A Brazil Early Game Strategy without Workers and Settlers

totally agree with Dai, your strategy without a worker/ improvement is awful
even purchasing a worker is an option

EEE_BOY is also 100% correct about National College, the best wonder in the whole game, regardless of type...

besides that, you have some nice pointers, though

since you obviously play a lot, specially fast games (one city, no war, small number of units, until ¬150 turn, while everything is still fast and you have not revealed the whole map) try adjusting strategy with those two, and then re-post about outcome. sure it will be better

tat501 said:

I just find it impossible to get Chichen Itza using this strategy. I get Parthenon fine, but I seem 20 turns too late for CI most of the time it seems.

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This. Playing on immortal, epic this build was not close to getting the wonder. I had a strong start, ~8+ goody huts (only got one relevant tech tho), no war, very defensive position allowing me to trim unit acquisition from the build, early pantheon giving me massive culture bonuses with 3 luxury resources on jungle.

The only deviation I made from the build was picking up mining (4 turns) so I could actually beat the computer to parthenon - by chopping 3 trees that were on hills with one purchased worker. (not doing this would have also left me without enough production to finish chichen itza in time - I really _had_ to do it, since the other tiles are jungle)

I was 20 turns from finishing research on civil engineering when the computer finished chichen itza, ~turn 140 (epic). This seemed really fast, but without going NC, I wasn't even a little close to enough research. Even with my city at size 11 due to finishing tradition about twice as fast as normal, it wasn't close. Near as I can tell, if an immortal civ with a strong start decides they want chichen itza, you need to be lucky and have a strong start to beat them to it with this build. I bet on epic it happens often enough.

I tried this and it worked...the 4th time. The first time and third time, I didn't build CI first. The first time it was because I didn't follow your policy tree list and my city didn't grow fast enough. The third time was because I didn't start off near enough jungle. You need to stress how good jungle -- especially citrus and bananas -- is. Without the ability to make farms, you need that extra food. My second game I lost because someone declared war on me and there was simply nothing I could do. So the 3rd and 4th games I played on an archipelago, and I'd really recomend that to others. I'm on turn 249 and noone has declared war once. My military consists of a Spearman, Caravel, and 2 Privateers. That's it. lol I think my build order was something similar to Monument --> Granary --> Library --> Parthenon --> Writer's Guild --> National Epic --> *purchase Water Mill somewhere around here* --> Shrine --> Chichen Itza --> Settler --> Cargo Ship --> Worker --> etc. Don't think I'm missing anything here. That was my first Worker, as I didn't start off on an island with a city-state to steal one from, but it's ok. Citrus and bananas so OP. Also had a couple hills, some forest, and stone. Couldn't ask for a better start. I'd also like to mention that the Great Engineer you get 100 turns after Chichen Itza tends to time perfectly to get Sistine Chapel. I built CI on turn 106 (started on turn 91) so that means I'll get another GE on turn 406. What to do with it? Hmm...

For this strategy it seems CI is the key goal so for higher difficulties

1. focus on fast science
2. don't chop for parthenon
3. Ignore shrine if production is low (take someone elses religion)

Possibly modify to writing-> (trapping if camp resources)-> wheel (faster pasture+watermill)

And change policies to
Landed elite-monarchy-aristocracy
(Aris not really useful before CI)

Liberty probably won't get you enough happiness for the population you need. although a GE maybe useful. You may have to spend it on a GS

Huge effort writing the guide but sorry to tell but the no worker / no NC has no sense. Lots of turns of poor growth and poor production in exchange of nothing? The hammers invested on a worker (or buy or steal one!) will be returned in no time and lots of benefits after that.

Btw will get faster to Civil Service via NC than without it.

The way to get CI is GL-> NC. Skip parthenon, it is not that important.

Would definintely agree on skipping Parthenon for NC. Civil Service is something many AI civs beeline. Getting Chichen in G&K was part of my strategy for getting the fastest Culture victory, so I know that getting civil service by about turn 90 (85 is better) is a must in most instances, and you really need to be able to build it fast too; however, there're always times where the AI has managed to build it by turn 90... usually Ghandi, and it's infuriating. It's like sometimes you just don't stand a chance no matter how perfect you play it.

