Indonesia!

[crdvis16]

After a slug fest authority/domination Ottoman game and a disappointing tradition/tourism Venice game it's time to go wide/progress with Indonesia:

Spice Islanders- When you found or conquer a City, one of three unique Luxuries will appear next to or under the City.

Kris Swordsman, replaces Swordsman. Starts with the Mystic Blade (promotion is replaced with a randomly chosen new promotion after the unit completes its first combat) Promotion.

Candi, replaces Garden. 2 Faith and 2 Culture. A Clove, Pepper or Nutmeg Resource will appear near or under this City when built. +25% Great People generation in the City, and +20% to Culture and Faith during 'We Love the King Day'. +1 Food and +1 Gold from Citrus and Cocoa worked by this city. 2 Maintenance.

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My plan is to use his extremely wide-friendly kit to settle as many early cities as I can while also leaning into the WLTKD bonus of the Candi to see how many WLTKD bonuses I can stack.

First- Indonesia is super friendly to going wide. Every city he settles/conquers gets a copy of one of his unique luxury spices (with a second copy coming from the Candi). This solves the two main obstacles to wide play- having the happiness to settle wide and having enough city locations worthy of settling. He gets happiness from the first 3 copies of his luxuries (as well as happiness from whatever luxuries were naturally in his settle locations) and any subsequent copies can be traded for other luxuries if happiness is needed or just for gold which is always useful. On top of that, one of his luxuries has a monopoly bonus of +6 happiness to provide an extra buffer and allow rapid expansion. Also, even pretty bland city locations without nearby strategic/luxury resources can still be fairly decent as Indonesia when you can count on two nice tiles appearing for your city to work (made even nicer by having their monopoly bonuses applied from the beginning).

Next, the bonuses to WLTKD I am aware of that I will be targeting are the following:

Religion:
Founder - Theocratic Rule - 'We Love the King Day' boosts the Faith, Culture, and Gold output of a city by 15%.
Follower - Churches - 15 Turns of 'We Love the King Day' in the City when constructed
Follower - Synagogues - During 'We Love the King Day', City Science increases by 15%).

Policies:
Fealty - Burghers - +15% production and city Border Growth doubled during 'We Love the King Day.'
Rationalism - Enlightenment - +15% Culture and Food during a WLTKD.

Wonders:
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus - 'We Love the King Day' begins in the City (20 turns [standard]). During 'We Love the King Day', City science, gold, and production increases by 10%.

If you add all of those up you get the following bonuses:

Faith = +20%, +15%
Culture = +20%, +15%, +15%
Gold = +15%, +10%
Science = +15%, +10%
Production = +15%, +10%
Food = +15%
Growth = +20% (the default WLTKD bonus?)

You also have Churches that can be used strategically to start WLTKD in cities with tough luxuries to connect and Mausoleum that can start a long one in the (presumably) capital that builds it.

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Policy choice:
If I want to stack the bonuses above then my renaissance and industrial trees are set as Fealty/Rationalism. Fealty I think is a nice choice regardless as the Candi pushes Indonesia toward being a religious civ anyway and Fealty has some nice bonuses to wide play. Choosing Rationalism means I won't be opening Industry with its bonuses to great merchants or being able to buy merchants with faith- I'm hoping I will be able to maintain near 100% up-time in WLTKD anyway via Churches, Circuses, a few merchants, and lux trading when possible.

For my ancient era tree my first instinct is to open progress for the benefits to quickly settling wide as well as the free/improved workers to quickly connect all of my luxuries. Authority has its advantages as well if the nearby area is crowded and I need to conquer to go wide, as well as having some synergy between Tribute (bonuses on border growth) and Fealty's Burghers double border growth during WLTKD. However, I wanted to play a progress game so that's what I'm going to stick with, initial starting conditions be damned.

For ideology I'll likely target Order for its general wide benefits.

Since I'm likely going progress/fealty/rationalism/order I will most likely default to a science victory, having not taken the best trees for diplomacy (statecraft), tourism (artistry), or domination (imperialism).

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Early game:
First, I think Indonesia is a good candidate to grab Goddess of Festivals (+3 Gold, +2 Culture and +1 Faith for every unique Luxury Resource owned or imported) as its default pantheon unless there is something much better from the terrain. Early game you will likely have 6ish luxuries you can improve in your initial cities and maybe more if you trade for a few and I would think that would be enough to found with (aside from getting a ton of gold/culture for that part of the game). I would guess that only Netherlands has as much synergy with this pantheon.

