Overview
The true way to play civ 4 colonization
Introduction
I would like to introduce you to this amazing mod that I have found that has brought civ 4 colonization to life! This mod is called We The People and changes the whole game. It adds the ability to trade with Africa and Port Royal. You can now get slaves from Africa and Native Americans that work harder in some places but do poorly in other areas. There are tons more types of resources now, units, more colony nations you can play. There is also a domestic market, an economy within your own cities that your colonists will buy things depending on their specialization.
To download this mod, get it off of github [link]
General Info
This mod brings many additions to the table. Your cities once their borders expand can work work an extra tile out. Your cities have health and happiness which makes you think carefully on how many slaves you can place in a city or if you can even afford to have slaves in your city. Your cities have a sort of tier list on the type of buildings you can build and tier of building you can build. All cities have a city hall that must be upgraded once you create a settlement before you build other buildings and upgraded multiple times for others.
Now this mod adds more ways to play and options you might not have thought of.
Here are some examples:
You can sell extra ships you have now, but ships now take tools, rope, sail cloth and also sometimes guns, swords and cannon goods.
You now have a domestic market after certain buildings being built that can change your trading experience which makes me think natives are more useful for long term trade.
You can use 100 trade goods on a colonist to make them trader which means they are sortof like a missionary where you do a mission there but it brings treasure instead of converted natives.
Coastal ships now exist that are cheap ships that can trade along coasts but not travel to the old world.
Slaves can eventually become free citizens and no longer give negative health and happiness to a city.
Pretty interesting things right?
The Colonists
Here are your options of colonists, if you have played civ 4 colonization before you will notice some new nations and that they have different leader traits. I will briefly explain the colonies, each one having a choice of 2 leaders that share an extra (3rd) colony trait.
Danish: All ships have +1 movement, 10% chance colonists becomes specialist through hard work
– Jens Munk (Pirate King): This guy is your go to man if you want to dominate the seas with faster and stronger ships all around. Being able to turn hemp into rope and sails so you can make goods for making ships along with, tools, cannons and swords to take from the weak as soon as you can. Hard early game, good mid game, late game nightmare for everyone fighting you. Viable strategy to just destroy all ships during independence. Might not be viable to be pirate much early game, robbing from the poor isn’t profitable.
– Hans Egede: Mr. Egede is good at converting natives and gets immigrants 10% easier. He is really good at getting many colonists into specialists through school faster and colonists into specialists through working.
Dutch: lower max tax rate with less sensitive market, 10% more storage in cities
– Peter Stuyvesant: -10% tools and production needed for buildings. +25% better prices from bargaining and trade posts with a free market in all settlements. +25% storage in cities
– Adriaen Van Der Donck: +25% more bells in all cities, 20% more time between tax increases, 25% more education in all settlements. +50% chance colonists learn specialisms by hard work and -50% costs of training colonists in schools
English: 20% crosses produces, -33% crosses needed for immigration, 10% less cost of training colonists in schools
– George Washington: -10% XP needed for unit promotion, +100% great general emergency inside cultural borders, +10% strength for foot soldiers and artillery, -10% cost for recruiting units in Europe, -20% crowns (culture) needed for territorial expansion
– William Penn: +25% liberty bells in all cities, +30% production in all cities and 10% chance colonist learns specialty through hard work
French: Natives more tolerant towards territory encroachment, learn amount natives twice as fast, 10% better prices from bargaining and trade posts, natives like you a little bit more when they meet you (permanent I believe)
Samuel De Champlain: +200% conversion rate from missions, -10% needed for immigration, +10% better prices from bargaining and trade post, +1 food for each settlement and an additional food is given for each tier of town hall it has. -10% food needed for population growth
Louis De Frontenac: +50% great general emergence, -10% recruiting cost in Europe, -20% crowns needed for territory expansion, -10% XP needed for unit promotion, +20% great general emergence, +100% effect of revolutionary rate on rebel strength
Portuguese: 30% more gold on first contact with natives villages, -50% native land purchase, Pioneers work 10% faster
Martim Afonso De Sousa: -10%XP needed for unit promotion, +50% great general emergence, free skirimsher promotion to mounted, melee and gunpowder units. -10% production and tools needed for buildings.
