Some things I've learned

[MikeV]

I haven't made all that much progress at learning the game (like everyone else, too busy playing entomologist ). But I have learned a few things:

• The early game, for naval powers, is a race to the trade spots. You have to spend the first few years spamming trade fleets and sending them right to the 4 zones. You can't get them all, every zone has at least one of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, or Indian traders already there, but you can get quite a few. Trade earns more $$$ than local industry, and money makes the world go 'round.
• You can add several trade fleets (in the same stack) on a trade spot, and earn more from each. It's a diminishing return, however, so 3-4 per spot seems to be it.
• Keep a battle-worthy fleet near each zone, though. When wars break out, your opponent loves to park on the trade link leading from the adjacent zone and choke off your income. (Of course, you can do the same to them! )
• Check your ministers. At least one starts with, or acquires, negative modifiers. Boot 'em!
• At the start, make as many alliances and trade agreements as you can. Update as needed. When an ally goes to war, at least you get the choice about whether to get involved. Plus, you learn about who's fighting whom.
• Winning the tech race: whether through growth or conquest, try to develop more Schools in towns (even if you have to demolish a few Pleasure Palaces to do it ). You can have more than one active line of research in the Tech Tree. Obviously, a University with 3-4 Gentlemen (adding more than that doesn't seem to help much, diminishing returns again) stacked in it can research the advanced techs more quickly than a little School, but the issue is opportunity cost: finishing 4 techs sooner, in parallel, gets you much further ahead than finishing them serially.
• Pay attention to the interplay of key buildings and the Tech Tree. Remember to build the next level of metal working or weaver to unlock the next level of industrial research in time.
• Spies ("Rakes") do gain experience and skill with successful missions, but it's much slower than previously.
• Detached Sloops are very handy. They go faster/further than the other types, so they make great advance scouts and troop taxis. In the latter role, though, don't leave them unprotected. Have a "heavy" battle fleet, commanded by an Admiral, nearby.
• "Nearby" means either stacked with, or within that fleet's Red ZOC, so it can participate in any battle the opposition provokes.
• It's faster to sail your fleet into an unoccupied enemy port and unload troops there: they can move the same turn (unlike the beach landing, where they're done for the turn). It ain't 1940 Blitzkrieg, but it gets the siege started that much sooner.
• Conversely, remember to garrison your own ports when there are enemy fleets around. Prevents them pulling the same tactic on you.
• Military campaigns take patience, and pacing (which is appropriate for this time period, and much more "realistic" than previous versions). Immediately after capturing a region, there's unrest (Letter of Demand, Worker Strike). Left unchecked, these develop into full-blown Rebellions, especially in regions with 100% dissimilar Religion. So, you have to stay put for at least one turn (or go back and fight the rebels) before advancing onto the next one. You have to repair things, anyway, and it's also a good time to use the little '+' widget to replenish your units (expensive, but quicker than shipping in whole new units from home).
• I haven't had the luxury of being able to attack a bunch of regions simultaneously, to end a war quickly. Typically, there's at least one active war in each Theater, and just enough fleets and armies for each. Theaters are too far apart for even fleets to offer mutual support. So, each war turns into sequential region conquests. Also, start sending reinforcements early, because they'll take a few turns to arrive, to sustain the drive.
• Go over each Town, Port, and improvement in a newly-conquered region. Sometimes, you'll want to tear down and replace it with something that better fits your overall strategy (such as converting a Shipyard to a Trading port, if you've already got a good Shipyard near enough in that Theater).

One last note: I've learned that this site is a better one than twcenter.net. The latter is strictly for n00bs and fanboys -- the moderators take their jobs as Thought Police gestapo waay too seriously, deleting and moving posts with great enthusiasm. Any substantive criticism is deleted. Any references to them deleting posts is deleted. Only posts adhering strictly to the Party line survive. Cleverly, however, they also leave posts complaining about unimportant details, like wrong color uniforms or overlooking some obscure person from history. It leaves the impression (to the uninformed, like fanzine editors or E3 award voters) that the game is great and only clueless whiners have any problems with it. If you want the truth, read here.

[Jason X]

nice post.

twcenter does my head in - but it's miles better than the yuku forum. this place is much more civilised than either.

[Hooahguy]

the yuku forum is a bunch of people who post things like "CA suxz" and "bernie madoff is the CEO of CA!" and other rants.
that was pretty much it for the first week or so.
and if you disagree with them you are labelled "dumb" and a "fanboi"

i was labelled as a "con mans wet dream"

but dont get me wrong. most of the older people there are good folks. just the new guys who just come to rant.

[MrWhipple]

Great post! I am just getting cranked up and it is a lot of help. Thanx for the tips.

