1.16 England UHV advice?

[cmaverickv]

Hello all! I've been playing through the colonial civs and England has stumped me and I realized there is no strategy guide for the current version. It seems to be a balancing act of military, colonizing and research. Any tips on how to win? France always seems to beat me to the tech goal and the colonizing goal seems like a lot to do in a (relatively) short amount of time. Thank you!

 

[rmontaruli]

How is it possible that France beats England in tech goal?
My strategy, if we can call "strategy" obvious moves, is to build monasteries and libraries, then bulb any GP.
Tech path is towards privateers and colonization ASAP, then protestantism.
I do not colonize east coast, not to have to deal with US later, but Montreal and Canada.
Carabbeans, to avoid other civ to settle there.
Two conquerors events to get those units. Use the Aztecs ones to garrison Canada, and the Incas ones to garrison Africa.
Send one settler to Sidney, Australia and train two more settlers from there.

 

[Dannimal]

I find the English UHV quite instructive about the challenges of world colonization from an island with few resources and mediocre production.

Overview:
As a island, England has little to fear from invasion. Pre-colonialism, it can focus on local development and maintaining a strong navy.
England can safely embrace the Reformation, granting a nice pile of gold to fuel colonization expenses. Its navy can easily defeat opposing armadas.
Colonies export resources to the core and provide production for further goals:

• Colonies focus on watermills, mines, and workshops.
• Early colonies build workers to accelerate improvements and to support further expansion.
• Developed colonies build troops and settlers to further settle their respective regions.
• Late game, the developed colonies build a massive navy to rule the world.

The core need only build ships, initial settlers, and missionaries.
The trading company conquerors provides troops and colonies in India.

The puzzle is to minimize the amount of transport weak links required between colonial regions. The goal is colonial self sufficiency.

Detailed advice (600AD start):
Upon spawn:

• Settle London in place. Switch civics to elective & tributaries.
• Send settlers via boat to settle Edinburgh and Dublin.
• Send one of the free workers and the initial missionary to Edinburgh. (Edinburgh has enough woods to chop for missionaries).
• Use 100% culture slider for a few turns to access Scottish & Irish fish.
• Early research goal is guilds for regulated trade. Later goal is gunpowder for navy. Go for tech trades if you can.
• Focus espionage on Holy Rome / France to keep track of reformation timing.

• London & Dublin: build a good number of workers (use your judgment) while improving resources.
• Edinburgh: build 1 or 2 workers, then scout (to contact mainland for tech trades), then monastery, then missionaries. Improve resources and chop as required.

Infrastructure after enough workers:

• Switch civics to despotism and citizenship.
• Spread Catholicism to all cities for building production boost and happiness.
• Workers to chop and build mines / cottages everywhere. (Caste system optional)
• All cities to build /chop/whip aqueduct, library, and market.
• Switch back to vassalage when possible for happiness boost and gold savings.
• Build / whip forge and other goodies for London & Edinburgh.
• After enough whipping, switch back to monarchy.

Medieval era:
Build religious buildings in all cities. (Research & happiness boost and additional reformation gold).

London:

• Keep population growing! Constantly build infrastructure.
• The goal is to constantly work all the cottages and build economic multipliers.
• Don't spend limited hammers on wonders.

Edinburgh: balance between infrastructure and building up the navy.

Dublin:

• Keep population low and use tributary food production for navy or crossbowmen for London garrison happiness. (Remember - Dublin was COLONY #1).
• After enough navy is built, Dublin to start building only settlers most of the game.

Declare war on the Moors to make friends and sink some ships. Can also declare on Vikings.
Aim for standard colonization technologies: cartography and firearms for circumnavigation and conqueror events.
As always, use despotism whipping in case of plagues.

Renaissance pre-colonialism:

• Use settler to upgrade Dublin (forge & smokehouse?).
• Found Plymouth for core population & culture border with France - let it work sea tiles/specialists.
• Conqueror events on Aztecs & Incas. Force them to vassalize and return their cities. Keep the good units for your colonies & gift the bad.
• London builds National theatre so garrison can be sent to future colonies.
• Try to discover academics for the reformation shrine. $Embrace the reformation$. An early reformation results in a disrupted mainland slow to colonize.
• Assert naval supremacy and defend the new faith. Sink lots of ships.
• Research standard colonization techs & adopt colonialism when available.
• Try to make peace when you begin colonization - you don't want to lose your galleons.