Mem de sa: +10% strength for ships, +100% time between tax increases, -10% cost in native land purchasing
Russian: 15% combat bonus in cultural borders free promotion for gunpowder, mounted and melee units. -25% crowns (culture) needed to expand borders and -10% cost of pioneer actions
Ermak Timofeyevich (Land grabber expansionist): This guy is similar to Catherine the great from civ 4. -20% equipment required for military units with 10% more storage capacity in settlements. Pioneers work +50% faster with -50% cost of pioneer actions (total of 60%) with +10% chance for colonists specialty through hard work. Note that all colonists can do this, this leader just does it a bit better.
Aleksandr Baranov (Expansionist independent trader): A solid leader that has their liberty building give food with each tier while having -10% food needed for population growth. He gets 35% better bargaining prices and trade posts. He also gets a free market village in all settlements and +25% more storage in all settlements. This guy is a great self reliant leader than excels in really cheap trade when bargaining and can sustain large cities easier and earlier than most leaders.
Spanish: +20% more gold when villages are captured, -25% less unhappiness from slaves in cities, +25% vs natives and -10% crowns (culture) needed for territorial expansion. War based colony.
Simon Bolivar: +10% strength for foot soldiers and artillery, -20%XP needed for unit promotions, +70% great general emergence in borders. +100% effect on revolutionary rate on rebel strength.
Hernan Cortez: -10% cost for recruiting in Europe, -20% crowns needed for territory expansion, +50% great general emergence, +10% storage capacity in all cities, -20% equipment needed for cavalry, dragoon, colonial militia, town guard, and scout.
Swedish:+10% food in all settlements, -10% food needed for population growth, pioneers work +10% faster
Johan Risingh: +30% production in all cities, +20% colonists learn by hard work, pioneers work +50% faster, -50% cost of pioneer actions.
Johan Printz: +200% conversion rate from missions, -10% crosses needed for immigration, +20% time between tax increases, +25% education in all cities, +50% colonists learn through hard work, -50% cost for training colonists in schools
When you are nice to other colonists and they are pleased with you along with their king, when you declare independence their kings might try to help you out by selling you elite military or giving you units.
Goods and Materials
There are a ton of new resources that were added in this mod and i’m gonna go over the new ones with you mainly and the changes with the old ones The way I am going to write out the new ones are the unrefined resource first, the – signifying what the refined resource is of it.
The new ones-
Stone (needed to construct some buildings)
Hemp-Rope/Sails
Sheep-Wool-Refined Wool
Cows-Hide-Leather
Cocoa Leaves
Cocoa- Chocolate
Coffee beans- Coffee
Indigo-Indigo+cloth=colored clothes
Luxury good
Premium fur-Premium coats
Rock salt-Salt
Red Pepper-Spices
Barley-Beer
Grapes-Wine
Whale Fat-Train Oil
Premium Wood-Furniture
Gold
Gems (also pearls)
The old ones-
Ore-Tools/Swords-Guns/Cannons
Ore you will notice is a bit more valuable than what was in the vanilla game. Guns and tools you will notice are of much more valuable also. You can make tons of money if you are able to pump out guns and cannons but I doubt if it would be much better than selling another refined product that can be produced faster and easier and more abundantly. It might be a better use to gain control of the seas or conquer another colony or a tribe
Silver used to be able to be mined from any peak but now it is only from actual silver deposits. Peaks now provide a source of stone and ore.
Horses are waaaay more expensive and valuable that in vanilla.
Trade goods are sometimes more expensive too
Goods Strategies and Advice
Alright so the highest valued manufactured items are usually train oil, dyed clothes, premium furs, cannons and guns. These are of course are the big cheese, the ones that capitalizing on can make you some serious cash monies. Now after I have said this and you yourself notice this, don’t hyper focus on them because you might crash your market. It won’t feel good selling a good at 20 a pop to 10 a pop.
