Jamestown, Let's Not Starve to Death: An English Colonization AAR

[Grey Fox]

Interestingly that's the exact same recommendation the dude at the InTrade help desk gave me.  And I'll give you the exact same response I gave him, which was it has reached the point in the process where it's no longer worth the effort.

Yi : My car doesn't work?
Mechanic : Does it have gas in it?
Yi : We've reached the point in the process where it's no longer worth the effort.

[Admiral Yi]

Harsh toke dude.

[Habbaku]

Interestingly that's the exact same recommendation the dude at the InTrade help desk gave me.  And I'll give you the exact same response I gave him, which was it has reached the point in the process where it's no longer worth the effort.

Yi : My car doesn't work?
Mechanic : Does it have gas in it?
Yi : We've reached the point in the process where it's no longer worth the effort.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I had some problems with freecol, don't remember what now but it was enough to put me off the game.

Last time I played the tax rate skyrocketed every game, and would quickly hit 50%+

[sbr]

I had some problems with freecol, don't remember what now but it was enough to put me off the game.

Last time I played the tax rate skyrocketed every game, and would quickly hit 50%+

That sounds vaguely familiar.

[sbr]

Just after the declaration of war our newly arrived Seasoned Scouts were ambushed by the very unit that carried the message and were quickly beaten.



We will make them pay.

While the Dutch were busy showing the lessons they had learned from the treacherous savages of the land one of our civilized colonists had been busy clearing forest and plowing land in preparation for our second English colony in the New World.  In 1526 Plymouth was established, just south of Jamestown.



Plymouth will have trouble producing food until we get a Docks and Fisherman on site, but should give us some nice sugar, furs and ore.  The Master Carpenter has finished his work on the new Warehouse in Jamestown and is now building our first Wagon Train.  Once he is done with the wagon he will move his operation down to Plymouth and start work on those Docks.



Here is a view of the English colonies.



In response to the second settlement the King sends news of a tax increase.  We consider responding by dumping a load of our most important export to date, but lumber is much to important for such a silly gesture.



The fact that lumber is our most important export product so far is a little troublesome so one of the newly arrived Indentured Servants is sent off to live with the  Arawak tribe to see if he can learn any native skills.



This Servant is apparently some sort of genius because he returns almost immediately as a Master Sugar Planter.  He shall head to back to Jamestown and begin practicing his new craft. 



Shortly after the founding of Plymouth our first Founding Father, Sieur De La Salle arrives.  De La Salle will coordinate the defense of the settlements and will provide a free Stockade in every medium sized settlement.



The Arawak don't really know what that means to them but realize it seems important and come bearing gifts to the celebration.



In the Spring of 1534 we are again ambushed by a Dutch Dragoon.  This time they make a mistake and instead of attacking an armed peaceful Scout they met an armed Soldier.  The Dutch are not skilled enough horsemen to press their advantage and the outcome is rather obvious.







The English soldier is much better trained than the silly Dutchman and  using the wooded terrain to his advantage waits for the next attack.  Of course the Dutch Soldier can't help himself, attacks into the forest again and again loses.  Now that the enemy has lost the advantage of horses and muskets the English soldier captures the helpless colonist.  This new "colonist" will make its way back east to the new England and begin a life of hard labor.

The two Caravels had been making regular trips back and forth from England, carrying the rest of the Fountain of Youth inspired immigration wave to New England and sending back the few valuable export items we have been producing so far, mostly furs from Jamestown.  On one of those trips back to London we heard news of a Master Silver Miner who was looking to make his way to the new World and would join us for nothing more than free passage across the ocean. 



We don't have access to any Silver yet but this seems to be too good of a deal to pass up so we send him aboard.  Hopefully we can find some Silver to take advantage of his valuable skills.  If not we will continue to keep him locked up in the fur trader's house to make fur coats.



The year 1537 brought many bits of interesting news; some good, some troubling.

First The Master Carpenter finished the Wagon Train.  This will allow us to trade with the Indians, our own possible future inland settlements.  This also allows the Carpenter to move to Plymouth and begin work on the Docks.  There is a serious food problem in Plymouth and a Dock and a Master Fisherman will go a long way toward fixing that.

Secondly we had a second Servant learn Sugar Planting from the Arawaks.  This should give us a second source of income, along with our decent fur trapping industry.

Thirdly we have another Founding Father on the way.  This time Thomas Paine.  We didn't have a shot at Penn this time.



Lastly, the tension is starting to build between us and the Arawaks.  We have gone out of our way to play nicely with them but they seem to have a problem with our "overuse" of the land.  What is the point of new colonies if you can't rip every shred of value from the land, sea and air?

[Sophie Scholl]

Intriguing to follow the progress.  I just finished up a game myself last night.  Ended up having an awesome resourced continent/big island to myself and shared it with the natives as the French before winning my independence in the 1660's.  Now time to work a little Conquest of the New World in, then back to Colonization!

