Civilization IV: Colonization Strategy

"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing."
Thomas Jefferson, January 30, 1787

Welcome to the strategy section for Civilization IV: Colonization!  Whether you aspire to be a ruthless conquerer of the New World or a benevolent colonial governor, below you will find numerous articles intended to enhance your skills and demistify complex aspects of the game.  All of the articles contain a link to their forum discussion thread, allowing you to ask questions and share insight with fellow players.

For additional information about Colonization, be sure to check out the Colonization forums, where you can share stories, obtain user-created content, and stay on top of the latest news.  Keep in mind that the latest -- and final -- patch for Colonization is version 1.01f, which you can download from our file database.

All You Want To Know About REF, Rebel Sentiment and Revolution

I've seen a lot of confusion on the forums about how the REF, rebel sentiment and revolution works, and I've been confused by it myself. I did some research on the exact rules for these, both by looking at the game's actual code and by playing the game, and I thought I'd write up a little guide here.

First, let's talk about rebel sentiment.

There are two types of rebel sentiment: rebel sentiment % in each of your individual cities, and overall rebel sentiment % in your nation. The overall % is NOT the sum of the % in each of your cities. You do NOT need 50% rebel sentiment in each city to allow for revolution.

Rebel sentiment in cities

The ONLY thing affecting rebel sentiment is the rate at which you generate bells - the cumulative numbers of bells generated over time does NOT matter. Here's the way it works.

The rate of bell production is used to compute a target rebel sentiment value. Each bell/turn will ultimately produce 25% rebel sentiment in one citizen. Thus, if you generate 10 bells/turn and have 5 citizens in your city, you will eventually get 50% rebel sentiment.

The rebel sentiment does not change instantaneously to that "target" rate however. The game will slowly "drift" the rebel sentiment from the current value to the target value using a logarithmic type of curve. What it means is, if the current rebel sentiment is 0% and the "target" rebel sentiment is 50% and the game is set to normal speed, rebel sentiment will roughly grow as follows:

- After five turns: 33% of target value (33% of 50% in this example, so 16.5%)
- After ten turns: 60% of target value (60% of 50% in this example, and so forth)
- After twenty turns: 85% of target value
- After thirty turns: 95% of target value
- After fourty turns: 99%

However, as the rebel sentiment increases, you get bell rate production bonuses. So in reality, as rebel sentiment grows, it picks up speed from itself, and the eventual rebel sentiment grows a bit faster than I gave above.

The bigger the city, the more rebel sentiment you need to get a higher percentage (one bell = 25% of ONE citizen). In fact if the city is enormous (pop 25-30) I suspect high rebel sentiment is impossible without serious bonuses from founding fathers.

In practice, I've found a size 12 city with three elder statesmen and a newspaper should reach 50% rebel sentiment in about 10 turns on normal speed. Add +50% for epic and +200% for marathon.

Overall rebel sentiment

As I explained before, overall rebel sentiment is not the sum of each city's rebel sentiment.

City rebel sentiment percentage is equal to 25% per bell generated per turn divided over the number of citizens in that city (not counting units stationed outside).
Overall rebel sentiment percentage is equal to 25% per bell generated per turn divided over the entire population including all units outside cities.

So you could have 100% sentiment in all your cities but if you have a massive army you'll find you may still not have enough to get a revolution going. Personally I don't like idle soldiers bringing my percentages down so I stash the guns and horses in warehouses and wagon trains and keep those citizens working inside the cities until I need them to fight.

Here is another important fact:

For purposes of computing the overall rebel sentiment, individual cities could be generating more than 100% rebel sentiment. What it means is, say you have three elder statesmen in a city with just one other farmer. There's a newspaper in there, so this city is generating 36 bells per turn. 36 bells is enough to turn 9 citizens to 100% rebel sentiment. But there's only four citizens. The city's rebel sentiment and rebel sentiment production will show up as 100% and be capped at 100% - but the extra "wasted" rebel sentiment generated will count towards making five other citizens elsewhere count as independent for purposes of declaring independence. These five extra "rebel" citizens will not show up anywhere as city rebel sentiment or as city rebel production bonuses, but in the overall % needed for revolution it will count.

So let's say your goal is to ramp up bells to declare independence as quickly as possible and you have large cities everywhere. It's a viable strategy to actually start a bunch of new, smaller colonies with only elder statesmen and newspapers in them to ramp up your overall rebel sentiment. Because those cities are small, they will get rebel sentiment production bonuses, and thus bells will be produced faster. You could have several large cities with 0% rebel sentiment yet this could be fully compensated by having many smaller cities with 100% rebel sentiment. If declaring independence is the main goal, then prioritizing your best statesmen in the smallest cities will produce the best results.

36 bells for these elder statesmen with a newspaper will bring 18 citizens to 50%. You probably don't want to wait 40 turns to reach 99% of this value, and the elder statesmen themselves need to be "convinced", so three elder statesmen with newspaper for each 9-12 citizens would be a good rule of thumb.

The Royal Expeditionary Force

The REF is all about bells - and for this it's the amount of bells accumulated in all your cities that counts. After 75 bells the King will increase the REF, reset the bell "counter", and the next REF increase will require 10% more bells. There's a bit of a twist though, in that the next REF increase will also add 10% more units to the REF. The game always rounds down AFAIK, so you won't get 1.1 units added. But over time, if it takes 10% more bells to trigger each REF increase, but each REF increase in turn generated 10% more units, a good rule of thumb is each 65-75 bells generated will hit you with 1 extra REF unit. Game speed affects this, so epic requires 50% more bells, and marathon 200% more.

The type of unit that gets added is entirely random - everything has an equal chance to get generated, except for ships which have half as much chance of being added to the REF. So over time, you can expect the REF to generally have half as many ships as of every other unit type.

Strategies from all this

I don't think the game is all about minimizing REF, so what I'm going to say here doesn't mean this is the "best" way to play. Keep in mind the King having huge REF isn't that much of a problem if he only has a small flotilla of ships to carry troops around while you have decent military production capacilities. You certainly don't need one soldier for every soldier the King has. If you do want to minimize REF, though, here's some tips.

Realize that REF depends on accumulated bells from the start of the game, while rebel sentiment depends on bell production rate. So to minimize REF, you want the highest burst of bell production in the shortest amount of time.

• One way to do that is to generate no bells throughout the game until you are ready to declare independence. Declare indepedence the minute you have your 50% overall rebel sentiment. REF doesn't grow during revolution.
• Prepare everything in advance: build newspapers, hire your statesmen, but don't use them until ready.
• Small cities get their rebel sentiment faster. This generates bell production bonuses, so you get a higher bell rate. Thus, either found new colonies solely for bell production or migrate statesmen to your smaller newspaper-equipped cities to boost your bell rate.
• Founding father bell rate bonuses will help quite a bit.

All things being equal, a higher population will require more bells for revolution, and will in turn generate a larger REF. There’s a tradeoff between large cities with high base production but lower rebel sentiment and smaller cities with lower base production but high rebel sentiment.

Understand that every population point you add to your colonies eventually translates into some increase in the REF, there's no way around it. If you want a quick, easier to manage revolution, keep your population and colonies small. If you want a massive war of historical proportions, build a large empire .

Some rules of thumb

Assuming an average of size 12 cities, and assuming we want revolution to be possible after 20 turns, you will need about 2.5 bells per population unit (including units outside cities) and will generate about 0.75 REF per population.

1.9 bells per population will achieve revolution in 40 turns, generating 1.1 REF per population.

About 4 bells per population will achieve revolution in 10 turns, generating 0.5 REF per population. The more leisurely the march to revolution, the better prepared the King will be.

Thus, if bell generation is well optimized to minimize REF (aka 3 elder statesmen with newspaper in all cities and revolution ASAP), you can expect to get roughly 0.5 to 1 REF unit added for each unit of population. If bells aren’t managed you will get much larger numbers.


Overall, the REF/Revolution rules are a bit quirky in that all I've explained is kinda hard to know intuitively, and to be honest there does seem to be a bit of imbalance here. I wouldn't have figured this stuff out without reading the code. The rules do keep the spirit of Civ, though, where each turn you have to make tradeoffs and choices between wasted opportunities and your other needs. Colonization does seem much more punishing if you take a more leisurely approach to micro-managing some aspects of the game.

I think that about covers it - tell me if you have any other questions and I can see what I find. Also, keep in mind I could have made mistakes here, though anyone is welcome to verify any of the assertions I've made here. If I've made any errors I'll be happy to correct them.

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Basic Strategy for Beginners

Background
I have been a Civ III player and have never tried Civ IV. I recently bought Civ IV Colonization and so I thought that I would write a few of the strategies that I have found successful in winning the single player game on the easiest level. I prefer the ‘builder’ style of play. A lot of the tips here are covered elsewhere in the forums, but hopefully this might be helpful for some.

1. Start choice. Play as the Dutch, Peter Stuyvesant. The Merchantman starting ship will give you an early advantage in trading and in settling.

2. Start. When you are starting with your ship in the middle of the ocean, go back to Europe immediately. Go to the Europe screen and rush as many immigrants as you can. Spend all of your money doing this. You may earn as many as 10 immigrants, most of whom will be specialists that are normally expensive to purchase directly from Europe (via the ‘$’ button on the Europe screen). You may be lucky and earn a seasoned scout and a veteran soldier. Once your ship arrives in Europe, load the soldier and scout if you have them, or other immigrants if not. Send the ship to the new world.

3. Stages. I divide the game into six stages: - early conquest, exploration, economy building, mid-game conquest, liberty bells, and finally revolution. I will provide tips for each of these stage below.

4. Early conquest. When you arrive in the new world, find your European adversaries. When you meet them, they will have started their city using a soldier to settle, and the pioneer will be working the land. Just outside of their border, declare war, move your ship to the city, and unload your soldier to conquer the undefended city. On the next turn, capture the pioneer, or if you have a second soldier on your ship, you can move the ship into the city and capture the pioneer on the same turn as your conquest. Explore and exchange maps until you find the other settlements. I usually keep these captured cities rather than razing them, unless the settlement is in a useless location. You should be able to make peace with the other European colonists in a few turns.

5. Exploration. It is important to either send out your colonists to explore all locations as soon as possible. There is a lot of gold available during this phase, which will enable you to rush more immigrants. Make sure that you keep the discovered treasure rather than sending it back via the King, as his 50% tax is too high. Build a Galleon as soon as possible and send it back to Europe yourself.

Be careful when exploring ancient burial grounds. Use a seasoned scout, or else the natives may declare war on you.

6. Economy building. Make sure that you build some inland cities only two tiles away from your coastal cities. When the revolution occurs, the King will attack your coastal cities, and you need good gun producing cities nearby to recruit more dragoons as the battle progresses. It’s important to remember that the King’s invasion will occur at or very near to the exact spot where you were supposed to make landfall when the game started. Your cities at that location should be very well defended. Make sure that you have cleared the forests on the city coastal city tiles immediately beside your coastal cities, so that the King’s invading soldiers do not benefit from the forest defence bonus.

Try to pair your specialists in cities (eg. expert lumberjack and master carpenter, expert ore miner and blacksmith, blacksmith and gunsmith). Purchase the experts from Europe if necessary.

Specialise your cities with:- at least one port city close to Europe (set up your automatic wagon trade to deliver finished products to your port city or cities); a gun producing city; a University city and cities specialising in particular industrial products such as cigars, cloth, coats etc. Try not to waste your cargo space to Europe with raw materials such tobacco, cotton, furs etc..

Don’t forget to trade and give gifts to the natives (especially to the unhappy ones), especially when the King’s tax rate becomes unbearable. Native leaders will pay very high prices for goods they desire if they have gold in their accounts. Make sure that you send out missionaries to all of your surrounding native settlements as soon as possible, as converted natives are excellent in producing raw materials. I usually upgrade my converted natives to specialists by studying in a native settlement (living among the natives). Make sure that you study the native leader characteristics via the Civilopedia, as some native tribes will produce more converts and some native tribes are faster in training specialists.