Early colonialism:

• Edinburgh makes boats, Dublin breeds settlers, and London builds infrastructure & missionaries.
• Colonies will build workboats and workers.
• Other than resource improvements, concentrate on watermills, mines, and workshops.
• Developed colonies can build troops and settlers as required.
• Former London garrison and conquerors will be colonial garrison.
• Civ switch to centralism, individualism, tolerance, and free trade when available.
• London to begin building trading company and time it to finish after obtaining physics and replaceable parts.

Colonization order:

Use Aztec conquerors to capture Yax Mutal. It will prepare for a later passage between Atlantic & Pacific. Will require a settler for infrastructure upgrade.
When possible transfer all conqueror troops to the early colonies.

• First settle Caribbean. I recommend Road Town (West of spice island). Workers to improve spice and build workshops.
• Second settle North America (2-3 colonies). I recommend Philadelphia and Mobile. Workers to chop & improve tiles. Montreal is nice but requires many troops and workers. Can settle later or conquer from the French.
• Third settle South Africa (3 colonies). Secure the entire historical south coast to deter the Dutch & Portuguese.
• Last settle Australia (2 colonies). Settle Bluefields SE of Yax Mutal beforehand to make shortcut to Oz. Oz is really far but has no native attackers - can be settled with minimal/no garrison.

A typical voyage will be a galleon loading an Irish/American settler, picking up garrison/workers from American/Caribbean colonies and onwards to either Australia or Africa.

Late colonialism:

• Focus research on replaceable parts & physics, and measurement.
• Trading company conqueror army of redcoats & cannons should be able to take 5+ cities in India.
• Use American, African, and Australian colonies to build troops, settlers, and missionaries for further colonies in their respective regions.
• Limit colonial infrastructure to theatres, jails, and religious / happiness buildings.
• Transfer (or build) troops as required to capture colonies from rivals.
• Be careful of colonial wars - Britain does not yet rule the waves.
• Galleons will mostly transfer missionaries and workers between regions.
• Colonies to build settlers for infrastructure upgrading.
• Colonies start building navy worldwide.
• If possible, build Trafalgar square in Edinburgh.

Industrialism & World War 0:

• Great statesman reform to democracy, constitution, and egalitarianism when available.
• Continue building navy.
• Declare war on the other colonial powers. Sink ships and capture colonies as you wish.
• Blockade Portugal, Spain, and the Dutch for fun and profit (and to see empires collapse).
• Declare war on any surviving naval nation. Sink anything that floats.
• Enjoy golden age.
• Continue / gain tech lead. End.

 

[Cosmos1985]

Great guide! One small question: you don't find it worth it to build Manchester (or Newcastle)?

 

[Dannimal]

I don't find additional British cities to be worthwhile. Additional cities must cannibalize useful tiles from the others. London & Edinburgh have the economic & production multipliers, and Dublin uses the Irish fish to accelerate unit production. Plymouth is recommended mainly for the cultural boundary, but you can get away with just building a fort.

Additional core core population & access to offshore oil are not required in the UHV timeframe.

 

[WhiteEyes]

Anybody ever succeeded against Viking invasions?
The chance is pretty low but there's only little I can do whenever they attack me.

 

[troubleshooting]

I lucked out in that they attacked when I had a stockpile of crossbows sitting in London waiting for settlers to accompany to Africa.

 

[WhiteEyes]

Seems I gotten bad luck lately, Viking invaded me in 3 different games, 2 of them involving Spain and Poland allies. But the good news is I defeated Huscarl assault several times just by using 1 Crossbow+Wall.

Some small tips to share:

• I always send my starting Crossbow to Trabzon(Anatolia). Byzantine, Arab, and Turk are the best tech partner. They also love Paper. Once Mongol defeat the Turks, move the Crossbow to contact Mughal.
• Like I said before, build Wall in London to anticipate the Vikings.
• Holy Rome once get fallen behind in race towards Protestantism because nobody trade Paper to them.
• Try to contact Russia before switching to Monarchy. Ivan won't open border unless you're using Despotism.
  
