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unmerged(5487)

First Lieutenant
Aug 24, 2001
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I'll just bring up a few issues concerning colonization in GC scenario.

1. How to get maps?
It depends on what country you're playing, but declaring war on either Spain or Portugal early in the game is a possibility. By seizing the capitol you get all the maps that country has. That will save you for some work early in the game. You also get the maps by winning sea-battles, but that is much more random.
At the same time get the shipyard from Spain.

2. Colonists
Get a shipyard, and that'll give you one colonist per year.
Change religion to protestant and you'll get one more.
Colonial dynamics give France one colonist in 1560, so if you're playing France you could get 3 colonists a year by 1560.

3. Exploration
Once you get a conquistador, merge it with a cavalry army, then reorganize by seperating the infantry from the cavalry. The conquistador will remain with the cavalry, and the exploration goes much faster. Cavalry also deal very effiencently with natives.
Generally cavalry is a great advantage in all battles at least first half of the game. Even considering the costs of building cavalry you'll gain much more than you spend.

4. Colonization
Some use trading posts to secure land, but why don't go right away with a colony? It's a long game, and you're looking for long-term investments.
Make sure a conquistador is present in the province you colonize, and the precentage of succeeding increase dramatically. A rapid colonization is done with as many conquistadors as you have, just spread them out and send colonists and move on to the next province.
Colonize the coast to prevent others from colonizing provinces inland.

Controlling trading-centers are important, and many new ones emerge during the game: Ykon, Monterry, Zacatecas to mention a few on Americas west-coast. If you control the rich ones, you get plenty of income. Bangkok always gets a trading-center, so colonize Bangkok as soon as possible. Dehli has a very rich trading-center as well.
Once you get a trade-center, you might choose to build trading posts. But remember that the trading posts easily are destroyed during war.

Any comments?
 
Some additions only,

1) Winning naval battles will give you some "captured rutters". That may save you the effort of conquering a capital (not always feasible).

Trading centers. In my opinion they are often neglected. Some choose the "Autosend merchants" option, which is not necessarily the most efficient way. As in other areas, the AI can make big mistakes. Sometimes I would turn the "autosend" option on during wars, so I would have one thing less to worry about. Turned out that at the end of the war my situation had deteriorated markedly in that area, losing several monopolies that took me years to establish...
 
One more thing: you don't ALWAYS get CoTs in beforementioned provinces. Their locations vary quite a lot- so just hope for the best, don't count on it. Only hardcoded CoTs are ones in Anglia and Holland.

If you colonize a province with port, you can land explorers there- then they will increace chance of success similar to conquistadores. But you will have to have at least level 1 colony to use them.

Maps: early in the game the best way (unless you are playing Portugal or Spain) is exchanging them. You have fairly good relations with everyone and you can easily convince them to exchange then: east-west style. For example exhange your knowledge of Europe with Mameluks and recive maps of Perisia. Then exchange with Portugal (Spain, English, any nation that has maps). Exchange with Persia. Again same European powers. Then Sibir and Khanates. You'll get quite good overview of the world quite fast.

Ok, three things more
 
Originally posted by Mr.Motzfeldt
Bangkok always gets a trading-center, so colonize Bangkok as soon as possible

Nuh-uh.

The reason you always see Bangkok get a trading centre is because you always colonise Bangkok as soon as possible, not the other way around :D
 
Yup Heyesey is right... Mekong and Sulawesi get a CoT often cuz it is the only province colonized in the area. Not because it has this 'ALWAYS COT' option
 
Y'know BiB ... they are actually supposed to try and win. Otherwise they could have saved money and just bought a history book.
 
I still win blindfolded and with 2 hands behind my back without exploiting the game engine. This things really aren't a necessity.

Resemblance with history actually has not much to do with exploiting some errors in a PC game engine so I dunno why u drag that into this.
 
Bangkok as CoT

It's right, Bangkok doese't have an "always CoT" option, but anyway it's the richest province in the area. That fact make it worth colonizing early, and then you get your CoT.
 
I think, that when colonizing, you should try to build some cities close to each other. In my opinion a group of cities has a higher chance on getting a CoT. And it has an advantage in future colonial wars. Easier to defend and you can easier build a big army to burn all those foreign TP's.
Those tabacco-provinces in NA are a good example.
 
It is true however that certain provinces have a higher chance for a CoT popping up than others... The numbers can be found at Huszics page I think
 
Originally posted by BiB
The COT historical modifier which can be found in the province.Csv file.

And it can be quite easily modified-bye, bye Holland!!!!!:D :D

And yes, I have done that-but only because the constant appearance of that CoT didn't suit the mod. to the IGC I was working on.
 
Another question about CoT : in the game I'm playing when a new CoT appears, there are some provinces controlled by other countries (e.g. Holland, China, Japan) that send their money to that CoT, while others continue with their previous CoT (spanish, english or french). How does it work ? Distance doesn't seem to be the only reason.
 
Strength of the nation and the pattern of trade embargoes seems to be most of it-although it seems that a few CoTs are programmed to be stronger than others (Holland and the European ROTW v. ROTW ROTW phenomenon spring immediately to mind!)
 
Originally posted by BiB
That's the influence of religion.

England's Anglia CoT doesn't go critical though for a reformist England. Still, the religion difference makes a lot of sense for the rest of the world CoTs.

Venice is Europe's other super-strong CoT, within the confines of Europe that is.
 
Originally posted by BiB
The European ones are quite hardcoded though.

I know-that's why I've edited Holland's modifier so it won't appear in my latest tampered IGC. Eliminated the French one too-Flanders looks really good now!:)