I also specialise some cities to produce political points. This will help you to obtain good founding fathers. Plan your choice of founding fathers beforehand, as if you reject them, you will not be able to obtain them later. Allow Hernan Cortes (founding father) to build your stockades rather than building them yourself.

Keep your free colonists in churches and cathedrals and not in the town hall at this stage of the game. You don’t want the King to build up his military for a long period of time. You should only need a few soldiers to defend your settlements that are close to native tribes that are either annoyed or furious with you. Forget about building frigates or ships of the line, as the King’s man-o-wars are far superior and it will take 3-4 of your ships to defeat one of his.

7. Mid-game conquest. Around 1650, I usually give my dragoons experience by sending them out to conquer a nearby European colonies or native settlements. The experience providing by founding fathers such as Ethan Allen (Free promotion of Ranger I and Mountaineer I for Gunpowder Units), Francisco de Coronado (+1 movement for Dragoons), Paul Chomeday de Maisonneuve (Free promotion of Formation for Gunpowder Units, +1 movement for converted natives), and Dom Pedro 1 (+50% Great General emergence, Free promotion of Veteran I and Minuteman I for Gunpowder and Mounted Units) are very helpful in battles. Use dragoons to attack and keep your ships nearby to evacuate the wounded.

8. Liberty bells. Don’t leave it too late (1700 is about the deadline) to assign colonists to your city hall to produce liberty bells. Train and purchase elder statesmen where possible, and make sure that your cities have printing press and newspaper. Particular liberty bell producing founding fathers are vital at this stage of the game. Use this stage of the game to stockpile guns and horses in all cities, and use stationary wagons as extra storage if needed. Concentrate your dragoon force near to where the King will land his forces (as previously explained). Make sure that you have fortresses on this coastal location.

9. Revolution. You should proclaim the revolution between 1740-1750 or earlier. Leave it too late, and you will have an awesome army but not enough time to defeat the King. Use dragoons to attack and make sure that you check the combat odds before deciding to attack (click on attacking unit and drag your mouse over the defending unit). You will usually lose the first encounter with a King’s dragoon, as he has more experienced veterans than you do (unless you have Veteran IIIs from mid-game conquest. After your first casualty, you should succeed with the following attacks when you use your dragoons. Soldiers and cannons are really only for defence. If you have enough dragoons, and they are well-positioned, it should be easy to win the battle in about 15-20 turns. The King will usually send his attacking forces in a few waves, so you just have to wait until they all arrive before you destroy them all.

Anyway, I enjoy the game and after losing lots of times, I finally found these strategies helped me to win!

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Beginner Guide

What is my Motivation to do this :

Im a bit frustrated that so many people seem to hate the game. I think its great despite the small flaws that will have to be fixed in an upcoming patch.
However the game is already very much fun and completely playable and most of the so called bugs, imbalances, broken concepts etc. result of severe misunderstandings of the game concepts.

Well now I think saying to these people :'Just play better !' is a bit rude. Not everbody is an expert and there is nothing wrong with it. A causual gamer should have a decent chance to win at least on the lower difficulty settings.
So I think some people might well appreciate this effort and I will be getting less frustrated on how the majority of the players gets almost everything wrong.
Since Im not totally familiar with all concepts yet myself, I will update this on a regular base getting to the finer points later on and starting with what I think are the most severe errors keeping some of you from having fun.

Chapter 1 : The most common misunderstandings of important game concepts

- The Liberty Bells REF Myth :

As for those of you who dont know what the REF is - its the expedition force of the King who will go for you when you declare independance.
Now how is this related to liberty bells. Every time you produce liberty bells the King will eventually expand his REF. As far as I know (might be not 100% accurate because its nowhere explained officially) there are two factors which will have influence on the Kings decision to expand his REF. First is the absolute liberty bells you produce, that means there is a treshhold and if you go above it the REF will expand and the treshold will be set to some higher amount.The second factor is what amount of bells you are producing per turn, that means the AI checks per round on how many bells you produce and related on how many that is the REF will eventually expand.

Now the concequences on the gameplay are huge as you might figured out yourself however what exactly are the consequences :

Lets focus on the absolute liberty bells amount thing first.
Since you have to get 50% of your people root for independance to be allowed declaring it you have to produce a given amount of liberty bells for each citizen no matter what. That means bigger is not necessarily better, if you have more towns and citizen the REF will be bigger as well. Thus you want to avoid building settlements in really crappy places, they dont help you that much but make your enemy stronger.
So why is this a good feature ? You have much less disadvantages when playing a map with a lot of water where you cant build many settlements. Furthermore it allows for enourmous strategic freedom since you dont need to go for some brute force strategy as it was in Col1.

Now lets come to the other aspect. Liberty bells per Turn cause the REF to expand. What does that mean for gameplay. Well if you produce liberty bells from the first turn on the REF will be bigger, that means you want to be really careful here. It is tempting to go for some fast founding father path but be aware that you have to make good use of the additional benefits to make it worth that the REF will be bigger later on.
That said for the beginning you should probably stay away for this at least for the first 50 turns and produce no liberty bells at all. You might think there is a problem with that because another Nation will capture some founding fathers you wanted to have. Luckily there is a way around this, you can produce political points in your settlements - just switch from the building (e.g. docks) and look at the bottom there, you will find out how to do it.

- Schools suck !

Many people are getting pissed that schooling takes so long after you have trained a bunch of students. Well they are right, like in reallife schools suck in this game (A+ for realism :P ). However there is more to it. You have to think of it as a countermeasure for players getting everything easiely and make like dozens of farming cities shooting their population through the roof.
So what is the consequence of that ? You cant train only so many students - huh I guess you figured out this yourself.

But what exactly does it mean for your general approach on specialists that you can train only so many of them :

You need to focus on schooling skills you cant get otherwise and which are really needed. So for Farmers and Fishers you generally have a bunch of native cities where you can train them. Use those instead of your schools.
The more sophisticated specialits are generally not needed in huge numbers (e.g. elder statesman, firebrand preachers) . So to get them it is often enough to rely on what people you get at the european docks - of course that implies that you do build a bunch of churchs which you should most often.
So what is left on the list are those kind of specialist that you need many of and cant get cheaply otherwise. Lets think about what this is.
Master carpenters : An absolute must to have a lot of them, they are needed for making buildings, wagon trains, political points, cannons, ships and what not.
Master Blacksmith : Again tools are needed for many buidlings, to make Muskets and Cannons - so you really need a bunch of them.
That said you want to go for those and eventually expand on related things like expert ore minors or expert lumber jacks if you cant get them cheap otherwise.

How can the natives be my friend, they always start suprise attacks on me :

Well it depends, the different natives tend to behave very differntly. So on what should you be aware off. Montezuma and Huyana Capac are real pests like you might already experienced in Civ4. However here comes the good news, its more profitabel to run them over because you get extra gold when you capture their cities. For your gamestyle this means get rid of them rather sooner then later, you might want to wait a bit if they offer good training possibilities for your workers and other tribes dont have these skills available.

Some tribes have the 'Mentor' ability which means you can train people there a lot faster. This is a huge advantage because it will take pressure of your school system, so in general you want to keep those kind of natives and dont piss them of.

I found what is extremly bad for relationships between you and some indian tribe is if you steal their food (even if you pay on settling). So if you want to keep this tribe dont use their foodresources at all. What you can further do to strenghten relationshsips with natives is to trade with them, I guess it doesnt have to be a whole lot of things you trade to them but if you do trade at least some goods with them your relatiuonsship will be getting better over time eventually.

The I can fight the Kings forces only in the open Myth :

Many people claim that you have to retreat out of your cities and let the King capture them. After that you counterattack the troops.
Well I guess that impression comes from the very strong artillery the Kings has. If you wouldnt know yet those artillery has a huge Bonus when attacking cities.
However it turns out that this locig is totally flawed. The first thing is you can take major influence by what units you build on the composition of the Kings forces. The second thing is some spots are better for defending than others.

So what should you do if you plan for a defensiv war against the King :

First thing is that you have to use some key spot where his troops need to go along and found a settlement with good defensiv protectives there. Good for defensive is if you can build behind a river or on a hill and thats exactly what you should do if you plan to fight defensive.
The second thing is you obviously dont want the King to have many artillery because your defense against those in cities is rather bad regardless how good your city spot is.
It turns out that the King tends to build the counter unit on what you have the most exessfully. So what you can do is for example build cannons only and dont much else and the King will react by building many mounted units. That doesnt mean you have to fight with cannons vs Cav however since you can recruit a decent amount of soldiers after
you declared independance.
Another aspect are the founding fathers, you want to get those which are useful in the context, that is for example the guy who gives +25% defense for all cities. Another good one is the one who gives you free unit promotions for city defense.

Chapter 2 : Getting started

Choosing your leader :

You might want to choose a leader that makes your life easier here. I think for the first games you want to go for someone who has many options available so that you are more free on which path you will go in the game. If you dont have a favourit already I advocate taking George Washington. The combined bonusses for economy (getting more people) and military (getting cheaper soldiers) makes him very flexible in almost all game situations.

Now that you have choosen your leader you will find yourself on the main map and a ship with some soldiers and pioniers loaded at the beginning so what are you gonna do now. You need to have a look at the marked ocean part which lets you sail to europe first. If that section is not symmetrical it is because there is no land in one direction and you want to make sure that you arent going that way. So if more parts of the marked Ocean area are lying to the North you want to go South West and visa versa.

Foundaition of the first settlement :

For your prospects the place where you settle takes quite a bit of influence so you should think this through carefully. If you have played Col1 then you might noticed that settle on the first tile of land you see was a pretty good strategy in those times since you had to play a brute force approach and loosing turns by sailing around was not appropriate, let me tell you this Civ4Col is totally different !
The placing of your cities is very important here. Even more since you cant disband them. So if land comes insight and the place seems rather ugly dont settle there, you can afford some turns to find a better place. If you are in the very north or south of the map go ahead and sail a bit towards the middle, the reason behind this is that at the poles there is most likely way too much Tundra to get decent places for settlements.If you hit a small island dont bother to settle there its absolutely not worth it.

So how does a good place to settle look like. Food is most important, you should either have at least one tile of fish/crabs or wheat. If you find a river thats fine also since river fields have a bonus on food production. Furthermore a location that is not located on a hill is far superior for your starting city because the ore you get from your main city tile on a hill city is quite useless while getting soemthing like cotton for free is much more interesting. As far as concerning other recources you might take whatever you can get, however for your first city a good location for growth should be the priority.

One thing you should take into account is that natives let you settle for free with your first settlement. Thus you can settle right next to them if thats the only decent location you can find. However be aware that you might need to destroy those natives later if you settle very close. If thats not your game plane (e.g. you play as the French) then you might want to reconsider.

After you have placed your first settlement :

What you should do now is to explore the new world quite fast. This has some major advantages. You can get a basic game plan very early if you know what you have to deal with. The Native villages often give you some gold if you visit them - that is if no other nation has visited them yet. So this is kind of a race and you dont want to be the looser here.
You might get lucky and visit a nearby Indian settlement which offers farmers or Fishers thats of course pretty nice if you have wheat or fish respectively available.
So for your first visit with your ship in Europe you should make sure you can get either a specialist scout or 50 Horses. That means you have to sell tools or muskets if the price is 2/3 and no scout is available. That said you should make sure what the price for horses is before you sail back to europe. Note that you can trade with coastal nativ villages which offer often very good prices for selling tools/muskets or buying things like cotton or tobacco. You do that buy Sailing with your ship onto the village square and press the trade button.
However I dont recommend selling your muskets to the natives in general that might very well backfire on you.
While scouting be aware of the difference between Ancient ruins and burial grounds, if you go for burial grounds that might make the natives angry and you dont want to ruin your relations with them from start in general, so go for the ruins and leave the burial grounds alone for now.