I don't think it makes any sense to advocate getting GL for NC. How often is that going to work at Immortal+, especially if hammers are a premium on heavy jungle starts?

Tried it and read the instructions as I went to turn 150 then redid the map and instead just ignored chichen and it went much better.

Your guide: 42 Sci, +4 Gold, 8 Happy, 33 Culture, 1 faith, 6 tourism, 2 cities (12 + 2), 18439 army, 1 worker - also got Parthenon, Chichen, National Epic and the Writer's Guild.

Playing normally: 54 Sci, +3 gold, 10 Happy, 43 Culture, 10 tourism, 2 faith, 2 cities (12 + 8), 26758 army, 2 workers - also got Great Library, Parthenon, National College, National Epic, Writers Guild and the Artists Guild.

I just felt like I was sacrificing way too much to get Chichen. Appreciate the guide though, it may well work in some situations but in mine whilst I got everything I wasn't in as good a position as I would have normally been. With some tweaks it might be better.

Hey thanks for the great feedback and sorry for the late reply. After testing it again a lot I do have to admit that it is very dependant on the start production with my strategy and also the worker stealing is a good idea.

It was worth a try to go into a different direction for the early game but unfortunately as many of you have mentioned there are better ways to get to the goal.

Since it seems to be impossible on Immortal to rely on getting the Chichen Itza 100% of the time I came to the conclusion that it might be safer for Brazil to go for the Parthenon/Liberty build in order to get 2 Classic Era Great Artists and then getting the Sistine Chapel to fill it up with the 2 GAs.

Or go for the GE from Liberty, as EEE_Boy has pointed out, and try to get the CI that way.

Thanks for trying out my guide and sorry for wasting your time with this unsuccessful approach.

Very interesting and unique! This strategy raises two questions for me:
(1) Has the BNW AI become so insanely passive that it won't take down a one city civ with barely any units?
(2) Does the fact that you play on quick change the relative value of military and civilian units compared to players who play on slower speeds?

Dogmouth said:

Very interesting and unique! This strategy raises two questions for me:
(1) Has the BNW AI become so insanely passive that it won't take down a one city civ with barely any units?
(2) Does the fact that you play on quick change the relative value of military and civilian units compared to players who play on slower speeds?

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1. According to the Firaxis designers the AI hasn't become more passive. The only major change they made to the AI is to to have them consider trade routes into the decision making process. However I agree that they don't declare war as early and as much as they did pre-BNW.
I like the change though. They are less suicidal now. Usually if an AI attacked me very early that meant that they slowed me AND themselves down so that some other AI could go ahead and do what they wanted, which is not a smart move from the attacking AI.

That being said even before BNW I haven't built more than 4 units before reaching medieval and it usually turned out well. If the AI declared war on me then I could always build/buy more units in time. Worst case scenario I had to buy walls. Generally I tend to play peaceful which results in me procuding as few units as necessary.

2. Yes that could change quite a few things in the gameplay. I have played only a handful of standard speed games so I'm not aware of the differences in gameplay.

I just made an infographic for Brazil:

http://gofort.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/brazil-civilization-v-infographic-strategy-guide/

josephricafort said:

I just made an infographic for Brazil:

http://gofort.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/brazil-civilization-v-infographic-strategy-guide/

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Really cool! Seems like you forgot to update the "challenge" part from Assyria, though.

kaspergm said:

Really cool! Seems like you forgot to update the "challenge" part from Assyria, though.

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Hi kaspergm, Thanks for the input. Your'e right. The fact that before I am about to finish the infographic, my software inmmediately crashed that's why I have to deisgn it back from the start. Thanks for reminding.. I'll update it asap..

Looking forward to trying this out in my next game. Brazil is one of my personal favorites to play as.

Not a bad strategy. Personally I'd go Scout > Scout > Shrine to start and skip the Monument (which you get free from Tradition tree anyway). There's a good chance (though it depends on the map) one of those Scouts will get an Archer upgrade. You also really don't want to miss the +1 culture from jungle tiles pantheon or you miss a huge early advantage.

A heavy jungle start is one of those times I also don't mind dipping into Liberty after Tradition. The +work speed is a huge help on jungle tiles. If you can somehow get the Pyramids too (which may be a gamble) it can make a ton of difference in how fast trading posts go up. (Of course you can also go invade whoever owns the Pyramids but that doesn't always work out).


