Just curious if others find the newspaper worth building.
At the beginning of the game, I am all about bells, at least in one colony. I like to have a colony with plenty of food in the home square, so I can support 2-3 Elder Statesmen. I usually build a Printing Press as my first building (though my game play does vary a bit depending on if Jefferson or maybe Bolivar are available very early, and/or if I get Expert Lumberjacks of Master Carpenters early). I want to get at least one colony to size three (church + Firebrand Preacher) and then size four (schoolhouse) ASAP.
But usually by the time the schoolhouse is done I have tons of excess bells, and I'm creating new ones fast enough that I don't see the point in building a newspaper. I am producing bells faster than I can grow my colonies, either through immigration or food.
I knid of see the University the same way. By the time I can build it, I don't really need any more of the units it can create that the college can't -- though it does help to be able to train three veteran soldiers vs two.
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I think that largely depends on difficulty level and play style.
I like to play on hard/very hard, at those levels the cost of FF increases a lot after the first few.
I also like large colonies ( 12+ ) and lots of specialists .
keeping large colonies at 100% rebels requires continous bell production.
Around war of independence all my colonies have atleast 1 elder statesman, printing press and newspaper ( 3 or 4 colonies may have 3 elder statesman )
i'll prob have 2 universities.
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David, based on your question I'm thinking you might not have figured out yet just how bells work. That got me when I first started playing.
In the beginning of the game, your colonies can have up to three workers and remain content. Add a fourth and the colony will become unhappy, a fifth and it will be very unhappy.
Once you produce an excess of 200 bells in a colony, you can grow that colony to four and it will remain content. Or if you lower your population to one, your colony will become happy and things will start to produce more (including bells)..
Once you produce another 200 bells, you can have a content colony of up to five, a happy colony of two, or a really happy colony of one.
So to get to size 12, you'll want to produce at least 1,800 bells. I suspect most of us would say you should have produced 2,600 as we like to spend most of the game with colonies that are very happy.
In the beginning of the game, if I have the right units or terrain, I might build a printing press. Or I might just start ringing bells and not building anything. As soon as I have a few scouts out raising money from the natives, I start buying elder statesmen and have them take over (usually two per colony since that's usually how many I can afford to feed without having any other workers). Note that if I can support them, my first two ES go in the same colony, I don't split them up -- I'm trying to get the colony very happy ASAP.
At first, it takes forever to produce bells. Once you start using ES, get happy, Jefferson/Bolivar, bell production really takes off. And that's why I started this thread. I've found that about the time I'm in a position to build a newspaper in a colony, I'm producing 40-70 excess bells per turn in that colony. That means I can grow by one unit every 3-5 turns, which is faster than I can come up with the units (so why build a newspaper?).
[I should have mentioned that I play only on very hard, and like to cram as many workers into a colony as I can feed.]
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Bells continue to have a useful effect even after you're producing more of them than are needed to keep your colonists happy. Specifically, bell production determines how fast you can recruit Founding Fathers, and how long it will take before a foreign power decides to come to your aid in your rebellion against the home country.
My own personal guideline is that I always like to have three more people working on bell production than are needed solely to keep my colonists happy. These should, by preference, be ElderStatesment working with Newspapers, but in the early part of the game that's a little too ambitious.
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As he said:
"keeping large colonies at 100% rebels requires continous bell production.
Around war of independence all my colonies have atleast 1 elder statesman, printing press and newspaper ( 3 or 4 colonies may have 3 elder statesman )"
What seems unclear to you about that?
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I also like large colonies, which require lots of bells and also, at some point, more colonist than show up at the dock. My usual build sequence is Dock(for food when I don't want to antagonize indians. When I can I often purchase these), Lumber Mill, Printing Press and Newspaper, School house, then Warehouses and Customs Office. My goal is to maintain three Elders in the colony until I have achieved 100% with the population limited by food available. When that point is reached I send two Elders to other colonies and use one to maintain bell production above minimum required.
At a later point, to increase colonists available, I produce Preachers, which require the University. At peak production I can usually produce another colonist every two to three turns. Recruiting colonists quickly becomes cost prohibitive, and the only other option is to trade enough with the indians to train colonists(the cheapest is miner, which can be converted to free colonist in the new world and retrained to what you need).
I always play at the hardest level, so play may be different at easier levels.
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Good point, but you can train Preachers in Europe, though they're expensive. The University is helpful - I usually build one - but Newspapers are indispensible.
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I normally purchase Printing Press and then Newspaper. I put 3 Elder statesman and 1 Framer in the settlement until it grows to 100 % Rebel. After that I add other colonists as conversion to Rebel progresses making sure maks bonus of 2 never drops to 1.
Average town size I maintain is probably 16.
Since I prefer to play archipelago on very hard which I think is the most challenging having one university is not practical. I normally go for 2 to train soldiers and further 2-3 on other islands to train the rest.
I normally struggle with overpopulation not with lack of colonists. I get colonists from converted Indians mostly in the latter part of the game. At the beginning I get new colonist from conquest of other European settlements. Ai is rather unintelligent at this stage of development and conquests is very easy regardless of the difficulty level.
I am currently playing Cooperation + 3 opponents 4 turns a year and by the year 1620 I have over 100 colonists waiting for training and settlement allocation. I suppose it would be good idea to introduce feeding requirement of unemployed and military populous :)
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Just curious if others find the newspaper worth building.