Meeting the other nations early :

If the AIs settle very close to you things are a little bit odd. For the beginning I would say just start a new game if the situation is too absurd rather than fighting them down which is the other viable option. You dont need to fear that you loose though if you prepare the assault well because the AIs seem to be tremendously week at that point.
What you can do to get less annoyed by them is catching their ship in the harbour - it will be destroyed and it will take a while until they get a new ship.

Chapter 3 : The early game

Population growth :

So now we have build our first settlement scouted a decent bit and have made some money by exploring and selling some goods in europe. What are the next steps. Priority now should be population growth. There are different ways to achieve this. If you have a starting city with more than one special food resource you might want to train some farmers/fishers at the natives. With specialists on the food tiles cities will grow very fast. Another option is to build a church early on, that is esspecially valuable if you have a preacher specialist available. The advantage of this method is that you get more specialist early on and will have less problems with schooling your people later in general. A third approach is to establish some missions early on, obviously this is pretty good if you play either the french or are lucky enough to have some jesuit missionary available. Another more evil approach is to attack enemy euro nations nearby and steal their population. If you have Inca or Aztec beside you can use this with indians also because some of there settlements will give you a converted native after being destroyed, this tactic is especially good when playing spain because you start with a veteran soldier, you get more treasures from destroying native villages and in the case of Juan de San Martin your Units will promote faster. So you have some decent options available here make sure you use at least one of them.

Getting a game plan :

The next step should be to look at your continent a bit closer, which are the places I want to build cities on - are they occupied by natives ? So at first you should go for those sites that are very good, e.g. river with some special resources and hills/mountain. Preferably those spots are not that close to a native village. Of course those sites are pretty rare, now you need to get some idea on how you want to play. Are too many good spots occupied by native villages - than its maybe time to get some military rolling. Are enough spots available for free ? Than it might be time to get some trade going with the Indians and strengthen your relations with them.
Regardless on what you do you should have a plan on how to play in general relativly early even more so you have to choose some founding fathers very early. If you choose the wrong FFs for a strategy that turns out to be not your favourit later anymore you might be somewhat doomed.

So the founding fathers are pretty important for which should you go ?

In general you want to be flexibel here, different conditions require different founding fathers. For example the guy who gives 3 Jesuit missionars seems pretty poor in general however when playing the French he might actually pretty useful. I think many people are way too locked in what they tend to go for, e.g. always Peter Minuit. This is not how you play successful in a game that needs a lot of adaption every time you play it. However there is one exception to this, political founding fathers are kind of less valuable in the beginning because your bottleneck will almost always be political points. So the price for the other categories is relatively compared way cheaper. Of course there might be situations where you want to get one of those early on anyway but in general you should root for the other categories first.

Getting the ball rolling on specialist training at the native villages :

So now that you have a basic idea on what you want to do its time to make use of the Indian settlement train possibilities for your people. The earlier you start with it the better it is because the rate at which your people learn from the natives will slow down after you have trained several in the same native village. As already said the Native 'Mentor' ability is your friend here. Native settlements with 'mentor' and a skill that is needed alot like fishing,farming,mining is worth a lot here. If a skill is not available in the closer location you might want to start an expedition to sail for some far away natives and start some training there. The point why this native training is so important is that it takes pressure from your schools away which will make those much more effective.

Infrastructur :

As for schools you should probably thinking of getting one and train some Master Carpenters to get buildings up fast everywhere. To get your infrastructure going you might want to get a Hardy Pioneer now if you dont already have one and build some streets so that the goods produced in your inland villages can easier be transported in Wagon trains to your coastal cities. That said tile improvement is way less important than in Civ4 where it had such an ernomous effect.

Chapter 4 : Economy

Its always nice to have money so how can you maximize your profits now that you have some decent sized cities. There are two key concepts, first is you should specialize your cities a bit, it doesnt make much sense to make everything everywhere. So if you got a city with two special cotton tiles make this your cloth factory. In order to do this get the appropriate buildings which enhance the production and make sure that you have specialist working everywhere.
The seond important concept here is to have a little diversification, 3 Cigar producing citys will get less effective after a while because the prices will eventually start to fall on the european market, that said with Dutch leaders you got some additional possibilities here. However if you arent playing for the Dutch try to have one producing city for each Rum,Cigars,Cloth and Coats instead of having many for one of these goods. Often this wont be possible but you dont really have to bother that much. You need only so much money to get things starting as soon as your colonies are getting more independent you dont need as much money anymore. If you are lucky enough to get some silver mining opportunity, thats nice and should be used. Note that native worker bonus for silver mining is quite huge so if you got no expert silver miner available you should assign a native there if possible.
As you can see in the comments below some people disagree on how to set this up best and they have some valid points. The important thing is another one though, do have a plan on where you produce what and dont produce everything everywhere.

What can you do further to enhance cash - get Peter Minuit as Founding Father. Things at the european docks will be way cheaper to buy with him in your congress so if you plan to use trade extensivly you should get him. Note that you can make a decent profit trading with the natives also, this has the further advantage that relations with them are getting better over time.

All in all you generally should not focus too much on trade only, neglecting to build cities which will become your musket/artillery Factories is a major mistake if you arent on some special strategy. So if you have the choice between getting a decent city for making trade goods and getting a city for producing weapons you should almost always go for improving your military power, that is if you already have some places where you are producing goods.

Chapter 5 : Preparing for independance

After settling your continent and improving your cities a bit it will be time to start preparing for independance. To declare independance you need to have 50% of your population rooting for it. However be aware that all your soldiers count as king loyalists. So now its time to start producing a decent amount of liberty bells in your citys. You should stop population growth a bit at this time because each new born citizen will be a royalist as well, so if you keep getting too much new citizens you will be slowed down pretty hard in going for independence. The Error many people often make here is to not stop population growth and assign new citizens to their army - dont do this it will take you for ever to get the 50% like this.

So what are good ways to get liberty bell production going ?

Some specialist will help here no doubt, so if you havent a few elder statesman available yet you probably should buy at least 2 or 3 in europe. Buildings help alot also, you should make sure that you are building printing press and Newspaper at least in your bigger cities. Now it might be a good time to look for some founding father who improves liberty bells production, you will find most of those in the political area of the FF screen. Well now you have done all this but still struggle, dont despair there are still ways to help you here. You might consider disbanding some of your non loayal citizens like for example pioneers if you have improved your land a decent bit already, if that doesnt help enough look for your cities with low rebel sentiment and disband some citizens there.

Preparing for the assault :

The rebel sentiment in your cities is growing now, however are you prepared to fight yet - make sure you have at least one city that is specialized on musket/artillery production. Those kind of cities should not be at the east cost because its pretty hard to defend those cities. The reason for this is that the Kings Fleet is pretty strong and it will bombard your coastal cities. Thus you should be prepared on giving up those cities at least for some time, the place you want to put up the fight is somewhere inland prefereably on terrain that gives you bonuses like hills, mountains and forests.
So back to preparing for that war, since horses are relatively cheap to buy you dont really have to bother much breeding them yourself unless you get lucky and get some expert rangers for free. That means you want to have a decent amount of storage capacity for both your horses and your muskets. building some warehouses helps here, furthermore you should build some additional wagon trains if you don't have many yet to increase storage capacity.
By now you should have a plan where and how to fight the kings forces, if you want to fight in the open get a lot of horses and dont bother with getting soldiers too much, Dragoons are much better in the open in general. If you want to fight more defensive make sure you get some infantry to defend.

Chapter 6 : The independence war

Well I think I dont want to go into more detail as I already did in the above here because that might steel the fun for you on developing strategies on how to beat that pesky King the most effective. Just a few words which troops are good in general for what purpose.
Soldiers : Defending Cities
Dragoons : Fighting in the open
Cannons : Attacking Cities

I hope you can enjoy the game now as much as I do

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Guide to Win on Revolutionary: The Spanish Conquistadors

Guide to Win on Revolutionary.- The Spanish Conquistadors


Vanilla Col2. Also tested for Dale's & Snoopy's PatchMod v 1.6
Map choice: Huge Western Hemisphere
Difficulty level: Revolutionary
Civ: Spanish (starting units: veteran soldier & free colonist)
Leader: D. Jose de San Martin
Speed: Marathon
Col2 specific acronyms.

Introduction

The following guide has been tested at Normal and Epic speed as well although some tweaks have to be made as the number of game turns is significantly less and this alters the gameplay. Normal speed has 300 turns and Epic has 450 turns. I have no idea how many turns does Marathon have but it far exceeds 700 turns. In Marathon the food necessary to pop a new colonist is doubled the same as the number of muskets and horses requires to equip soldiers and dragoons besides other differences.

The main issue on vanilla Col2 regarding the speed issue is the building up of the REF as it has a direct correlation with the LB output. If you are playing a Fast or Normal game you just cannot afford the REF becoming too large or else you may risk running out of time to end the WoI. Bear in mind that during the WoI you will find that 8 turns go by without the King's troops landing because they are being ferried over from Europe. So if you declare Independence with few remaining turns left you might run out of time. You should rush the LB output close to the end to avoid the REF becoming too large on Fast and Normal speed to overcome this problem.

On longer game speeds such as Epic or Marathon, which are the ones described in this miniguide, the size of the REF becomes irrelevant.

Advantages of the Spanish civ for overall Conquest

Experienced civ players will be quick to pick up the Spanish for conquest reasons.-

a) It's the only civ that starts with a veteran soldier. Veteran soldiers are extremely valuable as they have as inherent promotion Leadership. The importance of the Leadership promotion and being the only civ starting off with a veteran soldier are explained in all detail in point 1 further below.

b) The Spanish have as trait a 25% advantage fighting against Indian natives which will come in very handy allowing for high odds in battle against them. This is developed in detail in point four further below.

c) And above all, if you choose D. Jose de San Martin (-50% XP) as leader your military units will be earning promotions in half the time against other units.

The logical conclusions are to combine b) and c) and earn both easy and fast track promotions attacking Natives.

Combining all three you are able to promote all your veteran soldiers (which can only be purchased in Europe, they cannot be educated or trained unlike Col1) very quickly to Veteran V units. This guide picks up on the three points above and exploits them to their maximum to win on Revolutionary level.



Step-by-step guide to win on Revolutionary.



1.- The single most important advice is to take out early fellow european colonies.

The main problem at this difficulty level is that the AI will declare Independence before you do. Specially nasty are the English which have a leader with an inbuilt trait of 25% LB production (John Adams). The AI ramps up the LB from the get go like there's no tomorrow. So you first goal is to take out the pesky european settlements one by one. America will be lonelier but your true goal is Independence. In any case the AI will continuously respawn more or less on the same initial spot it settled.

Send your caravel to colonize some nice spot, found a settlement with your free colonist and switch production to political points. You will not be building anything. The reason is that you want to win for your cause asap Peter Minuit and Pedro Alvares Cabral. These two FF are by far the most important in the initial and medium stage of the game. They also happen to be some of the first FF available so you will be hard pressed by the AI to win them for your cause. I've done it on Revolutionary so it can be done, no moaning . Once you've obtained both or one switch over from political points to building a stockade, warehouse, fort, dock etc.

Have your caravel with your second unit, the veteran soldier, combing America's shores on the look out for the English, Dutch and French you will earn a huge amount of exploration points on doing so helping you to earn FF Alvares Cabral. Once you've found their settlement which will not even have a stockade built, declare war and burn the settlement to the ground. Only if the settlement is close to your initial settlement keep it otherwise destroy it. The AI will respawn and send more ships to colonize that spot again. This veteran soldier should do nothing else other than being shipped around America destroying AI settlements. Useful captured AI units such as hardy pioneers or other captured specialists can be ferried back to your home settlement with the caravel and then start trading with Europe using this caravel; having left the veteran soldier wandering around for it's next prey.

The promotions you should seek for this veteran soldier should be: Grenadier 1 & 2 (plus 20% and 25% settlement attack respectively) and the Surgeon 1 promotion. Later on Veteran I, II, III ... The Surgeon promotion is very important so as to avoid giving time to the AI to build up a stockade or calling in reinforcements.

