The specialty has to be in the colony. Perhaps if you put a veteran soldier in the church, for instance, it might show as an option. I think I’ll try that when I get back to the game.
The expeditionary force is ridiculous. I’m about to declare independence with eight cities, and the King has something like 90 dragoons, 80 soldiers and 40-odd artillery. I’m foreseeing the same tedious grind as was in the original game.
It doesn’t work. I guess the only way you get them is to buy them.
I couldn’t find a way to train soldiers either (so settled for training Elder Statesman and Expert Fisherman etc).
I agree with Frank that the speciality has to be in the colony (i.e. working there) and soldiers are on duty outside the colony.
I faced 53 regulars, 5 Dragoons, 15 Artillery and 21 Warships. :eek:
The Warships bombard you (and drop troops off), but if you defeat all the other types of units, you win. 
There was no bonus for terrain (as in the original), but the rebel sentiment % did help. (So it’s best to get that up to around 100% before revolting).
I found I was sending out slightly injured troops from my Fortress to destroy the Artillery (because the Artillery was destroying my protection). So an early promotion of Medic was really useful.
The final battle lasted 8 turns and was a little slow, although I only had one Coastal Settlement (so almost all the combat was in a small area).
I reduced ze Frenchie Monarch to 1 Regular, but couldn’t see it to finish him. Then it popped up attacking an inland Settlement. However my sole Dragoon there won the day. 
After my tedious fight (the King took Jamestown and holed up, but I nibbled away at him, and won), I can’t see any real difference between Veteran Soldiers and anyone else who happens to be equipped with guns and horses. Most of the two free indentured servants per city that I turned into dragoons when I declared independence survived the war, but they were always indentured servants, only gaining experience points just like in Civ IV.
You have no time to rest anyone though, no time at all. Next game I’m going to promote some to Medic.
I did some reading on the civfanatics forums and they’ve noticed the same issues we have. A lot of people are complaining about the expeditionary force’s size, but apparently the rebel sentiment bonus should allow you to wipe out a big land army. It was also revealed that the expeditionary force increases in proportion to the number of liberty bells you’ve produced. If you never use any statesmen and only “build” political points to earn founding fathers, the expeditionary force will remain very small (but you may have a hard time building up the sons of liberty membership you need to declare independence). Also, your tax rate increases in proportion to the amount of gold you’ve earned by selling commodities in Europe. Apparently the only distinction between veteran soldiers and non-veterans is that they start with the veteran I and leadership promotions; the latter allows them to earn double experience. When fielding dozens of units, it doesn’t appear to be important enough to justify the expense.
Oh, and the factory bonus glitch is apparently in this incarnation just like in the original: You don’t really convert, say, 12 tobacco into 18 cigars; you convert 12 tobacco into 12 cigars and get 6 for free. Even without any tobacco on hand, you still get those extra 6 cigars out of thin air.
In the original colonization you needed a university to train veteran soldiers and elder statesmen. Do you have a university, or just a schoolhouse/college? Also, you have to have a veteran soldier working in the town (so you can’t have them fortified with guns at the stockade). I didn’t try to train veteran soldiers, so I don’t know if it’s possible in this version.
Just finished my first game. Got crushed by the English invasion force. I had 90% sons of liberty membership, so 45% combat bonus, but I didn’t win even half of my battles. Those cannons are gnarly.
There are 3 levels of education (schoolhouse/college/university), but you can only train with professions inside the colony. (You can train any profession at any level - it just takes longer.)
Since soldiers are always outside, they can’t teach.
What are veteran soldiers without guns? Are they just free colonists? In the original, veteran soldiers could indeed drop their guns and work in the colony, and were still “veteran soldiers” for training purposes. They had dark blue shirts and hats.
Hang on - is this right? I tried to buy some horses from Europe and could only buy then in units of 100. I’m sure in the original you could buy and sell individual units of things. I checked the manual and it confirmed you could only buy in units of 100, but can anyone confirm that this has changed from the original? If so I hope they patch it at some point, I don’t see why you should be able to buy precise amounts of things.
You were only able to buy units of 100 of stuff. You could only sell in units of 100, or less if you had fewer than 100 units to load.
Also, I just confirmed that veteran soldiers CAN work in a city. My veteran soldier is fishing right now. So you can train veteran soldiers in your schools.
Have you tried training someone yet? I put a soldier in a church, but still didn’t get that as an option for my student.
Not true. You have to hold shift when transfering goods and little window pops up where you can specify how much you want to transfer. Worked with old Colonization and works with new one.
ETA: just checked it trying to buy horses in Europe and it works like charm: hold shift, drag and drop horses and 23 horsies ready to ship are onboard.
Hold the shift key down when buying to reveal a button to allow you to deal in any number from 1-100.
Soldiers can’t work as soldiers in a city.
If a soldier is fishing, he teaches fishing.
Well, that explains why the students are all out on a boat drinking the distiller’s rum.
If a soldier is fishing, he doesn’t teach anything. I just ran a couple of tests using the world builder. An expert farmer assigned to mine ore teaches farming, a firebrand preacher in town hall teaching preaching, a hardy pioneer in town hall teacher pioneering, a veteran soldier in the distillery doesn’t teach a thing. This was on a quick game in a fully decked-out colony.
Veteran soldier appears to be unique in that it can’t be trained. Also note that for some reason veterans can’t clear their specialty to become free colonists. Maybe it’s glitched, but I think that the developers just didn’t want it to be trainable.
It’s not a big deal, anyway, since veteran soldiers are barely better than non-veterans. They may get double XP, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t generate double great general points.
Interestingly, you can’t directly arm Converted Natives and turn them into soldiers- during my War for Independence all my Coastal Cities had been taken by the REF, but the Missions I had established in nearby Indian Villages were still creating Converted Natives.
So, I thought I could establish a Colony on an offshore Island near the shipping lane to Europe (but away from the Royal Navy’s patrols) and basically create The Emperor’s Indian Rifles contingent there using guns either smuggled from Europe or made locally.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t arm the Native Converts, but you can train them in Indian Villages and then clear their specialty to create Free Colonists, who could be armed and turned into soldiers. Unfortunately it takes progressively longer and longer to train people at Indian Villages, so the idea fell over fairly quickly and the Colony basically became an offshore Stockpile of goods to be smuggled to Europe for sale.
Just checked. For every 1 XP that a normal (free colonist) soldier earns, you get 1 great general point ans 20 military points. A veteran soldier earns double XP for promotions, but each “pair” of XP he earns still generate only 1 great general point and 20 military points. So very little reason to invest in them from that perspective.
I’ve won my second game.
I played as the English, but only built 3 Settlements (one on the coast). I thought I might need more, but they were easy to administer.
(N.B. At the end, the King attacked the sole coastal Settlement and also tried to go inland, but was cut down before he got near the inland Settlements.)
I didn’t activate my Elder Statesmen outside my coastal Settlement until I was nearly ready for war. This meant the King didn’t build a large army.
At this time I had a decent-sized army compared to the King, but my rebel sentiment was taking too long to build up.
So I disbanded my Lumberjacks, Sugar Planters, Distillers, Wagon trains and Treasure trains. :eek:
N.B. Removing 14 units put me over 50% rebel sentiment (from 37%), although the Treasure trains don’t count as units.
I won almost every skirmish easily, but it took a while because the troops arrived in waves several turns apart.
The War took 10 turns.
Game time taken: 21 hours 22 minutes
Next up - the Spanish!
P.S. The time taken includes answering phone calls and even leaving the game running for several hours whilst I went to work…so 11-12 hours is more realistic.