Sweden: A powerful civ?

LoneRebel said:

How do you keep your friends and go warring at the same time?

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DOW on one of the first CSs you meet. Even if you've met an AI, they won't really care, and if you promise to pack it in they'll not hold you to it. Remain in continual war, milking them for XP and maybe using one GG to steal their Luxury & give your units a high defence tile in which to sit and absorb those arrows.

Maybe go down the left side of Honor whilst waiting for Rationalism to open up, really churn out those GGs and Range Logistics gunners.

LoneRebel said:

The thing with Sweden is that to increase GP generation, you need friends. But at the same time, most of the GPs you'll be gifting are Great Generals and Great Admirals, which are mainly obtained through warfare. Having two UUs also gives the civ a militaristic bent. So that's the contradiction. How do you keep your friends and go warring at the same time?

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Strongly disagree with the bolded point. Even with the somewhat cheesy "fight a city-state for experience" tactic, most of your gifted GPs should be GWAMs. (if you've gotten less than 12 of those in a game, you're not trying) Sure, gift GGs and GAs, and don't use the last point from a GP, but the core of your Nobel Prize committee should be of the artistic variety.

I completely agree that Sweden can be a bit lacking in the synergy department. (although part of making friends is making strategic enemies) However, I don't think Sweden needs synergy. 90 influence per great person makes Sweden AT LEAST middle-tier on its own. Sweden makes diplomatic victory easy, (and let's not forget that those city states provide bonuses that can boost whatever other victory you're going for) and having any easy path to a victory condition isn't something to laugh at.

MattZed said:

Strongly disagree with the bolded point. Even with the somewhat cheesy "fight a city-state for experience" tactic, most of your gifted GPs should be GWAMs. (if you've gotten less than 12 of those in a game, you're not trying) Sure, gift GGs and GAs, and don't use the last point from a GP, but the core of your Nobel Prize committee should be of the artistic variety.

I completely agree that Sweden can be a bit lacking in the synergy department. (although part of making friends is making strategic enemies) However, I don't think Sweden needs synergy. 90 influence per great person makes Sweden AT LEAST middle-tier on its own. Sweden makes diplomatic victory easy, (and let's not forget that those city states provide bonuses that can boost whatever other victory you're going for) and having any easy path to a victory condition isn't something to laugh at.

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Oh yes, I'm seeing that use of GWAMs now; I'd forgotten about them. Thing is, in my mind, 90 influence with one city-state just doesn't compare to a political treatise, a golden age, a concert tour, or even their great works. It's going to be difficult to actually compare the benefits you get from any of these mathematically, so it's mostly a gut feeling that probably isn't accurate, but still there nonetheless.

LoneRebel said:

Oh yes, I'm seeing that use of GWAMs now; I'd forgotten about them. Thing is, in my mind, 90 influence with one city-state just doesn't compare to a political treatise, a golden age, a concert tour, or even their great works. It's going to be difficult to actually compare the benefits you get from any of these mathematically, so it's mostly a gut feeling that probably isn't accurate, but still there nonetheless.

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For a lot of the game, that 90 influence is the difference between not-even-friends and an alliance. I'd take an alliance of most any city-state over the political treatise. (think of it as a delayed return if you picked a cultural CS) Concert tours and great works are largely just trading your ability to get a culture victory for the ability to get a diplomatic victory. I'll concede that the golden age can sometimes beat 90 influence, (if the golden age money is simply enough to buy that much influence, for instance) but that's only toward the end of the game when you've hopefully allied every city state on the planet already.

you can fight agressors and liberate cities instead of taking them. this way you'll have respect and dofs and votes.

Sweden can get pretty crazy on huge maps if you get a lot of DoF.

MattZed said:

For a lot of the game, that 90 influence is the difference between not-even-friends and an alliance. I'd take an alliance of most any city-state over the political treatise. (think of it as a delayed return if you picked a cultural CS) Concert tours and great works are largely just trading your ability to get a culture victory for the ability to get a diplomatic victory. I'll concede that the golden age can sometimes beat 90 influence, (if the golden age money is simply enough to buy that much influence, for instance) but that's only toward the end of the game when you've hopefully allied every city state on the planet already.

