Your one ally that is “still fighting his war” most likely sued for a separate peace earlier. Once he sues for a separate peace with the enemies, he is no longer “fighting beside you”. Thus, he is not included in the terms of YOUR binding alliance peace.

Think about the consequences of this for a moment. It means that if that one lone ally is still fighting the horde of 5 enemy nations while the rest of your grand alliance has proceeded to conclude a unilateral binding peace treaty…. chances are good that the “lonely ally” will be ganged up on and annihilated. This is especially true if that nation was a small 1-province nation like Modena or Milan or Cologne.

As someone else said, you get your first explorer fairly early in the mac game downloads. Send him west to find america. Since you don’t have a conquistador, you cannot go ashore until you actually uncover a province. You do that by sailing up and down the coast. As you uncover them, they will be fully colored and named. This seems to be random, so it is helpful to continue to sail along coasts in the hope that more provinces become accessable.

As soon as you get a province in america with a harbor (shows up with water when you click on it), send troops to occupy it and start to colonize. Once you have a level one colony, you will have a harbor to base in.

Explorers seem to die randomly. Perhaps someone else can comment, but they seem to die faster on long exploration voyages (time between harboring). They also die if their ships attrit, so send more than one ship. I try to do one or two unexplored sea zones then back to the harbor. BTW - If you hold down the shift key when you right click you can order several voyages at one out to the area to be explored, then back to the harbor, then out to another area to be explored, then back to the harbor. (this also works in wartime when you want to patrol the English Channel).

Convert to Protestant as soon as you can. Take the stability hit, invest the extra cash in restoring stability and you are off to the races. The extra colonists will allow you (as you get conquistadores) to explore and settle North America way ahead of France (Spain and Portugal have their hands full elsewhere in the early babysitting games). It also prevents Spain from seizing your new world colonies.

Lots of good threads on Merchants and monopolies. Generally, I try to put 5 merchants in major COTS (over 200D), but, as the majors - Spain, France, Portugal get monopoly they will drive you out. Don’t go back, focus on the other, non major controlled COT’s. (Novogorad was great for almost 100 years until the Ruski’s drove me out).

That’s often what causes it in the first place, too … Milan is fighting as part of the Spanish alliance, and gets conquered by the Pope fighting as part of the French alliance.. Milan buys off the Papal states and is now completely at the mercy of France, because when Spain signs an alliance peace, Milan isn’t included. Unless lost to attrition or combat, they die when they’re set to die, the same as all other leader types-the way leaders are recorded is very inflexible in that fashion. That’s certainly the best method for exploring though, although the number of seazones explored should depend on the number of seazones the TI is from your port, particularly in the early period of the game.

U can get as many people in an alliance as u want, however it gets harder and harder. Anyway, u don’t need many allies, u are better off with a close knit tight alliance. Download free virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game and play. U can only offer nations to join when they’re unallied and u can only join alliances when ur not allied.

A good idea is to set a ‘pop-up & pause’ message for nations leaving or dishonouring alliances. That way you will be able to pick them up quickly if you want to.
However, there’s not much point in big alliances per se. They tend to break up more often than not at the first sign of trouble.

Thats not always true for AI ones, I once had the Franco-Spainish-Polish-Austrian-Dutch-Danish-Papal alliance declare war on me (I was playing Brandenburg at the time and has most of Germnay under my control), which was a nasty experiance (4 front wars are such fun). With human players 2-4 allies are good enough as a rule.

What term would you prefer then, one more accurate to the terminology of popular culture? I don’t know how you did it, but I guess I’ll have to try expanding my alliances again beyond the norm. New sim strategy - virtual villagers 4 game game with new story. I gave up because of the repeated waste of diplomats, and the diplo-relations hit for the refusal. When I spent more time thinking about it I found that maybe ‘quantum leap’ is appropriate in this sentence after all as a quantum leap is seldom very big but often leads to something that is very different. Maybe my post was a bit hasty.

By the way, how large an alliance have you managed to create-your original post might be read to imply that you had an abnormally large one but that it broke up quickly, ie. you were speaking from experience.

Not abnormally large, my record alliance had seven members (me included) but when I went to war only three of them honoured the alliance and I could only get one of them back into the alliance. This was as Spain. I’ve found that it’s better to have a small alliance that is geographicly concentrated so that you can actually get some help. When you build large alliances some of the members are often far away and either have no interest in helping you or are unable to.
The best alliance I’ve ever had was as Prussia and I was allied to Saxony and Hannover. I actually got some help from my alliance instead of them just being in the way or not doing anything. Later in the game I screwed them over, but that’s another story.