On taking the rivals out you will accomplish multiple side goals. You will hamper greatly all their progress, avoiding them to steal FF from you, you will be able to capture very useful units early on such as hardy pioneers (the French always start with one so look out for them) or even Elder Statesmen. Remember Velocyrix's SMAC guide on early and combined pioneer units working tiles so as to create turn advantage on your rivals. Besides the above your vet soldier will be earning promotions from very early on. I normally play with the Spanish (start with a veteran soldier) and with D. Jose de San Martin as my leader (-50 XP) which means that this starting vet soldier will earn promotions pronto. He will go out in the starting caravel hunting out rival european settlements. In Dale's and Snoopy's PatchMod this has been toned down somewhat as you can only declare war after the first 20 turns into the game. In vanilla Col2 you can declare war on them from turn one. They will not even have stockades built up, so they are easy prey and easy promotions for a veteran soldier which has as a starting promotion Leadership which grants them 100% XP on winning battles.

Shortly after, when you 've earned enough money, buy a Merchantman and let it do all the trade with Europe (you need to ramp up your trading points now to earn FF Peter Minuit) whilst your starting caravel is busy ferrying about the vet soldier and captured european units. Ideally you should send 2 soldiers to raze european settlements. If you wait to have dragoons they will already have built stockades and forts and may even have veteran soldiers on garrison. That's why you have to exterminate them at the beginning of the game.

Once the rival AI's have been all but crushed (check the F9 screen) the game is yours and you can play it at your own pace (Epic & Marathon).

2.- Do not build inland cities.

Coastal cities are ideal for trading unless there is a particular sweet spot inland with resources such as 3 tobacco. You can choose to build a city on a sweet defensive tile right next to a forested hill for the 75% defense bonus on fighting the WoI. Naturally you will avoid chopping down the hill's forest to mine it choose some other hill tile to mine it and obtain ore. The city in particular closest to europe and most likely to be heavily attacked by the REF should be the closest to the far right where the REF will land eventually and preferably right beside a coastal forested hill tile for defense. If it's close to a chokepoint all the better.

3.- More settlements is not better a la Civ ICS.

You can win fast with only 2 settlements built keeping at bay the REF (30 regulars, 15 dragoons or even smaller) and upping rebel settlement on the last turns (Fast and Normal speed) or take your time as I do and build 5 or 6 very large settlements of pop 15, 20 and above (Epic and Marathon speed). More colonists means the LB output is less so you must know what you are doing. It's much easier to ramp up the LB in smaller sized settlements than a size 20 city. Also bear in mind you will need 3 Elder Statesman producing LB in each settlement and they don't come cheap. So the more settlements you build the more expensive it becomes and the more Independence is post poned.

Although adding Elder Statesman at a latter age is good to avoid the REF becoming too large I would however advise doing it as early as you can (Epic & Marathon speed). You will of course buy or educate, preferably the former as Education is broken, Elder Statesman and have three in each settlement as early as possible. Besides, keeping the REF size at bay is more of a game exploit IMHO. A REF 8 or 10 times the size of your standing army can be beaten through superior tactics and manoeuvre. At Epic and Marathon speed the size of the REF becomes irrelevant so don't concern yourself with rushing LB at the last hour, do it early on. A normal colonial army to win on Revolutionary would be 25-35 dragoons with very high promotions which include 3-5 generals, 10-15 soldiers and a handful of cannons. That's all you need to wage war successfully.

4.- Fighting the natives early on not trading with them. Build up and promote your stack of dragoons.

Being Spanish you have an inbuilt trait of 25% against Indians so I suggest you take advantage of it. The first turns of the game I train colonists in their tribes.- fishermen, farmers, trappers, tobacco planters, cotton planters etc. you cannot purchase in Europe trappers or planters so these skills must be learnt from the natives.

Indians are opportunists and will attack you over time when they sense you are weak. You can check the negative modifiers in the trade screen mousing over their heads. When the negative mods outweigh the green ones you know you will be attacked by them if you are rated as weak.

Normally by the time I'm in a position to create my second settlement, whether I buy the land from them or just plump the city risking their wrath, I already have ferried back from Europe muskets and horses in prepration for the First Indian War with the neighbouring tribe. Once you have wiped out the nearby Indian settlements you can think of expanding and settling a third town or more.

Foremost this game is about declaring independence and fighting a war against your motherland's troops. These troops will all be Veteran 2 at least if not 3 to reflect the ongoing European wars which have made them skilled. So it's important to start training an army early on to beat the REF.

I don't trade with Indians I don't even try to convert them I just use them as cannon fodder to train my troops (dragoons). By the time the REF lands their 300 plus units I have a stack of 20-30 dragoons with high promotions (Veteran IV or V plus Formation) of which normally 6-10 are veteran soldiers purchased in European docks and the rest are colonial militia. I typically spawn 3 generals fighting the ensuing Indian Wars and a further 1 or 2 fighting the REF (check the F5 screen to see when you will spawn your next general). Using the General's promotions is key in taking out a REF even 8 or 10 times the size of your paltry colonial army. Surgeon 3 promotion is invaluable only available to General attached units. Use this stack of dragoons against the Indian tribes building up your dragoon promotions. You will continously add in new units. Indentured servants and petty criminals make great soldiers as they take too long to be trained and educated currently so they are better employed as soldiers. Use your money to buy veteran soldiers from Europe they are worth their weight in gold due to thier inbuilt Leadership promotion. As you buy more vets their price rises so eventually there's a breaking point in which it's not worthwhile purchasing more. 6-10 veteran soldiers should be about right. The rest of your army will be colonial militia. When you spawn generals make sure you attach them only to veteran soldiers as they have the Leadership ability which grants them 100% learning XP (=experience points used to earn higher promotions). Third tier promotions are only available to general attached units so you really want these unita that have a general to promote fast. Couple this in with having chosen Jose de San Martin as a leader which requires 50% less XP to earn new promotions besides the inherent 25% advantage the Spanish have fighting Indian tribes and soon enough you will have built a woping stack of 20 Dragoons fully promoted to Vet V with Formation (Formation gives you 25% against other horses making the King's Dragoons easy prey later on).

On attacking the Indians roast your stack to give newer promotions to the weaker units. Your goal should be Veteran I-V and Formation promotion for militia Dragoons. The veteran soldier Dragoons should follow Veteran I-V, Formation and as last Surgeon 1 & 2. An excellent general candidate would be a Veteran soldier V Dragoon with Formation and Surgeon 1 & 2 promotions.

5.- Key to winning this game is building up your Economy.

Trading, meeting natives with a seasoned scout and later on razing indian settlements will yield all the funds you require to win. Buy a galleon if you play vanilla Col2 or 2 galleons if you play with Dale's & snoopy's PatchMod (as a galleon in this mod can only carry one trasure the same as in Col1whereas in vanilla Col2 they can carry up to 6) and ship back the treasures. First buy the the muskets and horses and only then the lumberjacks and carpenters farmers and fishermen. Your priority is food, following that Elder Statesman and then the trading specialists (Master Cigar Makers, Master Fur Traders, Master Weavers etc). Education is currently broken even with the Patchmod because it takes forever. You are better off just buying them off from Europe. Leave Gunsmiths, Master Ranchers for last. You must set up a good trade system asap to raise much needed cash. Depending on your settlement spot you will be able to choose from tobacco (cigars), fur (clothes), sugar (rum), cotton (cloth) and so on. Other raw matarials such as silver in Canada need no processing and can be shipped diectly. Create wagons to shuffle basic resources from one settlement to another such as tobacco to build cigars. Some cities may be specialised in planting tobacco and others in making cigars. Later on during the WoI these wagons may be used to store muskets and horses.

6.- The only thing one should be afraid of is running out of time to fight off the large REF.

I have lost games because it took the REF 8 turns to come back and forth from Europe bringing in waves of fresh troops. I do not advise leaving only 30 turns to win the Revolutionary War unless of course the REF is small and maneageable. I've lost games having declared Independence on turn 60 because of the sheer size of the REF. Normally the WoI requires between 60-80 turns for a REF of 300 + units just to play safe. I play on Epic (450 turns) or Marathon speed (700 plus) so my game lasts longer than the standard 300 turns of the Normal speed.

If you want to play on Normal speed or below just follow my strategy only changing to ramp up the LB production during mid to late game so as to avoid a huge REF. You should declare Independence at least before turn 250 just to play safe on Normal speed.

7.- You need not loose ever a city fighting the WoI.

No matter if it's placed in the coastline. In fact most of your cities will be sprawling across the coastline. Use your combined pioneers to build roads on all the presumable landing spots of the REF. The REF will land on your settlement which is furthest to the right, on the shore closest to Europe. Try to build the most vulnerable settlement, the one closest to Europe, right beside a forested hill tile. Place soldiers on these forested hills (so don't clear them for mining puposes which will negate the defense bonus) with Mountaineer and Ranger (light forest defense) promotions, specially in a peninsula chokepoint. You may use a general to award these units said promotions. There are several FF that grant you many interesting promotions.

If you like settling in North America & Canada like I do (roughly where the historical pilgrim colonies were) there is a peninsula on the upper far right (Newfoundland?) which is ideal to create a killing ground for the landing REF. On placing cities on the map not only should you consider food and trading resource tiles but also the potential for defense. The REF will land on the far right always. However later on in the game they will also deploy troops further down the coastline or even attempt direct amphibious attacks on the cities themselves.

8.- Some FF are very important.

a. Key but not essential on winning initially for trading purposes, as this game is an economical one, are Peter Minuit (-25% cost of purchasing european units) and Pedro Alvares Cabral (-50%time to travel to Europe).

b. From a military point of view Dom Pedro I is fairly important to fight the WoI gives you free Veteran 1 and City Garrison 1 (Minuteman 1) to all units, both gunpowder and mounted units, as well as speeding the spawning of new generals. On attacking a cannon or a wounded REF unit it is easy to obtain for a militia soldier City Garrison 2 (Minuteman 2) later on in the game. For Minuteman 3 promotion you need a general-attached unit which has to be a soldier (gunpowder unit), it's not available to Dragoons (mounted units).

There are many useful military promotions only available to gunpowder units and not to mounted units. Take your time to become acquainted with all the game's promotions. Other useful military FF are Ethan Allen (free Ranger 1 and Mountaineer 1 to gunpowder units) for guerrilla type warfare in hills and forests and the Marquis de La Fayette which inceases musket production in line with the tax rate.

c. Other important FF's from a political standpoint are obviously all those that increase the LB output significantly such as Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Samuel Adams. You should build printing presses and newspapers in all settlements to maximize the LB output besides having 3 Elder Statesman in each town hall. The higher the LB production, besides being able to hit 50% rebel sentiment sooner, the better to access all these useful FF which will help greatly in the ensuing WoI.

All the mentioned FF are important because they make life easier but you can obviously still win without them even at Revolutionary.

9.- On declaring Independence you have to choose your Constitution's civics.

I choose slavery (extra 25% food is a must when you have settlements with 20 pop, food becomes scant also getting FF Cyrus McCormick is great further on), 100% FF rate, controlled arms to up the 50% rebel sentiment, I choose the extra 2 indentured servants per settlement which I upgrade immediately to Dragoons and with the help of generals I had spawned in the Indian Wars give them promotions to Veteran 3. The generals I never attach to militia, only to veteran soldiers) and Manifest Destiny giving you 50% against Indians in addition to your 25% as one of the specific Spanish civ traits.

10.- Fighting the War of Independence (WoI).

By the time of the WoI I've already made peace with all Natives to avoid fighting simultaneously on 2 or 3 fronts. Normally I fight the REF in 2 fronts, north and south (Canada and Virginia) splitting my dragoon force equally in 2 stacks of 13-15 units each. These stacks mount over time as the WoI progresses as well as replacing those KIA. If you are only going to be fighting in one front then 20/25dragoons should do the trick. Make sure to road and connect your distant colonies or else organise a good naval transport system to ship units quickly if needed be.