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Thanks for the reply! That's very helpful.

LoneRebel said:

Thing is, in my mind, 90 influence with one city-state just doesn't compare to a political treatise, a golden age, a concert tour, or even their great works.

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The 90 point influence is more significant than it seems at first, but use it when it gets you 30+ turns of ally status and you will start to appreciate it! If you build the musicians guild early, you will get 3 or 4 GMs which are so low powered as to be all useless for a concert tour. Great works are only decent if you can get theming bonuses. I agree with you that political treatise and GA is tougher call. But you can get a lot of mileage just out of the GM and one-spread-left GPr. If you war, you will have spare GG and GAd.

Sweden's an unstoppable monster at Deity. Since they're far from straightforward I've compiled a few general hints. But to sum it up, Sweden isn't about allying a few select CS as much as allying ALL of them, and faster than anyone else.

1. Happiness is not an issue with Sweden, and so you don't have to rabidly hunt down every last unique luxury and can instead keep to yourself, playing conservatively by riversides without stepping on any toes and growing fat. Consider each great writer a free luxury and time your first four cities accordingly.

2. Science is not an issue with Sweden, with Scholasticism you end up at Babylon levels of science even before universities are up, at which point you should be surpassing them.

3. Faith is not an issue with Sweden, one religious CS gives you more faith than Stonehenge and after medieval gives you more all three Theology wonders put together. This is where your first great person goes, because a religion will give you lots of Great Prophets that you can use to convert three cities and then gift for 90 influence. No, you won't get first pick on any of the beliefs, but it's not like you need extra happiness, culture or faith anyway.

4. Your natural focus on spawning great people will give you lots and lots of Artists which can be used to bulb a nearly infinite Golden Age a la Persia. However, unlike Persia you don't need to go chasing wonders or policies, just get Guilds and you'll eventually end up with a very long golden age. Freedom is a solid choice for Sweden, so if you can wait until then that's great.

5. Keeping out of the lower tech tree gives you a speedy arrival at Banking, which can net you the awesome Forbidden Palace and Rationalism. Alternately you can rush Printing Press for the leaning tower, but it's not a lock and if you miss it you'll be hurting in science. The most important tech is Industrialization. Pay a CS to improve coal and you'll get first pick of ideologies, which even on Deity is an almost guaranteed victory.

6. If everything else fails, Caroleans. Caroleans are notable for two things - They appear alongside Artillery, the "goodbye, strategy" unit when it comes to city siege, and they're the first unit to potentially benefit from Brandenburg Gate's upgrade stack. Although it might be a bit overkill, since they start with March.

In the end, Melee units are best used as walls for your Ranged units, and starting with March makes Caroleans the very best at this. Don't believe me? You can pillage an improvement, move into a favorable terrain and still heal a total of half your maximum health in one turn. Due to 1UPT, before Bombers it's actually fully impossible to kill a Carolean in one turn if you have them in formation. Also due to 1UPT, healing while STILL ADVANCING AND FLOODING THEIR BORDERS WITH TROOPS is more or less unstoppable. Odds are the city will be shelled into nothingness before you've lost any Carloeans.

Non-Russians tend to hold out until Bombers for post-industrial warfare, meaning that you get a very deadly initiative. The only problem with Caroleans is that they don't last forever. Oh wait, they totally do, and they upgrade to 70 str in no-time. Get some Fighters and you're pretty much set for life, people who aim for your Artillery will swiftly find out what five guys with that +50% Siege upgrade does to a poor little 75 def city.

So, world conquest or just get one of those juicy capitals with tons of wonders. The world's your Meatball. Did I mention that city states are absolutely terrifying on Deity? While not much help in taking down a capital, your various allies will eat a huge chunk out of your enemy's armies on every front. Navies are a non-issue. Don't worry too much about losing friendships due to warmongering, at this point you've probably eclipsed everyone else anyway.

7. The Hakkapelitta. Hmm. Well now. I assume they were meant to work as axillary units for the Caroleans, taking out distant threats with their superior speed. Question is, what threats? Caroleans are unstoppable. Even with a great general you're much better just sticking it among the already very quick Caroleans. Even the AI rarely targets them, they're not registered as a threat. Get one and use it to mop a few workers or pillage the enemy's... Iron...? But Cavalry is much better at that and upgrades to landships.