I’m surrprised they haven’t inhertited Brandenburgh, or Hessen, or Hannover. Seems to me in my games they almost always do. England was far to weak in the past, but since 1.09 and the latest IGC’s they do better… I see them colonize a lot, often taking Scotland (diplo or war) and expanding in Europe. England normally does okay given two things: France don’t attack early, and Scotland don’t get into an alliance with France. If Burgundy is buggering up the works, neither of those is likely to happen so England has time to grow strong. Playing as Spain and beating the crap out of France early on is another way to see a strong AI England.

Royal Marriage is the pre-requisite and death of the other monarch. In fact, you may need to be the *only* royal marriage (e.g. England married to Hanover and Hanover is married to nobody else). About 1/2 of the virtual villagers 4: the tree of life games I’ve played as England, I’ve inherited one of my German marriages before the end of the game, usually Hessen or Hanover. Hannover’s the most common inheritance (although in the original GC I inherited the Hanse once as England!) Considering actual history the odds of an inheritance by England of Hannover may be greater than for other states/combinations. The same may be true of Austria/Hungary.

I’ve seen Spain/Austria quite a bit, but it usuaslly does not last because the troops in Austria all die crushing the 70k rebels in Styria, then Austria declares independence, and provided Spain has taken the Aztecs recently….all Europe decides to join in a War of Spanish Succession. The other one I see a lot is Poland inheriting Venice. The two of them are almost always close allys in my games. Once the islands rebel though, the Poles never retake them. As for England, though I’ve seen it prosper with Scotland and in America, even when it is the second largest power it still loses wars against the Mughals, and Persia in the 18th century. It also gets the stuffing knocked out of it by whatever Europeans are fighting it’s allies. Maybe EU2 game…

You don’t need to be, but you DO need to have higher relations with the target than anybody else who is married to them does. Another one I’ve never seen-Poland always hooks up with France in my games, and France always ends up as deadly enemies to Venice once their borders meet upon the French conquest of Milan.

I think it’s more a matter of different circumstances affecting England. 1) Burgandy. It keeps France occupied. 2}As Spain I’ve been involved with many wars with France, thus again keeping France occupied. And 3) Normally an AI Spain makes an alliance with Scotland, IIRC, and normally gets involved in wars vs. England. As Spain, I’ve had nothing to do with England in anyway and have left them alone.

Did England keep it up? Well I’ve played about 40 years since my original message and I guess the answer is “NO”. They’ve lost their Euro possessions (Picardy, for example) to rebels. That’s inevitable really. They lost Mantua in a war with my ally Genoa. But they have kept Scotland, and for that matter, Ireland–so all the British Isles are nice and red. I assume that their colonization of Canada, US and India is on schedule.

True, they sometimes-to-often manage that, even if it’s a pittance compared to a human player. But after that they generally tail off dramatically, mainly placing TPs and at a slow rate too considering the number of colonists they have!

Really I just helped them keep their independence once they declared it by going to war against Spain. Otherwise, they probably would have been reconquered.

I sometimes wonder if I have the same virtual villagers 4 game as everyone else. I have played or watched dozens of games, and only once seen England inherit anything: Hansa in the very first game I played.

I do see the Polish-French alliance early, as part of France’s initial 32 nation alliance, but they usually break up at some point inspiring some Italian get-away days for Polish nobles.

Now that sets my inflation to 25%, paralyzes my military for 5 years and basically screws up all my plans. I was doing quite well (I think) considering it’s my first game - in control of Palatinate, Caux, Picardie, Champagne, Guyenne, Languedoc, Navarra, Oporto, Algiers to Alexandria seaboard and the whole of Americas with minor exceptions. But my will to live is sapped by this! If it’s an historical event, why wasn’t it explained as such? I would completely understand a Spanish bankruptcy at that time, if not agree with robbing me of my income for the upcoming year. Otherwise it’s a bug I suppose - can it be related to me promoting one governor too many? I brought inflation down to 0% last year. What gives?