The WoI normally drags on for 50-80 turns when you confront 300 REF units plus. Remember that on declaring Independance you will still have 6-8 turns until the REF makes it's first landing and that during the WoI 8 turns might go by without any fights until the King is able to ferry in a new wave of fresh troops. The REF only lands a maximum of 16 units per turn. You have to kill them off each turn as they land. Don't be daunted by their size.

The REF has a bonus attacking cities. So it's very important that you don't grow confident with your Minuteman 2 promotions garrisoning a fortress (175% defense). Think that fortresses are only good against Indian raids not against the REF. On fighting the REF you should always adopt an aggressive stance attacking them relentlessly, don't coward behing the ramparts take the initiative and drive the war to them unlike Col1. On doing this you will negate the REF's bonuses on attacking your settlements.

Remember all them nice specialists that helped you earn so much money? They now become useless after the DoI, unless of course you selected to continue trading with Europe as one of your Constitution's civics. So the fiery priests, the Master Fur Traders, the Master Cigar Makers etc all of them can be turned into dragoons or soldiers.

Using your generals.

You can use the 3 generals that had been spawned in the Indian wars to promote these newly drafted units. During the WoI you will spawn a further 1-2 generals as well making a total of 5 generals to promote greenies.

Normally I move into a tile a veteran soldier/dragoon with Surgeon 1 & 2 plus 3 other colonial militia which are inexperienced units which have just been drafted (no promotions). I attach the general to the vet soldier and If it has enough XP I promote him to Surgeon 3. The other 3 colonial militia dragoons I promote to Veteran III (the advantage of having D. Jose de San Martin as leader). If you use one vet soldier and only 2 militia you will still get only Vet III promotions for them (so it makes no difference at that point, obvioulsy they have stored XP but not enough to triger a 4th promotion in a row). If you use 4 militia plus the vet soldier you can only upgrade them to Vet II. So IMHO a general and 3 militia is the optimum number to promote using a general having as leader D. Jose de San Martin. You now can use these general promoted dragoons Vet III against REF soldiers and artillery to win easy promotions. Once they reach Vet V with Formation you can also take out the REF dragoons safely with max odds.

Your goal is that on confronting the REF your success odds should be above 75%. The stack of dragoons which were promoted against the Indians will be now your Army's backbone in the ensuing WoI. These heavily promoted dragoons (Vet V plus Formation) will all have 95% success rates or above attacking REF units (dragoons, soldiers and artillery). Needless to say before you engage a fight you should mouse over to check the combat odds maximizing at all times your unit roaster to always have the highest success rates and promote your weakest units picking up easy targets.

Choosing your general's promotions as well as individual unit promotions wisely are key to defeating a REF 8 or 10 times the size of your standing army. Dragoons are the key units to attack the REF. Unlike Col1, soldiers should only be ever used to garrison cities (never dragoons) or be placed atop forested hilled mountains on defense mode preferably with Mountaineer 2 and Ranger 2 promotions perhaps with a cannon or two to boot.

Only foot soldiers (gunpowder units) can earn the necessary Minuteman (to effectively garrison cities), Ranger and Mountaineer promotions. And only general-attached units have access to third tier promotions such as Surgeon 3, Mountaineer 3, Minuteman 3, Ranger 3 and Veteran VI.

You should garrison every city with 2 soldiers. The cities closest to the REF landings and which are more exposed as well to amphibious attacks should have a minimum of 5 soldiers in garrison mode. Try to promote these garrison soldiers to Minuteman I & II. They should only attack weak REF units such as cannons or wounded units to earn an easy promotion to Minuteman 1 & 2 besides the Veteran promotions which give them additional base strength.

Your unit-attached generals can be either soldiers left as garisson in cities or else dragoons. It's important to get hold of the Surgeon 3 promotion to speed up significantly the recovery of wounds. This becomes critical after the multiple REF waves that attack you relentlessly. An important factor is that Surgeon 2 & 3 cures units in adjacent tiles so play with this factor. My generals have the Surgeon 1-3 promotions. I nearly always have my dragoon stack right beside the city tile but out of reach of a shore tile should the REF attack amphibiously or land their troops there. The general in the dragoon stack with Surgeon 3 will heal both my stack of dragoons as well as the besieged soldiers in the adjacent city tile. Dragoons are only good on offensive and weak on defensive. So as a rule-of-thumb dragoon for offense and soldier for defense. Only if I'm seriously overwhelmed and risk losing my dragoon stack do I garrison them in a city until they heal completely in only 2 or 3 turns (the magic of Surgeon 3 promotion). Dragoons are killed very swiftly within a besieged city.

I also like placing 2 soldiers (Mountaineer 2 and Ranger 2) with a cannon or two atop forested hill chokepoints through which the REF is forced to pass on their route to a coastal city. The dragoon stack is adjacent to this forested hill (with a Surgeon 3 general-attached unit that heals swiftly both the dragoon stack and the units on top of the said fortified hill) and is ready to pounce on the REF units that have to neccessarily go round it. Cut the roads on that chokepoint (the REF dragoons will pillage them anyway) and create a killing ground for them.

Conclusion

All the above comments are valid taking in mind my aggressive play-style as the Spanish which will be very different gameplay from others and will differ depending as well on the civ and leader chosen. On following all the above I've won on Revolutionary level. Naturally if you choose other civs and leaders the strategy outlined might not work out as well as you do not start with a vet soldier to wipe out early on rival European settlements nor are you able to promote easily your dragoon units killing off Indian natives. The above strategy hinges on the said two points.

Although you can always buy a vet soldier in Europe early on by popping money with seasoned scouts on meeting native settlements. There are ways to overcome initial limitations or scant resources on choosing other civs and leaders. All you need is to plan ahead as every decison you take will have an opportunity cost which must be pondered carefully. This is an Economics game.

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for each yield
{
	int newPrice = random(BuyPriceLow, BuyPriceHigh) + (YieldBoughtTotal / PriceChangeThreshold);

	if (random(100) < PriceCorrectionPercent * abs(newPrice - currentPrice))
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}

Civilization IV: Colonization Information Center

Civilization IV: Colonization Information Center

Introduction

Welcome to the info center for Colonization! Whether you are new to the Civilization series or a returning veteran, the information below will hopefully enhance your understanding of this latest game. All known details are collected in the categories below, and, as always, this article is being updated constantly. Also, note that most thumbnails can be clicked, taking you to the Gallery.

Article Navigation

1. Introduction
2. Overview
3. Game Features
4. Technical Info
5. Empire Management and the Economy
6. Foreign Affairs
7. Civilizations and Leaders
8. Units and Combat
9. City Management and Buildings
10. The Environment and World
11. Victory Conditions
12. Audio and Video
13. Previews
14. Article Information and History
15. Related Links

Overview

Announced on June 9th, 2008, Civilization IV: Colonization is a standalone expansion pack for the award-winning game Civilization IV. This game, a remake of the 1994 classic Sid Meier's Colonization, utilizes the Civ4 engine but does not require that any other previous Civ4 games (including the expansion packs) are installed. Thus, Colonization both incorporates some elements of standard Civilization IV gameplay while introducing some of its own. Some concepts from the 1994 version are also used to create a game with a balance of old and new.

Civilization IV: Colonization, like the classic, focuses on the European discovery and later colonization of the New World. Leading one of the major European powers, players will engage in diplomacy, exploration, trade, and, of course, warfare, as they struggle to dominate the newly found territories. Additionally, historical elements, like important people and revolutions, are also in place to create a realistic environment for players to control history and their countries' future.

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Game Features

Here are the official features, as written on Firaxis' website:

• Classic Game Design Rebuilt for the Modern Era: Usher forth a new generation of Sid Meier’s Colonization with gameplay built on the award winning Civilization IV engine, providing the beautiful visuals, famously addictive gameplay and endless fun that are synonymous with Sid Meier strategy games.
• Fight the Homeland and Establish a New Nation: Play as the English, Spanish, French or the Dutch and journey to a brave new world in search of freedom from your oppressive homeland
• Improved Diplomacy: Sustain peace and support your followers as you engage in advanced negotiations with natives, other colonists and the hostile homeland -- Trade resources, gold and land as you build the foundation for a self sufficient and powerful colony
• Historical Figures Provide Adaptive Gameplay: Acquire founding fathers such as John Smith, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams who
  will help guide your nation to freedom based on your gameplay style
• Brand New Interface: Both Civilization IV fans and players new to the series will feel right at home with an interface that Firaxis has built to be accessible and easy to navigate.
• Multiplayer Offers Endless Replay Value: Compete with friends from all over the world via the Internet and Play by Email modes or compete locally via the Hotseat and LAN modes, offering endless ways to conquer the New World.
• Detailed Tutorial Guides Players In Their Conquest: Civilization IV: Colonization will provide an enhanced tutorial that will help both fans of the game and brand new players on their way to ruling the New World.
• Mods and Community Tools: Players will have limitless options for modifying the game to suit their needs. Firaxis will ship the game with modding tools including a map editor using XML and Python.

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Technical Info

• Colonization is being developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games, which is part of the overall company Take-Two Interactive. This is just like the previous Civilization 4 core game and expansions. Similarly, the design team behind Beyond the Sword, the latest expansion, led by Alex Mantzaris and Jon Shafer is also in charge of Colonization's development.
• The game is slated for a September 22, 2008 release date in North America and September 26, 2008 elsewhere as part of the Games for Windows program.
• It currently has been rated Everyone 10+ by the ESRB, the Entertainment Software Rating Board. For reference, Civ4 was rated E 10+.
• The system requirements different from regular Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword are: a graphics card with Pixel Shader 1.1 support. This increased requirement for video cards is due to the noticeable enhancement of water graphics, foliage, and terrain. The full system requirements are as follows:
  • MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    Operating System: Windows(r) 2000/XP/Vista
    Processor: 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
    Memory: 512 MB RAM
    Hard Disk Space: 900 Megs Free
    CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed
    Video: DirectX 9.0c-compatible 64 MB video card with Shader 1.1 Support
    or better
    Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
    DirectX(r): Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization DirectX(r) version
    (included on game disc)
  • RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    Operating System: Windows(r) 2000/XP/Vista
    Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
    Memory: 1 GB RAM
    Hard Disk Space: 900 Megs Free
    CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed
    Video: 128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 9 support (pixel & vertex shaders)
    Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card

• There is a totally redesigned interface, as well as new music that is different from the core Civ4 soundtrack. Of particular note is the city interface, which emphasizes trade and the allocation of specialists.
• Like Civ4, Colonization contains its own Civilopedia that covers over thirty topics, from immigration to war and beyond.
• There are various multiplayer modes: Direct IP, LAN, Play by Email, Internet, and Hotseat. Games can contain up to eight people, meaning that two players can simultaneously control the same colony and work cooperatively.
• Seven difficulty levels and four game speeds (Quick, Normal, Epic, and Marathon) allow players to find the settings that give them the most compelling experience and provide an adequate amount of challenge. In the Custom Game menu, there are also three victory conditions (Independence, Victory, and Time) which can be enabled or disabled. The Advanced Start feature, like in Civilization 4, allows you to begin the game with some degree of development in place.