• You can train 3-4 Militias before working on Edinburgh iron. This way you can save the Crossbows to defend your future colonies.
• Try to spawn at least 1 Great Merchant before Economics. They become less useful afterwards.

edit: additional tips

• I park 2 Privateer(with Frigate eventually) in Chile, 1 in Caribbean, and 4 to block Netherlands.
• 3 Frigate should block the spot between Porto and Ponta Delgada. Gibraltar Strait is also good spot to fight France and Spain, but that spot lacks coast for an effective blockade range, plus you may need more ships because numerous, stronger enemies there.
• Your army doesn't flip if you place them in Chicago and Mobile. Not sure about New York. At least 8 Redcoats are needed to defeat USA spawn.

 

[cmaverickv]

Thank you all for the replies! I have no idea what I was doing wrong before, but the early development, I felt, is really what makes a difference. I was able to achieve the UHV in 1864, with control of almost all of the historical areas of Canada, South Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, and control of all of India. I was in the middle of invading Egypt when I won. Honestly, England is my favorite civ in the game so far. The only thing I'd have to say about it is I wish the UHV extended farther into Britain's "Imperial Century." Other than that, definitely a civ I will replay!

 

[WhiteEyes]

Congratulations! You've done it faster than I am

There's a lot of other ways to play England.
Some players won by settling Manchester, others invade Independent Dublin to save Settler, some send their starting Settler straight to Africa just in 14th century.
Some choose to invade Egypt instead of settling the Cape. A Youtuber even manages to win the UHV after conquering Rome and Spain.

 

[danpat]

I find the English UHV quite instructive about the challenges of world colonization from an island with few resources and mediocre production.

Overview:
As a island, England has little to fear from invasion. Pre-colonialism, it can focus on local development and maintaining a strong navy.
England can safely embrace the Reformation, granting a nice pile of gold to fuel colonization expenses. Its navy can easily defeat opposing armadas.
Colonies export resources to the core and provide production for further goals:

• Colonies focus on watermills, mines, and workshops.
• Early colonies build workers to accelerate improvements and to support further expansion.
• Developed colonies build troops and settlers to further settle their respective regions.
• Late game, the developed colonies build a massive navy to rule the world.

The core need only build ships, initial settlers, and missionaries.
The trading company conquerors provides troops and colonies in India.

The puzzle is to minimize the amount of transport weak links required between colonial regions. The goal is colonial self sufficiency.

Detailed advice (600AD start):
Upon spawn:

• Settle London in place. Switch civics to elective & tributaries.
• Send settlers via boat to settle Edinburgh and Dublin.
• Send one of the free workers and the initial missionary to Edinburgh. (Edinburgh has enough woods to chop for missionaries).
• Use 100% culture slider for a few turns to access Scottish & Irish fish.
• Early research goal is guilds for regulated trade. Later goal is gunpowder for navy. Go for tech trades if you can.
• Focus espionage on Holy Rome / France to keep track of reformation timing.

• London & Dublin: build a good number of workers (use your judgment) while improving resources.
• Edinburgh: build 1 or 2 workers, then scout (to contact mainland for tech trades), then monastery, then missionaries. Improve resources and chop as required.

Infrastructure after enough workers:

• Switch civics to despotism and citizenship.
• Spread Catholicism to all cities for building production boost and happiness.
• Workers to chop and build mines / cottages everywhere. (Caste system optional)
• All cities to build /chop/whip aqueduct, library, and market.
• Switch back to vassalage when possible for happiness boost and gold savings.
• Build / whip forge and other goodies for London & Edinburgh.
• After enough whipping, switch back to monarchy.

Medieval era:
Build religious buildings in all cities. (Research & happiness boost and additional reformation gold).

London:

• Keep population growing! Constantly build infrastructure.
• The goal is to constantly work all the cottages and build economic multipliers.
• Don't spend limited hammers on wonders.

Edinburgh: balance between infrastructure and building up the navy.

Dublin:

• Keep population low and use tributary food production for navy or crossbowmen for London garrison happiness. (Remember - Dublin was COLONY #1).
• After enough navy is built, Dublin to start building only settlers most of the game.