Martin: “go to your monthly taxes chart…see where your money is going..how much you will be plus or minus for the month .add that up for 12 months to get how much you need to secure for year..if on 12th month you have a negative number and no cash period it will take a loan for you auto if you cant take loan you screwed…trick to use…in december cut maitanence on fleets and armies to half…this will save you lots of cash and prevent having to take loans most times unless you have ridiculously large military for your size…also unfreeze your tax buttons when low on cash….this way the computer will adjust them as needed to keep your taxes even..you can readjust later…this way if you forget you are less likely to go under…also dont get carried away on arty as your maintance is based off costs..so its easier for poland to not only buy cavalry but to maintain them as well cheaply…russia for infatry, france.austria/sweden/prussia/venice for arty..but keep in mind cheaper doesnt mean uber cheap .. people get carried away with mega armies and mega conquesting and gather ridiculously large numbers of arty if you want this you gotta build up your tax base first to support it..otherwise build armies within reason…i have not seen any events that force bankruptcu..but perhaps you had a stability hit at bad time which cut your monthly and yearly income levels so you couldnt sustain same efforts as before”.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like most of this - admittedly excellent - advice applies in my case. I maintain my army for $27 a month out of $550 monthly trade income (yes, Malacca is working for me). Download virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game free. I had about $70-80 on December 30 and anticipated no expense, and my monthly income is set to yield about $8-10 a month into my treasury. My stability never once went below +3, I never declared a war on a European country. I’ve been a bad boy, yeah, but I’m on a holy mission… Although maybe I shouldn’t have annexed the Aztecs, Algeria and Iroquois in one war. But that was before I read the tips on this forum and well, they attacked first anyways Since I obstinately refuse to meet enemies in pitched battles (and abhor attrition), my war-winning armies are small 10-35 K affairs that don’t eat much money anyways. And even if I had a shortfall, certainly it would’ve taken 1 loan to cover it, not 5?

Martin: “true….then im at a lost..if you had plus money monthly then there is no reason for loan taken in jan…unless your builds arrived at that time in between..but they would have had to be huge in order to drop you that way..and 5 loans in 1 year??? ..i have seen 1 loan a month for 5 months but that was usually playing as a minor and having all taxes going into research and tags fixed not to move…loan interest would usually cause another loan and so on till bankrupt…sicne i abhor the bankruptcy bugs i play much more conservatively>…but defintely at loss…now if you look at event list there is a couple events which may have done this to you..they are rare…i saw one listed that takes money away i believe…saw another that cuts gold income as well and if that was a big part of your income that could have upset things…but then you would have seen a event message so no clue”.

Play with the inflation, it is historical for Spain. See if you can maintain your empire while promoting 95 govenors in the Americas. When 1k of inf. costs half of your monthly income the game has a whole different flavor. I envy you, play and tell of your results. Besides you are not really screwed as a non colonial country would be.

U have 6600 yearly trade income ? U’d need 3 large total monopolies in a large Malacca for that. I have $6600 as a sum of 12 monthly incomes; I get $550 a month from trade AND gold mines etc., of which more than $500 goes into research. Malacca is a bit above $1500 and earning me $1300 a year I think. Still looking for the answer to my original question though. Anyone can help? I was thinking of re-playing the last two years and see if it happens again.. maybe it’s that 11th manufactory that was scheduled to be completed in Flandres on January 1st?

Not unless it’s a rare bug, since you paid for that manufactory when you bought it. I honestly don’t have a clue-I’m tempted to write it off as a rare bug. Considering the size of Spain, the level of your sliders shouldn’t affect it, since the amount you spend on research should be automatically adjusted to account for maintenance each month. Odd loans have popped up when using the autosend function for merchants, but never that many in a row.

Give back all the gold you stole, invest in the infrastructure of those countries, set up legitimate and fair trading practices, return all expatriots in slavery and pay damages to the families who’s love ones you have raped and murdered! I had the gold event - you just lose your income for a year. The sliders are proportional to your income so unless your military is extraodinarily expensive to maintain it shouldn’t cause bankruptcy.

I’m assuming you’re talking about restoration of the Incas and the Aztecs? No way I’m improving the infrastructure, it’ll harm their ecology. And the gold paid for the expense of converting them to the one True Faith. Legitimate and fair trading practices are already set up in Malacca, and require traders to have Spanish citizenship; these would be expanded to Europe but it’s not worth the hassle. Oh, and next time I’m at war with England, I think I’ll go for Ireland so you can see the wisdom of my ways for yourself.

The thing I can’t work is how you managed to go bankrupt as Spain? with all thsoe lovely gold mines everywhere you should be having problems spending the money you make! not running out.

