Indonesian Synergy

Navelgazer

King
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
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Alright, my (admittedly low-level) experiments have come up with a decent plan to use Indonesia's uniques in a synergistic fashion have come upon a good plan for them. Actually, a pretty solid plan, though I don't yet know how well it will work on higher levels.

1. Obviously some sort of water map is going to be highly preferable here, and thus is assumed for the rest of this. Pangea is going to waste the UA.
2. Iron is the lifeblood of your civilization.
3. Given that, you will seek out iron resources on separate islands and settle near them, covering your happiness deficit with the UA.
4. Build Candis in those cities when it makes sense, and obviously don't stop missionaries from coming in. Being a spread-out civilization will help in this regard: The civ design wants your islands to be all over the map! Use this fact!
5. Go through Piety enough to get Religious Tolerance - it's worth it considering what you're doing with the UB anyway.
6. However you found your religion (and you hopefully should get your own) choose Just War if available, and faith-maxing tenets to support it.
7. Spam Kris Swordsmen like crazy. If they earn Enemy Blade or Evil Spirits, throw them at your enemies until they die (seriously, make sure they die and die hurting your enemies) and then spam more to replace the faulty ones. Plan strategies around the good ones. Keep 'em coming. Back them up with as many Frigates as you can afford. Remember - your Iron Number is the only number that really matters to you as Indonesia.
8. Throughout all of this, take over the world. Raze the petty cities, annex the capitals, puppet the secondary cities with wonders you need (or a ton of iron.)
9. Once you can't put off Steel any further, upgrade your "good" Kris and kill off or delete the "bad" ones. Between your Frigates and your upgraded Kris, you'll have the best military on the board in the industrial era and moving forward if you keep it up.

I'm eager for all thoughts and criticisms.
 
Oh, and the extra copies of your unique luxes are giving you the money to spam/upgrade your Kris. This is very much a domination strategy.
 
You aren't really talking about synergy, you're just trying to force the use of every aspect of the civ no matter what. More like anti-synergy if you as me.

Isnt that what most civs are like? Its about making the best of what is available.
 
I believe the synergy of Indonesia is to spread out, and try to remain liked or neutral to the AI so you can make piles of money. Also, dunno why people whinge at the swordsmen, only 2 of the upgrades are bad, but if the unit is updated, they are lost I believe. All the other ones are pretty boss, like being able to attack twice, and getting extra health on healing. Just try to remain out of wars until the end of midgame, and you should have enough resources to try a number of victory types. I wouldn't recommend outright domination though, you still need some people to trade with :king:
 
Honestly there is no synergy with Indonesia, if you have to make a strategy to bring out the synergy than it is not there, like with Mongolia the synergy is effortless, build fast moving, experienced keshiks aided by the almighty Khan, no planning needed. The synergy is just there, it just isn't with Indonesia
 
I think there's synergy with the UA and UB. Basically, settle your luxury cities near AI cities with religions on a different continent. The extra luxuries will encourage them to send trade routes, which will help spread their religion. Then you build missionaries and spread that religion back to your cities, building Candis. The only question is what to do with the extra faith. I bought great artists and musicians and went for culture victory, but it's clear faith-purchasing is the way to go.

Kris swordsmen can be quite good, but I used them for an elite defensive force rather than an offensive one. You can attack barbarians to get the promotions and weed out the good from the bad.
 
Sorry if I misspoke, but my point was precisely that I was trying to force all of the elements into harmony, and this plan has worked well for that.
 
Honestly there is no synergy with Indonesia, if you have to make a strategy to bring out the synergy than it is not there, like with Mongolia the synergy is effortless, build fast moving, experienced keshiks aided by the almighty Khan, no planning needed. The synergy is just there, it just isn't with Indonesia

You're contrasting Indonesia with what is probably the most synergetic civ in the game. Of course Indonesia is not going to appear to have good synergy compared to Mongolia. Very few civs do.

Indonesia's synergy arises from its UA and UB. You get a free lux which will make trade routes very lucrative. The trade routes will most likely spread another religion or two to your city garnering extra faith. That extra faith can be used for whatever GP or faith building you happen to be able to build. Also, the UB doesn't need freshwater, which has been incredibly helpful for me when I am trying to place cities on continents besides my capital's.