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Empire Management and the Economy

• The game begins with simply a ship in the middle of the ocean, with a pioneer and soldier on board. You must sail and explore to find an island where you can make landfall and establish a colony. As you collect and harvest resources, you will acquire enough so that you can send it back to your mother country on a ship to sell. If you have your mother country transport treasure units by itself, they will take a portion of the proceeds. On the other hand, transporting it yourself is slower, but more prosperous.
• In order to found a new colony with a pioneer, you must either pay the natives gold or fight them to take the land by force. Once you have multiple colonies set up, you can trade between them with a trade wagon to coordinate your colonies' efforts and specialize production of raw and refined goods. All refined goods sell at a higher price, bringing in more profits. For example, rum distilled from sugar is more valuable than the sugar itself. Similarly, a master furrier can take animal furs and turn them into expensive coats for sale.
• The resource "liberty bells" symbolize your independence, and, as you acquire more and more of them, you gain benefits from members of your Continental Congress who become recruited. Such "founding fathers" represent historical figures. These people might increase your sugar productivity, for example, affecting rum production. In total, there are 52 founding fathers, and only one civilization can receive each one and their associated bonus. Betsy Ross boosts garment production, and others have similar specific benefits. These founding fathers are somewhat like Civ4's system of world wonders, providing noticeable increases to individual civilizations. Founding fathers are more likely to join colonies that focus on their ideals: building cathedrals in the New World will attract religious founding fathers as an example. Here is a list of founding fathers:

Name	Benefit
Vasco Nunez de Balboa	+25% Defense in all settlements
Lord Baltimore	Increases crosses production by the tax rate
Juan de Bermudez	+1 movement for Caravel, Galleon, and Merchantman
Pedro Alvares Cabral	-50% travel time to Europe
Bartholeme ds las Casas	+50% native conversion rate from missions
Hernan Cortes	Free Stockade in every settlement
Diego Velazquez de Cuellar	Provides 3 Indentured Servants
Gregorio de Mattos e Guerra	+2 Liberty Bells per Church +3 Liberty Bells per Cathedral
Alexander Hamilton	+3 hammers per Town Hall
John Harvard	Free Schoolhouse in every settlement
Patrick Henry	unknown
Thomas Hooker	Provides 3 Jesuit missionaries
Sor Juana	+3 crosses per Church and Cathedral
Gabriel Lallemant	50% faster production of Churches and Cathedrals
Juan Ponce de Leon	2 times as likely to get Treasure from Ancient Ruins
Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve	Free Formation Promotion for Gunpowder Units +1 movement for Converted Natives
William Penn	+3 crosses per Town Hall Strengthens relations with natives
Pocahontas	Strengthens relations with natives
Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada	Reveals all tiles with Burial Grounds and Ancient Ruins
Adam Smith	50% faster production of Textile Mill, Coat Factory, Rum Factory, and Cigar Factory
Martha Washington	unknown
Eli Whitney	+50% cotton production in all settlements
Roger Williams	+25% native conversion rate from missions Strengthens relations with natives

• Once independent, you must determine the future of your government and constitution by making a series of decisions, presented in two differing options. For example, you will have to determine whether you support or reject slavery, the separation of church and state, and representation. This allows for various types of governments that can be set up, from representational democracies to mimic history, or even theological monarchies! Your decisions will have an impact on your colonies, as well. Rejecting slavery will increase the population of each of your settlements, as an example.
• You can gain new citizens to your colonies either by immigration (from willing people or ones that you have paid) or random event (some type of circumstance in the mother country that causes people to leave, like a workers' strike or religious persecution). Immigration can lead to problems if you accept the presence of individuals like criminals. However, buildings like churches can gradually attract better quality immigrants.
• There is no technology tree like in normal Civ4. In fact, because of the relatively short timespan covered in the game, civilizations have access to all units and buildings that remain constant even as the colonies expand.

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Foreign Affairs

• The natives can help train your unskilled colonists so that they can become farmers or planters. Additionally, natives may offer you gifts like beads or gold, assuming you maintain good relations. You can also send missionaries to live with the natives, in hopes of converting them or acquiring knowledge about fishing or farming, among others. If relations sour, natives may fight back against you, steal your weapons, and raid your colonies to kill colonists. If you maintain good relations, the natives may help you fight other colonies or even give your their settlements nearby. The best way to stay friendly is to not intrude on their land and to obey their chief's requests.
• Confirmed native tribes include the Aztecs, Arawak, Sioux, Cherokee, Incan, Tupi, Iroquois, and Apache. The Incans and Aztecs' cities provide 4x treasure when you capture them.



• Your mother country's government can try to control your economy by imposing a tariff, or a tax on your goods, giving you the opportunity to either obey it or resist, a move which could lead the government to stop accepting imports of that resource from your colonies. Similarly, consistenly resisting your mother country will lead to increased troop presence in the colonies and potentially higher taxes, limiting your profits.
• Diplomacy with both other colonists and natives is possible, including the ability to trade and form treaties. In the beginning, relations start out favorable, but if you try to expand, relations, especially with the natives, will grow more tense.
• The diplomatic bargaining table now employs drag-and-drop trading, meaning you can drag items to trade instead of clicking on items individually as in Civ4. This aims to speed up diplomacy and make it more fluid.

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Civilizations and Leaders

The are four different civilizations in Colonization, each with their own particular focus. This emphasis gives a special bonus to each civilization that allows them to succeed in unique ways, allowing them to produce things faster or stabilize their economy. In addition, each civilization is led by two historical figures who had an influential role during this time period. Leaders have a trait that is common to the civilization and shared by that country's leaders in addition to a unique ability. In the following table, you can see the information associated with each civilization.

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Units and Combat

• "Master" units, like master scouts or master tobacco farmers, get bonuses compared to regular units which can be formed by assigning a colonist to become a certain occupation or profession. The natives can even upgrade your units to types that cannot be recruited from the Old World, like master sugar farmer, making relations with the natives more important. However, any unit has the potential to be upgrade into any other type of unit. Maintaining similar types of professions, however, is more effective. Natives can even be converted and given professions or be made soldiers.
• Using veteran soldiers, instead of ordinary colonists assigned to fight, in combat provides a bonus of 10% to their strength and allows them to gain experience at a faster rate.
• Privateers, a type of naval unit, allow players to engage opponents on the seas without formally declaring war. In fact, because these ships do not carry the flag of their owner, the enemy will not even know which country attacked them! This can be a lucrative business that directly undermines the competing colonies.
• Training units in the New World, as opposed to recruiting them from the Old World with profits obtained from selling goods and manufactures, will be more time-consuming. Sending units to schools and college as a way of specializing your workforce can increase productivity. You must first establish the necessary infrastructure and improvements before building your own units in the colonies.
• Once you declare your independence, you will face an onslaught of units from your mother country and must fight them in order to defend your freedom. These foreign troops will be stronger and better trained, meaning you must consciously focus on building up your defenses before taking the plunge and separating from the homeland.
• Known units include: pioneers, scouts, soldiers, dragoons, artillery, cannons, caravels, privateers, frigates, and various types of farmers. There are also numerous promotions, including ones not found in Civ4.
• In one preview's revolution, the mother country's force included 57 soldiers, 16 dragoons, 13 artillery, and 10 warships.

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City Management and Buildings

• Colonists can harvest raw resources and refine them in the colonies: cotton can become cloth and tobacco, which
  can be made into cigars for export. Similarly, blacksmiths can make tools from iron ore to create an independent supply of weapons and equipment.
• Attracting master workers (planters, blacksmiths, harvesters, etc.) from the Old World helps increase productivity and efficiency, as does upgrading buildings (say, from a Weaver's House to a Cloth Factory). However, recruiting experienced experts from the Old World is very costly and sometimes it is more wise to try to establish relations with the natives in order to acquire such skills.
• There are four ways to attract new colonists: collect a set number of food (for Normal game speed, 200), buy them from the Old World, convert natives using missionaries, or entice immigrants from the Old World by developing your churches and cathedrals (growing your production of the resource "Crosses").
• For the interface during a revolution, there is a display that indicates current friendly and enemy troop levels in cities, allowing you to easily see where your colonies are in dire need.
• You can assign a city's population to either work in the surrounding tiles, harvesting raw resources and materials, or in buildings and city improvements where those resources are manufactured into goods. Each building can be filled with a certain amount of workers.
• Known benefits of buildings include the following: docks allow more goods to be imported and exported, churches attract religious immigrants, and warehouses allow you to store a greater amount of goods.
• There are still various levels of automation to reduce micromanagement. For example, the placement of specialists and creation of trade routes can be handled by the computer, allowing you to focus on more interesting aspects.

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The Environment and World

• The world begins undiscovered as you start out on a lone caravel in the ocean. Similarly, the other civilizations also have their origins in a ship which must make landfall somewhere in order to found the first colony.
• Cultural borders only appear for the European colonies, and not natives. Instead, their settlements simply appear on the map on individual tiles without any extending influence. Additionally, there is no longer any limitation as to how close cities and settlements can be: they can be right next to each other on adjacent tiles!
• Both historical and randomly generated maps have been included. Random maps will mimic North and South America from pole to pole, including a narrow stretch similar to the Panama region, whereas historical maps will be accurately detailed. The premade historical maps are of the Northwest Passage, Western Hemisphere (normal and huge), and South America. Random map scripts include a New World one as well as a Caribbean script, a setting that produces a region filled with water and islands. The map size is similar to that of a normal Civ4 map.
• Resources, which play a key part in the game, form the basis of your economy. Known resources include tobacco, lumber, sugar, cotton, silver, furs, ore, and food.
• The lands surrounding your colonies may contain hidden treasures which you can load onto ships to return to the Old World. A key part of the game involves exploration of nearby territories to find resources that can be harvested for trade and profit.
• You can expand your colonies' borders by assigning citizens to the town hall, which will gradually result in an increased area of terrain under your control.

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Victory Conditions

• The overall goal of the game is to win independence from your mother country. This becomes a possibility once your "rebel sentiment" in your colonies is over 50%, something that can be achieved by maintaining a prosperous economy despite your mother country's attempts to interfere and control. As rebel sentiment increases, your citizens will become more efficient, work harder, and yield more bonuses, like creating guns.
• In order to official win, you must defeat the troops sent by your mother country to retain the colonies. At the same time, you are in a race against the other civilizations to declare and win your independence before them. The size of the opposing army will depend on how well you have treated your mother country: disobeying its commands and ignoring its orders will cause your homeland to be more resilient and forceful. In fact, you can even sink the enemy's navy as they approach your colonies, saving you the trouble of having to defeat the forces on land!
• The game lasts 300 turns, shorter than a typical Civ4 game. The first turn begins in 1492 AD, the year that Christopher Columbus discovered the New World.
• As in Civ4, there is an end-of-game replay screen that reviews the game from the very first turn to the last, pointing out significant events and the civilizations' expansion.

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Audio and Video

Previews

Many hands-on previews are available for Colonization from the major gaming sites. Below you can find links to them, as well as short excerpts, in chronological order.

