[R&F] Civ of the Week: Poland

[acluewithout]

• Leader: Jadwiga.
  
  
• Leader Ability: Lithuanian Union. Does many, many things. Taking territory with a Culture Bomb (see below) converts that city to Poland's Religion. Relics provide +4 Gold, +2 Culture and +2 Faith. Holy Sites receive +1 Adjacency bonus from Districts, instead of +0.5. Also, Poland's Eurovision entry for 2006. Came Fourth, losing to Grand Tour, Mother Russia and Radio Orange.

• Civ Ability: Golden Liberty. Building an Encampment or Fort triggers a Culture Bomb. One Military Policy Slot magically becomes a Wild Card slot. Also, Poland's Eurovision entry for 2015. Came second, losing only to Land Down Under.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Winged Hussar. Replaces normal Hussar, but with Wings. Unique Medieval Heavy Cav, that upgrades to a Tank. Unlocks at Mercenaries. (That's in the Civics Tree. You know. The purple one that doesn't have any space parts. No, wait, maybe it does have space parts. Huh) Melee Strength 55, Move 4, Production 250, Maintenance 3. Pushes back defending units whenever it scores more damage than the opponent. Does additional damage if unit can't move back any further. [Not sure how much.]
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Sukiennice. Unique Building that replaces the Market. In additional to the usual bonuses, International Trade Routes from this City Gain +2 Production, and Domestic Trade Routes from this City gain +4 Gold.

• Leader Agenda: Saint. Tries to build up faith and likes Civs that do the same. Doesn't like Civs that don't build up faith.

• Interesting links: [Sorry. Was too busy googling about Eurovision... Man, that one when the German Death Metal Band won. So awesome. Also, Conchita Wurst. So awesome.]

Notes:

• Is anyone else excited that we get to do China then Mongolia, or vice versa?

• Seriously. So awesome.

 

[KayAU]

I rather like Poland:

• Leader ability - Lithuanian Union
  • Taking territory with a culture bomb converts city to Poland's religion
  • Relics provide +4 gold +2 culture +2 faith
  • Holy Sites receive +1 adjacency from districts, instead of the usual +0.5

This is a set of distinct bonuses which I would all describe as nice, although I don't think they will have a great impact in most games. Converting cities when you do a culture bomb might save you some effort, a little bit of extra faith from your Holy Sites is useful. The bonus yields from relics depends on how many you get, and how early you get them. I have games where I don't get a single relic. It reminds me a little bit of Kongo's bonus, but that is made vastly more powerful by also applying to artifacts, and by getting theming bonuses.​

• Civilization ability - Golden Liberty
  • Encampment or Fort triggers culture bomb
  • One Military policy slot is converted to Wildcard

I really like this one. The culture bomb part of is fun, and having it trigger on Encampments and Forts is great. Encampments are typically built near the border anyway, which means it is likely to help you out in grabbing some land, and Forts can be placed down wherever you want. I like it. The Military to Wildcard ability is also very nice. It allows you a bit of extra flexibility throughout the game, and perhaps more importantly, it allows you to run certain Wildcard policies earlier than normal, to help you get that Great Prophet or Great Scientist you want. This should be very useful for getting a religion.​

• Unique unit - Winged Hussar
  • 55 strength, +7 compared to Knight
  • 4 movement, 3 upkeep, same as Knight
  • Costs 250 production, +70 compared to Knight
  • Must be hard built
  • Ignores Zone of Control, like the Knight
  • Pushes back enemies if it deals more damage than it takes
  • If push back is blocked, does bonus damage instead

This is a pretty cool unique unit. It shares the weakness of many unique units in that it costs a lot and must be hard built, but in this case, I believe what you are getting is worth it. The Knight is already a strong unit, the +7 strength to the Hussar makes it a bit of a monster. The fact that it pushes enemies back is tactically interesting and unique, and the bonus damage for units which can't be pushed makes it even more devastating. I don't think there is much in the Medieval Era which can stand against the Winged Hussar.​

• Unique infrastructure - Sukiennice
  • Replaces the Market, and costs the same
  • All the benefits of a normal Market
  • +4 gold from domestic trade routes, +2 production from international trade routes

This is good, and complements whichever type of trade routes you are running nicely. I often run many domestic trade routes in the earlier parts of the game, which are great for food and production, but generally weak for gold. The Sukiennice allows me to amend this either by giving me a very respectable 4 gold for those, or by letting me choose more profitable international routes, while still getting some extra production.​

Overall, I think Poland is pretty good, with solid and mostly useful abilities. They don't have anything which stands out as very powerful, and I guess they belong somewhere near the middle of the pack in terms of pure power.