[TB666]

One last note: I've learned that this site is a better one than twcenter.net. The latter is strictly for n00bs and fanboys -- the moderators take their jobs as Thought Police gestapo waay too seriously, deleting and moving posts with great enthusiasm. Any substantive criticism is deleted. Any references to them deleting posts is deleted. Only posts adhering strictly to the Party line survive. Cleverly, however, they also leave posts complaining about unimportant details, like wrong color uniforms or overlooking some obscure person from history. It leaves the impression (to the uninformed, like fanzine editors or E3 award voters) that the game is great and only clueless whiners have any problems with it. If you want the truth, read here.

The .org has the same rules at the TWcenter.
Only problem is that people banned from the offical forums generally move over to TWcenter.
The moderators got their work cut out for them, having to deal with a huge influx of new members, most of which don't add anything but making the same threads over and over again complaining about bugs or what not when there is already a thread that deals with bugs or rants.
So new threads usually get merged with the proper ones if they add to the thread, if not then they get closed and deleted.

Criticism is allowed of course and the posts will not get deleted unless it's off-topic or is CA-bashing.
If your post got deleted then it's no doubt because it fitted into those rules.
If anything TWC makes the game look bad judging from the posts in the forums.
Again the .org isn't much different the TWC when it comes to rules. However the .org is lucky that it doesn't get the people banned from the offical so things are more quiet here.

[antisocialmunky]

Why TB666, That just makes we want to troll it. :-D

For what its worth, I'm glad we have a quiet corner of the internet.

[Gaiseric]

Good gameplay tips

I think that the .org has more mature members then twc. The topics and posts are well thought out and there are much better discussions, good for reading and posting your own comments. I have about the same number of posts at both sites but I like the .org better. I wish the .org did have more mod content though.

[quadalpha]

About guarding your ports: no one has seen the AI make an amphibious attack yet, but it is useful to not have to repair the thing.

[Conyo]

I always visit the .org for info and the TWC for mods.

[andrewt]

I suggest repairing newly conquered regions ASAP, preferably during the turn you conquered it. The AI, like me, always has an observatory up on regions that can build it. That's 4% research and +2 to happiness. Repairing the main building always adds 1-4 repression which is helpful.

[Furunculus]

useful tips, cheers.

[Babblearossa]

Thanks! I play so slowly and that manual is so utterly bereft of useful info this was helpful. I'm still lost on a great many points but the guides section is hotting up a bit finally.

[Darth Venom]

I suggest repairing newly conquered regions ASAP, preferably during the turn you conquered it. The AI, like me, always has an observatory up on regions that can build it. That's 4% research and +2 to happiness. Repairing the main building always adds 1-4 repression which is helpful.

Speaking of the 4% research bonus. Does anyone know of that is global or province specific? If it is the latter observatories would be the worse choice in most provinces than their alternative (have forgotten the name..).

[Haudegen]

Speaking of the 4% research bonus. Does anyone know of that is global or province specific? If it is the latter observatories would be the worse choice in most provinces than their alternative (have forgotten the name..).

I think it´s global. For testing purposes I have just removed all four Observatories in my empire and as a result the the research times increased a little bit. And my only two research facilities were both in my starting province.

[Darth Venom]

Cheers, that's good to know.

[MikeV]

Criticism is allowed of course and the posts will not get deleted unless it's off-topic or is CA-bashing.
If your post got deleted then it's no doubt because it fitted into those rules.

Not true, or I wouldn't have made the comment.

[MikeV]

About guarding your ports: no one has seen the AI make an amphibious attack yet, but it is useful to not have to repair the thing.

I have seen fleets sent to attack ports quite often, so it's almost there. One of the things holding it back may be the various bugs we've all seen in the land unit unloading ...

[MikeV]

I suggest repairing newly conquered regions ASAP, preferably during the turn you conquered it. The AI, like me, always has an observatory up on regions that can build it. That's 4% research and +2 to happiness. Repairing the main building always adds 1-4 repression which is helpful.

I agree: damaged buildings contribute to worker strikes and open Rebellions. So, 1st priority is repairing the damage, 2nd is replenishing the troops.

I've taken to doing the following: developing extra towns (not farms/mines/resource sites) in this order:

1. Religious building
2. Economic buildings

I tend not to build more Happiness or Research buildings, because each faction's capital starts with one of each, and I keep the ones gained via conquest.

Upon conquest, if the region has a different religion, their Religious building is torched and next turn replaced with one of the True Faith. If the region doesn't have a Religious building, but has a town, then the existing town building is torched and replaced. Having a missionary travel alongside an army advancing into territory of a different religion is A Good Thing™.