The same thing happened to me last night….well kinda. As Spain I was tring to end a war. Two peace proposals from two different countries demand I pay 0d (yes zero) ducats for peace. Well how could I say no? So I said yes to both of them (while virtual villagers 4 game was paused)Then all of a sudden I was hit with a 500d loan….damn rounding!

It’s a bug. Well, calculation really. They’re really asking for 0.2 or something, and it’s always just enough to force you to take a loan. As long as you are getting even 0.1 or so a month, always wait until the beginning of the next month to accept, else this is going to happen every time.

Near the end of the game England gets +6 settlers for Colonial Dynamism. and (hopefully by now) a shipyard, and a reformed religion. Thats 9 settlers a year!

I plan for a long slow build up but to put myself in position that im stronger ill give up calias if i have to, annex scotland in first year send them to northern coast of scotland, dow scotland drop troops behind his as they march south, you assault and take provs while they try and seige yours. I often end up capturing most of scottish army fast, build up for bit more troops. Denmark: I annex her usually which gives me denmark for spring board for exploring amercia for less cost. It also gives me second cot doubles your navy and if done right you can balance your losses by troops you capture. Plus some rich provs help. Now sweden isnt a vassal and you can work on buttering her up for ally later vassal and annex diplo late. Play virtual villagers 4 game free. Spend 50 years or so staying out of war while building tax collectors, justicars as your tech allows, and placing strategic colonies around coast of america. Belle isle, nova scotia, etc are good points cause high success rate, low agro normally and good growth. After 50 years or so your badboy will come down from <9 scotland...16 denmark< 11 for provs 5 for annexing --avoid the 4 for dowing without cb same religion in europe by dowing russia> 25 to more managable 13/12. If you prefer you can also go the low badboy route and simply reduce scotland to 1 prov and denmark fight several wars by dowing russia and keep taking 3 provs from denamrk till only her capitol remains. You wont get their armies or navies, but you can really control badboy. But yes i recommend taking denmark early with england.

Less cost as in lost ships for exploring using iceland as base for the ships to explore from. The income from denmark also makes it easier to keep plating your colonies rather than waiting till you get enough cash (things are very slow while trying to build up your country, research and build armies to fight revolts). So the income from denmark makes it more likely you will be able to place colonies early on so they grow sooner, and you wont have to settle from tps. Also the free ships from denmark are good to detach to your explorers to keep them up to strength when they do lose ships without having to build any of your own.

As a Reformed England I can see where $$ would be a problem. As a Prot. England though you should have a much easier time with colonising, and protecting you country (from a monetary view).

Exactly the same for me (but minus Denmarks’ land). For me though keeping Spain in the alliance is the hardest thing to do (unless I take money out of research and give to improve relation-never done this though).

In my England campaign, I remained an ally to the Spanish for quite some time, and boy did France suffer! I quickly annexed Scotland, then began expanding west from Calais. 50 years later, the English Channel was English all the way to Brittany. But the real gain was that France became so desperate as to ally with the Mameluks, which was the reason for English Egypt by 1540. With the money from the CoT there, and the added French provinces, things started to roll then.

If you ally with Austria, Scotland, Hannover, and Hessen early in the game then no one will bother you. France might attack once, so be ready to take Normandy and Orleanais (and Maine and one more) as quickly as possible. Norfolk can pull it off if he has artillery. After that, you will be left alone, unless your BB goes over 15-20.

I like to get rid of Calais so when I am at war with France later in the game I can more easily wipe out their overseas possesions. They get stars for taking out Calais so I can’t take their colonies in a peace settlement.

I like to keep Calais because when fighting the French you already have a foothold in Europe. There is only 1 province between Calais and Paris. So for me I fight tooth & nail to keep Calais. Colonial provinces do not count as much towards victory stars as much as European provinces. So controlling European provinces and demanding (controlled) colonial provinces with help you in the peace offering chances.

Agelastus, I play the GC so Austria is not allied at the start and usually won’t be allied until the 2nd year, giving me time to ally with Scotland first then ally with Austria. I think having another major power in my alliance helps to deter DOWs from other major powers. At least, that’s the way it’s been playing out. My favorite virtual villagers 4 strategy.

Hessen/Hannover/Saxony/Brandenburg are good German states to go for early in the game. Except for Brandenburg, they have about 30-35K each in their army which adds up to more troops than any of the major powers will have that early, and this acts as a deterrant. I seldom call them for a war, unless it’s against one of their small neighbors. Sometimes Hansa will declare war on Hannover and give me an excuse to take a couple of provinces (getting a border with my allies in the process).