 

[Disgustipated]

Wasn't really looking forward to Jadwiga. Poland is another one of those civs whose abilities are all over the place. When thinking about how to plan a game with her, I realized I'd have to build several districts to really take advantage of her abilities. If going for cultural victory I would want holy sites, a religion (which Poland really needs for one of her abilities), commercial hubs for their unique building, encampments for her other unique ability, and theater squares. That's not even including the winged hussar which is kind of a shame not to use in offensive combat, but offensive combat would fly in the face of going for a cultural victory using reliquaries. I mean really, how do you really focus with this civ? I know some people like Poland, so I'm hoping for ideas how to use her. Perhaps religious victory is a better choice. Or some kind of warfare religious victory hybrid. I just did a religious victory, so I'm not big on doing another. And then you still would want to build her unique market which is pretty good which is another district you have to build. It will take a while to get her off the ground. And of course you need campus districts not to fall too far behind. What districts do you prioritize with this civ?

As I said, I was trying to plan a game to use her abilities, and I still can't find a way to use the Hussar except as a pretty good defensive unit. And it actually does seem more like a defensive unit than offensive unit because of the pushback. But it's good combat strength that early in the game, and it's a shame to pass it up. I'm generally going to feel this way about most of the civs with uu's this late in the game (all of our remaining civs of the week), except maybe Mongolia's since you are focusing only one one victory anyways, so you are very likely to use his. Oh and Impi's as well, I forgot we haven't done them yet. Most of the others will just serve as defensive units and unlikely I'll build more than one.

Hoping for some fun ideas for her in this thread.

Funny thing I found in my game I started yesterday is you can build Winged Hussars without Horseback Riding. Not surprising given that UU's have no requirements, it's just a funny observation. Poles are so badass, they don't need to know how to ride horses. Unfortunately I also discovered this unit is very expensive, even with maneuver, and my plan for using them on a neighbor will be delayed. The build time on epic speed is quite high. As I expected, my game isn't very focused and all over the place. I can say I still don't care for Poland. I also ran into the problem of beelining for professional army civic has delayed me getting my religious civics up and going for st. Michel.This Civ is a mess as far as I'm concerned.

And as I mentioned above, we haven't played Zulu yet, given their UU is at military tactics, should they not be in the poll as well?

 

[acluewithout]

...we haven't played Zulu yet, given their UU is at military tactics, should they not be in the poll as well?

*Face palm*

Good grief.

It's been a busy few weeks.

Thanks. Good pick up. I'll add them now.

 

[Disgustipated]

Here's a save if anyone is interested in playing it. As I mentioned, it's difficult to find a focus with this civ. I'll probably continue this game today. I just got the civic that enables me to build the winged hussar. I did move my initial settler from this initial starting position screenshot:

Spoiler :

 

[Leathaface]

The Sukiennice is a pretty sweet building, top 10 unique building IMO. I need to play Poland again soon, though I don't like that song of theirs that is sad.

 

[leif erikson]

This month's Game of the Month is Poland.

In preparing the game, did some research on Jadwiga. Her story is interesting but quite a sad.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Here's a save if anyone is interested in playing it. As I mentioned, it's difficult to find a focus with this civ. I'll probably continue this game today. I just got the civic that enables me to build the winged hussar. I did move my initial settler from this initial starting position screenshot:

Spoiler :

Settler to plains hill, I presume? That's a 2P 2F for the downtown core and I'd put the starting pop into one of the 3F 1 P banana tiles. Probably the second pop into the second banana tile to grow your pop up to 4 as quick as possible so you can also work the mercury (free science!) and salt (free gold!).