If you find the opportunity to capitalize on at least one of these goods, you certainly should. Just don’t make your entire economy reliant on it for long periods of time. Especially when your king starts taxing you.
The picture above shows a window on the right and displays the domestic market. Your king cannot tax this market so it is 100% profit for you that your colonists will buy. Sometimes it is a good idea to cap export at 20 or so for certain finished goods so that you colonists can buy them without tax. Fast easy money. Just remember you need a market building for your colonists to have access to it
When you start the game you aren’t gonna know everything that is around you but finding a good place that will have access to goods that you can refine and turn into a profit. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it is not always optimal to look for specific resources. You gotta be adaptable and not too picky.
I also want to recommend that you don’t try to make wide cities that try to do a little of everything because it can be more profitable to focus on a few and let your cities thrive through trade and moving resources between your cities. Maybe don’t make the city that is focused on food and making settlers and also farming tobacco that is shipped off to another city that rolls cigars to also ontop of that mine for ores+1, create tools+1, in order to make guns+1. You have three population right there that is holding your food city back, don’t do that. Those three colonists might be of better use in another city rich in ores that can ship to other cities.
Basically, specialized cities are profitable.
Early Game
You picked your leader and the first thing you are gonna do with your ship is to head west and find land
Your priorities in order
– Find a suitable place to settle (don’t get too picky, in your first 3-5 turns try to settle)
– Start collecting goods (pioneer can join or improve land, scout should always explore continent)
– Establish a plan (any goods better than none) if by deep forests, think coats. You can plant jungles and drain marshes, don’t think too hard on it.
– If you have some money left, sail to a nearby tribe and buy everything (except food, you can do that later. Not as profitable right now to sell to Africa) like furs and such. Look at the price they ask before you buy, don’t get ripped off
-sail to Europe and sell goods, pick up colonists if any and later in game bring goods back if needed
Now this cycle is repeated throughout the rest of the game as you expand. Eventually you will find it might be better to have a few moderate to big cities rather than many weak cities.
You will want to have at least 2 cities by turn ~50
Some advice is to take what the computer says is a good place to settle with some salt. Remember, YOU know better. The AI will also very often prioritize liberty bells. Be sure to place your colonists how you want to and lock them in. You can also emphasize what you want or really don’t want and the auto citizens will submit to that. Telling a settlement to autobuild is not always a good idea, they might ‘hurry production’ alot and drain your bank account really fast.
Your first building should almost always be a dock. You need it so you can fish off the coast and produce food. I recommend this building first if you will eventually be able to have access to a bonus food resource from the sea. If not, build the liberty bell building so that you may produce other important buildings. The liberty bell building is the tier level of your city and if you do not have a high enough liberty building then you will not be able to build things like a cigar factory (high tier cigar roller).
After you build the dock, then (or just the) liberty building you will decide what to build based on where you settled. As I said earlier, just go along with your plan you had in mind with the resources available.
Mid Game
By now you have your economy going and have a couple cities under your belt. You have ships doing trade routes taking exported goods each turn and you are making decent money.
Now the point of mid game is to get into end game and also keep other colonies out of midgame by harassing them with privateer (optional). You can take their cities or pay natives off to go to war with them if you are
You however are probably not going to be in a good position to do such things until late game unless you are very rich.
Do whatever you can to lower the max tax rate by accepting what the king wants in random events. maybe spend some gold to the arch bishop to get the king to like you more so you can get taxed less often.
Remember also to always have at least one military unit in all your cities or they will get upset and not make anything for some turns.
Your priorities:
– Maximize on your production of goods you make by building the buildings needed to make more
– Buy specialists to capitalize on production of goods in your economy
– Keeping happiness and health adequate in cities though buildings and doctors
– Expansion and exploration
End Game
During this stage you will have a strong economy that is supported by multiple resources with probably a main trading hub like your capital that ships off and stores most of your nation’s goods from most of your cities.
