After a rather horrendous game with Spain this morning, I suddenly realized that I've actually never had a good game with them.

I've had good games with Expansive Leaders -- I generally do okay with Spiritual leaders.

Put them together and I'm at a loss.

Where does Spain excel? What sort of victory do they tend towards? Are there any particular gambits that work well for them?

Spain have quite an amazing UB.. With cannons or trebs they can easily conquer the world. The UU can also be used towards that, it can't be countered by pikes, which is very useful when going for fast blitz and it is a very good stack defender due to getting defensive bonuses.

That said the only way I have won with spain is to get all 7 religions in one city then get almost everyone in one religion and subsequently winning occ.

Start building till engineering and then rock the world with incredible siege. Religious and UB cry for marathon ;-)

One word: Cannons!!!!

Fact- Citadel- aim for Engineering

Fact- Wonder- Great Wall

Fact- Meditation

Fact- Animal Husbandry


this is the superior spain play

citadel + barracks + vassalage or theo = 10XP siege. Just put in stack defenders (pikes and other anti-flanking units) and kill everyone.

I like to use the UU first then the UB, even though the latter comes earlier on the tech tree. Win Liberalism and take Nationalism, and from there you're only two techs away from Conquistadors (Gunpowder and Military Tradition). Build up an army of those with the aid of a golden age from the Taj Mahal, and you'll definitely be able to put a big hurt on someone with a mounted/spy blitzkrieg. Meanwhile, tech to Steel and start building those Citadel-trained CRIII cannons for a more traditional war once your Conquistadors bog down, i.e. when rifles start appearing.

I like to use the UU first then the UB, even though the latter comes earlier on the tech tree. Win Liberalism and take Nationalism, and from there you're only two techs away from Conquistadors (Gunpowder and Military Tradition). Build up an army of those with the aid of a golden age from the Taj Mahal, and you'll definitely be able to put a big hurt on someone with a mounted/spy blitzkrieg. Meanwhile, tech to Steel and start building those Citadel-trained CRIII cannons for a more traditional war once your Conquistadors bog down, i.e. when rifles start appearing.

Researching Guilds and Nationalism is actually quicker than researching Paper, Education and Liberalism, you will still have access to Gunpowder and Military Tradition, and you won't risk losing the Liberalism race. And you will have Knights so you can start some early warfare in combination with Trebuchets. Paper/Education/Liberalism really doesn't give you anything useful if you are preparing for some major conquest warfare.

Paper/Education/Liberalism really doesn't give you anything useful if you are preparing for some major conquest warfare.

Except the military techs you mentioned through tech trading ;)

I consider Spain's UU to be one of the worst, because it's a "win-more" unit (and the most blatant example of one at that). If you have Cuirassiers and your enemies don't have Gunpowder units, they're screwed anyway. Conquistadors just help you to win "more". Also the synergy with CR3 Trebs is kind of non-existent. If you drag your siege around, you lose one of the main benefits of mounted warfare. And the Citadels obsolete too fast to get any tangible benefit from them.

Except the military techs you mentioned through tech trading ;)

I consider Spain's UU to be one of the worst, because it's a "win-more" unit (and the most blatant example of one at that). If you have Cuirassiers and your enemies don't have Gunpowder units, they're screwed anyway. Conquistadors just help you to win "more". Also the synergy with CR3 Trebs is kind of non-existent. If you drag your siege around, you lose one of the main benefits of mounted warfare. And the Citadels obsolete too fast to get any tangible benefit from them.
Pikes can be a pain to cuirasiers, conq's are unstoppable though. I've only played as Spain once but taking MT from lib makes you an absolute monster here. Agree about the UB though, I don't think I'd get any use out of it.

"Agree about the UB though, I don't think I'd get any use out of it. "


Fact- Great Wall- Spy wonder

Fact- Citadel- Spy Unique building

Meditation= Buddhism

The evidence is clear- Stone = Espionage Machine

"Agree about the UB though, I don't think I'd get any use out of it. "


Fact- Great Wall- Spy wonder

Fact- Citadel- Spy Unique building

Meditation= Buddhism

The evidence is clear- Stone = Espionage Machine

Touche.

