Cheet Sheets 1995 April/May/CHEET40.ZIP/3OLONIZE.TXT

Text File | 1995-05-07 | 16KB | 328 lines

~Colonization

COLONIZATION NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
-----------------------------------

                     Garry J. Vass
                     100020,777 or 72307,3311
                     October 30th, 1994



This file contains my notes on playing COLONIZATION.  It does
not present a sure-fire method of winning the game, but rather
the tactics that I have developed.  My overall comment is that
this game, like CIV and MOO, favors the player who pays rigorous
attention to the game "accounting" system and who follows a
disciplined strategy.

When I say game "accounting" system, I mean all of those numbers
that show up on the advisor screens - the commodity bid-offer
spread in Europe, for example.  I also mean keeping a close eye
on raw materials to assure that they are exploited in a way that
maximizes the objective - which is to have a self-sustaining
economy capable of supporting a large army.  If you play it this
way, you can win almost every time.  On the down-side, the
economic development phase that occurs in mid-game is a real
drudge.

1.  Cities.  For reasons known only to myself, I like to have 13
cities.  None of them overlapping.  Of these 13, one is my
"power" city, my "export" city, and one is my "patsy" city. More
about the "patsy" later.  In general, I usually end up with
around 16 cities, but I think the key point here is that a huge,
sprawling empire won't work.

2.  Where to build the first city.  I sail around for a bit and
look for wheat.  If I can't find it after a few moves, I'll take
anything that can produce revenue.

3.  Where to build additional cities.  There are two ideal
places that I know of to build additional cities:  1.  On an
Indian village -Miami, Chicago, Manhattan, etc. and 2.  On the
site of another European power.  Generally, it is easier to
capture a European city, but that leaves you with supply
problems.  So most of the time I take villages.  I know it hurts
the score, but not that much.  The tribes themselves forget
about it after a while anyway.

My rule of thumb for expansion is not to locate a city further
away than a mounted unit can reach in two moves - assuming that
the path is paved.

4.  Taking an Indian village.  If you like to gamble, I suggest
capturing one right off the boat in the first round of play.
Sometimes it works, most of the time not.  But given that it is
the first round, you don't have much to lose.  Otherwise, a much
sounder strategy is to wait around until experienced soldiers
can take it.  If it is a good village, it becomes my "power"
city.

5.  What to do with the booty.  Since purchasing a galleon is
out of the question, I simpy fortify it until the right fellow
joins the congress.  When that happens, I move the wagon one
square outside the city and then back in.  Yup.  Off to Europe.

6.  Taking a European city.  These are good because they are
almost always plowed and paved.  I like to pull up to the front
door with two cavalry units, and refuse peace.  At that, the CP
offers somewhere from 400 to 1,000 golds.  I take the money,
wait a few rounds, and try it again.  When he finally doesn't
offer gold, I take my two precious mounted units to the next
colonial power and start over again.  After this whole
intimidation process is complete, the CP has generally financed
the loss of one of his cities.  They forget about it after about
ten years and I trade with them.

7.  City development.  I am a fanatic developer.  I will try to
outfit a unit with tools whenever possible.  I first connect the
cities with roads.  To do that, I send a unit from one city to
another and watch the path it takes.  Then I pave it.  Then I
plow all the land squares.  I've had cities to size 17 to 19
with just common settlers doing the farming.  With that, you can
forget about the experienced farmers.  Rule of thumb:  if you
see a unit moving from one city to another on a square that is
not paved, pave it - you will need it later.

7-a.  Uprooting a city.  If the city looks like a loser, or it
is a European city just too far away from my own core.  I will
uproot the whole city and move it to a better place.  To uproot,
I outfit pioneers and militia to drain out tools, muskets, and
horses.  If it has ore, I will send a wagon train.

8.  Once a few cities are in place and garrisoned, begins the
drudgery process of moving a wagon train around.  Pick up wood
from the city that's being plowed and move it to the power city,
pick up cotton at one city drop it off at another, and on and
on.  I monitor the Economic Advisor each turn to stay on top of
the bid-offer spread.  Unfortunately, I never learned to set up
trade routes because the German documentation is just too
impossibly difficult, so I just slug it out until my "export"
city builds a customs house.

This drudgery phase can be relieved a bit by uncovering the
mounds, treasures, and what-not.  I use a mounted unit to locate
the mounds, and common settlers to actually uncover it.  That's
because of the chance of losing the unit.

I also build roads up to Indian villages just to make the
trading trip easier.  Later, I gleefully learned that roads into
Indian villages have a much more productive value - more about
that below.