End game means you have three things: strong economy, well defending cities (tons of guns) and you have high rebel sentiment in your major cities.
You are actively trying to grow in power and break off from your king to win the game.
Depending on your economy setup, you need to find ways to gain colonists and equip them with guns in however you can. Maybe none of your settlements have great access to ores or are focused on other goods you can use gold to hurry the production in your settlement menu to create buildings you need and import ore from natives and Europe or Africa to create goods you need. You can also import whale fat cheaply and refine it into train oil and ship it back to Europe for a big profit.
Fighting your king might be hard but I will give some advice to help you be prepared for your final showdown.
First of all your king is most likely going to go for your capital or a weaker city near it, wherever you spawned in. He will not be attacking and gobbling up small cities super far away, that is very rare and doesn’t matter. So you knowing this should not spread your army out equality throughout all your cities because you will be vulnerable to the king’s deathball stack. Also do not get all super defensive and hide behind walls. Walls are only there to delay the attack of your cities a couple turns while you attack his units. Be offensive, defensive will make you lose. He will bomb your cities defense down. Another thing to remember is if you destroy all of his ships you can win because he cannot send units to you anymore. It is a strategy to build many ships or buy lots of them and then attack his ships one by one to slow down him throwing units at you until you kill his army or his ships.
Trading with Natives
Trading with natives are essential for you to get a foothold on the continent. The reason being is you can buy natural resources from them cheaply and sell them for double or triple the price that you bought them for. You can get great deals with them! But remember that sometimes they may not always understand the worth of an item and won’t give you a good deal. I would also like to give you advice on when they come to your settlements asking to trade you things they brought. Most of the time they will not give you a good deal when they or anyone brings and resource to you and tries to sell you something. This is because you are buying convenience and time. You must be sure to weigh your options and see if it is worth doing or not.
You can negotiate the price with natives to lower the price by a considerate amount but risk the chance of offending them and not being able to trade with them for a couple turns. This is for all deals, even paying them to attack another colony.
If you build a monastery beside a tribe or where they often walk by they have a chance of converting and also bringing you gifts more often.
Buying 100 goods and equipping a colonist makes them a trader. This means they can go to a native settlement and have a chance of setting up a trade post (works like a Christian mission) with them which provides treasure to you (usually worth 1000 gold). You can double click on colonists and buy equipment to make them a trader from the docks in Europe.
As your cities gain more and more colonists you might discover that the natives adjacent to your city will get upset with you, especially if you have more than one city and your borders have expanded. They will claim that you are threatening their way of life and might raid you. Eventually they may ask that you take their settlement (it turns to ruins when you accept) and they will migrate to their other tribe cities. This will make them much happier.
Be careful on who you trade guns and horses with. When you open that can of worms with your neighbors, it is going to be a lot harder to fight them. Selling far away or to Africa might be better
Trade with Europe
You will notice in the europe trade menu you can see your ships leaving europe and on their way to europe. The same is for all the markets. You will see your max tax rate and the rate you are currently being taxed on the top right of the screen. On the docks you will see immigrants ready to be taken to your colonies. You can purchase specialists but remember that all units you purchase from the buy unit screen becomes more expensive each purchase.
Trade with Africa
One of the first things you might notice about the African market is the different price and their high sell price for food. Selling them food is not a bad idea when you get fishing boats or are making an overabundance of food and want a quick buck. You can also buy slaves from Africa but they cannot settle, only join settlements. Be sure to look at both markets before you buy something from the open markets. Indians almost always sell everything they have at a lower price, don’t let your ships be idle when you could be making a profit selling in africa or eruope.
Trade with Port Royal
This is the city of pirates and thieves. Where everyone goes to evade the taxes from their king but suffer at a 20% tax rate. You can only travel to Port Royal with smuggling ships or privateers. You must create your own smuggle ships or get them through events to have them. You can buy privateers and can also buy them from Europe.
