Archipelago Spain

I tried Spain for the first time and I decided to play a random map. After 30 turns or so of exploration, I had seen the full extent of the small island I was on and, much to my dismay, I was sharing my small island with England. While this sounds like an awful starting position, I've been playing on King difficulty and I wanted to give myself a good test to see if I'm ready to bump up to Emperor.

My greatest strength in this game was my ability to explore faster than the AI. I was the first civ to discover 5 out of the 6 natural wonders, and 4 of them were found early on which gave me 2000 gold to play with. This gold let me buy an army to knock England out and to settle cities and buy tiles to have Krakatoa and Mt. Fuji inside my borders. I ended up taking over a city state to gain both tiles of the Great Barrier Reef, and built a city later in the game near Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Maybe it was the difficulty I played on, or maybe it was just luck, but I found Spain's unique ability to be stellar on the archipelago. As soon as I knew I was on a small island, I teched up so I could build triremes and embark units. I'm not sure if I would have been the first to discover so many of the natural wonders if I had been playing on a Pangaea map.

My first impressions of Spain were good. Their unique units are lackluster - I didn't build a single Tercio - but the unique ability was fun. I think I'm going to try to jump up to Emperor next.

I usually play Spain on Emperor on a Pangea map, and you're right the luck lies in being the first to discover a NW. I'm going to try Archipelago next, also there will be a greater chance of founding a coastal city next to King Solly's mines.....
Don't forget the conquistadors, I once discovered the GBR and rush bough a settler when it would've been better to rush buy(or build) a conquistador.
On a side note whats your earliest time you've managed to enhance your religion, my personal best is currently turn 31.

phillipwyllie said:

I usually play Spain on Emperor on a Pangea map, and you're right the luck lies in being the first to discover a NW. I'm going to try Archipelago next, also there will be a greater chance of founding a coastal city next to King Solly's mines.....
Don't forget the conquistadors, I once discovered the GBR and rush bough a settler when it would've been better to rush buy(or build) a conquistador.
On a side note whats your earliest time you've managed to enhance your religion, my personal best is currently turn 31.

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My best enhanced religion is about turn 0 . In reality about 128 turns.

Tried a few games on Archipelago and Large Maps and I can't say it suits my play-style. For me Spain's UA is about having 3-4 cities, and having enhanced your religion well before anyone else. Having an embarked settler float it's way to the desired location is painful, especially if the NW is in ring 2 of a CS......

Archipelago's favor Spain since most AI's will not heavily prioritize:

- Sailing and exploring the world with Triremes (lets you snag most of the Natural Wonder discovery bonuses)

- Optics and snatching all the ancient ruins

Also, Archipelago largely negates the one restriction of Spanish Conquistadors (can't found cities on their home continent).

phillipwyllie said:

For me Spain's UA is about having 3-4 cities, and having enhanced your religion well before anyone else.

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I actually went much wider than I typically play - again just trying out new things. I ended up with 10 cities, 2 of which were conquered (Manila was the city state I conquered, which I thought was an appropriate use of my Spanish navy). I managed to have massive happiness surplus, ended the game with 49 or 50, and so I built my cities population as much as I could. Smallest city was in the teens, and Madrid was in the low 30's.

As for religion, I don't remember how soon I enhanced, but I believe I was the first to enhance.

I am in the late stages of a game with Spain on Terra map, Immortal. I did a standard map with only 6 civs and 10 CS, hoping Wonders would be settle-able.

Selected pantheon One With Nature and eventually got Natural Heritage Sites.

They were. Found Solomon's Mines about 15 tiles from cap, bought a settler with the 500. After more scouting I realized my cap was on an inland sea, so settled a third city on isthmus. Had three cities up and running before NC; still had NC by turn 80 or so. Then found GBR and slipped in between Babylon and Korea. Then sent two conquistadores to find Lake Victoria and Sri Pada on the new continent.

They yields are just phenomenal. I don't need to send food routes to the new cities, frees up a lot for economy. Especially GBR counting as two, receiving 10 ea faith and culture (x2!).

Spain is really high-tier in my opinion; although you do have to settle those wonders.

I played Spain on a pangaea map and also found Solomon's Mines about 10/15 tiles away from my capital. Seriously gamebreaking. I also didn't knew that having One With Nature gives 8 faith per wonder instead of 4 if you're playing Spain.

Yes their UA doubles that as well as the 5 culture each Natural Heritage Sites. I took the cheaper Missionaries and Inquisitors enhanced tenant. Had all six cities following my Catholicism and a Missionary in each city; unconvertible.

Just mousing over those tile yields had me drooling. As you said Sagan, when done right (and with some luck), their UA does break the game. I was way ahead in tech and allied with every CS. Well over 100 faith per turn output.

Illinus said:

Yes their UA doubles that as well as the 5 culture each Natural Heritage Sites. I took the cheaper Missionaries and Inquisitors enhanced tenant. Had all six cities following my Catholicism and a Missionary in each city; unconvertible.

Just mousing over those tile yields had me drooling. As you said Sagan, when done right (and with some luck), their UA does break the game. I was way ahead in tech and allied with every CS. Well over 100 faith per turn output.

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^^Inquisitor in each city rather

Halcyan2 said:

Archipelago's favor Spain since most AI's will not heavily prioritize:

- Sailing and exploring the world with Triremes (lets you snag most of the Natural Wonder discovery bonuses)

- Optics and snatching all the ancient ruins

Also, Archipelago largely negates the one restriction of Spanish Conquistadors (can't found cities on their home continent).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight in your first point...about triremes...I hadn't thought about that in the conext of NWs and an archipelago map.... Of course, if Kamehameha is in the game you're probably SOL....

The Conquistadors are great for that purpose...if you have to hard-build one it doesn't slow down your growth...though I usually try to get all, or most, of my cities in place much earlier, though I think that would be hard to do playing an archipelago map.