The Netherlands

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vanDietsland

Chieftain
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Jun 29, 2011
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Anyone tried the Netherlands yet in BNW? I want to start a game with good ol' Willem. So for me and anyone else, any thoughts on how to handle them in this expansion?
 
Not much has changed really. I've always tried to play them as a wide/tall Civ (6-8 cities) into domination or diplomacy wins and use the UA to try to maintain early happiness and try to keep we love the king days going as much as possible.
 
Be aware that you can't trade luxuries for straight up gold unless you're friends with a civ. Other than that, the Netherlands is still the same old solid choice.
 
Netherlands actually has changed in subtle but important ways:

1) Polders in Flood-Plains are no longer a phenomenal gold-yield, since rivers (and hence, Flood-Plains) no longer add a gold-yield to any tiles.

2) Lump-sum gold trades are now limited to civs you have a DoF with. Thus, the Dutch UA now is a little less spectacular.

3) Sea-Beggars can now raid sea trade routes. This is helpful since Sea-Beggars can already heal outside of friendly territory, and to raid those routes you will likely encounter some odd enemy ships and have to heal. With Sea-Beggars, you can literally camp a route without fear (since you will still heal) of having to send units home.

---

Overall, I feel Netherlands took a slight nerf, especially in the area of the UA (since DoF is no guarantee in the critical early game when you want to trade for gold to buy that extra settler). But the over-all strategy for them is still roughly the same, especially if you can get Desert Folklore and build Polders in Flood-Plains, or get DoF's with everyone.
 
ahawk said:
1) Polders in Flood-Plains are no longer a phenomenal gold-yield, since rivers (and hence, Flood-Plains) no longer add a gold-yield to any tiles.
Click to expand...

This may be true, but once you hit economics you now have a bunch of what are essentially farm tiles that produce +2 gold and +1 production, making your golden ages more powerful. I would think of it as a buff-nerf, as it was a nerf in the old system, but a buff for the new one.
 
I don't think I have seen The Netherlands since BNW. Although I play with random AI, some seem to appear just about every game and some seem to have gone on the witness protection scheme.
 
The Dutch AI seems to have become much stronger, surprisingly. Last 4 games in which I encountered them (out of the 10 or so I played), they were among the top 3 in tech every time. Might be that the new AI behavior is in their favor.
To play them...yeah you lose the early lump sums which is a pain, but you can still get some nice GPT which should enable you to keep up better infrastructure/army. Early scouting is important - you want to find a great polderable city site ASAP.
 
Honestly I've been having trouble managing my gpt early on because of all the cities I'm trying to get up before anyone can say anything about it, which screws with me until at least markets. Netherlands would help a lot with that.
 
Still good in my opinion. I love handing out Luxury resources. Hard for the AI to get angry at me settling nearby if I give him some free gems. :D

And my people are happy that the AI is happy that we enacted an economically unfruitful deal, it's awesome! With Commerce: Protectionism, the social policy even affects the Luxury Resources you give away.
 
ToodleElNoodos said:
Still good in my opinion. I love handing out Luxury resources. Hard for the AI to get angry at me settling nearby if I give him some free gems. :D

And my people are happy that the AI is happy that we enacted an economically unfruitful deal, it's awesome! With Commerce: Protectionism, the social policy even affects the Luxury Resources you give away.
Click to expand...

The changes to the commerce tree actually are a slight nerf for the Dutch. The old Great Admiral and 3 hammers per coastal city were more valuable than the 2 gold per land trade route and 25 % more great Merchants that you get now.
 
Calouste said:
The changes to the commerce tree actually are a slight nerf for the Dutch. The old Great Admiral and 3 hammers per coastal city were more valuable than the 2 gold per land trade route and 25 % more great Merchants that you get now.
Click to expand...

This I dare to dispute. The old Great Admiral was nice but...eh. Those 3 hammers were nice but only really had an effect on newly founded cities. On the more commonly played map types (Continents/Pangaea), the extra gold is going to be very useful. The extra Merchants may not be THAT great, it's still a handy bonus to have. I wouldn't say the tree got buffed, but it didn't get nerfed either.
 
Personally, I haven't found the changes to Commerce or the addition affecting the Dutch that much (thank God we're talking about a game). It takes a little more social policies to get the full deal, but at least there is a little more depth both ways.

Of the two games I've played as Netherlands (G&K and BNW), I found myself moving INLAND more often than going coastal. I've only ever needed one or two port cities to spawn my Locusts of Sea Beggars on whichever poor sap threatens my great alliance.

I personally like Great Merchants, especially Industrial Era World Congress. Trade missions net a nice amount of influence, and I can then take that money and pour it back into that same CS or another CS for an ally or 2. Two or four extra delegates? What's not to love from that!
 
Nice, I know commerce is still important to get, but does that also count for exploration? Because also I find one or two coastal cities enough. It's because of the fact that I want to get those flood plains(preferable with desert folklore) and marshes for the polders. Those are most of the times inland. Getting treasure fleets sounds good though.
 
Maybe, depends on how you want to setup. Technically since Netherlands gets Polders, they can grow Tall cities that can probably compensate for their extra Port cities. I'd say that Netherlands is probably one of the few civs that can actually choose both and benefit from both.

And Treasure Fleet is just the cherry on top of the already lucrative naval trade.
 
ahawk said:
Netherlands actually has changed in subtle but important ways:

1) Polders in Flood-Plains are no longer a phenomenal gold-yield, since rivers (and hence, Flood-Plains) no longer add a gold-yield to any tiles.
Click to expand...

But they do make a non-gold yielding tile into a gold yielding one. Given their potential happiness boost from their unique trade, this energizes with Golden age +gold to gold yielding tiles, no?
 
I believe so. Moai's give +2:c5gold: during Golden ages. Maybe they do...I never really paid attention because of the GGA (Glorious Green Apple).
 
In response to several people, yes, the Polder does eventually add a gold yield to a tile (at Economics, IIRC). I wasn't at all trying to say the Polder is now worthless, and I actually would still elect to build one wherever applicable.

Really, I was just trying to point out that the Polder is now just 'good' rather than 'exceptional' in Flood Plains, because the added yield (which includes +1 production, which is a great thing to add to Flood Plains, btw) no longer makes for astronomical raw gold yield given that rivers now no longer add gold.

Hence, one of the reasons I feel Netherlands got a slight nerf.
 
ahawk said:
In response to several people, yes, the Polder does eventually add a gold yield to a tile (at Economics, IIRC). I wasn't at all trying to say the Polder is now worthless, and I actually would still elect to build one wherever applicable.

Really, I was just trying to point out that the Polder is now just 'good' rather than 'exceptional' in Flood Plains, because the added yield (which includes +1 production, which is a great thing to add to Flood Plains, btw) no longer makes for astronomical raw gold yield given that rivers now no longer add gold yield to tiles.

Hence, one of the reasons I feel Netherlands got a slight nerf.
Click to expand...

A slight nerf, along with a significant nerf in the form of no lump sum trading without a DoF. Those two nerfs are enough, IMO, to drop Netherlands from a quite strong civ in G&K to a mediocre one in BNW.
 
That's true. I remember Dutch were specifically made with the 240:c5gold: in mind. I'd argue that the Gold per Polder is less of an issue as trade routes provide so much more gold in the long run, which I think works to the Dutch advantage being a more mid to late-game civ.

Actually...I forgot. The Economics Polder also adds to your GPT which makes your city more attractive. Building by a river still offers the +25% Caravan trade route, so it's not lost...just folded somewhere else.
 
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