What is money spent on?

[TimmyKGB]

NOTE:

Colonization has the most effective counter to ICS yet, heavily populated maps full of people who get angry when you push borders too much. At least that`s what the counter should be.

If you have to fight wars to put the settlements down its a lot less unfair. The big problem I have with Colonization is that the REF is out of control unless you have obvious exploits.

The two effective strategies I`ve seen are:

spam cities, load them with 100 guns, 100 horse and use the +2 population (NO SLAVERY) constitution and instantly create 2 cavalry in every city you own (in addition to other units to fight the REF)

And the strategy of playing a very small empire (1 to 3 cities) with bell spamming at the end.

I feel that bell spamming is overpowered right now because it avoids the absurd expeditionary forces that are the norm for `playing fair`. It also makes the game far less fun because the natural things to do are incredibly complicated, while the bizarre way of doing things is insanely broken.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by TimmyKGB
NOTE:

Colonization has the most effective counter to ICS yet, heavily populated maps full of people who get angry when you push borders too much. At least that`s what the counter should be.

I agree that's what the counter should be (or could be) but disagree that Col is "heavily populated" and "full of people". In my experience there is PLENTY of room to expand without pushing the native borders too much. I've suggested the patch be tweaked so the mapscript is more crowded. That would help tremendously and make the game much more enjoyable as it becomes more about competition for territory.

[Cort Haus]

I don't find the standard maps I've played so far to be sparsely-populated, but I suppose this is a matter of opinion, and definition. I prefer plenty of room to find good city spots in.

[wodan11]

It's also probable that those who come to Col from CIV are "used" to the visual spacing of 21 tile fat cross cities instead of 9 tile cities.

As for prefering plenty of room to find the best city spots, this is directly counter to the idea that the game will be more enjoyable and competitive if there is less land to go around. Perhaps, a compromise is possible. Reduce the land area a bit, and also increase native starting occupation and/or expansion speed. This means you will have to conquer those primo city spots, that's all.

[TimmyKGB]

Is there actually no penalty in vanilla for refusing? Maybe its just coincidence but I've noticed in my games I get more frequent tax increases and generally larger %'s (4-5 vs 1-3) when the king is pissed off than when he's happy.

[smak]

Most of my gold goes directly to the king in exchange for diplomatic military aid. Its the most cost effective way of fielding cannon and veteran soldiers, aside from the occasional lucky draw of random immigrant veteran soldiers, those are dirt cheap and the guns they carry are worth more than the gold they ask to join.

Other than that i just buy guns and horses to sell to indians, and tools to build things with until i need a navy.