Against France, I like to fight alone. That preserves my allies’ military power, and I can usually move fast enough to obtain an edge in stars. The French and all their allies will lay siege to Calais (which has a small fort), or if I have control of Orleannais they will sometimes go there. While they are sieging, I will be assaulting several of their forts and usually winning (with Norfolk). The trick is to avoid their large armies. Later in the game this strategy changes (I have the bigger armies then). In the first wars, Calais is a “lightning rod” which attracts the French - but they can’t capture it quickly.

Spain is even easier to deal with. It has few forces in the lowlands and is unable to get past the English fleet to reinforce that area. Canary Islands, The Beleares, and Murcia are unprotected and unfortified, so those are easy targets for a small fleet and a thousand cavalry. No need to call allies against Spain.

Sometimes Spain will DOW England while I’m fighting France, and this is more interesting. My normal strategy then is to iqnore Spain until I finish the French war. The English fleet keeps the Spanish at bay. Of course, things don’t always go according to plan. I will sometimes bail out of a war earlier than I like, in order to concentrate on the other enemy.
I always tell myself I’m going to let Calais go, take out the Scots then slowly concentrate on N America etc but after about 10 game-years the usual bloodlust sets in when France declares war and I take Caux and Picardie. Leaving them with the casus belli is very useful since it saves me the stability hit. Allying with Spain is very useful as they are usually happy to fight the main French forces for me - and they can be persuaded to share maps thus lighting the way to the New World….I tried an alliance with France once.

The only time I ally with France is usually late in the game , and don’t want to deal with that thorn. They get me into wars often enough to decide if I want to be a good guy and let the enemy of easy, or be the BB and annex my way across Europe.

Deepter, you are advocating a colonial policy while isolating yourself from Europe. That works well, too, but you won’t have as much money or excitement. But you will have more competition for colonies. Also makes for a great game. Nothing but sheep in Australia.

Natalie Brooks: Mystery at Hillcrest High is a full featured hidden objects adventure game by Alawar Friday’s Games. The game play is actually styled as more of an adventure game that the other games in this series. You are spending so much time trying to solve item manipulation and inventory puzzles that you forget your technically playing a hidden object games until a scene suddenly pops up, reminding you.

Each of the ten chapters of the game occurs in a location that’s made up from a few rooms. When the player mousse over the background, tool tips are revealed that describe other characters, exits, objects, and more. When you see a magnifying glass appear, this means that an object should be examined further. A set of gears will appear to indicate that an object can be physically handled and a doorway shows an exit that Natalie can use. Useful objects can be added to her inventory when they’re clicked on.

Most puzzles are solved by clicking on an object from the inventory before clicking on the screen where you want to use it. You can use wrenches to remove bolts, darts to pop balloons, keys to unlock doors, and all the other staples that go along with adventure gaming. Natalie is simply unstoppable in her quest to efficiently repair every single gadget she comes across. She seems to instinctively know that those toy helicopters and broken piggybank clocks will help her in the future.

On the bottom right corner of the screen you can view Natalie’s goals so you will have an idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re in doubt, just click on everything in sight. Sometimes you will find that the smallest room furnishings in unlikely places hold a clue.

Hidden object scenes are pretty standard for this genre and do occasionally pop up. You might be expected to find 10 objects in a terribly cluttered room or a purse that’s stuffed full to the point of looking hilarious. Some of the objects you find will be added to your inventory to use later. It should be mentioned that there’s no penalty for clicking randomly. Hints are plentiful if you’re unable to find an object and the hint button, which also doubles for giving out clues for the games multiple manipulation puzzles, quickly recharges.

Each of the chapter contains several mini-games or logic puzzles. For instance, you might have to use a spider as bait for catching maggots, steer a boat toward a rendezvous, connect a few wires, and enter a variety of secret codes into some strange locks. These can be bypassed after trying for a few seconds if you’re just not in the mood or you’re deathly afraid of maggots.

The crisp graphics really pop from the screen and most of the rooms have a nice, curvy, comic book appeal to their designs. Of course, some are better than others. Natalie Brooks: Mystery at Hillcrest High is rather inconsistent, but never to the point of feeling amateurish. The game is rather lengthy, but not particularly strong on replay value. I really enjoyed listening to the background score and wish it was available on iTunes.