8. Tundra. Just... No. Nobody's forcing you to work those tiles, you'll be using lots of specialists anyway.

9. If you aren't playing Deity, you can just claim Hanging Gardens and declare victory. There are a few beneficial wonders that you're likely to get on Deity though. The Oracle gives you a GSP which stacks later, extra culture, a faster end to tradition and faster entry into patronage. A total no-brainer.

Going that route you might get a shot at the Hagia Sophia too, totally worth it since great prophets are doubly useful for Sweden.

Forbidden Palace is just a bundle of fun, gets you an edge in the diplomacy game (What, Sweden can be used for diplomacy victories? That's absurd!) and alliveates the unhappiness from your tall cities. Since you basically beelined the tech and picked patronage you're very likely to get it.

The best wonder is clearly the Leaning Tower of Stockholm, but getting it is difficult. If nobody has formed the WC yet, you can be a bit unorthodox and bulb your first GS from the universities to get Printing Press before anyone else, granting you the wonder and a complete chokehold on that diplomacy victory you aren't going to get because those are boring. Hey, free great person.

Brandenburg Gate is good since you've been playing Mr. Nice Guy all this time and won't have a great general. Don't worry, you'll be choking on them soon enough, so you can always just gift it later. The extra XP is awesome for everyone else and meh for you, since Caroleans already have the best possible upgrade.

As for which wonders to STEAL, basically anything you can get. Leaning Tower, Forbidden Palace or a well-placed Petra comes to mind. Remember that the usefulness of some wonders peter off while others grow more powerful with time. Picking Machu Pichu before Notre Dame and Temple of Artemis before Stonehenge should be obvious.

Just played a Deity game on Epic, with a Large map. Went Liberty, put out eight cities, went Freedom (all the 9 other civs went Order) and won at turn 378. I mis-timed my Great Scientist burn for the World Leader vote, so I could've won 15 turns earlier if I had started burning 2-3 turns before.

TheGuineaPig said:

Just played a Deity game on Epic, with a Large map. Went Liberty, put out eight cities, went Freedom (all the 9 other civs went Order) and won at turn 378. I mis-timed my Great Scientist burn for the World Leader vote, so I could've won 15 turns earlier if I had started burning 2-3 turns before.

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Surprising ****ing no one

Now, every time I see this topic, I get this terrible feeling the patching team would see it and nerf Sweden to uselessness. Although this game doesn't update or rebalance things as much as other games.

But it sometimes scares me. Sweden is fun to play with, though.

ShadedSkies made a good point about city-states being stronger on Deity just as the AI opponents are stronger, because they get all the same ridiculous bonuses that the major civs get. And when they're your allies...

Doktor Vic Tim said:

Now, every time I see this topic, I get this terrible feeling the patching team would see it and nerf Sweden to uselessness. Although this game doesn't update or rebalance things as much as other games.

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They mustn't find out!

watabeasty said:

One of the main problems people have with Sweden is that they have a tundra start bias. Their start bias actually synergizes by allowing more DoFs. Nobody wants tundra, so nobody wants your land. This removes a major early game penalty, and allows you to get those DoFs quicker so you can develop relationships so that you can keep those DoFs.

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I personally consider a tundra start bias simply an advantage. The random map generator looks for food and luxuries when it places the civs on the map. But that means those areas can quickly get crowded - also the AI likes to expand in them - while you're likely to get more space with tundra around you. This space around you will also mean you're more likely to keep the peace.

The random map generator underestimates the food in tundra, because it doesn't take into account the food boosting effect of granaries, fishing boats and lighthouses. While there's lots of deer on tundra and it has a higher chance of spawning whales around it.
Besides the other resources you mentioned, there's also normally lots of stone in tundra, allowing Stone Works for extra production and happiness, and the Stone Works is an underestimated building, at the time it's available it boosts your production percentage more than the Workshop usually does later on.
Tundra is nominally not such great terrain, but great once fully improved and boosted with buildings.

Does the 90 influence scale? If not, it's pretty powerful on Quick, and marginal on Marathon.

lindsay40k said:

Does the 90 influence scale? If not, it's pretty powerful on Quick, and marginal on Marathon.

