jackelgull
An aberration of nature
Okay first of all this strategy assumes three things- you are playing as Darius with unrestricted leaders settings, you start on the coast with forest to chop and this is a terra map.
Now the only thing that is really truly needed is the terra map but this strategy works best under prescribed conditions. The overall goal of this strategy is to get a domination victory through use of Portugal's early overseas settling capability. Just note that my game speed is usually marathon and I play at nobles so take my advice with a grain of salt.
The initial tech path should be BW>Sailing
While you are researching these two techs build warriors and settlers like crazy. Try to set up three if not four coastal cities by the time you are finished researching these two techs. Oh and some time in between you should have made the switch to slavery. Now use slavery to whip out light houses and workers. Start building the Great Light house in one of your cities and use workers to chop it out. You need that wonder especially as you sign open borders with other civs and the trade income rakes in. DOn't worry about cottage commerce just yet. This stage of the game the three commerce per coastal tile should be enough to power you through.
Now once you are done with sailing, take a survey of your tech situation and the Ai's around you. Is it feasible to take the oracle MC gambit? If so then begin teching towards priesthood. If not go to writing first, then MC. After you whip up some libraries you should be guaranteed to be the first towards metal casting. Build the Colossus- most of the tiles you'll be working will be water ones anyways, and it will supercharge your research rate.
At this point you should have been expanding to roughly about six cities. They don't all have to be coastal but with the GL and the Colossus in play I wouldn't recommend it unless it is a really good city site. Six cities on the old continent should be enough, especially considering you are planning to dominate the new one. Now you won't be engaging in many wars but you don't to give your neighbors an excuse to attack so keep a respectable military.
Switch to your neighbors religion to get brownie points and look within your religious bloc for a pet warmonger to protect you. The infamous Montezuma makes a good one- eager for blood shed, powerful enough to make a difference but unable to get his economy up to snuff (kind of like the USSR
) and thus you will always have something to bribe him with. Peter, Stalin or Shaka work too but they are not as ideal. Send them out to war against credible threats to you, such as other warmongers or some rival who seems to have expanded his way across the continent faster then a freshman's waist line and is running away in the tech race. Don't open borders with the other religious blocs in case you annoy your "friends", but if a powerful threat that is annoyed with you asks for a tech, throw it at him and pray that he chokes on it, unless it is a key military tech, or is on the path towards astronomy.
After MC tech your way to alphabet then a straight beeline towards optics is best, trading with the AI for key techs along the way. After optics go for the liberalism beeline and choose either gunpowder for the military advantage or nationalism because it is expensive and leads to a host of other useful techs.
Also after optics build enough carracks to host 4 settlers, a defender for each, two workers per city and an explorer.
That is 4+4+8+1= 17 units or nine caravels. Why do I advocate for so many on your first settling mission? For several reasons. As you don't have astronomy yet, essentially your cities are going to begin with no happiness or health resources so try and get as many of those as you can with four settlers and 4 cities. Then as there are no trade routes with the home continent the four cities can trade amongst themselves and ease the financial hit that they cost. And finally land = power and the more cities you have on the new continent earlier on the faster you will get them self sufficient to pump settlers to settle the continent faster. This will likely hurt your economy but not by much. An GL + Colossus economy is truly monstrous and you'll likely still be in the tech lead making about 400-500 commerce at 60 percent. After you have established about four cities on the new continent and have won the liberalism race head to economics and unlock the final lynch pin to this plan- the feitora. Now you can tech towards Astronomy and obsolete the Colossus. That is pretty much the entirety of my plan, after astronomy, tech path is very difficult to predict.
I don't know how viable this is above nobles , but it is different from the standard bash their heads in early conquest I do with the Incas.
Finally, remember to keep up military expansion and diplomatic maneuvering. And you probably won't be able to keep the AI out of the new world forever but by the time they get there you should have taken all the best land.
Note: Privateers would be perfect to keep your monopoly on the new world longer. Have your colonies build twenty, send them out in groups of 3-4 to terrorize your opponents closest to astronomy or already there and have them sink unescorted galleons. Once you see frigates tough, retreat and save your privateers for an upgrade into destroyers.
