Win with early LB

[TimmyKGB]

There is clearly an option to win by using early liberty bells in this game. A lot of people have been complaining this is hard to do, but in fact its quite manageable.

The fact is you can easily average 5 or 6 to 1 kill rates against the expeditionary force if you have the proper setup.

What one wants is a large number of dragoons for offense, and a few soldiers for defense.

The key to victory is to have proper training. Dragoons will beat up on cannons because of their +50% on attack.

The biggest threat you will face is from enemy dragoons.

The solution is to ensure your dragoons have the +25% vs mounted units ability.

This means getting experience by fighting a war against an AI in the new world before the revolutionary war.

[smak]

I just described this tactic in new thread at 25-11-2008 22:33 just a matter of hours before your post which was at 26-11-2008 02:11

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182155

pertinant quotes:

4. Settle with both the soldier and the pioneer, placing them (both inside the town hall if you have 4-6 food from your center tile) OR (one in town hall and the other on a fish/crab resource) and setting production to trade points.
After a few turns move the colonist off the seafood tile and into the town hall with the other colonist to generate more liberty bells, until your food runs out then put one back on seafood.

Then open europe dock screen and hurry immigration on any veteran soldiers if any are available and if you have gold left over. (1. if no veteran soldiers are available for hurry immigration then 2. get scouts for the horses they come with *but use the first scout to actually set to autoexplore*, if no scouts then 3. get elder statesmen for the liberty bell generation, and if you have an ore tile especially on your center tile then 4. rush a blacksmith if none show up for free on the docks)

7. Wait for your ship to arrive in europe and manage the colonists in your town to maximize liberty bell production by alterating food generation and town hall duties, unless you had 4 or more food on your center tile then just leave both in town hall.

8. When ship arrives in colony unload all dragoons and turn them into colonists working in this priority:
a. Town hall for liberty bells if your food production can support it
b. Food tiles like fish, crabs, wheat, bananas, grasslands along rivers, or in the worst case a tile that generates at least 3 food to provide a surplus.
c. If your town hall gets filled, (and it will after a few round trips of gun running, soldier recruiting, horse trading, and commodities purchasing from natives) then put a colonist on a forest/jungle tile to prepare to:

Promotions:
Cannon should get in this order: Bomb 1 and 2, then Veteran 1 2 3 4 and 5, then canister shot 1 and 2.
Dragoons should get: Veteran 2, formation, charge, grenadier 1 and 2, skirmisher 1 and 2, veteran 3 4 and 5, and explorer 1.
*note: the first dragoon should get surgeon 1 and 2 first so he will be prepared to accept the first great general you receive, then he should get surgeon 3 and finally the normal promotions i just listed.

That said, what i was describing was a tactic to gain key founding fathers for a specific multiplayer strategy. Where you seem to be describing a method of defense against the REF. But if you look closely at the end of my thread you will see this:

*note: pulling population out of your cities before you get attacked will raise the rebel % of your city to 100% and that will give your defenders an additional 50% str bonus for defense.

This also provides more targets to destroy before the enemy can take the city, whereas if you left them in the city only one would pop out and make a last ditch effort to defend once all your military troops have died. But in the end fighting the REF from inside your city is close to suicide since all the REF units have a large bonus to attacking settlements. If you really must give it a try then i suggest you start by building on an inland hill that has a river between you and the sea so the man o wars cannot bombard the defenses and you will get 25% defense bonus from hill and a 25%? defense bonus from forcing them to attack across a river, pick up Vaco Nunez de Balboa who will give your settlements 25% additional defense bonus, keep rebel % at 100% by removing colonists from everything except the town hall and living off stored up food for a total of 50% defense, build a fortress that adds 150% defense, fortify the position with infantry soldiers for 25% defense, promote mountaineer 1 and 2 for a total of 40% defense bonus, promote minuteman 1 and 2 for a total of 45% defense bonus, and if you are really serious about defending then give your infantry a great general to pick up the minuteman 3 and mountaineer 3 promotions for an additional 65% defense not to mention the veteran 1 2 3 4 5 and 6 promotions that total 75% str. Also just in case keep a stack of cannon ready and waiting outside the city hiding preferably on a forested hill to the west so you can counterattack and retake the city, give those cannon bomb 1 and 2 and veteran bonuses. If you had all of these together your one infantry unit would be getting 525% defense bonuses for a total of 15.75 str. You could base your whole defense around generating enough exps fighting natives and other colonies to create that one unit, or a couple like it. You can easily get multiple great generals if you fight alot, the question is can you assign a great general to a unit that already has a great general attached for a bonus of exps upon joining? Is there a hard cap on how many combat exps you can get and a set number of promotions at the high end?