Pikes can be a pain to cuirasiers, conq's are unstoppable though. I've only played as Spain once but taking MT from lib makes you an absolute monster here. Agree about the UB though, I don't think I'd get any use out of it.

Not much of a pain, rather a small speed bump. Same situation as with Jumbos and Spears; with specific promos Pikes fall easily enough. The AI also never masses them enough.

And the Citadels obsolete too fast to get any tangible benefit from them.

Agree about the UB though, I don't think I'd get any use out of it.
If you think that the UB of Spain obsoletes fast and that you don't get much use of it, how about avoiding Economics for a change? :p CR III artilery out of the cities makes a HUGE diference :D

Artillery & Riflemen/SAM-Inf with 1-2 less trade routes per city? I have to admit - the thought never crossed my mind :) AL just feels too juicy to delay. Just might try this out if I roll Izzy anytime soon. Could be fun, especially with the GLH on an appropriate map.

Don't forget the crazily promoted MGs ( too bad that they can't get combat promos anymore :( )

My problem with playing Spain is that the starting techs don't support workers and pursuing a religion does not help in that area. At Emperor winning the Polytheism or Buddhism race is not guaranteed. All in all Spain is a slow starter and that gives me a tough time, the more so when you don't get Seafood or at least a Lake.

How do you try to get going with Spain early on? I see a lot of people looking at the Great Wall, which I have not tried with Issy. Is GW a viable option without stone? I can see lots of possibilities for a 3 or 4 city start, which makes it hard to keep up until your UU and UB comes along.

Spain is about a peaceful start followed by a military buildup. My plan with Issy always goes as follows

1) Found Hinmduism by working 2 commerce sea/lake tiles. Even at emperor I usually get this. If I fail I always nab Monotheism first

2) Get at least one military item for defense: copper, horses, or archers.

3) Get priesthood, build a temple, run a priest to get a Prophet for the shrine. Oracle for CoL or Theology is a bonus. CoL means peaceful expansion with whipping courthouses, theology is theocracy for a gressive expansion. The shrine is important for the income.

4) Pottery early for graneries and cottages. I also prioritize Compass for cheap harbors.

5) A surplus of workers.

6) Once you get to the middle ages, you want Engineering fast (earlier than education) for citadels and CR III Trebs. Get a surplus of them as they are fairly cheaply promoted to cannons later on.

7) Don't work around COnquistatdors too much although I think they are decent defenders as they get defensive bonus. ANyway, Cavalry are still better offensive units.

The religion game tends to be frowned upon on these forums at higher levels, but dertain leaders really excel at them, Issy is on and Sal is another.

Damn, a Rifle/MCG/Arty stack would basically be immune to Inf/Cav/Cannon, and still viable against Inf/Arty.

I would have thought that's much more beaker-intensive, but it just trades Constitution&Economics&Corporation&AL for SM&Physics&Railroad&Artillery, assuming Astro in both cases. That's not a stretch.

I knew there was a reason I started reading forums!

Spain is one of the most flexible civs in the game. With an early coastal start you can found hinduism while building a workboat and then go sailing soon for autospread. Starting with fishing and mysticism sets you up nicely for a quick shot at GLH, this may dictate a coastal heavy settlement pattern, but you can REX forever with it as a bonus you lose less late game when you delay econ.

Mid game you can set up for a quick conq run if you have a good tech lead or for a steel shot if you don't. Stalling with cits also makes a :food:(or rushbuy)/EE economy extremely good looking. Getting your science from espionage, your muskets/rifles from draft, your cannons/conqs from slavery, and running around with HR (PS/US if you have the mids), nat, slavery, SP (merc earlier), and theo is a very strong mix for heavy production with siege doing the heavy lifting.