Your King and You
There he is. Big daddy telling you what you can and can’t do
It is to your best interest to try and appease your king for as long as possible for the success of your colony. You will get taxed less often and possibly have a lower max tax rate if you submit to him. He will also give you opportunities with instantly transporting slaves, colonists, governors and more useful colonists. If you have a bad relationship with him you should try and talk to the archbishop to put in a good word for you.
You do have the option to refuse the tax increase however it will cause you to never be able to sell that particular good to Europe (and I believe also Africa). Port Royal is independent from the taxes in Africa and Europe.
Usually the strategy is to appease the king as much as you can for as long as you can before you create enough rebel sentiment and have enough fire power to win the war of independence against your king. Asking him for military protection makes him unhappy and should only be done in emergency situations.
If you do rebel and reject the tax increase and have the party that bans a particular good, you can still sell that good in port royal. Just remember, you need privateer ships or smuggler ships to enter port royal. No other sort of ship can enter.
You can also always trade with other colonies and the natives and use the domestic market in your own cities to see what they would be willing to buy. Eventually the taxes may be so high you will get much more money from domestic markets than by selling to Europe.
Some leaders like in the Dutch colonies have a trait that lowers the max tax rate starting out. This might prove useful for long term trade.
Archbishop
This guy is super great and useful. You use him to manipulate your relationships with other colonies and your king by giving him a large sum of money. Increasing your relationship with your king will cause him to tax you less often and give you more opportunities from him. Sometimes the king will give you choices to decrease the max tax rate when you sell things on the market. The Archbishop will also sometimes ask you to go to war with certain Native American tribes or i believe also another colony. You will be rewarded for saying yes.
Resources
Helpful Vids
These videos help with knowing about the automatic trading system and gives some game play if you wanna see how the mod is
Tips
– You can combine treasures together up to 3000 of value
– Always try and buy any silver or gold from natives when you can since they sell it at a very low price
– ALT+S makes you place a label on a land plot that you can see to remember things and plan
– Don’t be afraid to go to war with other colonies, just be prepared and do espionage first (look to see how many military units they have first)
– Sometimes it can be more profitable to have a settlement focus on producing a few goods and materials rather than many
– To breed animals, you need at least 50 of that animal in the settlement first and the plot of land to be able to work on to breed the animals
– If you are going to be a pirate be a smart one: sitting beside a settlement might scare the ships off. Come in and strike and move around
– Protect your investments! On each settlement place a militia men on it or you might have unrest and rebellions in that city since they feel unprotected. Buy or build ships that can defend against pirates and other colonists. You will be pirated
– Founding fathers are very important and if you delay on political points, other colonies once they stay gaining liberty bells will steal the ones you want
– It is more profitable to trade, do missions and convert natives rather than wipe them out completely.
– Rejecting a founding father means you won’t have the opportunity to accept him again for the rest of the game
– Asking for military protection from your king makes him mad. Don’t do it unless you need a cheap unit to prevent yourself from being conquered
– Wild animals roam the lands and seas! Killing the land animals gives you gold. The animals can come into your borders and cause trouble, killing your pioneers and harassing cities.
– Having a hard time gathering up whale fat to create train oil? Speed up the process by getting a boat that travels to Europe with it’s one job being to buy whale fat and ship it to colonies
– Rename your ships so you don’t get confused with shipments. I for example will call my automated ships ‘ auto (cityname).(nickname) ‘ and my other ships various names to remember and keep organized
– Building all your cities ONLY on the coast seems like a great idea until independence day. Your king will bomb your cities to the moon with ships and easily take your cities. It is easier to fight guerilla warfare against them (fighting in rough terrain) because their units often don’t have defensive bonuses from terrain. This is not to say it can’t be done or to never do this, it should be planned in mid to late game on if this is viable in your situation
– The king is pretty good at taking cities but isn’t good at defending. Sometimes it might just be better to let him take the city and just take it back from him later
– Some natives are prone to be raiders and can attack you and steal your money without declaring war. Be wary of the raider leader trait