At the beginning of the game, I am all about bells, at least in one colony. I like to have a colony with plenty of food in the home square, so I can support 2-3 Elder Statesmen. I usually build a Printing Press as my first building (though my game play does vary a bit depending on if Jefferson or maybe Bolivar are available very early, and/or if I get Expert Lumberjacks of Master Carpenters early). I want to get at least one colony to size three (church + Firebrand Preacher) and then size four (schoolhouse) ASAP.
But usually by the time the schoolhouse is done I have tons of excess bells, and I'm creating new ones fast enough that I don't see the point in building a newspaper. I am producing bells faster than I can grow my colonies, either through immigration or food.
I knid of see the University the same way. By the time I can build it, I don't really need any more of the units it can create that the college can't -- though it does help to be able to train three veteran soldiers vs two.
I think that largely depends on difficulty level and play style.
I like to play on hard/very hard, at those levels the cost of FF increases a lot after the first few.
I also like large colonies ( 12+ ) and lots of specialists .
keeping large colonies at 100% rebels requires continous bell production.
Around war of independence all my colonies have atleast 1 elder statesman, printing press and newspaper ( 3 or 4 colonies may have 3 elder statesman )
i'll prob have 2 universities.
HOW?!? I want to know!
David, based on your question I'm thinking you might not have figured out yet just how bells work. That got me when I first started playing.
In the beginning of the game, your colonies can have up to three workers and remain content. Add a fourth and the colony will become unhappy, a fifth and it will be very unhappy.
Once you produce an excess of 200 bells in a colony, you can grow that colony to four and it will remain content. Or if you lower your population to one, your colony will become happy and things will start to produce more (including bells)..
Once you produce another 200 bells, you can have a content colony of up to five, a happy colony of two, or a really happy colony of one.
So to get to size 12, you'll want to produce at least 1,800 bells. I suspect most of us would say you should have produced 2,600 as we like to spend most of the game with colonies that are very happy.
In the beginning of the game, if I have the right units or terrain, I might build a printing press. Or I might just start ringing bells and not building anything. As soon as I have a few scouts out raising money from the natives, I start buying elder statesmen and have them take over (usually two per colony since that's usually how many I can afford to feed without having any other workers). Note that if I can support them, my first two ES go in the same colony, I don't split them up -- I'm trying to get the colony very happy ASAP.
At first, it takes forever to produce bells. Once you start using ES, get happy, Jefferson/Bolivar, bell production really takes off. And that's why I started this thread. I've found that about the time I'm in a position to build a newspaper in a colony, I'm producing 40-70 excess bells per turn in that colony. That means I can grow by one unit every 3-5 turns, which is faster than I can come up with the units (so why build a newspaper?).
[I should have mentioned that I play only on very hard, and like to cram as many workers into a colony as I can feed.]
Bells continue to have a useful effect even after you're producing more of them than are needed to keep your colonists happy. Specifically, bell production determines how fast you can recruit Founding Fathers, and how long it will take before a foreign power decides to come to your aid in your rebellion against the home country.
My own personal guideline is that I always like to have three more people working on bell production than are needed solely to keep my colonists happy. These should, by preference, be ElderStatesment working with Newspapers, but in the early part of the game that's a little too ambitious.
As he said:
"keeping large colonies at 100% rebels requires continous bell production.
Around war of independence all my colonies have atleast 1 elder statesman, printing press and newspaper ( 3 or 4 colonies may have 3 elder statesman )"
What seems unclear to you about that?
Absolutely, you've got to build newspapers to develop large colonies. You can do without universities, though.
I also like large colonies, which require lots of bells and also, at some point, more colonist than show up at the dock. My usual build sequence is Dock(for food when I don't want to antagonize indians. When I can I often purchase these), Lumber Mill, Printing Press and Newspaper, School house, then Warehouses and Customs Office. My goal is to maintain three Elders in the colony until I have achieved 100% with the population limited by food available. When that point is reached I send two Elders to other colonies and use one to maintain bell production above minimum required.
At a later point, to increase colonists available, I produce Preachers, which require the University. At peak production I can usually produce another colonist every two to three turns. Recruiting colonists quickly becomes cost prohibitive, and the only other option is to trade enough with the indians to train colonists(the cheapest is miner, which can be converted to free colonist in the new world and retrained to what you need).
I always play at the hardest level, so play may be different at easier levels.
Good point, but you can train Preachers in Europe, though they're expensive. The University is helpful - I usually build one - but Newspapers are indispensible.
I normally purchase Printing Press and then Newspaper. I put 3 Elder statesman and 1 Framer in the settlement until it grows to 100 % Rebel. After that I add other colonists as conversion to Rebel progresses making sure maks bonus of 2 never drops to 1.
Average town size I maintain is probably 16.
Since I prefer to play archipelago on very hard which I think is the most challenging having one university is not practical. I normally go for 2 to train soldiers and further 2-3 on other islands to train the rest.
I normally struggle with overpopulation not with lack of colonists. I get colonists from converted Indians mostly in the latter part of the game. At the beginning I get new colonist from conquest of other European settlements. Ai is rather unintelligent at this stage of development and conquests is very easy regardless of the difficulty level.
I am currently playing Cooperation + 3 opponents 4 turns a year and by the year 1620 I have over 100 colonists waiting for training and settlement allocation. I suppose it would be good idea to introduce feeding requirement of unemployed and military populous :)