Tossing in DIII MGs and CRIII arty makes it a very hard mix for the AI to counter later. Adding in air power tends to take you quickly to a terminal position.

80 gold upgrade from grenadiers says you can have combat promoted MGs! :D

But those don't get XP from the Spanish UB :D

true dat true dat ;)

The idea is to research through Railroad before economics. Then you can get Drill III or IV machine guns and use them as city or stack defenders. Whether this is a good strat I don't know, but pretty damned cool if you can get Drill IV MGs out of the gate!

I've utilized Drill 4 MGs out of the gate a number of times. Usually with CHM leaders. They are amazing stack/city defenders.

I completely forgot about machine guns getting citadel XP :lol:

Speaking of which, how is it that machine guns are figured to be siege units? They can't even attack let alone cause collateral damage or bombard defenses. Is it in the coding simply so they innately do not receive collateral damage from siege units or is there another reason for it?

Speaking of which, how is it that machine guns are figured to be siege units? They can't even attack let alone cause collateral damage or bombard defenses. Is it in the coding simply so they innately do not receive collateral damage from siege units or is there another reason for it?

Good question. I always thought it an odd unit. Being Seige makes it imune to pinch and the infantry +25% gunpowder bonus, a very decent edge. On the other hand being siege means it cannot get defensive bonus's from terrain/city, making it a bit weaker that CG rifles/infantry.

There's a work around for that, build CG grens and upgrade to gunners.

I didn't know that! I thought MGs got defense bonuses on hills/forests! That doesn't seem right (realistically) although I guess gameplay is more even.

There's a work around for that, build CG grens and upgrade to gunners.
Yeah, I suggested that, too, but you'll only get terrain bonuses if you give the Grenadiers Guerrilla or Woodsman promotions and then upgrade to MGs. Just upgrading gren to MGs doesn't give them the ability to have terrain bonuses I think... (someone correct me on this if I'm wrong).

There's a work around for that, build CG grens and upgrade to gunners.

yep, that get's then CG bonus, but still does not get the defensive bonus.

Anyway, defensive bonus is rather insignificant at that time as a fleet of destroyers or stack of cannons/artillery quickly destroy the defensive abilities of a city anyway.

I always (well almost) go for cultural when I play spain.
No use of the UB, no use of the UU, but I like being spiritual for culture, and since happiness is no issue when you run 100% culture, being expansive is rather handy.

and since happiness is no issue when you run 100% culture, being expansive is rather handy.

I don't understand this. Why is EXP handy when @ 100% culture? The 2 health?

More health ;)

I guess he means because happiness is not an issue, health is the limiting factor. In reality I don't think expansive helps at all when going cultural.

MCGs are oddballs in many ways. One is that they don't require Rifling; would think that rifled machineguns would at the very least be more effective than generic ones. I think siege is a good as any classification for them; they wouldn't make much sense as gunpowder units either in the Civ sense (general purpose infantry with firearms). At least the Charge promotion makes sense for battling MCGs.

I guess he means because happiness is not an issue, health is the limiting factor. In reality I don't think expansive helps at all when going cultural.
you're right about the reason, but I'd say you're wrong about expansive being no help.
I always have a hard time cottaging up all the tiles when I'm not...

yep, that get's then CG bonus, but still does not get the defensive bonus.

Anyway, defensive bonus is rather insignificant at that time as a fleet of destroyers or stack of cannons/artillery quickly destroy the defensive abilities of a city anyway. Gunners are especially good if you don't have too much defenders in a city. This is when immunity for collateral is most important. Alternatively you can just fortify > 30 infantry in a city if the attacking ai is very strong, ais just can't deal with so many units, they use siege but not enough to weaken all defenders in those cases.

Really? I guess this is an Emperor+ problem. I never have trouble getting all my green cottages online EXP seems to help me more in my production cities.

