost of the cheapest specialist in Europe after Minuet, but I really should educate my native to some specialty and that takes a good amount of time), that’s 60gpt!. He does give +1 yield on non-building occupations so he can take over fishing in Quebec until I find some fishermen.
Hey, I think the Sioux might be genuinely being nice to me.
The biggest problem with this run so far is that I haven’t rolled a Seasoned Scout out of Europe yet. The guys are somewhat random but I feel like there’s a large modifier in favor of scouts at the beginning of the game, and I just haven’t seen one. I decide to just do some scouting on foot with my last free colonist in Quebec.
Oops. My treasure explored a burial ground and got itself killed by angry natives. Oh well.
Because I’m so low on scouts I just go ahead and give the Indentured Servant and Gunsmith in Europe horses. It costs 350 gold but they should pay for themselves fairly easily. Seasoned scouts would be much better as they always roll positive results from burial grounds.
As soon as the road is completed I send my tobacco planter to found my second city. He won’t actually plant tobacco until I’ve cleared the forest, but he does get me and extra hammer, liberty bell, cross, three cotton, and three food just with the city tile, plus his profession, so it seems fine to found the city now.
Ooof. 5% tax hike is a large tax hike to start off with. In retrospect it’s possible I should’ve just said no to it and dealt with a boycott on cotton, since I could at least turn it all into cloth and sell it that way. I just decided to take the 5% hit on all future sales to Europe.
Oh hey, sugar planters! While tobacco planters used to be the rarest in the game in the original colonization, sugar planters have replaced them in this regard. I’m happy to have found this village so early.
Also sugar planters are randomly cute women. Sorry about the sex change, dude.
Scouts arrived! At this point I discover that you cannot even talk to the village a second time to find out what it needs from trade. Awkward. From now on I’ll be making signs about it on the map.
Found the Spanish. They’re not as far away as I would like, but at least we’re not rubbing up against each other yet – eventually I can raise a strong army but in the early turns I’m definitely operating on a military deficit.
Some random guy offers to join me. I’m heading straight for Minuet and have to say no.
And again. This guy seems like he might be decently valuable, too. Hopefully the % increase isn’t cumulative with the Jesuit bonus and my leader bonus.
We meet the Cherokee somewhere with someone. An expert difficulty guy or girl. Nice hair.
The last shipment of goods for my trade points!
Soon after starting the Weaver’s Shop production I realized I’d be building an inland city and needing a Wagon Train, so I switched production. Here it is, ready to start shipping tobacco and cigars.
I hit another convert on turn 48. Go missionary go!
One of my scouts takes a crippling hit from a burial ground. Not doing so well with those so far. At least he didn’t die.
I decide to send my Tobacconist over to Montreal to start cigar production. There’s no reason I couldn’t leave him in Quebec, since I’m bringing the tobacco there with my wagon train anyway, but I don’t really want Quebec to be a center for resource refinement (I’m thinking it will just be churning out cloth for a while and maybe working up to a cloth factory) and I have extra food in Montreal right now.
Turn 49 I hit Minuit. I think this is my fastest getting him ever. Also I find out that his name is spelled Minuit and not Minuet. fuuuuuuu classical piano training
Minor mistake here. I should sync up the Caravel and Wagon Train so I can put my goods from the Wagon Train into the Caravel in the native village; saves me a turn on the Caravel.
Decided to put all my eggs in one basket with the Sioux. Since they’re between me and the Spanish I’d like them to stay alive, so I’m making missions with them and won’t hesitate from trading muskets and horses with them.
I am not enough of a masochist to micromanage all my wagon trains, so I am just setting up Quebec as an import hub and setting everything else to auto-export. I am setting lumber, tools, muskets, and horses as both import and export in every city with a minimum quantity of 100, so that should even them out fairly well across all my cities as long as I build enough wagons.
Not a whole lot happening. Time to establish this mission.
My Caravel gets back to Europe with a bunch of cloth and now that I’ve gotten Minuit and some gold it’s time to buy stuff. First up is a Merchantman to do a better job of transporting goods and a Cannon to hopefully keep the natives off my back (I think they declare war based on your army strength, and I’m getting towards a point where I’m worried about dying). I load 100 trade goods into the Caravel and plan to send it North to explore and make some lucrative trades.