• Fidgit - September 16th, 2008 - A series of hands-on game diaries in four parts: PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, and PART 4.
• Gamespot - September 12th, 2008 - "Civilization IV: Colonization is a strategy game more focused on trade and forging new alliances than it is about wiping out natives and competing colonies with musket fire."
• WorthPlaying - September 3rd, 2008 - "Powerful customization tools let you create exactly the game you want. The game tries to appeal to beginners with extensive tutorial tooltips and a Civilopedia that's packed with information about how different units and mechanics work."
• IGN - August 21st, 2008 - "Firaxis has provided us with the details on each faction, from the national monarch who plays a role in the game demanding taxes and tribute from his colony to the faction leaders, which you select to provide bonuses."
• Gamespy - August 21st, 2008 - "Much of the game involves this fascinating mercantile balancing act -- having the right people in the right places to produce the right commodities to generate fat profits on sales trips back to Europe."
• Gamespot - August 19th, 2008 - "If you're looking for a challenging Civ experience, Colonization is it. Management plays a much greater role than combat, and you can't simply fight your way to victory from the very beginning."
• PALGN - August 18th, 2008 - "The city management screens provide one of the more obvious points of difference. The left hand side of the screen is dedicated to a variety of specialist slots - furriers, blacksmiths, ministers of religion and rum distillers, to name just a few."
• IGN - August 15th, 2008 - "The New World map creates a landmass that stretches from pole-to-pole, much like North and South America. The Caribbean map eschews the big land mass and goes for large islands."
• JeuxVideo - August 14th, 2008 - This preview is only available in French.
• VideoGamer - August 14th, 2008 - "Governing the development of a new nation is no easy task, but the game does everything it can to make options and commands as simple as it can - with an emphasis on drag-and-drop for managing trades and assigning colonists to specific jobs."
• IGN - August 12th, 2008 - "As you could improve the cities in Civilization, you can improve your various colonies by building improvements. For example, a dock will allow you to import and export more goods, a church will lure more religious immigrants, a warehouse will let you stockpile greater amounts of goods, and more."
• Joystiq - July 29th, 2008 - "The city interface is also quite streamlined and appears intuitive, with players being able to take workers and easily move them to focus on things like trapping or other resource-gathering ventures for the city."
• GameSpy - July 18th, 2008 - "You have 300 turns to defeat your colonial masters, and if you're not prepared for this kind of brutal slugfest against a well-armed royal opponent, you'll lose the game."
• GameZone - July 18th, 2008 - "The maps, whether you pick a recognizable landscape or get a randomly generated map, are huge in size and the game grows in a very nice visceral manner."
• NZGamer - July 17th, 2008 - "Your relationship with your home land has also been bumped up, and should provide benefits and responsibilities not unlike those found in the latest Age of Empires. The game will also allow online multiplayer for up to four players."
• Shacknews - July 16th, 2008 - "With the revolution in full swing, the game's focus turns towards combat, allowing you to make full use of the war chest built up throughout the earlier years of your colonies and leverage the alliances and pacts made with other factions and native peoples."
• IGN - July 15th, 2008 - "There are now historical maps as well as randomly generated ones, so if you want to redo the American Revolution with a map of the United States you can."
• Gamespot - July 15th, 2008 - "Fortunately, declaring independence will at least help you to enlist the aid of the 52 founding fathers, who historically founded the Continental Congress to draft the Declaration of Independence."
• WorthPlaying - July 8th, 2008 - "When it's time to declare a revolution, you begin by declaring the principles of the new country you're trying to found. You aren't obligated to pattern your nation too closely after America."
• BigDownload - July 3rd, 2008 - "Properly evolving a friendly relationship with the Native Americans is also instrumental in getting them to voluntarily assimilate their land with yours, an effective method of blossoming your colony."
• 1UP - June 27th, 2008 - "If you designate a citizen to become a blacksmith while you're on a tile with some silver or other metal resource, you end up with a surplus of ore that can then be sold or converted into other commodities."
• AskMen - June 26th, 2008 - "How you deal with your monarch will affect the end game, since your goal is to eventually throw them off and establish independence form them."
• Gamespot - June 26th, 2008 - "Your resources include tobacco, lumber, sugar, cotton, furs, ore, and food, each important in increasing your population, building new structures, and researching new technologies and farming methods."
• IGN - June 26th, 2008 - "Your task is to build an economy that supplies you with goods that can be packed away on the sailing ship and sent back to your mother country, where those goods can be sold for gold and where you can
  recruit fresh new units, like missionaries, settlers, specialists, and soldiers."
• Gamespy - June 25th, 2008 - "A series of either/or questions pop up immediately after you declare independence, the collective results of which will comprise your nation's constitution."
• GamesRadar - June 24th, 2008 - "Worse, some braves defeated a soldier and stole his gun, making the battle much more difficult. They started raiding my colonies, killing colonists, and stealing goods."
• Gamasutra - June 9th, 2008 - "A 'complete reimagining' of the original Colonization, it again puts the player in the role of one of four European powers seeking to establish colonial dominance over the New World."
• WorthPlaying - June 9th, 2008 - "New features, such as a brand-new interface, improved diplomacy options and the included modding tools ensure that Colonization will be the next great title from gaming’s premier strategy game developer."

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Article Information and History

• The following sites were used as sources for information: Firaxis | Take-Two Interactive | 1UP | Apolyton | AskMen | BigDownload | Fidgit | Gamesutra | Gamespot | GameSpy | GamesRadar | GameZone | IGN | JeuxVideo | Joystiq | NZGamer | PALGN | ShackNews | VideoGamer | Worth Playing
• This article began construction on July 1st, 2008, and went public on July 11th, 2008.
• The last update came on September 21th, 2008.

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Related Links

Here are some links to other pages, at CivFanatics and elsewhere, that may be useful and worthwhile.

• Official Colonization Site @ 2K Games, the publisher's website, which contains information, screenshots, downloads, and other media.
• Civilization IV: Colonization forums, where you can discuss the game, its features, and your strategies and frustrations with fellow players.
• Colonization Gallery, home to various screenshots, game art, and interesting images, both officially-release and fan-created.
• Colonization @ Firaxis.com, the official page for Colonization at the developer's own website.

Civilization IV: Colonization Leaders

There are eight playable leaders in Colonization: two each for the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonies. Each leader has two traits, or characteristics that yield a special bonus. One of the traits is unique to that leader, and the other is shared by both leaders of a particular nation. For example, George Washington of the English colonies is Tolerant and Disciplined. John Adams, the other English leader, is also Tolerant, but instead of being Disciplined, he is Libertarian, a trait that no other leader has.

In addition to the leaders for European colonies, there are a few others: chiefs of native tribes and European kings. In total, there are eight different native tribes which inhabit the New World, each with their own leader and two traits, and four Kings, one for each European country.

Note: There are 20 leaders, all listed below, and the information on this page is accurate as of Colonization v1.00.

Image	Name	Trait 1	Trait 2
New England
	John Adams	Libertarian +25% Liberty Bells in all settlements	Tolerant -25% Crosses needed for immigration
	George Washington	Disciplined -50% soldier equipment required
New France
	Samuel de Champlain	Enterprising +100% native conversion rate from Missions	Cooperative Natives are more tolerant regarding territorial encroachment 50% less time needed living among natives to learn a new skill
	Louis de Buade de Frontenac	Militaristic Free promotion of Grenadier I for Mounted and Gunpowder Units
New Netherlands
	Adriaen van der Donck	Charismatic +100% time between requests for tax increases	Mercantile Market prices are less sensitive
	Peter Stuyvesant	Industrious +25% Hammers in all settlements
New Spain
	Simon Bolivar	Determined +100% effect of Liberty Bells on Rebel Sentiment	Conquistador +25% Strength in combat versus natives
	Jose de San Martin	Resourceful 50% less XP needed for promotions
Apache
	Mangas Coloradas	Impressionable +100% native conversion rate from Missions Free promotion of Grenadier I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Indulgent -50% cost of purchasing land Free promotion of Formation for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Arawak
	Agueybana	Impressionable +100% native conversion rate from Missions Free promotion of Grenadier I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Gracious +100% gold at first European contact Free promotion of Ranger I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Aztec
	Montezuma	Prosperous Yields +300% Treasure when settlements are captured Free promotion of Minuteman I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Gracious +100% gold at first European contact Free promotion of Ranger I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Cherokee
	Oconostota	Impressionable +100% native conversion rate from Missions Free promotion of Grenadier I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Gracious +100% gold at first European contact Free promotion of Ranger I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Inca
	Huayna Capac	Prosperous Yields +300% Treasure when settlements are captured Free promotion of Minuteman I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Mentor -50% time needed living among natives to learn a skill Free promotion of Mountaineer I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Iroquois
	Logan	Indulgent -50% cost of purchasing land Free promotion of Formation for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Mentor -50% time needed living among natives to learn a skill Free promotion of Mountaineer I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Sioux
	Sitting Bull	Impressionable +100% native conversion rate from Missions Free promotion of Grenadier I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Mentor -50% time needed living among natives to learn a skill Free promotion of Mountaineer I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
Tupi
	Cunhambebe	Prosperous Yields +100% Treasure when settlements are captured Free promotion of Minuteman I for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units	Indulgent -50% cost of purchasing land Free promotion of Formation for Mounted, Melee, and Gunpowder Units
England
	English King	none	none
France
	French King	none	none
The Netherlands
	Dutch King	none	none
Spain
	Spanish King	none	none

Civilization IV: Colonization Founding Fathers

In Colonization, Founding Fathers are historical figures who offer to join your colonies as you accumulate points in various categories: Military, Trade, Exploration, Religion, and Politics. For example, players receive Exploration points if they meet Native tribes, gaining extra points if they are the first European colony to do so. Similarly, building churches and cathedrals yields Religious points.

To view a complete breakdown of the points system, read this thread on the forums. When playing Colonization, you can access the Founding Fathers screen by pressing the keyboard shortcut F6, allowing you to see your current progress towards developing points. On this page, you can see a list of all available Founding Fathers, as well as their respective bonuses.

Note: There are 52 Founding Fathers, and the table below is updated as of Colonization v1.00.

Civilization IV: Colonization Units

Ultimately, all successful games of Colonization will end in combat, as your fledling colonies declare independence and fight to separate themselves from the European continent. Thus, you must maintain a sizeable army, potentially consisting of soldiers, cannons, and dragoons, and, if possible, a navy as well. Keep in mind that the Royal Expeditionary Force (REF), the term given to the soldiers sent by the King in Europe, can grow in size throughout the game, and so what may have been an adequate defense years ago could no longer ensure victory. The REF, however, lands at your shores in waves, making it more manageable to handle.

Units can be acquired in a variety of ways: the most straightforward, but also the most expensive, involves buying units directly from Europe for an amount of gold. While these troops may be more experienced, they also require an increasing amount of gold: that is, the second cannon you purchase costs more than the first. On the other hand, you can create units in the homeland at the cost of no gold, but rather resources. You need a stockpile of Guns (which can be manufactured from Tools in an Armory) to equip ordinary colonists into soldiers. Dragoons can also be created from Guns as well as Horses, offering a mounted alternative.

Note: The 41 units available in Colonization are detailed below, with their information accurate as of the game version 1.00.

Image	Name	Strength	Movement	Requires	Abilities
	Artillery	4	1	40 Tools 200 Hammers Armory / Magazine / Arsenal	Replaces Cannon Doesn't receive defensive bonuses +150% settlement attack +50% settlement defense Can bombard settlement defense (-20%/turn)
	Cannon	3	1	40 Tools 200 Hammers Armory / Magazine / Arsenal	Doesn't receive defensive bonuses +100% settlement attack +50% settlement defense Can bombard settlement defense (-12%/turn) Replaced by Artillery
	Caravel	3	3	30 Tools 100 Hammers Drydock	Cargo space: 2 Can only defend Chance to escape to Drydock or Shipyard after losing a battle
	Converted Native	0	1	-	Can only defend Can found a new settlement -1 production of Cloth, Coats, Rum, Cigars, Tools, Guns, Hammers, Liberty Bells, Crosses, Education +1 production of Food, Lumber, Silver, Cotton, Fur, Sugar, Tobacco, Ore, Horses
	Elder Statesman	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of Liberty Bells
	Expert Cotton Planter	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of Cotton
	Expert Farmer	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +3 production of food on land +2 food from bonus resources
	Expert Fisherman	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +3 production of food on water +2 food from bonus resources
	Expert Lumberjack	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of lumber
	Expert Ore Miner	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of ore
	Expert Silver Miner	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of silver
	Expert Sugar Planter	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of sugar
	Expert Tobacco Planter	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of tobacco
	Expert Trapper	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of fur
	Firebrand Preacher	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of crosses
	Free Colonist	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement Replaced by Native
	Frigate	8	5	200 Tools 200 Muskets 300 Hammers Shipyard	Can bombard settlement defense (-8%/turn)
	Galleon	5	3	100 Tools 300 Hammers Drydock	Cargo space: 6 Can only defend
	Great General	0	2	-	Can provide a one time 20 experience to units in the same tile. Grants free upgrades to the unit it attaches to.
	Hardy Pioneer	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement Improves the land 100% faster
	Indentured Servant	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement -1 production of Cloth, Coats, Rum, Cigars, Tools, Guns, Hammers, Liberty Bells, Crosses, Education
	Jesuit Missionary	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement Missions are 50% more effective
	Man-o-War	12	4	300 Tools 300 Muskets 400 Hammers	Replaces Ship of the Line Cargo space: 4 +50% vs.Frigate Can bombard settlement defense (-12%/turn)
	Master Blacksmith	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of tools
	Master Carpenter	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of hammer
	Master Distiller	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of rums
	Master Fur Trader	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of coats
	Master Gunsmith	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of guns
	Master Rancher	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of horses
	Master Tobacconist	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of cigars
	Master Weaver	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement +100% production of cloths
	Merchantman	4	4	60 Tools 200 Hammers Drydock	Cargo space: 4 Can only defend Chance to escape to Drydock or Shipyard after losing a battle
	Native	0	1	50 Hammers	Replaces free colonist Can found a new settlement +25% marsh attack +75% jungle attack +75% forest attack +50% light forest attack +1 production of fur +2 production of ore
	Petty Criminal	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement -2 production of Liberty Bells, Crosses, Education -1 production of Cloth, Coats, Rum, Cigars, Tools, Guns, Hammers
	Privateer	5	4	60 Tools 100 Muskets 200 Hammers Drydock	Cargo space: 2 Hidden nationality Can attack without declaring war Captures the cargo of defeated transports Starts with Navigation I
	Regular	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement Doesn't receive defensive bonuses +50% settlement attack Starts with Veteran I, Veteran II
	Seasoned Scout	0	1	-	Better results from ancient ruins Can found a new settlement
	Ship of the Line	8	4	300 Tools 300 Muskets 400 Hammers Shipyard	+50% vs.Frigate Can bombard settlement defense (-12%/turn) Replaced by Man-o-War
	Treasure	0	1	-	Can be transported by Galleon Can be exchanged for gold in Europe
	Veteran Soldier	0	1	-	Can found a new settlement Starts with Veteran I, Leadership
	Wagon Train	0	2	40 Hammers	Cargo space: 2 (carries goods)