Really? I guess this is an Emperor+ problem. I never have trouble getting all my green cottages online EXP seems to help me more in my production cities.
getting the cottage is not a problem
working them is a problem, if you're low on health

Getting them online = building AND working them. If I have 6-7 cottages online in my cities in the earlier game , I'm happy. Trading for :health: resources and leaving any plains forests takes care of the rest to make 10 worked cottages. I consider a city working 10 cottages to be doing its job.

Good question. I always thought it an odd unit. Being Seige makes it imune to pinch and the infantry +25% gunpowder bonus, a very decent edge. On the other hand being siege means it cannot get defensive bonus's from terrain/city, making it a bit weaker that CG rifles/infantry.

MGs do get defensive bonusses from terrain, city and fortification, an exception to the normal rule for siege. They don't qualify for promotions that give additional terrain/city based defensive bonusses though, like City Guard and Guerilla.

Oh, good! I've been assuming that putting my machinegun guarded stack on a forested hill was doing them some good. Glad I was right :D

"All in all Spain is a slow starter and that gives me a tough time, the more so when you don't get Seafood or at least a Lake"

Fact- Valid complaint

Fact- amplified if going for religion or wonder

to compensate- diplomacy- Alphabet - spies- Nationalism
Early horsebackriding and horse archer stack

Getting them online = building AND working them. If I have 6-7 cottages online in my cities in the earlier game , I'm happy. Trading for :health: resources and leaving any plains forests takes care of the rest to make 10 worked cottages. I consider a city working 10 cottages to be doing its job.
When going for culture using the slider, you want to work 20 tiles, and among those tiles, you want to work mostly cottages. +2 health = 2 less farms and 2 more cottages in each of your 3 wannabe legendary cities.
No big deal, you may think, but 2 more towns = 14 more base culture per turn, which with 4 religions and their cathedrals = 14*4 (1+4*50% from religions + 100%from free speech) = 56 more culture points/turn. I think it's important.
Of course, if you go for sushi, you don't care.

1. convert to espionage economy after discovery of nationalism and citadels built everywhere (+50% to espionage points production). start a war with CR3 trebs+pikes/xbows.

2. After that great artists can be used to lightbulb MT for cuirassiers and then Constitution for jails (another +50% to ep): you need four of those if you get Divine Right from tech trade, or 6 artists to lightbulb DR first and then MT and Constitution.

3. delay economics ;)

Oh, good! I've been assuming that putting my machinegun guarded stack on a forested hill was doing them some good. Glad I was right :D

Although immune to ground siege collateral, that really only gives MG's strong usage against cannons. Without CG upgrades from grenadiers etc, machine guns get completely hosed vs CR (especially CR II+) artillery. They might not be the first defender, but after the other things get hit with collateral they themselves are not very impressive front-line vs the siege. MG's are better against older stuff, although mounted (ironically) is still a problem with first strike immunity.

They're still a good unit to fill cities when using spain though due to the XP and your obvious lack of infantry. I prefer them to SAMS as defenders (except against air) and they're easier to get.

A good spain stack to cheese the UB is cavalry, beefed MGs, and CR III arty. If the opposition starts getting ahead, throw in some anti-tanks to deal with tanks. Pinch cavalry (or MG's) will hold at least OK vs other things and nothing can flank the arty for a long time...while the arty can just WRECK defenders with CR III.

Lately my favorite attack combo is cav/gunners/few rifles+cannons/artillery (when researched) on maps where GLH is viable. That allows to delay assembly line past flight and bombers and destroyers.

My first Immortal win was with spain, before that game I had never finished a game with them.

If you really take advantage of their UB they really got multiple UUs. The units I usually build the most of is Siege and Mounted. And they specialize on Both!
Add Drafting on top of that to get your army of ground troops and you got yourself your army!

And as mentioned, Isabella is quite useful for espionage, since she already has good synergy with Nationhood (for drafting your Riflemen/Infantry while you build your super siege). And the Citadel gives +25% to Espionage like all castle, and you want to keep them around unlike many other leaders.

Their UU is one of the better as well.

