Liberty bell (Col)

A Liberty bell is produced each turn by each colony in any of the Colonization games. Its function is partly similar to that of the light bulb in Civ games, counting towards scientific and other advances. Like Crosses, Liberty bells cannot be traded, shipped, bought, or sold.

Numbers

Every colony has a town hall, which produces at least one liberty bell per turn as long as the colony exists. In addition to the basic bell or bells produced by each colony, up to three workers in the town hall may each produce bells, three being the standard number for a Free Colonist or other specialist who is not an elder statesman. All production is increased by 50% if there is a Printing Press and doubled when that is transformed into a Newspaper.

Some Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), also affect bell production.

Functions

Bells have two functions. Each bell created in a colony (subject to certain deductions related to happiness or other factors):

remains on the colony's account (even if the colony is captured) and affects its "SoL percentage" (or percentage of Sons of Liberty (rebel) sentiment) and therefore its productivity (which increases at 50% and again at 100%); the colony totals of a player's currently-held colonies affect the overall SoL percentage; an overall percentage of 50% is needed before one can declare Independence from the mother country.
is copied to an overall account that accumulates to allow the election of new Founding Fathers; the numbers needed increase with each added father and differ depending on the level of difficulty.

Displays

In Col1, hit "F3" to see the "CONTINENTAL CONGRESS ACTIVITIES" with the number of bells accumulated and the current Founding Fathers, as well as the overall proportions of Rebel Sentiment and Tory Sentiment and the makeup of the King's army; hit "F6" for the "Colony Adviser" with its second screen or set of screens listing the current SoL percentage and bell production (but not an accumulated total) of each colony.

In FreeCol, hit "F6" to see the "Founding Fathers" report, which lists the current father being recruited, the names of those already recruited, and detail of bell production in each colony; and hit "F3" to see the "Colony Advisor", which includes the total number of accumulated bells for each colony.

Relationships to rebel sentiment

FreeCol 0.9.5 (and earlier versions) calculate the relationship between bells and SoL percentage in a manner that noticeably differs from that of Colonization (1994) for any colony with a population greater than 1. FreeCol also deducts one bell for every person above two in the colony's population.

Trivia

The Liberty Bell is based on the iconic Liberty Bell of Philadelphia.

External links