Depending, of course, on what goodies are waiting on the other side of the plains hill once your Settler climbs it. Be tough to have a better first four tiles to work, though.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Don't own them, but their abilities don't look impressive. Though, I admit, I'm almost never impressed by religious abilities. Being able to take tiles and convert when you build an encampment is cute, but how many cities can you afford to use a district slot in early game for an encampment? You might see only a few uses that mean anything. But still though, getting early tiles helps make up for their cost.


Then we get a poor man's Japan ability with the extra adjancency and a poor man's Kongo with relics, the later of which is somewhat unreliable.

The military to wildcard ability is a good bonus because it allows you run faith and production cards together. However, the actual use is much more marginal because military cards have a high value for the 1st half of the game. But it does have some synergy with faith, so it is pretty good. The Winged Hussar is also great, being a stronger knight and good part of the civics tree. Too bad it has to be hard built but I imagine if you're running a culture game, you could make great use of it with the Grand Master's Chapel, or if you have Carthage in which gold spamming becomes viable. The change to that CS might actually be a huge boon to Poland.

They're definitely not bad like Georgia or Egypt, and can dictate a style of play that is off the beaten path so the design is at least sound. In terms of power though, I'm pretty skeptical. But hey, they're not P2w like Nubia/Australia/Macedon so there you go.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Don't own them, but their abilities don't look impressive. Though, I admit, I'm almost never impressed by religious abilities. Being able to take tiles and convert when you build an encampment is cute, but how many cities can you afford to use a district slot in early game for an encampment? You might see only a few uses that mean anything. But still though, getting early tiles helps make up for their cost.


Then we get a poor man's Japan ability with the extra adjancency and a poor man's Kongo with relics, the later of which is somewhat unreliable.

The military to wildcard ability is a good bonus because it allows you run faith and production cards together. However, the actual use is much more marginal because military cards have a high value for the 1st half of the game. But it does have some synergy with faith, so it is pretty good. The Winged Hussar is also great, being a stronger knight and good part of the civics tree. Too bad it has to be hard built but I imagine if you're running a culture game, you could make great use of it with the Grand Master's Chapel, or if you have Carthage in which gold spamming becomes viable. The change to that CS might actually be a huge boon to Poland.

They're definitely not bad like Georgia or Egypt, and can dictate a style of play that is off the beaten path so the design is at least sound. In terms of power though, I'm pretty skeptical. But hey, they're not P2w like Nubia/Australia/Macedon so there you go.

You can culture bomb with forts as well as encampments which makes that ability more useful and more flexible than other culture bombs.

 

[Weraptor]

Poland is a very flexible civ, but one you need a direction in your head in advance for. Policy slot conversion's main frame of use comes to the earliest of turns, to take both God-Kind and Urban Planning and to get to use Revelations earlier than other civs, meaning you don't need to focus as much on building Holy Sites in the early game (you can stick to this approach throughout the game if you intend to play aggressively with the UU). Once you get a religion, absolutely pick Crusade. You will want to have a lot of cities to build Monuments to rush the UU, this also ensures you have plenty of district capacity to specialize your cities. Every city should definitely contain a Commercial Hub (and Campus on high difficulties) for sweet gold/production bonus from the UB, other than that a variety for each city is important. Some should contain Holy Sites to boost your religion and get Missionaries/Apostles, at least one Encampment (to get Forts and train Hussars), one should host a Government Plaza. You can go for Theater Squares if you are going culturally, but I don't personally like that very much. There are far better cultural civs than Poland. This also eases a problem with many types of districts.

Once Winged Hussars are trained, combine them with your culture bomb (or Missionary spread if building an Encampment is unreasonable, Forts aren't available yet or you have a lot of faith) and then strike. Conquer a civ or two (or three) like that. Send your Missionaries/Apostles the other direction, beware Alliances. If things go right, you will end up with many cities of your own and some foreign ones following your faith. From now on, you can decide whether you want to win a Domination victory or a Religious victory. If you choose the latter, there is an interesting little exploit. "To achieve a religious victory, your Religon must become the predominant Religion in every civilization in the game. A Religion is considered predominant in a civilization if it is followed by more than 50% of the cities in that civilization." Gifting cities to AI can ensure that a civ adapts a predominant religion without actually converting it. If you've conquered extensively, you can possibly do this to any other remaining opponent and win the possibly fastest religious victory in the game.