9.  The King wants to raise taxes.  I refuse every time and have
the "tea party" instead.  I will lift the boycott for muskets
and tools - it's equivalent to one Indian coffer or so.
Similarly, when another European initiates a dialog, I refuse
peace every time - there's a chance to pick up some extra cash
if they feel threatened.  If the Indians want peace, I accept
every time - there is no benefit for refusing.

10.  Revolution planning.  Once my power city has a university,
I get a Statesman.  The preferred way is to capture a European
city that has one already.  I figure it's cheaper that way
because I can probably pick up a few other masters of this or
that in the process.  Otherwise, I try to recruit one; and when
all else fails, I buy one.  He goes straight to the university
and starts cloning.  First, all my cities get one Statesman,
then two, then three.  I don't suggest that it works out every
time in that mechanical fashion, but it's at least my objective.
Anyway, that takes care of the bells.

10-a.  Revolution planning.  My objective here is to check the
Congress Advisor to determine the size of the army I will need.
I try to match the CP evenly on artillery, double his cavalry,
and match his infantry with roughly one and a half times with my
cavalry.  For example, if the CP is capable of sending 50
infantry, 25 cavalry, and 10 batteries; I then try to raise 125
cavalry (75 plus 50) and 10 batteries.  This is over and above
the standing garrison of two cavalry units for each city.  I
don't use infantry if I can avoid it.  The odds here are
somewhat daunting, but on the good side, the units do not desert
- as they did in real history.

10-b.  Manpower.  The first step is to get several cities with
colleges and start cloning off soldiers.  Since all my cities
are plowed, they can feed themselves adequately with ordinary
settlers, so that's the manpower source.  I set the settlers as
farmer-fishers and when one of them gets converted, it leaves to
go pick up it's muskets and horses.  On the next turn, the city
grows another settler who takes up as a farmer-fisher, and the
cycle repeats itself.

10-c.  Firepower.  Somewhere else, there's an arsenal manned by
a master who is turning out muskets.  Materials are brought in
from the other cities on a mechanical basis.  If I overproduce
muskets, I create militia with settler units and then
decommission them as soldiers come on line.  I never export
muskets.

10-c.  Horsepower.  A stable with 100 horses will produce 10
horses on each turn.  When a stable reaches 150 horses, I skim
off 50.  If I overproduce horses, I "inventory" them by creating
spies with settler units, and then decommisioning them as horses
are needed.  I never export horses.

10-d.  Seapower.  This is where the CP cheats are the most
blatant. In the first place, the CP can run a blockade - I don't
know how, but he can.  And in the second place, he can move in,
unload his landing party, move back out, and sink a blockading
ship all in one turn.  In recognizing this, I plan to concede
sea power, and to use whatever ships are around.

11.  The "Patsy" city.  This is critical.  When you declare
independence, the CP assembles his landing party and selects a
target city.  As far as I can tell, he scans through them and
selects one based upon two factors:  1.  The closest to Europe,
and 2.  The least defended.

In recognizing this, it makes sense to help the CP select the
optimal city for you.  The ideal "patsy" city looks like this:
it is a coastal city with a mountain next to it (the mountain
gives your skirmishers a terrain advantage).  It has a standing
garrison of one artillery and one cavalary.  It has 300 horses
and 300 muskets in inventory, and a galleon about 4 squares away
with 2 muskets, 2 horses, and 2 batteries. Inside the city are,
of course, a "5th column" of 8 soldiers working as farmers and
what not.  Note that the hill cannot be a landing square and
that you cannot have units on a landing square.

Within a one move reach of the city are the remainder of your
batteries and NO MORE than 9 units - I'll come back to this
number "9" later.  On the hill are three units standing by as
skirmishers.  Oh, two wagon trains as well, one with horses and
one with muskets - to replenish the stables and resupply your
garrison.

It is worth mentioning here the logistics of becomming a war
machine.  Consider the "patsy" city as the center of gravity for
experienced cavalry.  The base unit gets created in the
outlands. It moves to the next city to acquire horses, and the
next city to acquire muskets, and the last city to stand fully
deployed. So it makes sense then, to arrange these cities so
that this flow is optimized for expedience.  Not that I arrange
this every time, but it's an objective to think about.

12.  Independence Day.  First, clear off the docks of any
waiting passengers.  Anything that cannot be retrained as a
military unit gets trained as a missionary - that comes free.
Passengers on the docks count against your unit total, even if
you cannot pick them up anymore.  Be sure that all the ships are
back stateside also.