Next, for early techs we are in a bit of a quandary. We really want Calendar ASAP as we will want to connect our 3 spice luxuries as soon as possible (those monopoly bonuses are nice right off the bat) but we also want to get to Construction in order to get Mausoleum. My guess is that we can probably hit Calendar first and still unlock Construction around the same time we have the requisite number of policies to build Mausoleum, especially given progress's mini burst of science from its opener. After grabbing Calendar and Construction I would look to make my way toward Kris warriors and then toward Theology to get to Candi.

For a build order I will plan to go shrine-monument-warrior (purchasing a worker) and then possibly straight into settlers ad nausea (with military or other buildings sprinkled in as I see fit, often as a way to let my capital grow before starting a new settler). I may even try to build settlers in secondary cities if there are enough spots available that I want asap, maybe after grabbing shrine/monument in them. It will also be important to keep up with workers (either bought or produced) as improving available luxes is key to having the happiness to expand and to playing off of Goddess of Festivals.

Once I've filled up the immediately available city locations and have an army of Kris I will likely look to hit a neighbor for some extra cities, attacking while my UU power spike is online. I will probably try to include Barracks as an early building priority in all of my cities to increase unit cap and have my secondary cities contribute toward building my army. I will also be on the lookout for island city locations not gobbled up in the initial settle spree.

Once I've founded a religion I might hold off on aggressively trading for luxuries from other civs. Having a few luxuries available for purchase is a handy way to make achieving WLTKD easier as the luxury needed for WLTKD is picked from those you don't currently have. This is, of course, if I don't need those luxuries for happiness reasons.

Mid/Late game:
I assume that my mid/late game for Indonesia will play out similar to any wide/science civ. I'll try to get my religion enhanced/reformed and pick whichever available beliefs either fix a problem for me or aid me toward a science victory. I'll also target the usual science victory techs/buildings/wonders.

So that's the plan. If anyone has critiques or their own preference with Indonesia I'd love to hear!

 

[Favorius]

I tried wide/progress Indonesia 2 times but failed to finish eventhough I was steamrolling during medieval/renaissance. Also I did not notice Candi bonus to WLTKD.

For pantheon I think you should also consider Goddess of Springtime if other luxuries around you require plantation. You will have to build markets ASAP to find religion but you will be drowning in gold and +3 faith per market is very solid.

Goddess of Springtime, monopolies, Fealty and Rationalism will boost your food/growth so much that Cooperation belief can be a solid follower belief to get losts of instant yields regularly.

And finally with lots of plantations and free monopolies, Imperialism can be extremely solid for late game policy choice for easier warmongering/defence. If I have a comfortable science lead I would choose Imperialism.

Good luck, show them power of Spice

 

[crdvis16]

I tried wide/progress Indonesia 2 times but failed to finish eventhough I was steamrolling during medieval/renaissance. Also I did not notice Candi bonus to WLTKD.

For pantheon I think you should also consider Goddess of Springtime if other luxuries around you require plantation. You will have to build markets ASAP to find religion but you will be drowning in gold and +3 faith per market is very solid.

Goddess of Springtime, monopolies, Fealty and Rationalism will boost your food/growth so much that Cooperation belief can be a solid follower belief to get losts of instant yields regularly.

And finally with lots of plantations and free monopolies, Imperialism can be extremely solid for late game policy choice for easier warmongering/defence. If I have a comfortable science lead I would choose Imperialism.

Good luck, show them power of Spice

Good points! I tend to get tunnel vision when leaning into synergies (in this case, WLTKD bonuses) so I completely agree that forgoing a few of those stacked bonuses in favor of some flexibility to choose things like imperialism over rationalism if the situation calls for it is smart.

 

[Minh Le]

Authority Indonesia is fun as hell. Take cities, raze and resettle and enjoy your extra lux. Also to make use of his crazy UU.

 

[crdvis16]

First lesson learned: at least on Deity, you have to beeline for Mausoleum if you want to get it. I tried hitting Calendar first and then Construction but got beat to building it.

Started a new game and this time went straight for Mausoleum. 2nd policy opens roughly the same time as getting Construction and I was easily able to build it. Only downside is that this delays your city spam a little, but I still managed to settle 10(!) cities by turn 105 (I had some breathing room due to Greece/Persia fighting eachother). Happiness is a little tough with settling so many cities so quickly- even with buying every lux available, my own extra luxes, and the +6 happiness monopoly bonus I'm hovering around 75%. We'll see if I'll be able to stabilize.

Also, goddess of festivals is not a no-brainer founder. I had the misfortune of a sea lux and a forest plantation lux as my first two natural luxes which delayed me in connecting them a bit so I was more aggressive in buying luxes to compensate. I was able to found by around turn 100 which I imagine was only a few turns away from not founding.

