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[Sonlirain]

So i recently bought Civ IV Complete edition containing Colonization.

Now while Civ IV was overshadowed by Civ V (unless you are running Civ 5 without all the expansion packs that return the mechanics of the older game and add more on top) Colonization still remains the premiere native american exploitation simulator colonization game.

The games goal is pretty straightforward.
As a colony you have to exploit the surrounding land and create goods to sell in the mainland.
The king who is an asshat will periodically ask you for money and raise tax (and sales are your main source of income) upto 99% turning your colony into modern day USA even without the need for a revolution or socialism.

Anyway the final goal is to liberate yourself from the mainland and form a new country and have to prepare for it by tending the seperatist sentiments and arming every man, child, woman and nearby native with guns. And of course win against the royal expeditionary force once you tell the crown you want to leave.

So with that in mind let's get down to buisness.

There are 4 nations availble to the player and they all have a specific strong side.

English - higher immigration (more people wait in europe for a chance join your colony.)
Dutch - Better at exporting goods (The king is less likely to tax you, goods detoriate in value far slower than usual and your ship has a bigger cargo hold)
Spanish - Better at dealing with the natives. (They start with a veteran soldier and get a bonus to attacking those trecherous natives)
French - Better at dealing with natives. (They start with a hardy pioneer who cna build title improvements much faster than regular pioneers and natives are friendlier towards them)

Additionally each nation has 2 leaders to pick from but htey all can be described simply by saying one is more economic focused and the other gives a military bonus.
here is the list with all 4 colonial leaders (you cna't play as the natives)
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/colonization/leaders?s=fe511629c9a6c6d25de0975cd88fd867

Since i want this to be a forum LP i'm going to let any interested B12'ers pick the nation, map and help with decision making along with general strategizing.
The first order of buisness is picking the map type and nation/leader of our future colony.

I already rambled about cons and pros of the leaders so lets keep it short with the maps.
We can either generate a new map based on the spoilered parameters below or just take the western hemisphere scenario that contains both americas and most isles on one huge map.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Map type:
A new World (continent with some isles)
Carribean (Mainly isles)

Size:
Random
Tiny
Small
Standard
Large
Huge

Sea Levels:
Random
Low
Medium
High.

Climate:
Random
Temperate
Tropical
Rocky

Era (we will keep it on discovery)

I will wait for a day or two to let anyone interested post his suggestions and we'll be on our merry way to the new world.

[Digital Hellhound]

Let's go with the Dutch and the Western Hemisphere scenario. Leader whoever.

[IronyOwl]

I'll second the Dutch, recommend... ah, damn... I guess Charismatic Dude Samuel.

For world let's do New World, Standard Size, Random for each of the others.

[Sonlirain]

And so it begins.
Playing as the Dutch on a standard randomized map.
Difficulty set to explorer (around average)

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First order of buisness: Find some land to settle on.

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It might be small but the crabs surrounding it will ensure it will support a healthy population that can be put to work turning raw materials into finished goods we can later export to Europe in the near'ish future.

I decided to continue exploring and found another isle. This one has a mountain. A pretty rare sight so close to the shore and a source of iron we will need later and silver we can sell to europe for a hefty profit.
Seconds later i'm greeted by the british.

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We don't want any trouble yet so we exchange some words and part ways.
Soon we meet our first natives.

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And again we leave in peace after a bit of exploring.
The english settle right next to the apache village and i decide to use my other settler to claim the nearby island with a mountain.
The water around it is rather poor for fishing but the town generates enough food for the miner and thats the main reason we built it anyway.
I Send my ship back to europe to pick up any new migrants.
We get one hardy pioneer (builds title improvements twice as fast). A perfect settler for early game altho i will have to find some more land to settle if he is to be used effectively.
So far the situation looks like this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I will likely bring back some trash from europe to trade with the Apaches on the next trip to Europe for more immigrants.
Also we might consider getting some firearms and selling them to the locals seeing how the english are literally a stone throw away from their village which is sure to spawn tensions in the longer run.

[IronyOwl]

Island savage empire is go.

Images are way too large, though. Might want to size tag them down.

[Sonlirain]

Well this is why i spoilered them so they don't mess with the page.
Also any smaller and any text on them would become hard to read imho.

[Sonlirain]

So we continue the story of out Dutch colony.
I sent the ship back to europe for more able bodies that could help in establishing a working colony and sell our linen ore silver and excess unprocessed cotton.
We had a scout waiting but i decided to put some money into rushing 3 additional settlers. A missionary, expert fisherman and rancher.

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The scout starts with horses we can use to start a ranch in our main city governed by the expert rnacher i hired along.
The missionary will bring us converted natives who have bonuses in outdoor activities like fur trapping and lumberjacking which will be useful sooner than later.
The fisherman is pretty much self explanatory.


50% shorter traveltimes to europe might not seem like much but with all the traveling done the saved turns quickly add up.
I disembark most of the settlers in our main town and drop the missionary along with one of my free settlers (Native villages can teach your "blank" free settlers a skill but will only do it once).
After a few years the settler becomes an expert farmer... quite useful as we have exacly 1 free farming slot on out main isle.
And a few years after him this dapper fellow shows up.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Converts fare better than regular colonists at outdoor tasks like lumberjacking fishing and trapping... and i need wood imported to my tiny isles to speed up construction of important structures like the ranch and armory.
However befre i can ferry him off that landmass my ship has to return from europe... and it ferries some rather important cargo.

