United Kingdom - Strategies

[marcusjm]

This is not a strategy guide but rather a discussion thread about potential strategies for UK.

Still of course just playing the demo but so far I have this.

It seems building coal asap is a no-brainer to me. In addition I have tried expanding on the tea fields in India.

What else? What troops would you typically build early on? I notice that Belize seems to rebel early on, is it a good idea to bring more troops from Europe or recruit locally to handle this?

What about Africa? When do you typically start and where and with what?

A bit silly question but can an Admiral lead land units if nothing else is nearby to use as leader? It worked for Hornblower .

Its quite funny how you after 5 turns realize that hey you have Australia and Kiwi country to take care of too. They kind of get lost down under .

[Ebbingford]

Half the fun of playing as Britain is working out what needs to be done and when.
You need to keep an eye on the colonial map, F8, and the different areas it shows, + and - SOI (Spheres of influence), or have a good grasp of British Empire history
What you build and when is dictated by what you need in each game. If you can't import it, build it, if you can't build it, import it.
You need to get a good income of taxes as quickly as you can, you need lots of state funds for the navy, colonial actions, and building some structures (shipbuilding for example). Taxes are raised by what you sell to your population so I always set the sliders for this straight to the 80%, apart from the things that are needed elsewhere like wood and manufactured goods. If your population will use it there is no need to sell it abroad, that is lost tax.
You need to change colonial areas into colonies as quickly as you can. Once it is a colony you can then sell more goods in that region.
Manufactured goods is what the British Empire is built on, you need lots and lots of these. Lots of colonial decisions need them as well as ships and armies.
You don't want to get involved in any major wars, colonial actions against natives are fine though
If you can keep out of wars and keep trading then you should get your prestige high enough to win as long as you can keep the whole empire growing, working and moving forward.

[Amadeus_66]

Interesting analisys, thank you !

[marcusjm]

Some good answers there.

Regarding colonial strategy, where is the best to start? India is of course the potential jewel but what about Oceania? Australia seems like it will be sleeping most of the game time.