Suggestions and revisions welcome.
Now the only thing that is really truly needed is the terra map but this strategy works best under prescribed conditions. The overall goal of this strategy is to get a domination victory through use of Portugal's early overseas settling capability. Just note that my game speed is usually marathon and I play at nobles so take my advice with a grain of salt.
The initial tech path should be BW>Sailing
While you are researching these two techs build warriors and settlers like crazy. Try to set up three if not four coastal cities by the time you are finished researching these two techs. Oh and some time in between you should have made the switch to slavery. Now use slavery to whip out light houses and workers. Start building the Great Light house in one of your cities and use workers to chop it out. You need that wonder especially as you sign open borders with other civs and the trade income rakes in. DOn't worry about cottage commerce just yet. This stage of the game the three commerce per coastal tile should be enough to power you through.
Now once you are done with sailing, take a survey of your tech situation and the Ai's around you. Is it feasible to take the oracle MC gambit? If so then begin teching towards priesthood. If not go to writing first, then MC. After you whip up some libraries you should be guaranteed to be the first towards metal casting. Build the Colossus- most of the tiles you'll be working will be water ones anyways, and it will supercharge your research rate.
At this point you should have been expanding to roughly about six cities. They don't all have to be coastal but with the GL and the Colossus in play I wouldn't recommend it unless it is a really good city site. Six cities on the old continent should be enough, especially considering you are planning to dominate the new one. Now you won't be engaging in many wars but you don't to give your neighbors an excuse to attack so keep a respectable military.
Switch to your neighbors religion to get brownie points and look within your religious bloc for a pet warmonger to protect you. The infamous Montezuma makes a good one- eager for blood shed, powerful enough to make a difference but unable to get his economy up to snuff (kind of like the USSR
) and thus you will always have something to bribe him with. Peter, Stalin or Shaka work too but they are not as ideal. Send them out to war against credible threats to you, such as other warmongers or some rival who seems to have expanded his way across the continent faster then a freshman's waist line and is running away in the tech race. Don't open borders with the other religious blocs in case you annoy your "friends", but if a powerful threat that is annoyed with you asks for a tech, throw it at him and pray that he chokes on it, unless it is a key military tech, or is on the path towards astronomy. After MC tech your way to alphabet then a straight beeline towards optics is best, trading with the AI for key techs along the way. After optics go for the liberalism beeline and choose either gunpowder for the military advantage or nationalism because it is expensive and leads to a host of other useful techs.
Also after optics build enough carracks to host 4 settlers, a defender for each, two workers per city and an explorer.
That is 4+4+8+1= 17 units or nine caravels. Why do I advocate for so many on your first settling mission? For several reasons. As you don't have astronomy yet, essentially your cities are going to begin with no happiness or health resources so try and get as many of those as you can with four settlers and 4 cities. Then as there are no trade routes with the home continent the four cities can trade amongst themselves and ease the financial hit that they cost. And finally land = power and the more cities you have on the new continent earlier on the faster you will get them self sufficient to pump settlers to settle the continent faster. This will likely hurt your economy but not by much. An GL + Colossus economy is truly monstrous and you'll likely still be in the tech lead making about 400-500 commerce at 60 percent. After you have established about four cities on the new continent and have won the liberalism race head to economics and unlock the final lynch pin to this plan- the feitora. Now you can tech towards Astronomy and obsolete the Colossus. That is pretty much the entirety of my plan, after astronomy, tech path is very difficult to predict.
I don't know how viable this is above nobles , but it is different from the standard bash their heads in early conquest I do with the Incas.
Finally, remember to keep up military expansion and diplomatic maneuvering. And you probably won't be able to keep the AI out of the new world forever but by the time they get there you should have taken all the best land.
Note: Privateers would be perfect to keep your monopoly on the new world longer. Have your colonies build twenty, send them out in groups of 3-4 to terrorize your opponents closest to astronomy or already there and have them sink unescorted galleons. Once you see frigates tough, retreat and save your privateers for an upgrade into destroyers.
Suggestions and revisions welcome.
