Best strategy

[EvilLurksInternet]

Pick spain.
Settle 2 cities from the bat, put both citizens to be statesmen.
When u get immigrants, sail them to new world and delete.
Declare independence on turn 14.
King sends his 20(on maximum difficulty) army units.
U have 1 veteran with spain bonuses.
1 vs 20.
Go kill indians, get exp, get indian slaves.
Settle new cities with indians.
Kings army goes through jungles.
Ur superexpirienced veterna has 99.9% chance in battle against any kings unit.
Hit and retreat. Retadred AI king watches his army being burried in the stinking jungles.
Win by turn 60-80 depending on luck.

No need to trade or produce anything.

[CHE]

Originally posted by EvilLurksInternet:

Pick spain.
Settle 2 cities from the bat, put both citizens to be statesmen.
When u get immigrants, sail them to new world and delete.
Declare independence on turn 14.
King sends his 20(on maximum difficulty) army units.
U have 1 veteran with spain bonuses.
1 vs 20.
Go kill indians, get exp, get indian slaves.
Settle new cities with indians.
Kings army goes through jungles.
Ur superexpirienced veterna has 99.9% chance in battle against any kings unit.
Hit and retreat. Retadred AI king watches his army being burried in the stinking jungles.
Win by turn 60-80 depending on luck.

No need to trade or produce anything.

"Best" is a matter of subjective opinion. That way is certainly not best for me, because I play games to enjoy myself, and I don't enjoy oppressing people, e.g. enslaving people.

[EvilLurksInternet]

"Best" is not so subjective in this case, because this strategy is:
a) fastest one to get a victory;
b) may be most competitive in multiplayer as far as i have tried;

Also u enslave just some virtual people that were programmed to be enslaved.
And I dont enjoy oppressing people either, but i do enjoy winning the game in multiplayer, and u need to use most competetive tactics there otherwise rivals will eat u alive and opress those virtual people themselves even more than you would. Better I enslave them myself and make sure they are atleast well fed or smth.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

I've seen similar strategies to this with slight variations.

The most similar thing I ever did was to find a one-tile island that absolutely has to be assaulted from the sea, causing a penalty to the attackers. I put a city on it that I intended to fight the revolution from. From there, I settled another city on the mainland a ways away.

The one-tile city did nothing but pop out new colonists thanks to all the food from basic sea tiles plus a fish and two crab tiles. The mainland city did nothing but build tools and guns. |

Eventually, I brought everyone on the mainland back over to the one-tile island, and brought lumber and tools to build a printing press and newspaper.

Then I declared war on the natives nearest my city on the mainland so that all the King's forces would attack the one-tile island city (the natives always raze cities for you).

Then, with everyone in my last city on the one-tile island, the food production leveled off, I made no new citizens via food overflow, and I sold extra guns to get statesmen.

Then I put the statesmen into making liberty bells, and easily won the revolution with a few soldiers left.

I did this all with the Spanish leader who gives a combat boost for liberty bells. Makes it super hard for the King's units to attack, and the only real reason I lost soldiers was because of the few enemy artillery units (which still do okay against you, at least, despite attacking from the sea and the bonus from the leader ability + liberty bells).

And the whole time, all I sold were guns. A gun economy is super efficient, because guns sell for a lot of money in native settlements, meaning you don't need Europe to sell to and can thus avoid having to accept tax increases (you have to accept them, at least, until you get everything set-up for sustained gun production, though).

------------

Spain is amazing. They are by far the easiest side in my opinion, because one leader gets extra strength for liberty bells, meaning revolution is really really simple, and the other leader gets promotions quicker. And the ability to fight natives easier, which is on both leaders, means you get pretty hefty veterans early on and can steam-roll the AI colonies with them after you clear out native settlements.

[Gentoo]

Sounds boring. Why boher playing if this is your route? You actually enjoy skipping most of the game content?

[Janetsky]

I rarely play as spain. I usually like to co-operate with the natives. My games tend to get way too long, and the home country usually gets an army far greater than mine. I try to push for the independence when I'm 100% certain I'm ready.

[Gentoo]

Just like with Civ, the opening turns of the game are the most fun. So I usually wind up starting a new game before I get to the revolution part.

[Gentoo]

Been playing a lot of this game. Over 1000 hours in total between steam copy and other copy. I have YET to win the game via revolution, because I always wind up building a massive trade empire and by the time I am nearing 1700 AD, the King has such a huge army its rather pointless. Plus the battle side of things is boring.

[Janetsky]

Originally posted by Gentoo:

Been playing a lot of this game. Over 1000 hours in total between steam copy and other copy. I have YET to win the game via revolution, because I always wind up building a massive trade empire and by the time I am nearing 1700 AD, the King has such a huge army its rather pointless. Plus the battle side of things is boring.

Yup, by the time you gain enough bells, europe already has a unbeatable army.

[EvilLurksInternet]

No need to beat the whole army in 1 battle. If ur army size is like 15% of the kings army, you just take care to fight 10 smaller battles and win each with low losses.

Plant many size-2 cities, so that King captures them and leaves ~5-10 units in each for defense. When King's main group is travelling to get ur other city, ur army comes in and recaptures the city with these defendants (have good number of artillery, with anticity promos, to insure lowest losses). Then u leave it unprotected, run into the jungles nearby and heal there. King comes back for that city with all he has and leaves ~5-10 more for defense. Repeat till victory.

Civil war is not one-great-deciding-battle kind of war, it's long-annoying-backstabbing-in-the-jungles kind of war.

The reterdadness of the ai stops letting players enjoy singleplayer very soon though.

[Gentoo]

^ Honestly, I would find that incredibly dull. The battle in this game, and in CIv 4 and 5, is not at all enjoyable to me. If they ever make a sequel to this they should have an option to stay loyal to the crown and just win your independence slowly through diplomacy, like Canada or Australia did.

[EvilLurksInternet]

Originally posted by Gentoo:

^ Honestly, I would find that incredibly dull. The battle in this game, and in CIv 4 and 5, is not at all enjoyable to me. If they ever make a sequel to this they should have an option to stay loyal to the crown and just win your independence slowly through diplomacy, like Canada or Australia did.

Democratically accepting an independence, I imagine, is like accepting a kind of a spittle in ur face. It doesn't look like u say 'win' to me.

[IRDCAM]

Usually I take Dutch, as they are so easy to ramp up economically, and by 1670 are preped for the revolution.