Another alternative is possibly to go full Liberty, which compensates for lack of hammers pretty well, but at the cost of city size. You can then use the final policy to grab a Great Engineer and rush CI. I'm not sure if the timing on it would be quite right, though. If you somehow miss CI bulb a Great Proph or Scientist instead and you should still do pretty well.

I just quit at around 600 A.D., simply because Ramses was getting every single wonder and was just killing everyone. It was fun to play, and I still would have had a shot at cultural victory if the damn Egyptian hadn't beat me to Sisteen Chapel by 3 turns. Nothing I could do about it as I had already chopped everything in sight.

I did grab a 2nd city early, as the site was just too tempting and too close to another civ to risk not getting it. I also stole 2 workers early, simply because they fell into my scout-archer's lap.

I use random terrain types, and this game was on a single continent, which resulted in a lot of requests to declare war. It didn't have a negative affect, as the scout-archer quickly became a double-shooting ranged weapon…..perfect for defense.

I'm back to try it again, hopefully without Ramses in the game.

Good, a new mode for me to try out :]

right, some updates:

First game I had no hills, and I got beaten to Parthenon quite easily, Indonesia and Shoshone were forward settling like mad.

- three hill tiles, one with Gold, the rest is jungle and more jungle, one banana and even one cow in the distance. I'd have liked a citrus but eh. There are other two hills but they're jungle gems, using this guide, not gonna be able to get those any time soon. Got Parthenon this time, all working as planned, finished Tradition, got the pantheon, not bad. Even saved up some gold for an emergency archer. Which sure came in handy, because Atilla and Askia DoW at turn 50, they swarm me with warriors and archers. They swarm me with warriors and archers, which my hill fort tanks with ease, with the garrison bonus, I was picking off almost a whole unit per turn.

Soon, Atilla backs down and is friendly. He's much cooler than you give him credit for. However, despite Rio being impenetrable, Askia, ever the psychotic jerk and my second most hated leader (guess who's number 1) plops cities all around me, effectively boxing me in and gimping all the way. In all this commotion, it took someone 68 turns to finish off Chichen Itza, and I was still 7-8 turns before Civil Service. I don't really think it's possible to get CI on Immortal/Deity by going straight for Civil, and you're not really losing much pace culturally by going NC first, in the end, if you can get Ufizzi, Hermitage and Sistine/Louvre/Globe fast, you should be alright. Pisa for a free GE even better

josephricafort said:

I just made an infographic for Brazil:

http://gofort.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/brazil-civilization-v-infographic-strategy-guide/

Click to expand...

Just wanted to say, your infographics are very nice-looking.

Holy necro !

That strat doesn't make much sense to begin with sadly.

I'm in the middle of a game that feels sort of like this is described, except instead of sacrificing everything for culture I was sacrificing a lot for faith. I was playing as the Celts, my 2nd city had 3 adjacent forest tiles but not improving them was killing my production. My third city had Sri Pada within its borders. My gold was in the negative though for what felt like most of the first 150 turns because there was literally no one else close enough on my continent to send a caravan to (Russia spawned on the extreme northern end, I'm on the extreme south, no city states on main continent. Weird.) When I finally got cargo ships going, barbarians kept pillaging them. Barbarians also pillaged a lot of my tiles as I went along, all that empty space on my continent meant lots of extra barbarians. Then the happiness problems started. Despite all the empty land, resources other than silk were scarce. Budget deficit was killing my science. My crappy production meant I didn't get the NC until way late. Finally after a few timely social policies saved me things started paying off. I got a DOF with Austria and finally got my economy to the point where I actually had a research agreement. By the time I started getting universities up I was finally starting to catch up. Used Oxford to get Chemistry and was able to start building cannons JUST in time to fend off a Russian invasion that I just happened to see coming while wandering north. By the time Russia got to my capital I had cannons and musketmen waiting for their crossbowmen and pikemen. It didn't go too well for them. Now, they've built a couple cities down on my end of the continent and I intend to raze at least one of them before agreeing to peace. Meanwhile, all the other civs are crammed on one continent and fighting with each other so this game has potential if things go well. Anyway that has nothing to do with this thread really but all that being crippled for the first 150 turns stuff sounded really familiar.