Civilization IV: Colonization Professions

In Colonization, much of your population is made of Free Colonists.  However, when placed in a settlement, these colonists, as well as indentured servants, converted natives, and others, can take on any role available.  That is, colonists can take up one of the various professions in a settlement, from harvesting raw resources in nearby tiles to working in one of the many buildings that convert raw materials to finished goods.  Thus, there is a lot of flexibility in assigning roles to your colonists: one minute they can be focusing on mining silver from nearby mountains, and another minute they can distill sugar into rum.

With the right resources, these ordinary colonists can be turned into soldiers or dragoons to fight off the enemy, be it Europe or natives.  If a settlement has enough Guns resources (and potentially Horses, too, if you want to form a dragoon), you can convert previously-hard working colonists into soldiers in an instant.  To change the profession of any colonist while in the settlement screen, simply double-click the worker's icon and choose from the list of options.  Alternatively, you can drag-and-drop the colonist from one area of the screen to another.

Note: There are 30 professions available, all listed below, and the table is accurate as of Colonization v1.00.

Image	Profession	Role
Resource Professions
	Cotton Planter	Can harvest cotton from surrounding tiles
	Farmer	Can harvest food from surrounding land tiles
	Fisherman	Can collect food from surrounding sea tiles
	Fur Trapper	Can collect furs from surrounding tiles
	Lumberjack	Can collect lumber from surrounding tiles
	Ore Miner	Can mine ore from surrounding tiles
	Silver Miner	Can mine silver from surrounding tiles
	Sugar Planter	Can collect sugar from surrounding tiles
	Tobacco Planter	Can harvest tobacco from surrounding tiles
Building Professions
	Blacksmith	Can produce tools from ore
	Carpenter	Can produce hammers from lumber
	Cigar Maker	Can make cigars from tobacco
	Coat Maker	Can make coats from furs
	Distiller	Can make rum from sugar
	Gunsmith	Can produce guns from tools
	Preacher	Can produce crosses
	Rancher	Can produce horses from food
	Statesman	Can produce liberty bells
	Student	Can produce education points
	Weaver	Can produce cloth from cotton
Unit Professions
	Armed Brave	Available only to natives  Native can become an armed soldier
	Armed Mounted Brave	Available only to natives Native can become an armed soldier on horseback
	Brave	Available only to natives Serves as the default land unit
	Colonist	An unspecialized, defense-only unit
	Dragoon	Serves as the default mounted unit
	Missionary	Can establish missions in native settlements
	Mounted Brave	Available only to natives Native can become a mounted unit
	Pioneer	Can improve the surrounding lands
	Scout	Can explore surrounding lands on horseback
	Soldier	Serves as the default footsoldier

Civilization IV: Colonization Buildings

The various buildings in Colonization allow your colonists to take raw resources and produce finished goods for sale. This process, be it the conversion of ore to tools or tobacco to cigars, greatly enhances your profits, allowing your economy to grow even more. Unlike Civilization IV, buildings in Colonization require colonists to work inside them in order to produce goods: that is, unless you assign gunsmiths to an armory, tools will not be converted to guns on their own. Thus, you must manage the production of resources carefully, since a settlement requires a relatively high population in order to produce significant amounts of finished goods.

When you establish a settlement, you receive some buildings for free. However, by building more advanced structures, you will be able to produce more resources per turn. Most buildings have three levels, and keep in mind that the more advanced the building level, the more colonists that can work in it. Also, some buildings require Tools to finish construction, so having an ample supply of Tools (made from Ore or purchased from Europe) is a good idea.

Note: There are 39 buildings in total, and the table below divides buildings up by type and is accurate as of Colonization v1.00. The information under the "Requires" column assumes Normal game speed.

Image	Name	Capacity	Requires	Benefit
Guns
	Armory	2	100 Hammers	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Guns from 3 Tools per turn
	Magazine	3	350 Hammers 50 Tools Armory	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Guns from 6 Tools per turn
	Arsenal	3	900 Hammers 100 Tools Magazine Lumber Mill	+50% Guns production Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Guns from 6 Tools per turn Required to build Cannon
Tools
	Blacksmith's House	2	-	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Tools from 3 Ore per turn
	Blacksmith's Shop	3	150 Hammers 50 Tools Blacksmith's House	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Tools from 6 Ore per turn
	Ironworks	3	450 Hammers 100 Tools Blacksmith's Shop Lumber Mill	+50% Tools production Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Tools from 6 Ore per turn
Production
	Carpenter's Shop	2	-	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Hammers from 3 Lumber per turn
	Lumber Mill	3	150 Hammers 80 Tools	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Hammers from 6 Lumber per turn
Crosses
	Church	2	50 Hammers	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Crosses per turn
	Cathedral	3	150 Hammers 50 Tools Church	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Crosses per turn
Cigars
	Tobacconist's House	2	-	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Cigars from 3 Tobacco per turn
	Tobacconist's Shop	3	90 Hammers 50 Tools Tobacconist's House	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Cigars from 6 Tobacco per turn
	Cigar Factory	3	270 Hammers 100 Tools Tobacconist's Shop Lumber Mill	+50% Cigars production Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Cigars from 6 Tobacco per turn
Coats
	Fur Trader's House	2	-	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Coats from 3 Furs per turn
	Fur Trader's Post	3	90 Hammers 50 Tools Fur Trader's House	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Coats from 6 Furs per turn
	Coat Factory	3	270 Hammers 100 Tools Fur Trader's Post Lumber Mill	+50% Coats production Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Coats from 6 Furs per turn
Education
	Schoolhouse	2	50 Hammers	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Education per turn
	College	3	150 Hammers 50 Tools Schoolhouse	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Education per turn
	University	3	450 Hammers 100 Tools College Lumber Mill	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 12 Education per turn
Naval
	Dock	-	25 Hammers	+2 food on water tiles
	Drydock	-	75 Hammers 50 Tools Dock	+2 food on water tiles Required to build Caravel, Privateer, and Merchantman
	Shipyard	-	225 Hammers 100 Tools Drydock Lumber Mill	+2 food on water tiles Required to build Frigate and Ship of the Line
Defense
	Stockade	-	30 Hammers	+50% settlement defense
	Fort	-	90 Hammers 50 Tools Stockade	+50% settlement defense
	Fortress	-	270 Hammers 100 Tools Fort Lumber Mill	+50% settlement defense
Horses
	Stable	2	30 Hammers 50 Horses	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 2 Horses from 2 Food per turn
	Horse Pasture	2	20 Horses	Unique building for Natives Allows 2 colonists to each produce 2 Horses from 2 Food per turn +100% Horses production
	Ranch	3	90 Hammers 100 Horses Stable	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 4 Horses from 4 Food per turn
Liberty Bells
	Town Hall	3	-	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 3 Liberty Bells per turn
	Printing Press	-	60 Hammers 20 Tools	+50% Liberty Bell production
	Newspaper	-	180 Hammers 50 Tools Printing Press	+50% Liberty Bell production
Rum
	Rum Distiller's House	2	-	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Rum from 3 Sugar per turn
	Rum Distillery	3	90 Hammers 50 Tools Rum Distiller's House	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Rum from 6 Sugar per turn
	Rum Factory	3	270 Hammers 100 Tools Rum Distillery Lumber Mill	+50% Rum production Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Rum from 6 Sugar per turn
Cloth
	Weaver's House	2	-	Allows 2 colonists to each produce 3 Cloth from 3 Cotton per turn
	Weaver's Shop	3	90 Hammers 50 Tools Weaver's House	Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Cloth from 6 Cotton per turn
	Textile Mill	3	270 Hammers 100 Tools Weaver's Shop Lumber Mill	+50% Cloth production Allows 3 colonists to each produce 6 Cloth from 6 Cotton per turn
Storage
	Warehouse	-	30 Hammers	Allows 200 total units of each good to be stored
	Warehouse Expansion	-	90 Hammers 20 Tools Warehouse Lumber Mill	Allows 300 total units of each good to be stored Sells excess goods in Europe for 50% of their retail value

Civilization IV: Colonization Goods and Materials

Colonization is, at its core, a game that emphasizes resource production and management. Its economic system focuses on harvesting raw resources and converting them into finished goods: for example, putting weavers to work, turning abundunt cotton into more profitable cloth. These resources and goods can then be bought and sold in Europe and with the natives, creating an incentive for players to produce not only a large quantity of goods, but ones of high quality too.

Each city can contain its own supply of specific resources in its warehouse (the default amount of goods at Normal speed is 100 of each). As settlements produce goods, wagon trains can carry them to sea ports, where ships can transport them to Europe. The market, particularly for some items like silver, is sensitive to rapid fluctuations in supply, causing demand to drop if the market is flooded with an excess of one good: thus, a diverse economy focusing on finished products is destined to be the most profitable. The table below outlines the available resources and average prices.

Note: There are 16 resources that can be bought and sold. The "Requires" column indicates that some resources are needed to produce another (e.g. furs are needed to make coats). The "Sell/Buy" prices show the initial costs associated with selling and buying the item in Europe, respectively (that is, from the colonists' point of view; you get 19 gold per silver when you sell, and it costs 20 gold to buy 1 silver). These prices can fluctuate. The information below is accurate as of Colonization v1.00.

Image	Name	Requires	Sell	Buy
	Food	-	1-2	8-10
	Lumber	-	1	3-4
	Silver	-	19	20
	Cotton	-	3-5	5-7
	Fur	-	4-6	6-8
	Sugar	-	4-6	6-8
	Tobacco	-	3-5	5-7
	Ore	-	2-4	5-7
	Cloth	Cotton	8-12	9-13
	Coats	Fur	8-12	9-13
	Rum	Sugar	8-12	9-13
	Cigars	Tobacco	8-12	9-13
	Tools	Ore	1-2	2-3
	Guns	Tools	3-5	6-8
	Horses	-	1-2	2-3
	Trade Goods	-	1-2	2-3

In addition to goods that can be bought and sold at market, cities can also produce items that do not have a price value. These products are used in other game mechanics: Crosses for immigration, Liberty Bells for rebel sentiment, etc. There are 4 of these resources.

Image	Name	Associated Buildings	Use
	Crosses	Church, Cathedral	Increases the rate of immigration
	Education	Schoolhouse, College, University	Allows colonists to learn an advanced profession
	Hammers	Carpenter's Shop, Lumber Mill	Increases the rate of building construction
	Liberty Bells	Printing Press, Newspaper	Increases rebel sentiment