Unfortunately, I can't see any indications of what resources there are at any location, so this seems to mean I end up building my colonies "just anywhere". How can I find out what's there before building?
It seems I need to get an original copy of this game with the manual ASAP!
You can tell by looking at the tiles. As a rule, I always try and build a colony where it has access to at least one square containing each of the following:
Mountain (or 2 hills)
Forest (for your wood)
Good farm land
a resource (sugar, furs, cotton, silver, tobacco)
Use a pioneer to improve the land as quickly as possible.
Assign lumberjacks, carpenters, blacksmiths and miners to their correct roles even if it means buying them from Europe.
If you build near the sea try and include a tile with fish an assign a native of fisherman to work it.
Send your untrained colonists or indentured servants to the natives for training unless you want to arm the untrained colonists or bless the indentured servants as missionaries and send them to convert natives.
Get a Scout early in the game and send him off to contact natives (to see what training they can offer) and to explore ruins. He will also allow you to plan where to build your next settlements.
I usually try and have a settlement designed to focus on 1 specific type of production, so I make a settlement each to produce cigars, coats, rum, cotton, silver, weapons. I then use several wagons to move resources/items between the settlements and have one particular port for transporting stuff to Europe.
As Djole said, accept the tax rises until you close to starting your revolution.
Spread spare horses and guns around the settlements.