Minor micromanaging: I can get an extra turn of work out of this pioneer on the way to the heavy river forest by moving 1/2 a point along the road and chopping, then moving into the forest I actually want to work on the next turn. I’ll come back for this light forest later.
Burial grounds are not being kind to me.
We meet the Inca and I instinctively worry about getting killed. They are a long way away and this is a different game though.
Here’s Quebec in the swing of things. Awkwardly my screenshot key cancels production, so I can’t actually show you what’s building. It’s a Weaver’s Shop though.
The Spanish settle Southward and the Sioux have muskets. Scared.
Turn 59 I convert another dude. Honestly I am worried about running out of things to do with these guys. The percent bonus from liberty bells cares about population, so not only are these worse than specialists while requiring the same food, but they also bring down everyone else in the city. My plan is to finish my Weaver’s Shop in Quebec and go something like Warehouse -> Lumber Mill (doubles hammers, but costs 150 hammers and 80 tools. I’ll want one in most cities but definitely didn’t want to build one straight away) -> Schoolhouse -> College. At the college up to three converts can produce 4 education (books?) a turn, which will get them a new profession (one of the ones already present in the colony) in maybe eight turns. I think the number of books required to graduate increases with each successive one.
Trade mission so far +68 gold. Keep it real boys.
Quebec finishes its Weaver’s Shop (whooooo cloth!) and starts on the Lumber Mill as planned.
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
The next round of shipping. 700 gold buys 100 Muskets to sell to some natives a long way away (but close to the other Europeans!), a Cannon to defend Montreal, and a Master Carpenter to get that Lumber Mill going for real. Other specialists I really want right now are a Fisherman, Farmer, and Lumberjack, each of which is just 600 gold after Minuit, and an Elder Statesman (double liberty bell production) for 1500. Once I have those in place I’ll be spending money on military for a while and expanding violently to the Southwest.
God burial grounds are the worst. I think I’ve gotten one map and four “we attack you”s.
Someone else gets the treasure guy. It’s sensible to leave bad founding fathers (like him) behind, because the AI will auto-take whatever they can, setting their points towards the good ones back to zero.
Quebec is getting a little crowded with not much I really want to do there. I have a Sugar Planter to found a city with but nowhere attractive to plant sugar, so I decide to send the Gunsmith West to a decent site with seven river tiles and two hills. This city will focus on production, farming, liberty bells, and eventually muskets.
Oh my god go away.
The British are far to the North and rubbing up against the Dutch. It’s good to see that the others are so close together because it may mean they fight each other instead of me, and I’m glad that I’m only bordered on one side with Westward and Southern expansion looking completely unhindered. After feeling bummed about the tundra at the start I’m really beginning to appreciate where I am.
Warehouse down. Without one having more than 100 of a good in your city causes excess to spoil (I think you lose five per turn?). With one the cap is raised to 200, which will be useful as more wagons start bringing more goods in and I add another cotton planter or two to Quebec.
We meet Logan. Would he like muskets?
Logan would like muskets. Trading mission up to +949 gold.
My second mission is starting to chip in to population growth now too. Could really use that college, maybe I should even head up to a University fairly soon after.
Next round of shipping. The admittedly less excited preaching from the new world (down to one cross per turn from my first city, the others apparently don’t give crosses without a church) gets a Petty Criminal a little interested and I give him some horses to replace my dead scout. I also buy a Lumberjack to help building (he’s more than I need right now in Quebec, but my wagon train will take extra lumber to the other two cities), 200 tools to finish up buildings since I’m not producing them myself yet, and 200 muskets for further trade.
Here’s Gaudeloupe finally getting actually founded.
Excitement up North! Looks like it didn’t take long for those muskets to get put to use…
…dying.
The problem now is that they have no gold left to buy these 200 muskets, and for whatever dumb reason I can’t only sell some of them. Going to have to sail around and find someone else.
*Sigh* politics. I’m not going to randomly declare war on some natives somewhere for +1 relationship or whatever it would be. Maybe I am meant to though?
Screenshot of this because it’s the first village that didn’t want guns or horses. Exciting.
Would you like some crab with your mountains?
Starting to get some pretty good production going.