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The influence doesn't scale, but the growth/decay rate does. So it works the same at all game speeds (except that the time it takes for the gift to register is the same, so it kicks in a bit faster, relatively, on slower speeds).

Optional said:

I personally consider a tundra start bias simply an advantage. The random map generator looks for food and luxuries when it places the civs on the map. But that means those areas can quickly get crowded - also the AI likes to expand in them - while you're likely to get more space with tundra around you. This space around you will also mean you're more likely to keep the peace.

The random map generator underestimates the food in tundra, because it doesn't take into account the food boosting effect of granaries, fishing boats and lighthouses. While there's lots of deer on tundra and it has a higher chance of spawning whales around it.
Besides the other resources you mentioned, there's also normally lots of stone in tundra, allowing Stone Works for extra production and happiness, and the Stone Works is an underestimated building, at the time it's available it boosts your production percentage more than the Workshop usually does later on.
Tundra is nominally not such great terrain, but great once fully improved and boosted with buildings.

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Yeah, Tundra is balanced since there are both advantages and disadvantages to it, but the biggest issue is not getting a river near your capital. That lack of a Garden is going to hurt great person generation considerably, and the lack of fresh water tiles is going to hurt even more. Sure, you do tend to get more resources, but that only helps for early growth and can't compare to working eight 4F tiles.

Lakes are acceptable and I think they appear on Tundra, THINK, I mean the blasted things are rarer than Krakatoa.

lindsay40k said:

Does the 90 influence scale? If not, it's pretty powerful on Quick, and marginal on Marathon.

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It's the other way around, 90 influence costs a lot more money on slower speeds. And you get to keep your UUs around longer, so it's beneficial just like playing on maps with more civs. Not that you NEED that for Sweden to be an awesome choice.

ShadedSkies said:

Yeah, Tundra is balanced since there are both advantages and disadvantages to it, but the biggest issue is not getting a river near your capital.

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You mean tundra terrain doesn't have rivers? It does, the only thing that's happening is rivers warming up the terrain; tundra tiles adjacent a river are turned into plains tiles, snow tiles are turned into tundra tiles. This is happening at map generation. And a tundra start bias doesn't mean you get exactly placed on a tundra tile.
There are some trade-offs, though, maybe you meant those. If you've got river placement in tundra, you're actually on a plains tile, so you can't build a Stone Works. That's a negative.
And when you're on a river inland you obviously won't profit from foody sea resources, and a coastal lake placement - lakes don't soften the terrain like rivers do - is indeed rare.

I tend to be lucky with my "tundra" starts making most of the tundra hills and the flat tundra either next to rivers or having forested deer. Either that or I get tundra hills and a lot of river plains.

As with the Caroleans, I like using them as an analogy for teamwork. One Medic II Carolean heals 15HP every turn. Two of them next to each other heal 25HP every turn. Teamwork!

Any thoughts as the best Social Policies as Sweden?

Tradition is well tradition..... nuff said...

Liberty may be best for a tundra start because of free settler, worker & production bonuses. It also is arguably better placed compared to Tradition since the new patch. Oligarchy is a useless early policy for Tradition but all the Liberty polices are beneficial. Liberty also pairs very well with Piety if you are able to get a religion with good faith generation and pick To the Glory of God.

Honor - 2 policies gives a free General and more GGs. The culture investment may be partially recouped through barb hunting. The general can be gifted to an early religious CS for a free religion & if used correctly can also block another civ from allying that CS.

Piety - very good second policy tree as you can take the "To the Glory of God" belief. If you have Dance of the Aurora and good faith generation than the option to buy multiple Great People past the industrial age may be a great means to get a diplomatic victory. Other advantage is you don't need to rush Piety as you are not racing for Jesuit Education or Sacred Sites so you can wait until world fair to finish Piety.

- Patronage another good contender as the finisher can give you free Great People for more CS alliances. Not sure how it compares to Piety but I guess its probably stronger because it carries other benefits for CSs

-Ideology - well both Freedom & Order have the +25% Great People policy but Freedom wins hands down as it has very powerful policies to secure diplomatic victories which Order doesn't.