How to play as Sweden?

[SULOMON]

So I've been playing Sweden but I'm not sure what strategy to use with them. It seems like they can go with any victory condition (Diplomatic the best choice though?). My main dilemma is whether I play them as a warmonger or peaceful.

They seem good at warmongering since they get a good rifle UU and the lancer UU can ferry generals rapidly around. And they can gift duplicate generals and possibly admirals to city states. This combined with gunboat diplomacy could make for a good Diplomatic victory.

On the other hand they seem good at peace too. The 10% great person generation with each DoF could be useful for pretty much any victory condition.

So the question is whether to play like a warmonger once the rifle UU is unlocked while aiming for a diplomatic victory or play peaceful and just aim for any victory condition.

Also lets assume the difficulty level I'm playing on is King. Also for a peaceful play style I guess I could use the UUs to beat up a civ everyone hates but it seems like that would be not using the UUs to max potential hence the reason for lots of warmongering.

 

[hai 1]

Their greatest attribute is the great people generation bonus tied to DOF's, but you also want to defeat lots of enemy units to generate plenty of great generals/admirals so you can gift the extras to CS's. Unfortunately, as we all know it can be hard to maintain friendships when playing as a warmonger. The solution? Declare war on pariahs and beat up their armies, but do not take cities- unless as a liberator, it is particularly amazing enough to be worth the opportunity cost of potentially alienating friends, or you feel comfortable enough with diplo to know it will not affect those you care about anyway. Notice those reasons are typical non-domination related warfare stuff, so the only special thing is its worthwhile to do some fighting Much more fun optimal path to builder VC's than for most civs, if you ask me. Playing them as a pure warmonger is not playing them to their utmost potential imo, unless you are really good at maintaining friendships through your early and mid-game domination VC targets.

 

[joncnunn]

Prior to fall patch; Diplomatic was best choice for Sweden. But with the increased vote count requirement, the Swedish bonus isn't enough to be so huge is to strongly suggest Diplomatic. I'd just see how things went and decide later.

Those maximizing Sweden do both. DOF with a few AIs while being at war with some other AI that most of the AIs hate.
The easyist way to do this is after you have a DOF with someone, accept a request to DOW some other AI you don't like anyway.

 

[vivalamexico]

Play nice and DOF everyone for extra GPs, alsogifting some to CS. Until rifling, when you kill everyone with your hordes of Caroleans

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Religious Sweden Strategy:
1. Go honor, get great general
2. Gift great general to religious city state.
3. Get awesome pantheon
4. Get awesome early religion
5. Pray Arabs, mayans, celts, ethiopia aren't in your game

Domination Sweden Strategy
1. Tradition start
2. DOF everyone you can
3. Get really tall
4. Spam caroleans and cannons (Hakkas aren't very good. Don't bother getting more than one or two upgraded from your best pikes.)
5. conquer everyone


I love Sweden. Don't be afraid to re-roll your start... Sweden tends to get some really bad ones b/c of tundra bias.

 

[Resipsa]

Don't reroll your starts;

If Tundra Go Honor gift early GG to cultural CS and Finish Honor around t65 also if you get Faith per tundra tile select Tithe/Holy warriors-Domination or Dom/CV. It alleviates all the pressure when you don't have to build an army with hammers or gold. Keep your second GG around turn 60 but gift all the rest. Also build your guilds and gift your writers, musicians, and early artists but keep the later GA as their bonus to gold and hammers outweighs their benefits.

If Grassland Plains -Tradition and whatever peaceful

I have played a ton of deity games with Sweden and that has been my approach.

 

[SULOMON]

Don't reroll your starts;

If Tundra Go Honor gift early GG to cultural CS and Finish Honor around t65 also if you get Faith per tundra tile select Tithe/Holy warriors-Domination or Dom/CV. It alleviates all the pressure when you don't have to build an army with hammers or gold. Keep your second GG around turn 60 but gift all the rest. Also build your guilds and gift your writers, musicians, and early artists but keep the later GA as their bonus to gold and hammers outweighs their benefits.

If Grassland Plains -Tradition and whatever peaceful

I have played a ton of deity games with Sweden and that has been my approach.