I only replace the Religious building in a region after it reaches 100% of the state religion, usually with an Economic one. Ca$h is king.

[MikeV]

• ...
• Military campaigns take patience, and pacing (which is appropriate for this time period, and much more "realistic" than previous versions). Immediately after capturing a region, there's unrest (Letter of Demand, Worker Strike). Left unchecked, these develop into full-blown Rebellions, especially in regions with 100% dissimilar Religion. So, you have to stay put for at least one turn (or go back and fight the rebels) before advancing onto the next one. You have to repair things, anyway, and it's also a good time to use the little '+' widget to replenish your units (expensive, but quicker than shipping in whole new units from home).
  ...

One other idea, to help sustain the advance: follow the main assault force with units only intended to garrison the newly-conquered region capitals. That way, you don't waste turns waiting for the unrest to subside (giving the opposing force time to recruit in their remaining regions).

[MikeV]

I think it´s global. For testing purposes I have just removed all four Observatories in my empire and as a result the the research times increased a little bit. And my only two research facilities were both in my starting province.

It's worth re-testing: try removing all the Observatories except the one in your home Capital. It would be good to know if it is the only one that provides the global bonus.

[TB666]

Not true, or I wouldn't have made the comment.

*looks at TWC* Check again.
Unless you count CA bashing as among your "substantive criticism" then you wont find that freedom here either.

[Haudegen]

It's worth re-testing: try removing all the Observatories except the one in your home Capital. It would be good to know if it is the only one that provides the global bonus.

Ok,

1. the estimated time for the research of "Abolition of Slavery" was 9 turns in my best university in my home province.
2. I removed all Observatories (~ 8 or 9) except the one in my capital
3. the estimated time jumps from 9 to 12 turns.

q. e. d.

[Kulgan]

Apart from the % research bonus your obersatories also spawn gentlemen and allow more gentlemen so that's two times a research bonus. I don't see a viable use for the other building you can build ( opera something ) before you finished the tech tree.

[Slaists]

good post. i picked up a thing or two :)

[katank]

As for the trade spot race thing, be sure to send your regular military ships there as well. Even though they don't generate trade, parking one there denies it to your rivals. Many nations have substantial fleets of sloops and brigs early on which can be put to good use this way. Simply replace those with real trade ships when you get a chance.

[MikeV]

Ok,

1. the estimated time for the research of "Abolition of Slavery" was 9 turns in my best university in my home province.
2. I removed all Observatories (~ 8 or 9) except the one in my capital
3. the estimated time jumps from 9 to 12 turns.

q. e. d.

Thanks!

[MikeV]

Apart from the % research bonus your obersatories also spawn gentlemen and allow more gentlemen so that's two times a research bonus. I don't see a viable use for the other building you can build ( opera something ) before you finished the tech tree.

Agreed -- that's the approach I'm using, too.

[MikeV]

It seems that the global map topology, and the descriptions on the strat map, are a bit misleading about the naval "teleport" zones (those rectangular trampoline thingies at the edges of the map).

They are not single-edge connections, but all hyper-linked together in some (undocumented) way. That is, it does not matter which teleport you use, you can sail your fleet to any other theater or trade zone from it. About the only effect it has is which box the fleet occupies when it arrives.

So, sail towards the one that's closest to your originating port. It can save 1-3 turns.

[MikeV]

The Europe and India theaters are linked by Persia -- for example, if you start in India and scroll the strat map north-west, through the Persian regions, you can continue on into Europe (the reverse is also true). The mini-map changes its theater display, at some point.

This makes the Persian regions strategically interesting, by virtue of being the only 2-theater land location. It suggests overland trade routes to/from India, for example.

[Rothe]

Wealth bonuses are better than what they seem to be.

If you upgrade the infrastructure of a single road (roads) and get +4 wealth per turn, that means that you will add 4 to your income each turn. This is cumulative!

If you add 4 income on turn 1, it means that by 10 turns, you will have made 220 only on the road income, not a whole lot. But...
If at 20 turns, it is 840.
30 turns, it is 1860.
40 turns, it is 3280.
50 turns, it is 5100.

If you plan for a "long haul campaign", be sure to get wealth bonuses, especially global ones from enlightenment.
They make a lot of money in the long term (multiply the numbers above by region.. Upgrading roads is good for campaign speed of troops, but the wealth will still be useful in the long run even on small islands.

My math is a bit rusty, but it should work like this:

Cumulative profit per region = W*(N+1)*N/2

W = wealth per turn of the upgrade (roads are something like 4).
N = number of turns from gaining the wealth bonus.

Plugging in 10 years for basic evaluation (20 turns) is going to get you a profit of W*210.