It's not incredible synergy, but there is definitely some there.
 
Actually they have great synergy on water maps that have larger landmasses. Small continents, large islands, maybe continents plus. Anything with islands for the UA to work but large enough landmasses to get good use out of the swordsmen. Obviously infantry is nearly worthless on tiny islands.

Expand fast early on, your UA allows you to do this without suffering unhappiness so you can still grow which is important with the tech penalty. This way you have a good number of decent cities in the classical era to spam your UU and build faith buildings to found with (too bad the UB comes a tad late for founding).

Keep the good swordsmen and ditch the bad ones either by gifting them to an allied CS or suicide like Navelgazer talked about. The good ones are pretty good, invulnerability is damn near to being OP and the promotions do carry over so you can plan your wars and not jump in haphazardly trying to get use out of the UU before it obsoletes (I checked the XML just to make sure it hadn't been patched out since I played them). You can even carry over the mystic blade promotion if you haven't used the unit yet. You should have multiple resources, from your UA and wide empire, to sell and some really good trade cities that should easily keep your economy afloat supporting your army until you use it to invade or just as defense. I'd even rush gunpowder before navigation to free up that iron for frigates.

What I like about the kris swordsmen is the varied promotions. Use the invulnerability unit as a meatshield to protect your ranged units in a siege. The ambition unit is good for finishing off cities or units. The restlessness unit is good for chasing down ranged units. The heroism unit allows you to burn all your GGs as citadels.

The UB can be built in every city so you have a massive faith advantage to spend on buildings or units. Depending on your beliefs you should have a pretty powerful religion to help with happiness, culture, gold etc.

They have great synergy for an early wide empire, only problem is that they're kind of map dependent. I kind of wish Jakarta could get that first luxury so you'd at least be guaranteed one use of your UA early on. It sucks when you can't use it until astronomy. If getting it on turn one would be too op they could make it only accessible after researching Optics.
 
Mongolia still has that useless UA. The best synergy in the game surely is almighty China. Extra gold for the maintenance of your archers, through the libraries that you would need anyway to get to machinery fast, and then CKNs with super GGs making you pretty much invincible against any opponent.
 
Mongolia still has that useless UA. The best synergy in the game surely is almighty China. Extra gold for the maintenance of your archers, through the libraries that you would need anyway to get to machinery fast, and then CKNs with super GGs making you pretty much invincible against any opponent.

Their UA also gives +1 movement to mounted units, which is huge for getting your Keshiks out of the line of fire.
 
Curious as to how many units you are able to faith buy with this strategy, how many units would you estimate you're able to buy ?
 
1. BW - UU is for defense.
2. NC - OCC or 2CC
3. Optics Start founding your 3 cities abroad.
4. Theology Unlock UB - place them on island cities to 'catch' foreign religions. You also want to found your own religion.
5. Commerce - Trade like mad.

Focus on religion and commerce.

Win
 
Small continents, large islands, maybe continents plus.

Just a side question, but what is the difference between Small Continents and Large Islands in game terms? Conceptually they sound exactly the same to me. Like Australia: it's smaller than the rest of the continents on earth (except maybe Antarctica), but larger than the rest of the islands on earth (even Greenland, I'm pretty sure). Is there a gameplay difference that I'm not noticing?
 
What if Kris Swordsmen never obsoleted?
 
Just a side question, but what is the difference between Small Continents and Large Islands in game terms? Conceptually they sound exactly the same to me. Like Australia: it's smaller than the rest of the continents on earth (except maybe Antarctica), but larger than the rest of the islands on earth (even Greenland, I'm pretty sure). Is there a gameplay difference that I'm not noticing?

On Large islands civs start on a big island alone as long as you're using the standard number or less of civs for the map, you can usually settle a few cities on it. On small continents the islands are bigger, there aren't as many and you're rarely alone on it.
 
On Large islands civs start on a big island alone as long as you're using the standard number or less of civs for the map, you can usually settle a few cities on it. On small continents the islands are bigger, there aren't as many and you're rarely alone on it.

So I'm guessing Large Islands would be better for Indonesia because you will have more land masses to build cities 2-4 on.
 
So I'm guessing Large Islands would be better for Indonesia because you will have more land masses to build cities 2-4 on.

Yeah because usually there's more islands in between too.
 
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