Another niche trick is to go for Ancestral Hall, settle a new city near an opponent, and Magnus-chop out an Encampment with a free Builder.

 

[Archon_Wing]

You can culture bomb with forts as well as encampments which makes that ability more useful and more flexible than other culture bombs.

I wouldn't know about that. Military Engineers aren't particularly cheap, and forts aren't particularly useful. It's a good way of not going to war though.

 

[Mrmyx22]

There is a thread in the Strategy forum you might want to look at. With the Choral music belief you can use Holy sites to generate both faith and culture to move through the civics. You then faith buy the hussars and go a conquering.

 

[LoneDragon]

This month's Game of the Month is Poland.

In preparing the game, did some research on Jadwiga. Her's is an interesting but quite a sad story.

D'oh! I read "her's" as "here's" and just spent 15 minutes looking for the story.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I wouldn't know about that. Military Engineers aren't particularly cheap, and forts aren't particularly useful. It's a good way of not going to war though.

I do find it more useful and flexible than other cultural bombs. In theory one city could trigger multiple culture bombs which you can't with Netherlands or Khmer cultural bombs (although I admit only going to be useful rarely) and you can target exactly which hexes you steal.

 

[leif erikson]

D'oh! I read "her's" as "here's" and just spent 15 minutes looking for the story.

Apologies, I should have linked it. Done and edited for clarity.

 

[Disgustipated]

I have finished my game. My opinion of her has went up. Her relics are certainly pretty sweet. And I see no reason not to take reliquaries, even if going for religious victory. I was pulling in a ton of faith from my relics. In hindsight, I probably could have gotten a faster religious victory than cultural victory, but I'd say she can do both reasonably well. Not sure I got over 400 faith per turn with anyone except her.

The Sukiennice is a pretty sweet building

I was quite happy with it. I like commercial hubs anyways, and so I am most certainly going to be building this building. It's not like other civs *cough* Georgia *cough*, that you never build the unique building. When we were discussing best money making civs in the Egypt Civ of the week I had forgotten about Jadwiga. She's certainly up there.

Settler to plains hill, I presume?

Oh yes, having 3 resources next to the city center worked out well.

to take both God-Kind and Urban Planning

I do like the flexibility to run this. I only ran this until I got my pantheon, but I was quite happy to have this flexibility. I mostly ran military policies later in the game, and at one point I was almost broke, and conscription had to be used. This was before I had many of her unique buildings up (I only had 1 and around 4 of my uu's which got my gold down to 0).

I beat my Khmer cultural victory by 3 turns. Interesting. But I forgot to take reliquaries in that game which didn't help. So it's about even I suppose. Turn 381/382 on standard size map epic speed. Only my Pericles and Kongo games were faster for this victory type. Despite her abilities spread around so much, I was able to focus somewhat by choosing reliquaries and a Reyna bottom tier promotion. And I actually got some decent use out of her uu by conquering all of Peter's cities and liberating Valleta twice from Japan and liberating a cultural city state from free cities (originally conquered by Arabia early in the game). I give her a B ranking, 2nd tier. But keep in mind they are best suited for religious victory and cultural victory using reliquaries tactic. In the end I ended up with 17 relics. Not bad.

And yes, Catherine did surprise war me in the mid game despite being happy with me, she does this nearly every single game. And even more silly she was happy with me shortly after the war and I managed to get an alliance with her.

Spoiler :

 

[Sostratus]

I do find it more useful and flexible than other cultural bombs. In theory one city could trigger multiple culture bombs which you can't with Netherlands or Khmer cultural bombs (although I admit only going to be useful rarely) and you can target exactly which hexes you steal.

I wouldn't know about that. Military Engineers aren't particularly cheap, and forts aren't particularly useful. It's a good way of not going to war though.

If you get a religion, I find poland's culture bomb to be extraordinarily useful for exploiting the wonderful Crusader belief and denying Defender of the Faith. It converts to poland's religion and not the city's, so this works in enemy turf too. Cry Culture Bomb and let slip the hussars of war.

The Hussar is a bit interesting- it's like a Renaissance heavy cav that comes half an era early. Synergizes well with knight pushes. I really like that it gives cav users something to go toe to toe with muskets!