I bite the bullet and pay 1500 gold for an Elder Statesman. Statesmen are a tough investment because producing liberty bells increases the king’s spending on his expeditionary force; the more you make the more soldiers you have to fight when you declare independence. On the other hand some of the founding fathers are very valuable, as can be the patriotism bonus.
Nope, don’t want to do that, either.
I finally find a farmer/fisherman village. Unfortunately I’m at the stage where I probably just want to buy those from Europe because they’re such cheap specialists. One bonus is that I can grow free colonists in Gaudeloupe (200 food turns into a new colonists) and send them straight here to become farmers.
I found some silver up in the arctic! Silver starts off selling for 19 gold per unit, making it the most valuable resource in the game. At this point it’s probably not worth going all that way to grab though.
Missions are still chugging along nicely. I’m not sure that they’d be worth it without the extra 100% from my leader, although on the other hand I just got both missionaries from immigration anyway, it’s not like I was giving up much to set them up.
Farmers can actually be quite decent income sources, especially as the game goes longer and taxes increase. I can buy a Free Colonist for 600 gold in Europe (buy an Ore Miner and clear his specialty) or I can grow one for 200 food here. Each food starts out worth three gold, meaning this farmer is making 36gpt, 39gpt once I make a farm. On top of this, though, the growth is untaxed. Once taxes get up towards 50% though that is going to effectively double.
I actually boycotted guns here. It cost me 50 muskets in Quebec and I can no longer buy or sell muskets with Europe, but I think it’s worth it to lower taxes by 4% at this point. Note that a 4% increase from 10 to 14 is a bigger increase than from 0 to 4; it cuts out 4.44% of my income rather than 4% of my income, and the effect will just continue to snowball. I am already on the way towards setting up a good gun-manufacturing town, and I get guns for “free” when I buy Veteran Soldiers in Europe anyway (they come with 50 muskets). The biggest problem is I can no longer sell guns to the natives so easily, although once I’m producing them I will be able to again.
Quebec finishes its Lumber Mill and now production is getting pretty good there. I need another Wagon Train so I’m going to build that first and then go Schoolhouse -> College (-> University?).
The next trip to Europe is fairly tame. I need some tools for my buildings and another cannon to defend Gaudeloupe.
wtffff this is literally one turn after you tried your last tax hike dude.
Finally found a village that will teach me to be a Fur Trapper. Going to learn from them and then head allllll the way home.
Here’s a shot of Quebec in full flight.
We find the Aztecs. Oh man, someone is feeling pretty smug about buying some muskets. The trade mission is now ~+2500 gold.
+1 Wagon Train and now it’s time to build that Schoolhouse.
The Apache find me. I’m still almost completely blind with regards to what’s West of me; I certainly didn’t find them.
Manage to buy 73 furs off the Aztecs for 133 gold, that will land me a decent profit.
Schoolhouse done, College is next.
Now that I’ve managed to unload those 200 muskets to the Aztecs I have enough gold to do some serious spending. I buy another two Cannons and two Veteran Soldiers, who I give horses to. Time to do some fighting!
I decided my Caravel would head back to Europe via the West. The game designers I guess forgot about Asia and all that. Anyway. I got to the Western side of the map and there were no high seas there. Awkward.
Another awkward thing is that I’m about to become quite violent with regards to things which are Tupi, but they are the best guys to learn tobacco planting from and I’d like at least one more planter before the game is over. I decide to hasten my free colonist growth in Gaudeloupe by putting everyone on farming and manually delivering excess food from the other colonies with my wagon trains.
A decision point here. I can take two converted natives, but I already have a ton of those.
Instead, I could say no to the natives, leave that father behind for the AIs, and take +25% tobacco production. I decide to do that instead.
Seven turns for a 1% increase, actually quite happy with that.
Weird thing about this: it was actually the Iroquois who declared war on the Spanish, not the other way around. The British have ended their war with Logan. The Spanish try to get me on their side of this war and I say no as usual.
Free colonist grown. I made a mistake here; I have 50 horses in Gaudeloupe from when the scout came back after becoming a farmer, I should give the colonist those to speed up becoming a tobacco planter by one turn and getting away by another, could’ve started the war two turns earlier.
Found the Western high seas!
My army is waiting patiently for my colonist to learn about planting tobacco…
Ooops, my fur trapper scout is trapped by the Dutch. Going to have to send my Caravel back to rescue him.