[The Brain]

Interestingly that's the exact same recommendation the dude at the InTrade help desk gave me.  And I'll give you the exact same response I gave him, which was it has reached the point in the process where it's no longer worth the effort.

Yi : My car doesn't work?
Mechanic : Does it have gas in it?
Yi : We've reached the point in the process where it's no longer worth the effort.

[sbr]

The King begins the year 1547 with another tax increase.  Once again cooler heads prevail and we don't bite off our own nose to spite our face.



This bad news is offset a bit by some good news.  Our Free Colonist has learned some new tracks and has become a Fur Trapper.  This will greatly increase our fur production, but we still have a bottleneck at the end, with the Silver Miner making Fur Coats.



In 1550 we hear our first news of the fourth Old World country here in America.  Spain is terrorizing the natives again.  I'm pretty ambivalent, not being a huge fan of Spain or the Arawak at this point.



In the years since the war with the Dutch started we have armed two Dragoon units and they are now exploring the northwest, very near the Dutch settlements.  In 1552 we have a run in with the Dutch and they don't attack us.  Apparently the war had been over and again they request a partition of the land in the New World.  Again we say No, and again the Dutch declare war.  This time the ambush backfires and the English Dragoon defeats the Dutch Dragoon.  The English Dragoon again steals the Dutch soldiers' guns and horses, then captures the remaining colonist.

The next year an English colonist establishes the third English settlement in New England.  It is landlocked, but we need to start pushing inland before the other Europeans can bottle us up.





In the ongoing War with the Dutch v2.0 a Petty Criminal turned Dragoon is making quite a name for himself.



This is the next picture in line and I have no idea what it is supposed to be showing.  It is of Plymouth.  Maybe it is the newly arrived Lumberjack who  is looking for some wood to cut.



The Arawak seem to have gotten over their whining about us overusing the land, as they bring us more ore from their strip mining operation.



The majority of our trade with London is fur related.  We are selling some Fur Coats but we are collecting furs faster than we can use them so we are also selling some raw furs as well.





You can see that the price for muskets has doubled recently.  With the war with the Dutch continuing and the Arawak getting uppity it is time for New England to start its own arms production.  We hire a Gunsmith to send back to America.



And in 1555 we finally meet the Spanish settlers.  The routine is the same.  Except they are more afraid of the English than the French were.

[sbr]

1556 starts with a nice message, the people are starting to catch Independence Fever.



The Arawak help us celebrate with sweets.



The Spanish and Apache have a little run in.  I would love to see the Spanish and Indians beat each other up while I deal with the Dutch and expand our holdings.



The roads and terrain improvements are coming along nicely.  You used up all the tools, on purpose!



In 1559 we make contact with a new Indian tribe, the Cherokee.  Again we swear to play nice as long as they do.







And the Arawak send us more Ore.  Maybe they realize they need to be nice now that we have other Indian friends.



The bribe the Spanish gave us, along with our limited trade in furs, coats and rum have given us enough money to bring a Distiller aboard.  With the two Sugar Planters Rum should start becoming our most important export. 

And we can hope to get the natives hopelessly addicted to booze and then steal all their stuff.



We also buy a load of Trade Goods for trade with the Indians,  I cannot confirm, nor deny, the presence of blankets among the Goods.



The King realizes the profit potential in our nascent bootlegging operation and becomes worried.  He increases the size of the Expeditionary Forces.



I'm not sure where we started, but this is the first increase, and this is where we are now.  It seems Independence Fever is waning.



In the meantime the second war with the Dutch has been raging.  Or rather just trickling along.  I have completely defeated 2 more Dutch Dragoons, reducing them to colonists and then capturing them.

Another Petty Criminal turned War Hero.  We are becoming a regular Dirty Dozen here.



Then in 1563 the unthinkable happens, we lose a battle.  Our Dragoon is routed by a Dutch soldier.



The Soldier makes a nice comeback and defeats the Dutch Soldier, and is promoted again.



The next turn something weird happens.  Not sure why the Soldiers get a demotion for capturing an enemy.  Must be a strength of schedule thing.



Here is a another shot of the map.  I'm not sure if there was something specific there I wanted anyone to see.  The battles with the Dutch have been in the area in the far west, where the English Dragoon is.




The next years starts with news of another tax increase.  Again we bend over and take it.



The end of the year brings worse news.

[grumbler]

The soldier who was demoted was the captured Dutch one.

I seem to recall that getting lumber and tool production up were the most important early goals, rather than sugar/rum or furs/coats.  Tools and muskets get expensive in Europe pretty quickly, but you can capture and re-use muskets, so you don't need that many.

[Sophie Scholl]

Grumbler is correct.  The Ore->Tools->Muskets chain makes the world go 'round.  You need tools for your pioneers to maximize the terrain, to build more complex buildings, to build artillery and ships, and to make muskets.