[TimmyKGB]

Fortresses are JOKES

Its just way too easy to bombard the defense to zero on fortresses. It's far easier to counterattack out of a city than to defend it.

Sometimes the entire map doesn't have the appropriate spot (hill surrounded by river), so that throws the estimates off.

[smak]

I know, i was just being hypothetical. Someone COULD try to win that way just like people try to win with a navy. But the best ive heard is someone using a navy to destroy all but 2 man of wars and that prevented the ai from landing more than 8 at a time. So it was easy to attack them as they landed.

But its true my first win on revolutionary was me hanging out one tile to the nw of my single city (i was playing one city challange) and waiting on a forested hill while the ai repeatedly retook the city on the flatlands and i would repeatedly counterattack using a dragoon to finish the last enemy off before retreating to my hill. When the ai got too close without taking the city i would back off a square and it would automatically attack the weakest point one tile away, the city since i was 2 tiles away with my army.

[Hermann the Lombard]

smak,

That strategy sounds better for multi-player than for single-player, as you end up with no economy and an irritated king with a huge REF. The "Late LB" approach works better for a small colony.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I cannot see why people think of early LB strategy as a mission impossible.

I only play with LBs on max, and I aim on 12 prosperous cities straight on.

The key is a strong navy so the King never lands his troops, but only a small portion of them.

Surely I agree, veteteran I, veteran II and formation, is the way to go for dragoons.

Please make sure you have some medics as well.

I basically won with 50 dragoons, against a REF of 1000 units... So this is not a 6:1... but a 20:1. So how worse than that can it get?

So yeah... his REF will be huge, but who cares? How many of them can come in one turn is what matters.

Once more: Navy + early LBs + Many cities >> REF

Also if you play with Navy like me, you don't leave only two man-o-war ships. You just sink them and win...

If the REF is 1000 units it will take the AI (1000/4)*3=750 turns to unload 1000 units with only two Man-o-War ships....

So instead of killing 1000 units with portions of 8 every three turns just sink the man-o-war and finnish them off 750 turns earlier! :-P

If you sink King's navy, the King surrenders and you got your independance!

[smak]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
smak,

That strategy sounds better for multi-player than for single-player, as you end up with no economy and an irritated king with a huge REF. The "Late LB" approach works better for a small colony.

Originally posted by smak
That said, what i was describing was a tactic to gain key founding fathers for a specific multiplayer strategy.

I did mention that thanks. But even for single player the size of the ref does not matter if you have the force to destroy it.

PrinceMyshkin, were you playing on revolutionary when you destroyed the kings navy?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Conquestador and governor.

At conquestador it was 33 man-o-war ships, in governor 42 ships or something...

I always do a massive navy like 30 ships of the line. You need to have at least 5-6 iron works, and pump out ships.

My land force is always small (50-100 dragoons).

My game at gov. was with patch mod.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by smak I did mention that thanks. But even for single player the size of the ref does not matter if you have the force to destroy it.

Acknowledged. The problem seems to be generating a large enough force from a poor economic base.

I ended up keeping the two nearest European colonies while pulling everyone out of the town halls to give me time to build up the economy. From there, no problem.