Still going. I’m probably going to just stop screenshotting these, I think you get the idea.
GET TO THE CHOPPA.
Quebec finishes its College, going to start edumacating some dudes. I decided just to go straight up to a University since I’m planning to start growing a lot of my own free colonists and will hopefully keep getting some more natives.
I went ahead and bought the Tobacconist’s Shop in Montreal. I’m going to start up a Lumber Mill next, thought it won’t be seeing completion for a good long time.
The next Europe cycle. I dropped a turn on this one trying to screenshot a beginning of turn thing and then forgetting to go back to check afterwards. Buying tools for buildings, a Fisherman to take over in Quebec for the natives who are now at college, and an Ore Miner to send to Gaudeloupe. He’ll be joined by a Blacksmith to turn the ore into tools, and then the Gunsmith can turn the tools into guns.
Here we go. Cannons are stupid at the beginning of the game. 99.3% with no promotions against a fortified guy in a village.
Fair fight.
This is a somewhat risky attack, 76.9% to win with 6.9% to retreat. Unlike in Civilization, in Colonization your Dragoons that you buy at the start are exactly the same as the end game units, so I don’t want to lose any at all if possible, I’ll probably want a stack of 40+ eventually to win the war for independence. If I don’t attack I can just finish the village off with the cannons next turn and level the Dragoons on natives wandering around in the open, but I decide to just go for it.
And get there comfortably. I get a treasure worth not much gold and a good amount of experience. The main reason I have this army is to stop people declaring war on me, but I might as well level it up and clear some territory instead of just having it sit around.
Promotions are complicated in Colonization and I have no idea which I’m meant to choose. Just going with +10% strength for now, how can that be bad? Grenadier gives +20% strength when attacking a settlement, but that’s what I have cannons for and will be completely useless (I hope) once the war for independence starts.
The Tupi wander out of their villages with three braves. I have the option to attack but I’m not sure I’ll be able to retreat afterwards (it turns out I would’ve been able to) so I don’t.
Awwww shucks Sitting Bull you’re a doll!
With two dragoons ready I decide to attack the Tupi stack… and lose at 96% to win. There goes 1/4 of my army.
Worst part of being at war is all my wagon trains stop working on automation.
Clearing out some marauding natives. This game can really be quite pretty.
I read up on this a bit and it sounds like rejecting his requests for money just makes it so he adds to his army faster. I don’t care that much about that so I’m going to start saying no.
Growing some more farmers.
Veteran Soldiers have a promotion which gives them double experience from combat, meaning they upgrade awfully quickly.
Graduating a Carpenter.
And a Cotton Planter. I have no idea why they cost different amounts. It seems like the guys who work at buildings tend to cost some amount while the raw materials guys don’t, but I am not sure I understand why or how the amount is determined (it changes a decent amount each time it seems like).
Just picking up an emigrating Indentured Servant this time around, need the gold for other things.
Nice, keep on rolling those 1%s!
Oh shit. Those are all Frigates. This is a moment where I completely redefine my gameplan. If the AI already has a bunch of Frigates I have no desire to try to beat them head-on, and the only other option is to declare independence and beat the king’s army before they do the same for their king. That’s the plan now, and I sketch out a rough outline of how I’m going to do that, aiming for around turn 180 declaration.
Hooooo boy. 0.0/4 hit points.
I have the option to grab Pizarro, who gives +50% pillaging gold essentially, but I decide to pass. The three Indentured Servants a little further up look appealing though.
I now have one absurd guy and nobody else in my army. Well, some cannons.
Gaudeloupe moves on to armory production. I’m going to want 1500+ muskets in less than 100 turns, that’s at least 15 per turn and until I have an armory I can’t make any at all.
This was a mistake. Liberty bells cause the king to spend on his army, and soon after graduating an Elder Statesman here I realized that I didn’t want to make any more bells until I was ready to quickly pump national rebel sentiment up to 50% to enable me to declare.
This guy sets me back on the road towards those three Indentured Servants, but the 25% defense bonus seems amazing if I’m going to be prepping for a war in which a massive army attacks my settlements, so I grab him.
Adding another soldier to help finish off the natives. This was a mistake too, it turns out there isn’t much reason to have veteran soldiers at all and I could almost certainly have cleared the second village with just cannons.