I'm still having trouble getting Spain up and running initially. Assuming that I start with Poly and can get it, I still don't have a worker tech or a worker. If I'm fortunate I have a work boat about 1/3 finished, but frequently I'm not so fortunate and just have a Warrior in process. AH is two techs away, BW is two different techs away. I tried one where I had two Pigs, no coast or seafood. Got Poly/Hindu, teched Hunting/AH while I built the worker, then went Mining/BW. The worker finished both pastures and STILL had to sit and wait for 5 turns with nothing to do before I could chop a forest to build a mine.

Issy seems to be the queen of Anti-Synergy with her traits and starting techs. She can build cheap workers, but has no worker techs. She can sometimes get a good food start with fishing, but can't whip because BW is so far off. Meanwhile she needs to know where horses are for her UU and for a worker tech, particularly if she doesn't have seafood, plus she needs to get Myst and Priesthood so she can start a temple for a GP, Mining and BW so she has any production at all to build anything. To top it all off, with no workers early, her tech is slow, her production is low and her growth is glacial (without seafood) because she has no improved tiles.

How do you all cope with the very early stages of the game? Issy can build workers cheap, but they don't have anything to do. Meanwhile, the Rexxers around you are blocking you in. Can I get some specifics on typically useful initial tech and build orders for Spain, depending of course, on which of the common problems she has above?

Thanks

I'm still having trouble getting Spain up and running initially. Assuming that I start with Poly and can get it, I still don't have a worker tech or a worker. If I'm fortunate I have a work boat about 1/3 finished, but frequently I'm not so fortunate and just have a Warrior in process. AH is two techs away, BW is two different techs away. I tried one where I had two Pigs, no coast or seafood. Got Poly/Hindu, teched Hunting/AH while I built the worker, then went Mining/BW. The worker finished both pastures and STILL had to sit and wait for 5 turns with nothing to do before I could chop a forest to build a mine.

Issy seems to be the queen of Anti-Synergy with her traits and starting techs. She can build cheap workers, but has no worker techs. She can sometimes get a good food start with fishing, but can't whip because BW is so far off. Meanwhile she needs to know where horses are for her UU and for a worker tech, particularly if she doesn't have seafood, plus she needs to get Myst and Priesthood so she can start a temple for a GP, Mining and BW so she has any production at all to build anything. To top it all off, with no workers early, her tech is slow, her production is low and her growth is glacial (without seafood) because she has no improved tiles.

How do you all cope with the very early stages of the game? Issy can build workers cheap, but they don't have anything to do. Meanwhile, the Rexxers around you are blocking you in. Can I get some specifics on typically useful initial tech and build orders for Spain, depending of course, on which of the common problems she has above?

Thanks

Not going for an early religion seems to solve most of your problems. Non-coastal, just build warriors until you can build a worker that doesn't need to idle for too long.

Not going for an early religion seems to solve most of your problems. Non-coastal, just build warriors until you can build a worker that doesn't need to idle for too long.

Yes, but a lot of people seem to be able to take Spain, found Hindu, and still succeed. If you don't found a religion, the only reason to play Spain is to give yourself a handicap due to the crap starting techs. I'm not saying it can't be done, obviously it can, but I am wondering how people work through the early game if they start with teching Poly and building a Warrior due to no seafood.

Well for coastal starts that's a legitime strategy since Spain is the only Civ you can start a work boat at turn 1 and go for a religion (esp. because water tiles give good commerce). I doubt very many start with Spain&Religion on non-coastal starts.

That makes more sense now. "The reason you can't do it is because it can't be done, at least not reliably." Thanks

Well for coastal starts that's a legitime strategy since Spain is the only Civ you can start a work boat at turn 1 and go for a religion (esp. because water tiles give good commerce). I doubt very many start with Spain&Religion on non-coastal starts.
there is also the famous "spain on a lake", but building a worker when you know 0 worker techs is a bit silly, so you could go warrior settler instead