Look for towns with 100% Independence and start retraining the
Statesmen as soldiers - you will need them.  Also, start
deleting out any Indian farmer-fishers so that they can be
replaced with settlers in the normal population growth cycle.

Raise the maximum number of mounted troops so that the maximum
number will be promoted on Independence Day.  What about units
that do not get promoted?  Well, remember those roads leading
into Indian villages?  Every few turns, I ride a cavalry unit up
to the village and pop it.  If it gets promoted, so much the
better; if not, it gets sent back for horses and tries again.
It is important not to destroy the village - so be careful.
European settlers and pioneers also work as promotion vehicles,
but not as well as Indian villages.

NOTE:  When a Continental unit gets shattered, it loses
Continental status and has to be promoted all over again.

13.  The War.  If things were set up correctly, a landing party
will appear at your "patsy" city.  If the landing party appears
somewhere else, I either restore a previous version and look for
what went wrong, or simply write the city off.  I suspect that
the CP gets an extra combat bonus until it has captured a city
anyway. But for the moment, assume that things work as planned.

In the worst case, the landing party consists of 2 frigate class
ships unloading onto 2 squares.  If units are on those squares,
they are overrun.  That means a total of 8 units in the first
assault.  It is critically important to count and keep track of
how many there are, who has fired, and so on.  If there are 8
enemy units outside of a city, that means I fortify 9 units
inside - always 1 more than the assault force.  That means that
the city will survive another round of play. Units in excess of
the basic fortification are used to counterattack.

At the beginning of each round, I click up the unit window and
arrange things as follows:  damaged artillery to the front,
followed by good artillery, followed by cavalry, followed by
infantry, followed by Continental cavalry, followed by
Continental infantry, and finally the fortified units.

When it becomes my turn, I throw all of the damaged artillery on
to one enemy-occupied square.  This, hopefully, reduces the
force on the square at the expense of artillery (but I never
found any other value for damaged artillery).  Next, the cavalry
units attack with the prospect of being promoted.  Then the
infantry follows suit. And when all else fails, the Continentals
attack.  The entire round focuses on a single square until it is
eliminated, or until the only units remaining on the square are
damaged loyalist artillery.

Finally, I activate my skirmishers (remember the skirmishers on
the hill?) to to pop off damaged loyalist artillery.  This is
the easiest opportunity they will have to become promoted.  If
they get promoted, they move into the city and give another unit
a chance.

If the CP captures the city, I withdraw all my units beyond
artillery range and simply pop the settlers it sends out.  I
don't start to retake lost cities until I have successfully
repelled a landing party.  From my experience with the game, I
can say that retaking a city requires a minimum engagement of 12
mounted units.  I park them outside of the city and don't attack
unless they have all 4 moves.  When they get reduced to
infantry, I fortify them - attacking a fort with infantry is
useless.


ASSORTED WHAT NOT
-----------------

1.  The Ship Anomally.  If an empty ship is moving to Europe,
and it crosses paths with a full ship moving to a city,
sometimes the cargo jumps off onto the empty ship and returns to
Europe!!??!! If the shipping lanes get busy, I take the ships
off of auto-pilot for that reason.

2.  The Ship Anomally II.  This deals with laden ships from
Europe showing up in the wrong ocean.  Somewhat irksome.  I
stopped this from happening by deciding that all ships would
come and go from the Atlantic and controlling it manually to
assure that it works.  After a ship unloads, rather than sending
directly back to Europe, send it to a "debarkation" city on the
East coast.  When it arrives at that city, move it into deep
water manually.  It is a trade-off between convenience and
logistical predictability.

3.  Unit Stacking.  I have stacked up to 130 units in a city
without problems.  I don't know what the limit is.  There is a
limit, however, to the number of units in the window.

4.  The "Cannot Create Unit" Message.  This is horrible because
it happens just when new units are needed.  I stopped this from
happening by developing a better growth strategy.

5.  Indian farmers.  I see them as simply place-holders until
they can be replaced by settlers.

6.  Social dregs.  The petty criminals and indentured servants
waiting on the dock get made into missionaries.

7.  Cheats.  I made my own cheat program, it should be included
in this archive in both source and executable form.  MPS also
added a cheat menu that you can raise by changing MENU.TXT with
an ASCII editor.  With some bit fiddling you can also change
your gold, but that makes everything else more expensive.  In my
experience, these mechanisms tend to snow-ball - you need them
more and more to continue the game, and the game itself becomes
less realistic.

The best cheats are those built right into the game:  promoting
your units by popping Indian villages; and setting up a "patsy"
city -which amounts to nothing more than an elaborate trap.

Enjoy the game!