The Sioux are getting suffocated by my cultural borders and offer to vacate their village. I don’t feel like it matters much either way, but decide to accept. I probably shouldn’t have but can’t think of anywhere that it mattered at all.
Cleared out the natives and scored a convert in the process. I’m sending my military back to growing crops now, if I’m going to be fighting a war soon I need to prepare for that and can’t afford a war with another stronger tribe.
First I clear out a tiny city that’s been settled though. I didn’t know the natives could found cities.
Grabbing another farmer. It’s a positive feedback loop!
I found Cayenne. I’m not too worried about bringing in gold at this point, so don’t care to found a specialized city for furs or sugar at all anymore – I’ll just put those specialists on the marsh north of Montreal and the extra forest by Quebec. I do desperately need 1500+ horses though, so I found this city by some good food resources and start immediately building a Stable where two Ranchers will be able to convert 4 food to 4 horses each turn… that’s not fast enough.
I took a break and then came back and felt like trying my luck on burial grounds again. Oh my god.
This is a shot of Quebec in full swing just as I am turning off my statesmen for the rest of the game. At this point I write out exactly what colonists I need to get my cities running properly and prepare for independence:
16 farmers
12 statesmen
4 carpenters
4 lumberjacks
3 ore miners
3 blacksmiths
3 gunsmiths
3 ranchers
2 tobacco planters
2 tobacconists
2 cotton planters
2 weavers
1 sugar planter
1 distiller
1 fur trapper
1 fur trader
1 fisherman
That’s exactly 60 colonists and as of turn 113 I had 22 of them, plus 5 natives, 2 soldiers, and 2 pioneers. I’ll keep the soldiers and pioneers, educate the natives, and work on picking up the rest quickly.
Graduating another Carpenter.
This Europe cycle I grab a couple of Lumberjacks to support those Carpenters, plus my first Rancher.
Still getting fairly lucky with tax increases I feel.
A shot of Gaudeloupe in its infancy.
Looooots of guys transferring as I start to set up optimal colonies. Very little that is actually exciting happens for the next 80 turns, it’s just grinding out a set plan, so I’m going to be updating a lot less throughout it.
Stables done in Cayenne, starting on a Ranch which lets three Ranchers convert 8 food to horses. 24pt is more like it.
My next trip to Europe I grab the refined goods specialists I still need to bump my income a little and speed up grabbing the other guys. As soon as I declare independence I’m going to stop needing to make these goods, so it wouldn’t make any sense to buy the guys right before independence, but I do need warm bodies to hold muskets so they won’t go completely to waste.
Mega Sioux crush.
I decide to grab a Textile Mill, a factory-level building which produces 18 cloth per turn from just 12 cotton for each specialist weaver. I’m most excited about the fact that it will give +25% liberty bell production when I turn on my statesmen, since raising sentiment enough for 60+ colonists with just 12 statesmen is going to be quite hard.
Graduating my last carpenter. I only had to buy a single one from Europe and trained the other three myself!
And my second weaver.
And last lumberjack. Between turn 113 and 120 I added six of the 38 remaining colonists to get.
Gaudeloupe’s infrastructure is slowly coming along.
Since I’m going to be buying most of my colonists I figured I should take the chance to grab Elder Statesmen for 500 gold from the university now, since it would cost 1500 to buy one. It helps that I don’t have any other needed graduates available anyway. I think every future graduate is a statesman.
Starting on a Magazine to really get musket production going now.
Cayenne finishes its Ranch and really doesn’t need a whole lot of other infrastructure. I start on a Warehouse, which will certainly be necessary.
Still rolling 1%s. Between 120 and 130 I added seven colonists, and between 130 and 140 another four (one less ship arrival in Europe for those ten).
Even the Inca are helping out.
About this time I noticed that the British are going crazy with bell production. I hope they don’t beat me to the punch here.
Turn 150 and Gaudeloupe is done with essential infrastructure. I decide to build a few wagon trains as “warehouses”, I’ll just throw 200 muskets in each and tell it to sleep until I need them. Turn 140-150 I added another nine colonists, and only need farmers and statesmen at this point.
Starting the first bell bonus building! I’m going to be building stuff that gives bell bonuses, then defensive buildings while the statesmen do the work.
Finally got a bad one. These really don’t matter much at all anymore.
These are the last four farmers I need.
