Starting Out
The beginning of the game is the most crucial point.
First of all, always start out as the Dutch, for as you
will see later, it is more important to have advantages
in funds and trade than in conquest, immigration, or
cooperation. Always begin colonizing on the South
American continent and the Caribbean. This has the best
resources, sugar and rum especially. The colonies should
always be right on the coast, so your ships have easy
access to the goods. If, for some reason, you have to
make a colony far inland,
make a road to the nearest coastal colony. When you make
colonies, always make sure they are defended by at least
one soldier or dragoon. Now, simply start producing
goods that are available, load them on to your
merchantman (you will have one if you started out as the
Dutch), and sell them in Europe. If you have followed my
advice so far, you should have at least 7,500 gold by
the year 1600!
Native Relations
First rule with the natives: Always remain in good
standing. It will never be necessary to burn an Indian
village if you play your cards right. When they ask for
food, always give it to them. When foreign colonial
powers attack them, defend the natives. This is all
because if you are in good standing with the Indians in
America, you can easily control the other colonial
powers, and the foreign powers are not exactly nice to
the Indians. When you arrive in an area where another
nation has settled, the natives you meet will usually be
very alarmed. If you want to weaken any other nation,
send in a missionary to the Indian villages around the
foreign colonies, and incite the Indians to attack the
other powers. However, never trade guns or horses to the
Indians! If you happen to annoy the Indians in the
slightest, they will use them against you. Now a regular
Indian brave unit might not be any trouble, but one
armed with guns, or riding on horses? This is definitely
a problem.
Foreign Powers
Handling relations with other nations is tricky, to say
the least. If you say something wrong, or don't donate
money to their church at a certain time, they might go
off on some holy war against you. I recommend always
staying at peace with other nations... publicly.
Privately, you can wage war against them, without them
ever knowing it, by making use of privateers. These
units are extremely useful, especially for disrupting
enemy shipping. They also have a variety of other uses,
including blockading ports,
transporting units, etc. Frigates are not a good
purchase, since by attacking another nation with one of
those, you are declaring war. It is also possible to
push back enemy nations without attacking them directly.
First find an enemy colony you want to get rid of. Then
blockade it with privateers by surrounding the colony in
question so no trade ships can get through. Then, land a
missionary, and incite the local natives to attack that
nation. Soon, the colony will either be abandoned or
heavily weakened. If it is just heavily weakened, you
might have to attack them directly once just to capture
the colony. Then you must quickly make peace with that
nation again.
The War for Independence
Before you declare independence, you must prepare your
colonies. First, you must make sure that you have a lot
of colonies, and that all are defended by at least one
soldier or dragoon (dragoons are much better). This is
to split up the main attack by your mother country. When
they land they will either have to split their force, or
concentrate a large number of forces on each
colony, and conquer one by one. Either way, they're in
trouble. If they split, you have an easier time
destroying them. If they concentrate their forces in a
large mass, then you can easily isolate them, and
surround them. The second thing you have to do is keep a
large amount of troops simply on land, and not base them
in any colony. You also must have some troops on
privateers as landing forces (now you start to get why
funds and trade are more important than any other skill;
the more forces you have, the better). You also must
know the correct time to declare independence. If you
declare too early, you may not be ready for the
onslaught of troops heading your way. If you declare too
late, then the enemy force will be overwhelming, since
so many troops have been added. When independence is
declared, and the initial troop landing has occurred,
then you must attack it with your land
army. Use your privateers to stop any more ships from
coming in with more troops, or at the very least, delay
them, so your troops can deal with wave after wave of
the enemy. Tactics are very important in these battles.
Don't just attack a mass of their troops with a mass of
your troops just by charging them. Remember, these
troops are probably better trained than yours. First,
outflank them, so they are attacked from several sides.
Then, wedge them, by charging their middle, and
splitting their army into two parts. Then, destroy the
isolated parts. Artillery can play a large part in
battles, but only for hit-and-run attacks. Artillery can
deal out some punishment, but it can't take very much.
Protect your artillery! It is very valuable in this war,
especially for taking back captured colonies.
There it is. If you follow these tips, you should be on
your way to creating a new nation in no time.
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