I'm in the process of building up a Kris army now but I'm not sure yet who a potential target would be. I already have 11 cities so it's not like I need more to be truly wide and neither of my neighbors are great targets for my aggression anyway. There's a few more island cities I could settle so I might just do that instead, happiness allowing.

 

[Omen of Peace]

Goddess of Festivals is indeed gold-rich and especially culture-rich, but not faith-rich, so it's best if you can connect resources quickly (via Hunting / Mining) or if you are a religious civ.
On the upside, the culture probably helped you a lot since you went Progress/wide and shrine-first everywhere - with most other pantheons your policy acquisition would have been quite slow.

You do seem a bit taken with WLKTD synergy . For your 3rd tree, it should depend on your victory condition. I assume you'd go SV if you aim for Rationalism.

 

[crdvis16]

Goddess of Festivals is indeed gold-rich and especially culture-rich, but not faith-rich, so it's best if you can connect resources quickly (via Hunting / Mining) or if you are a religious civ.
On the upside, the culture probably helped you a lot since you went Progress/wide and shrine-first everywhere - with most other pantheons your policy acquisition would have been quite slow.

You do seem a bit taken with WLKTD synergy . For your 3rd tree, it should depend on your victory condition. I assume you'd go SV if you aim for Rationalism.

Yeah, my start was definitely not ideal for festival founding but I'm sure the gold and culture was a big boost.

And yep- I'm planning for a SV mostly as a default. Indonesia seems like one of those civs that could go a few different directions but given my policy choices SV is probably the best bet.

 

[tu_79]

Indonesia has three hidden bonuses. Getting monopolies with her is trivial, and those bonuses grant extra happiness, extra growth and, can't remember the last one, great people?

All of them make tradition or artistry viable for Indonesia.

 

[pineappledan]

I play with 4UC which tilts things in favor of Imperialism. It gives Indonesia a Coastal bias and a unique improvement that is built on ocean/lake tiles. Between the bonuses to water tiles and the increased monopoly bonuses, Indonesia favors Imperialism, even for peaceful play.

The WLTKD stacking is fine, but tooling a strategy around it isn't particularly flexible. You are heavilly dependent on maintaining diplomatic relations with other civs, which I find is actually quite hard to do as the game drags on. WLTKDs are a nice bonus, but the other side of Indonesia's kit tilts you into a decent warmonger, so it's best not to put all your eggs in 1 basket, imo.

I have tried festivals and find it very difficult to found with. Indonesia has no early benefit to founding, but that +20% in WLTKD feels wasted if you didn't, so I would just try to opt for a pantheon which maximizes your early faith. Goddess of Springtime is great if your nearby luxury is plantation, but you should rush Trade before Calendar if you want to make that work.

can't remember the last one, great people?

The monopolies are +6 for cloves, +10% for pepper, and +2 on the Nutmeg resource

 

[crdvis16]

I play with 4UC which tilts things in favor of Imperialism. It gives Indonesia a Coastal bias and a unique improvement that is built on ocean/lake tiles. Between the bonuses to water tiles and the increased monopoly bonuses, Indonesia favors Imperialism, even for peaceful play.

The WLTKD stacking is fine, but tooling a strategy around it isn't particularly flexible. You are heavilly dependent on maintaining diplomatic relations with other civs, which I find is actually quite hard to do as the game drags on. WLTKDs are a nice bonus, but the other side of Indonesia's kit tilts you into a decent warmonger, so it's best not to put all your eggs in 1 basket, imo.

I have tried festivals and find it very difficult to found with. Indonesia has no early benefit to founding, but that +20% in WLTKD feels wasted if you didn't, so I would just try to opt for a pantheon which maximizes your early faith. Goddess of Springtime is great if your nearby luxury is plantation, but you should rush Trade before Calendar if you want to make that work.
The monopolies are +6 for cloves, +10% for pepper, and +2 on the Nutmeg resource

I think Pepper might actually be +3 food rather than +10% food, which is probably stronger early game but maybe weaker late.

I haven't had too much trouble maintaining WLTKD between merchants, circuses, churches, and lux trading. The times that I've had the most trouble are when I get a lux that doesn't appear to be in the game as far as I can tell (or maybe belongs to a CS I haven't found). But even then I can usually trigger one via the other methods after some delay. It's actually been working pretty well so far despite me being in some wars. The WLTKD stacking hasn't felt very risky so far.