I will reroll my start if I don't like it. Also is it really worth it to go though 2 social policies just for a city state alliance?

 

[anthropophage]

I usually DoW a nearby CS to farm for GGs and xp when playing Sweden/Honour, it allows you to build a strong military & ally plenty of CS without alienating potential allies by making war too early.

 

[Bagi]

Full patronage is really good as peaceful Sweden, basically every city-state alliance has a chance of gifting you another free alliance.

Early shrine or two is always good, with low faith gain and/or unsuitable neighbors you can always opt to skip the religion and get a city-state ally instead.

I haven't really tried full-out warmongering as Sweden, but it can be really helpful to DOW someone everyone hates and then just farm their units for great general points.

 

[tommynt]

u can/should do exactly same as if u were some other civ

 

[Resipsa]

I will reroll my start if I don't like it. Also is it really worth it to go though 2 social policies just for a city state alliance?

If you re-roll starts then you'd never open honor you'd get an average start and just play through like any other civ. The caveat was for Tundra starts which I'm assuming you don't play. What you can get with Sweden is a fast run through Honor and into Commerce to reduce your costs on roads etc so you can keep the warmongering going. That's how I play them, if you get a plains or grassland start just play normally.

 

[SULOMON]

If you re-roll starts then you'd never open honor you'd get an average start and just play through like any other civ. The caveat was for Tundra starts which I'm assuming you don't play. What you can get with Sweden is a fast run through Honor and into Commerce to reduce your costs on roads etc so you can keep the warmongering going. That's how I play them, if you get a plains or grassland start just play normally.

Well I'll give it a shot.

 

[Memoryjar]

Which difficult level ?

 

[SULOMON]

King/Prince.

 

[Azuryte]

Religious Sweden Strategy:
1. Go honor, get great general
2. Gift great general to religious city state.
3. Get awesome pantheon
4. Get awesome early religion
5. Pray Arabs, mayans, celts, ethiopia aren't in your game.

I played a game like this recently and found a nice surprise. I didn't realize you can gift great prophets to CS even after you have used the spread influence a few times. I would spread til I had 1 remain and gift it away. With a good faith income you can gets lots of them by industrial era and then can decide to push for peaceful/diplo or go to war and vote down the hate that will come your way.

 

[Memoryjar]

King/Prince.

Honor, push your army, gift general and other great persons to CS, win.

 

[JohnnyKing]

What I usually do on Sweden is that I play with GGs and City States and Religion just as you guys suggested, but in the Renaissance Era when you have spies, I sent 'em over to religious CS, rig elections and sometimes coup and there ya go. Allies, happiness and religion.

 

[cpm4001]

In regards GPs and City-States: The main thing to remember is that, when confronted with an option to gift a Great Person to a City-State, you need to take the time to carefully think about whether ~30 turns of CS alliances is equal in worth to a Great Work/Culture Boost/Religion/Gold Boost or even, on occasion, a Production/Science boost (yes, sometimes it's worth it to give GEs and GSs away). Sweden needs lots of thinking behind it, but if played properly can be utterly unstoppable once you get it going.

For your dealings with major Civs, here's a good general strategy:

1: DoF all civs except the one or two that everyone else hates. Denounce those Civs.
2: Maintain this diplomatic "course" until your UUs come online
3: Attack the hated Civs with one or more of your friends
4: Enjoy the positive diplomatic boosts.
5: ???
6: Profit!

 

[SULOMON]

If you re-roll starts then you'd never open honor you'd get an average start and just play through like any other civ. The caveat was for Tundra starts which I'm assuming you don't play. What you can get with Sweden is a fast run through Honor and into Commerce to reduce your costs on roads etc so you can keep the warmongering going. That's how I play them, if you get a plains or grassland start just play normally.

Well I decided to try to get a cultural victory on king (last vic condition on King I hadn't gotten) and I got a plains, tundra start with 6 salt! I pretty much still played peaceful because all the other civs were far away, regardless I won.

 

[hazman79]

Obvious question but, when 'gifting' great people do you just move the unit over to the CS and use the 'present' button?