Now working on a Newspaper, for +100% bells in Quebec.
The situation on turn 160. Those are some big cities! At this point I only have four statesmen to get.
So far the king’s army is not tooooooo frightening, but he’ll be adding plenty when bell production turns on.
I decided I probably wouldn’t have time for a Newspaper in Cayenne, so after it finished up a Printing Press and its infrastructure I started on my first defensive building of the game, a Stockade!
And next a Fort.
Rolled another five. Glad these didn’t hit earlier.
Gaudeloupe, not looking so small anymore.
Here’s the situation in 1667 AD, turn 176. This is when I turn on my twelve statesmen.
After a few turns things are not going quite as I had hoped, and I realize that I’m simply not getting enough bells for the population size I have (at least not enough to get to 50% quickly, I think I would’ve made it eventually). My solution is to just send extra colonists everywhere to make cities and produce liberty bells.
The king’s military spending is really starting to ramp.
diiiiiiick.
Everywhere I can find space, there is a new size-one city building liberty bells.
I get offered Cyrus McCormick, one of the latest founding fathers (all the midgame ones are taken by the AI, mostly the British, at this point). I can’t see why not; I’m going to have more points for fathers than there are left for me to take I’m pretty sure.
The Inca are still fighting the good fight.
Turn 190, enjoying the quiet before the storm.
I get to graduate a Veteran Soldier! There was nothing else to do with him.
So close. REF is up to 112 members, so given the number of muskets and horses I have I’m looking at something like 5-1 or 6-1 at the beginning of the war. Once the war starts they stop adding troops and I still get around 0.6 dragoons a turn though.
Nothing much left to build; I’m not going to go for a Fortress anywhere. I decide I might as well start making cannons.
Hm. What does this button do?
Our motley heroes.
Oh cool, I get to draft a constitution. This is new. The first choice is absurd and hilarious; I can get +2 population in every settlement… I just built seven one-population cities? Okay, I’ll take that. I also get +100% founding father points rate over being able to continue trade with Europe, strengthen relations with natives and end wars over +50% military strength vs natives, convert cross production into hammers over converting it into liberty bells, and +50% liberty bell production in all settlements over giving unarmed colonists +1 strength. I’m up against 62 Regulars, 32 Regular Dragoons, and 30 Artillery, which will be arriving in 22 Warships.
At the moment I have 16 dragoons and 7 soldiers, if you count the unused horses and guns. I need, like, 6:1 efficacy?
Where did the high seas go? Weird.
I see the first warship and send my (now almost useless) Merchantman to take a look.
I guess that graphic didn’t count muskets/horses in wagon trains. Things are not quite as dire as they first appeared, but it is still an upward struggle.
Turn 197, the first troops land. In a hilarious echo of the beginning of the game they land far to the East and will have to walk to Quebec.
Oh damn, they are doing that, and more are landing. I was hoping this would be more of a one at a time sort of thing.
Fortunately they actually end up getting distracted by Port Royal, and the result is that Quebec receives somewhat of a funneled army to deal with at will.
The first turn of combat I pick off a regular and artillery piece without any loss, although I do wound three of my dragoons in the process (one withdrew).
I grow my first Great General almost straight away. He doesn’t give an aura bonus so I blow him to distribute 20 experience amongst a trillion guys, including a Caravel and multiple unarmed colonists. Probably not the smartest thing to do. Even though I have 22 colonists I didn’t think I would have from the constitution I don’t have enough guns to arm them, so they’re not helping as much as it sounds like they could.
My dragoons are able to ride two road squares, battle, then retreat to the safety of Quebec. Pretty sweet. In turn 198 skirmishing continues and I manage to kill two regulars and a dragoon, although I lose a dragoon (to wound his dragoon and allow a second to take it out; the fight started at something like 25% :S) in the process. Five kills for one loss, not bad, but I’m not actually sure that that’s good enough.
Our first dragoon ever receives a great general to support it and gets the +25% in all situations Veteran VI promotion.
After the first two turns of fighting.
Between turns one of the ships finally cares enough to kill my Merchantman, which has been sailing around watching.
Turn 199 begins. There are lots of enemies but they’re coming in waves instead of a stack, so I have a decent chance I think.