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Loads of guns and shinies to sell to the locals. Since the Apache are right next to the english colony is only right that we supply them with some firepower and reap some monetary rewards while doing so. The 2 passangers consist of a slave and expert silver miner who will increase our silver extraction rates considerably.

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The chief is more than happy about playing well over double what he paid for those gunss in europe.
Not long after the trade we get our first founding father joinung us.

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He might not seem to be the the most amazing but -50% to travel time to and from europe is pretty handy. Especailly this early into the game.
I find some suitable land for wod chopping not far south of my current positionand deliver my converted settler in order to start a new colony.
The greedy locals of course wanted their share so i gladly paid them off and began extracting wood and furs from the nearby forests

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And it bagins... the monarch starts throwing taxes down like a madman.

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But i just had to defy him at least once.

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Let's be honest. If a game let's you say "It's time for [cityname] Guns party!" you have to pick that option... altho i have a feeling i shot myself in the foot with that one because while selling is not a big deal i really would like to buy more guns from europe... oh well we will soon finish building our own armory and then we will start making our own guns. With blackjack and other fun things!

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5 years... i kid you not. This guy is relentless.

I bought a Caravel back in europe and set up some automatic trade routes for hassle free cargo transportation. Mainly importing silver tools fur and lumber to New Amsterdam for further processing or sale.
Current situation:

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I hope the resizing works as it should.

[IronyOwl]

Guns party woooo!

Images could stand to be a bit larger, I think.

Very pleased at our island empire, though it's a shame we haven't been able to explore much. How much are second caravels again?

[Sonlirain]

Well i cna click on the images to maximize them. I guess you can too but it might vary from browser to browser..
Caravels are 1000 gold each.
I'll get on to exploring more once i start gun production. I think its 12 turns before teh armory in amsterdam is complete and we can start making guns.

[IronyOwl]

Ooh, that might be a good investment then. Depending on if we need anything in particular in the way of new settlements, of course.

But yeah, the issue with clicking on them to bring them back to full is the same as having them full in the first place: The scroll bar is at the bottom of the post, not the image or the spoiler. It's workable, but as you predicted I can't read the text at normal size and it's unwieldy at original size.

[Powder Miner]

You got a portuguese guy as a founding father for the dutch?

[IronyOwl]

Founding fathers aren't civ-specific. Whoever nabs them first gets them.

[Sonlirain]

Everyone knows that portugal never even went near the western hemisphere!
(no really they were totally omitted in the old game and they are not present here as well)
Also note that i have a french leader while playing the Dutch.
As for the posts... maybe then right clicking and opening the image in a seperate tab would work?
Well at least on Firefox and Chrome. No idea if it would work right on other browsers.

[Sonlirain]

New update. Not much and at the same time a lot is happening today.
First of all i went ahead with exploring and met some people here and there.

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As you can see on the screenshot above most of the Apache villages got exterminated by the british. The only surviving native villages Are the one with my missionary (attacking it would lead to war) and south of my "lumbercamp" town. (apparently too far for the english to bother or know about)

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The english are starting to generate liberty bells and will likely be trying to gain independence before us (and that kinda makes us the losers)
This means we must undertake drastic measures to not get left behind (too much) so i started buying expert gunsmiths ore miners and soldiers.

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Our current military situation looks rather bleak compared to the expedition our homeland will send after us if we decide to seperate.

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Worse still the continents biggest landmass is mostly taken up by the english and hard terrain is one of the expeditionary forcess main weakness.
My main hope now lies in our chance to build a giant navy and hopefully never allow the british forces to land in the first place. This however will require our navy to be at least double the size of the expeditionary force navy due to them having man'o'wars.
Our main town is slowly turning into an island fortress as schools train another gunsmith some fishermen and a train every free citizen petty criminal and slave i can afford into a trained soldier.
At the same time i build printing presses and turn my "lumber camp" colony down southwest into an ore mining colony by chopping down most of the tundra and leaving just one forest title for the expert lumberjack to work on so we can generate hammers for construction however the british do not plan on waiting for me and allow any catching up to happen.

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And then there is our good ol king as reliable as ever constantly asking for money and raising taxes every other turn.

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Our current needs and tactics:
- Train as many people as we can into veteran soldiers.
- Have at least 2 ships of the line per royal expeditionary force Man'o'war.
- Increase our liberty bell generation to hopefully get on par with the english. Will likely need to hire an elder statesman and train more at the collage for this to work out due to our high population density.

[Sonlirain]

Well this will be a rather anticlimactic final update.
I took to exploring a bit and met several tribes but didn't profit much.
I even started making Ships of the line when it hit me... I WAS TARDY.
As in VERY tardy and left behind in the race for rebel sentiment... because you see even with a newspaper school and 3 elder statesmen my towns couldn't get enough liberty bells to go over 50% (and allow me to win or at least attempt winning).

So what happened?

When the 100 turn timer went on i just let the game do its thing and once new spain rebelled i sent my 5 warships to keep tabs on the how the expeditionary force fares with the rebels.

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As you can see John Adams of the spanish colonies led his people to independence.

So what did i learn from this playthrough?

1 - One colony on an island is more than enough the rest should be placed inland and busy making merchendise to sell back to europe.
2 - Giant towns have problems with generating rebel sentiment meaning that setting up a single "factory" colony is not as smart as i thought when starting the game.
3 - It's not a good idea to put ALL of your colonies on isles as you need more land to produce anything valuable.
4 - Think about liberty bells sooner dammit!
5 - Expeditionary forces have difficulty fighting inland... so get more colonies inland unlike me who kept them on a series of tiny islands.