Colonization questions

I just got this game today and played the original way back when it came
out. I am remembering the gameplay, but there are a couple things I do
not understand. It has been a long time.

1) There is a little arrow at the bottom of the screen that toggles
units above and in the toolbar. What is it for? I assume it is for
placing units inside and outside the city. If that is it, how do I use
it effectively?
2) Economy. I have been selling excess raw materials at my Home Dock.
The natives like finished products, but do not pay much when I take a
wagon in. Is there a way to automate the sale of goods to my Home Dock
like setting a trade route? How do I get the economy going?
3) Expansion. It seems like if I do not take land, someone else will.
If I take land early, I spread my units out. If I pound the food in a
town, I can get more units. I am curious about philosophies here.

I played my first learning game as the Dutch and found it to be hard. I
killed that game now that I know somewhat what I am doing, and started
as England. I have about 5 cities pretty early, and make extra units
quickly as well as buy from the Home Dock. Any insight is appreciated.
I never played any Civ game, and got back into PC gaming with Master
of Magic and Colonization, and shortly after SMAC. I thought this was a
good opportunity to try a modern SM game. Thanks.

In article <wZWFk.44392$Ep1.21175@bignews2.bellsouth.net>,
javajeffNO RemoveThis @SPAMbellsouth.net says...
> I just got this game today and played the original way back when it came
> out. I am remembering the gameplay, but there are a couple things I do
> not understand. It has been a long time.
>
> 1) There is a little arrow at the bottom of the screen that toggles
> units above and in the toolbar. What is it for? I assume it is for
> placing units inside and outside the city. If that is it, how do I use
> it effectively?
> 2) Economy. I have been selling excess raw materials at my Home Dock.
> The natives like finished products, but do not pay much when I take a
> wagon in. Is there a way to automate the sale of goods to my Home Dock
> like setting a trade route? How do I get the economy going?
> 3) Expansion. It seems like if I do not take land, someone else will.
> If I take land early, I spread my units out. If I pound the food in a
> town, I can get more units. I am curious about philosophies here.
>
> I played my first learning game as the Dutch and found it to be hard. I
> killed that game now that I know somewhat what I am doing, and started
> as England. I have about 5 cities pretty early, and make extra units
> quickly as well as buy from the Home Dock. Any insight is appreciated.
> I never played any Civ game, and got back into PC gaming with Master
> of Magic and Colonization, and shortly after SMAC. I thought this was a
> good opportunity to try a modern SM game. Thanks.
>

I am assuming that by 'home dock' you mean Europe, so I am gearing my
replies based on that assumption.

Not sure what little arrow you're referring to, so I won't comment.
Except that the two arrows on the top of the settlement screen that I
would've expected to represent 'next settlement' and 'previous
settlement' don't appear to work at all. I assign units by dragging them
on the settlement screen to where I want them.

Like you, I find the natives are way way underpaying for finished goods.
This might be a bug, even, not sure. But they like the guns and the
horses. That's where I make my startup capital: selling guns to the
natives. Expect to get back around 1800 or 1900 for an investment of 700
or 800. Since the natives in this game seem to be a lot less aggressive
and war seems a lot less inevitable than in the original game, I can
live with doing that.

Automating sales and trade routes is different than in the original
game. There, you had the custom house that you could use to organize
your sales. Here it goes like this: On the settlement screen, you will
see the 'build' box on the right hand side. That box also has 3 round
buttons one over the top of the other. The 'governor' button allows you
to set goods to import and goods to export to/from the settlement.

Say, for example, that you have coastal 'Puntas Arenas' where you're
making nice rum that you want to sell to your relatives back in the Old
Country.
Set rum to be exported from Punta Arenas. Then look at a ship, when it
comes up, and you'll see that there's a button 'automate trade routes'.
you click on that, and all possible trade routes will show up, in this
case 'rum from Puntas Arenas to Europe.

But it doesn't stop there. You may have another, inland settlement
'Fuerte' that also makes rum. So you set that settlement to export rum,
and you change the settings in Punta Arenas to also import rum as well
as export it. Then you automate a horse wagon to take care of the trade
route 'rum from Fuerte to Puntas Arenas' .... and the ship will still
pick up the rum from the harbour there and take it to Europe. Nifty.

Same, you can actually move basic goods like cotton and tobacco from
agrarian settlements to manufacturing settlements. The custom house
seems to have gone by the bye, at least as far as I have been able to
see so far ---- but I just got a surprise for instance: building a
lumber mill makes another building available - the warehouse espansion.
And the warehouse expansion has the perk that goods that exceed the
storage capacity don't get thrown out, they automatically get sold at
half price. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. There may
be more progressions like this that I haven't found out about yet.

As for expansion, I was utterly frustrated when the French settled next
to me, and suddenly began to expand their influence and take away my
resource squares!!! My ore mines! Scoundrels! Well, searching through
the civilopaedia I found out that producing liberty bells will extend
the influence area of a settlement. So set those statesmen to work once
you can afford the extra food. But even though your influence expands,
you can still only utilize the squares immediately adjacent to your
settlement. So what you've been doing, e.g. settling lots, ultimately
makes better use of the available resources.