A pretty large problem is that my new dragoons are at <30% to kill theirs. I can't afford to lose a dragoon for each of theirs I kill, but I also can't afford to let their stacks get next to Quebec unhindered and have their artillery fire on the city.
Fortunately I roll quite well for withdrawals in my hopeless attacks and don’t lose too much to take out the first stack. Overall on turn 199 I lose a dragoon and a cannon with two extra dragoons withdrawing from lost combats and the king loses four regulars, three dragoons, and a cannon. 4:1 really doesn’t seem like it is going to be good enough, but on the bright side I’m quickly getting upgraded units which will start to be able to hit their dragoons at >50%. I’m also greatly greatly benefiting from the king’s decision to attack from the East, as neither of my military production cities are in any danger at all. Even if I lose Quebec I will have a lot of turns to harass their advance and reinforce.
Turn 200 begins. Starting to get overwhelmed here, and a lot of my dragoons are already wounded.
This is sort of ridiculous. I sacrifice a cannon to weaken a dragoon… and win. Good work dude! Overall I manage to take out two regulars, a dragoon, and three cannons, while only suffering one defeat in which a dragoon managed to withdraw – such good withdrawal luck so far!
Great generals are coming fast now.
Turn 201 I get the final military founding father, who gives everyone the veteran I promotion (+10% strength). This guy is so good.
Attacking dragoons with 78% to win! That’s an improvement. Turn 201 is a bloodbath massively in my favor as I take out six regulars, two dragoons, and four cannons for only one cannon lost.
Turn 202 oh god, they just keep coming. Another bloodbath, again in my favor, but my troops are heavily wounded.
Turn 203 is the first time that I’m unable to clear all the troops within one square of Quebec. I do take out six regulars and three dragoons, losing one dragoon of my own and withdrawing with another. I have a lot of dragoons taking a turn off to heal, though fortunately most are close to full health thanks to promotions restoring 50% health each time they’re used and the army being low level enough to be getting a lot of new promotions. Next turn I’m hoping I’ll be able to make up for this one and clear them out.
Except it turns out that they bombard Quebec with a warship and none of my troops heal at all… ahhhhhhhh didn’t know they could do that. Time to abandon the city.
In doing this I make a mistake and attack into a forest in which the REF has pillaged the road with my best dragoon; the one from all the way back in the Tupi war. The result is that he can’t flee with everyone else, although at least he took an enemy down with him.
Turn 205. Grim, but still determined. No fighting occurs this turn as I regather my troops.
Still mostly waiting on turn 206. A warship worth of new troops (regular, dragoon, two cannons) lands near Cayenne and I clear them out, but lose one of my best dragoons in the process.
I would be doing a lot worse if the king kept sending his guys at me. He has five garrisoned in Port Royal and some garrisoned in Quebec as well. I’m going to grind him out in a war of attrition since I’m the only one getting more troops, so this works greatly in my favor. Turn 207 I just take out the stray dragoon in the forest.
Things are starting to look much better, despite losing Quebec. I have more dragoons than him!
Turn 208 he takes another irrelevant city. Those little cities have been amazing; extra liberty bells, then +2 population, then they effectively kill five of the king’s soldiers.
I decide to ride out and attack his troops near St. Louis despite knowing I will be unable to retreat. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to do much to punish me for it, as he has nobody else near the square I’m in. Between turns he ends up sending six dragoons at me and losing every single battle (I added full health and well upgraded dragoons to my stack). Two of them withdraw, but overall I’m stoked.
Turn 209 he’s really starting to spread out and it creates a ton of weak points I can hit. I take out six regulars and three cannons.
I’d say I’m winning comfortably by now. If I’d known how the king would play I would have strategized differently and probably could have won with 10 starting dragoons.
He is still coming, though.
God, love the Inca. I have no idea what they expect me to do with this though.
The rest of the game is just mopping up. I repel the tiny Southern push and there are no more troops in Europe to arrive in ships, so all that’s left is to sweep East and retake my cities and I win.
The British colonies have declared independence while I’ve been doing this, though, so I do have to ensure that I do it quickly or they will beat me to victory.
I finally got my super medic. Troops in the same tile heal 35% extra health per turn. (Or maybe 25%. I don’t remember).
By turn 217 I’m ready to attack Quebec. It turns out the king’s forces receive no defensive bonuses, even in cities, which makes this a lot easier than I was expecting.