The wildcard ability is supremely handy, since I find the default governments are generally too heavily focused on military cards. It makes many governments much more flexible, especially the theocracy <-> merchant republic dilemma.
Combined with the Sukiennice, they are just kind of generally good. Spamming out commercial hubs makes you strong to begin with. Lots of encampments on your borders make you very defensible. You're nudged in a solid direction - this is good civ design.

 

[KayAU]

I would agree with those who say that Poland perhaps lacks a bit of focus, with their bonuses being a bit all over the place. Looking at their bonuses in general terms:

• Lithuanian Union is largely a religious bonus
• Golden Liberty is a general bonus
• The Winged Hussar is a very strong military unit
• The Sukiennice improves trade

This doesn't really point very strongly towards a singular victory path, although I enjoy the suggestions which have come up here: a combination of religion and conquest could work well for them, as could an approach based on relics and culture. Their biggest drawback might be that they lack any strong bonus towards production, science or culture, which are important and flexible yields which help you towards any victory type.

I personally don't mind, though. Not every civilization needs to have a single clear path, nor do they need to be very powerful. I think Poland is interesting and fun, with some decent abilities.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I would agree with those who say that Poland perhaps lacks a bit of focus, with their bonuses being a bit all over the place. Looking at their bonuses in general terms:

​

• Lithuanian Union is largely a religious bonus
• Golden Liberty is a general bonus
• The Winged Hussar is a very strong military unit
• The Sukiennice improves trade

This doesn't really point very strongly towards a singular victory path, although I enjoy the suggestions which have come up here: a combination of religion and conquest could work well for them, as could an approach based on relics and culture. Their biggest drawback might be that they lack any strong bonus towards production, science or culture, which are important and flexible yields which help you towards any victory type.

I personally don't mind, though. Not every civilization needs to have a single clear path, nor do they need to be very powerful. I think Poland is interesting and fun, with some decent abilities.​

It doesn’t strike me as a lack of focus; it’s just a lack of any meaningful bonuses for culture, science, or religion per se. That leaves us with domination, which all the things you mention augment quite nicely .

I believe the strategy detailed by Mr. Shadows is the most optimal strategy for Poland. You just don’t need any science what-so-ever beyond the initial push to Apprenticeship/Crossbows. In fact, all you need is culture to hit mercenaries ASAP, then Monarchy ASAP thereafter so you can chop up a Grand Master’s Chapel ASAP. ß There are quite a few ASAP’s there huh? Anyway, here’s the link…

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-deity-strategy-for-poland-singing-hussars.635478/

While the idea of using faith as an avenue to a domination victory is hardly a new idea to most, I do believe that Poland is uniquely tailored to a mid game culture heavy militaristic explosion. Most other civ’s could do the same thing with their Grand Master’s Chapel (and I’m sure often do), but Poland’s Winged Hussar’s can carry on where knights might start to run into a spot of trouble. This makes it imperative for other civs using the heavy cav method of conquest to push science so as to arrive at the combustion technology ASAP so they can carry on with their conquests. Poland, on the other hand, can continue by upgrading to corps, and then armies of Winged Hussars.

I think this civ may well be a top tier warmonger. This admonition kind of irks me, because I didn’t realize it prior to making the switch to deity and paying more attention to the various details. The culture heavy Choral Music strategy works with Saladin as well (perhaps even better) due to the Mamluk’s healing ability when accompanied by a medic/chaplain apostle. But with Saladin, you push science. I think the Aztec’s could pull the choral music culture only warmonger path as well, but then again, they are the premiere warmonger civ in the game. Anyway, back to Poland…With Poland, once you discover the secrets of apprenticeship and have unlocked crossbowmen, who needs any more? I mean banking is nice, but the sukiennice is nice enough as is and the extra gold and production combine to offset any lack of advanced banking techniques. You can also concentrate your trade routes into one city and crank out flock upon flock of Winged Hussars!

Example: This encampment district in the game I just finished was cranking out a Winged Hussar army every 15.5 turns @ Marathon speed (200% slower) due, in no small part, to the sukiennice’s +2 production bonus.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Personally, for the above stated reasons, I think Poland (and Saladin as well) are generally underrated by the civ community and are both fearsome religious oriented warmonger civs (you just have to wait a while longer).​