I agree that festivals isn't easy to found with though Indonesia of all civs should have the best chance to do so with those extra 3 easy to improve spices. I was able to found despite having arguably the hardest to connect nearby luxes (coral and a forest plantation) but that was also with me settling A LOT of cities pretty rapidly and having Mt Kailash (I think?) in city #4 I believe. It's sort of high risk high reward because if you do found with festivals then you also get a ton of gold and culture along with it. Other more normal pantheons would certainly be safer.

So far, settling 11 cities has pushed the envelope a bit in terms of happiness. I'm often hovering near 75%, but the happiness mechanic is in a bit of flux right now anyway I suppose.

 

[crdvis16]

Late-game update:

I *think* I'm cruising toward a SV and my first deity win. I'm easily in the tech lead, roughly 5 or so techs ahead of the other major civs and have finished apollo program and finished my first spaceship part with the others soon to follow. I have spaceship factories built in my highest production cities in case I need to use them for parts production, have all 10 of my trade routes feeding my capital production, and should have 2-3 engineers ready to rush build any parts that bottleneck me (along with the Order policy that will allow that).

Part of a SV is delaying the VC of other civs and I think I'm mostly in the clear there as well. China's tourism victory should be thwarted due to some WC resolutions hampering her as well as myself and Persia having enough culture to fend her off from getting influential with us. She has 9 policies (I'm in 2nd with 8) so if she had gotten influential with us she would have been close to winning.

Domination victory should be out at this point- Persia, China, Sweden, and I all have our capitals and are in no real danger of that changing.

The only threat to my win is currently a diplomatic victory. Austria was pushing hard for it and has gotten united nations past and has now proposed a world ideology. However, after proposing her ideology (freedom) she was blitz'd by Persia who took a couple cities and her capital in a matter of like 10 turns and vassalized her, forcing her to switch to Autocracy. Persia/Austria combine for most of the UN votes at this point but I assume they won't vote in favor of Freedom so that should delay any diplo victory. I also have placed all of my spies in CSs in case I need to desperately attempt coups to cut down on diplo votes. Side note: rigging elections + the 'NSA' national wonder = tons of gold. I imagine England's UB national wonder makes this even crazier.

So yeah- it should be just a formality at this point to build the parts as I unlock the techs. I suppose Persia could DoW me but despite his massive army size I'm pretty sure I will hold the border between us- I've got it set up as a sort of Maginot line, hopefully without the fatal flaw that real-world comparison had . I've also used my tech lead to be at parity with unit upgrades despite reaching for the top-half of the tech tree.

A few general thoughts on Indonesia and the WLTKD strategy:

-maintaining WLTKD in the late game has been exceedingly easy. Of my 11 non-puppet cities I had 3 or 4 working all available merchant specialists and the steady stream of merchants that resulted from them easily had me in infinite WLTKD. The only time I really had gaps in WLTKD was in the mid game when I had already used Churches/Circuses, didn't have a merchant imminent, and for whatever reason couldn't get the needed lux. Usually it would only be a few of my cities lacking WLTKD and usually only for a relatively short period of time. I'd say I probably had something like 90% uptime on WLTKD overall. I'm very happy that I went Rationalism instead of Industry as the extra merchants would not have been needed, but I very much need every scientist I can get.

-Grabbing my corporation was a HUGE turning point in my game. I believe it was trader sid's that is available from Indonesia's unique lux monopolies and it gives you extra gold on your lux tiles (since I had 13 cities total (11 and 2 puppets) I had 26 copies of those luxes laying around...). In any case, all cities with offices plus nationalization (Order policy where offices count as 2 franchises but you lose all foreign franchises) from order resulted in a crap ton of GPT. I pretty much had more money that I knew what to do with- rush building almost all buildings in my cities, upgrading military whenever a new tech was unlocked, etc. Prior to getting that corporation money was actually a problem. And I'm not even sending my trade routes abroad- they are all internal at this point and I'm still swimming in money.

-Kris swordsmen are a very nice UU. I was only in a single serious war all game and Kris swordsmen made very quick work of Greece, though admittedly he was still running around with somewhat obsolete Hoplites at the time. Some of the Kris promotions are better than others, IMO. The best for me was the one that gives a unit full health if it kills an enemy- that promotion allowed me to be very aggressive with the swordsmen that had it and sped up my conquest significantly as I got into the enemy back lines quicker- a unit with that promotion could be severely out of position but as long as he is in the back lines 1-shotting siege/archers he just keeps healing up to full. I also like the promotion that has a chance to heal 10hp when in enemy territory or the one that gives extra defense and faster healing- those all made for more aggressive conquest. The other promotions were harder to use effectively, at least for me, but are still stronger than normal promotions IMO.