Colonization Rampage!

Intro: I played a bunch of games of colo-cool.  I have played the game so many times, I decided to spice it up.  I made up my own rules to add an extra challenge.  I have attached some of the pictures and SAV files also.

Solo Man: Never return to Europe to sell/buy cargo or pick up immigrants.

Setting up.

Large land mass for lots of exploring, dry not wet, so you don't waste tools cutting trees.  Choose the Spanish or the Dutch.  The English bonus will not help at all.  The Ducth might be an especially good choice since they start with a merchant ship with 4 cargo holds.  You don't come by other ships very often.

Overall

You can have lots of tea parties to keep your tax rate down.  You are not trading with your European port anyway.

Sometimes, the king will offer you a frigate if your ports are being harassed by other Europeans.

Almost always use the specialty of the colonist that you have.  (distiller making rum instead of pioneering)

Hit Esc if the founding father you need is not in the list.  Better waste 1 turn of liberty bells than many turns on a father you do not need.

If you can make some big money by exploring, you can get offers to buy mercenaries.  This will help a LOT.

Very first thing

Make a colony with your pioneer right away and start making liberty bells.
Take your soldier to a European colony and take it over.  (hopefully an unarmed colony).  You might get horses or extra guns in this way.

Make as many small colonies as you can and try to keep peace with neighbors since you only have 1 soldier.

In the beginning.

The MOST important thing is to get horses, guns, cannons, food, and liberty bells early on.

You need horses to make dragoons and scouts.  The scout will help you get money by visiting Indian tribes.  Get Jan DeWitt early on so you can trade with Europeans to get horses.  You might be able to get horses from tribes such as the tupi.

LIBERTY BELLS: put a colonist in the state house.  It is much faster to get founding fathers early in the game.  Make lots of small colonies to take advantage of the free liberty bell.  Get your rebel percentage over 50% to gain the prod bonus and even more bells!

Build a blacksmith shop, armory and a town near a good ore source.  You will need to constantly make guns.  Never stop.

Send out your colonists to learn how to be farmers, fishermen, and ore miners from the Indians.  Then build a school house and train your own.

Make towns with lots of food production.  This is one of the few ways of getting more colonists.

Visit all 'rumor' sites early on even if you don't have (Fransico Coronodo????????).  Sometimes they give you colonists which you will need right away.

Do not isolate your self.  I made this mistake.  I started all my colonies near the pacific so I could get money from the Aztecs.  This prevented me from trading efficiently with the Europeans and conquering them.

Build a church, make a missionary, establish a mission, and then conquer that tribe to get converts.

Get Ben Franklin.  I kept getting attacked by the Dutch who had a much bigger military than me.

Getting attacked by a European power is actually a good thing if you have 3 extra dragoons.  You can usually kill 1 enemy dragoon a turn which will give you 1 colonist per turn.  That's faster than any other way of getting colonists, especially 'growing' them.

Get ??????????? early on so you can get the custom house.  Then you can start selling your goods easily (to make up for your lacking merchant marine)

In the Middle

Conquer other colonies.  This is the only way to get statesmen, blacksmiths, lumberjacks, gun-makers.

Get George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Simon Bolivar who gives you 20% minimum rebel support.

Build a college and university to train more statesmen.  (Get statesmen from conquest)

In the end

Take canons out of forts since the expeditionary force's man-o-wars will just destroy them.

Place dragoons in cities to get the upgrade to continental cavalry.

Then place cav in the fields, forcing the kings men to land on mountains and forests where you have a terrain bonus.

other/vids/COLONY00.SAV

other/vids/COLONY02.SAV

other/vids/COLONY03.SAV

other/vids/COLONY04.SAV

Solo Man 2

Here is solo man 2.  I used my above cheat sheet to really get big fast.

other/vids/soloman2.sav

Tough man

Here is a game where I did hard mode.  That's it.  I was allowed to go to Europe.  I did pretty well.  My perfectionism is gone, but who cares, because I'm still having fun.  I was trying to go for making a lot of money which I did.  I never sold any muskets, but I think I would start too.

War Man

Always be at war with everyone!

Speed Man

This game was Speedy Gonzales.  I wanted to declare independence in 1599.  It was quite a challenge to declare so early.  The only way to do it was to 'subjugate' the native tribes.  That was the only way to get enough money to buy statesmen and newspapers.

Another thing I did was not clear any forest where the royal expeditionary force would land.  That way I am guaranteed to get the terrain bonus.