Declare war on the Moors to make friends and sink some ships. Can also declare on Vikings.
Aim for standard colonization technologies: cartography and firearms for circumnavigation and conqueror events.
As always, use despotism whipping in case of plagues.

Renaissance pre-colonialism:

• Use settler to upgrade Dublin (forge & smokehouse?).
• Found Plymouth for core population & culture border with France - let it work sea tiles/specialists.
• Conqueror events on Aztecs & Incas. Force them to vassalize and return their cities. Keep the good units for your colonies & gift the bad.
• London builds National theatre so garrison can be sent to future colonies.
• Try to discover academics for the reformation shrine. $Embrace the reformation$. An early reformation results in a disrupted mainland slow to colonize.
• Assert naval supremacy and defend the new faith. Sink lots of ships.
• Research standard colonization techs & adopt colonialism when available.
• Try to make peace when you begin colonization - you don't want to lose your galleons.

Early colonialism:

• Edinburgh makes boats, Dublin breeds settlers, and London builds infrastructure & missionaries.
• Colonies will build workboats and workers.
• Other than resource improvements, concentrate on watermills, mines, and workshops.
• Developed colonies can build troops and settlers as required.
• Former London garrison and conquerors will be colonial garrison.
• Civ switch to centralism, individualism, tolerance, and free trade when available.
• London to begin building trading company and time it to finish after obtaining physics and replaceable parts.

Colonization order:

Use Aztec conquerors to capture Yax Mutal. It will prepare for a later passage between Atlantic & Pacific. Will require a settler for infrastructure upgrade.
When possible transfer all conqueror troops to the early colonies.

• First settle Caribbean. I recommend Road Town (West of spice island). Workers to improve spice and build workshops.
• Second settle North America (2-3 colonies). I recommend Philadelphia and Mobile. Workers to chop & improve tiles. Montreal is nice but requires many troops and workers. Can settle later or conquer from the French.
• Third settle South Africa (3 colonies). Secure the entire historical south coast to deter the Dutch & Portuguese.
• Last settle Australia (2 colonies). Settle Bluefields SE of Yax Mutal beforehand to make shortcut to Oz. Oz is really far but has no native attackers - can be settled with minimal/no garrison.

A typical voyage will be a galleon loading an Irish/American settler, picking up garrison/workers from American/Caribbean colonies and onwards to either Australia or Africa.

Late colonialism:

• Focus research on replaceable parts & physics, and measurement.
• Trading company conqueror army of redcoats & cannons should be able to take 5+ cities in India.
• Use American, African, and Australian colonies to build troops, settlers, and missionaries for further colonies in their respective regions.
• Limit colonial infrastructure to theatres, jails, and religious / happiness buildings.
• Transfer (or build) troops as required to capture colonies from rivals.
• Be careful of colonial wars - Britain does not yet rule the waves.
• Galleons will mostly transfer missionaries and workers between regions.
• Colonies to build settlers for infrastructure upgrading.
• Colonies start building navy worldwide.
• If possible, build Trafalgar square in Edinburgh.

Industrialism & World War 0:

• Great statesman reform to democracy, constitution, and egalitarianism when available.
• Continue building navy.
• Declare war on the other colonial powers. Sink ships and capture colonies as you wish.
• Blockade Portugal, Spain, and the Dutch for fun and profit (and to see empires collapse).
• Declare war on any surviving naval nation. Sink anything that floats.
• Enjoy golden age.
• Continue / gain tech lead. End.

Great guide! I've never thought of culture slider for early fishes, nor keeping Ireland as low pop settler factory (well, quite historical considering the Irish immigration lol), nor vassalizing Aztec and Inca, nor using Tributary for unit production boost.
Now to think of it, some of my troops were always tied up at Mexican colonies to defend it from dog soldiers, lagging my expansion. Making it AZTEC's responsibility to defend Aztec seems a good idea!

Two things I'm curious about, are optimal and/or historical African and Australian colony locations, and the source of production in London to build wonders.

For colony locations, I never manged to settle any colonies on Australia before UHV date, and for SAF region, just everywhere seems to be good locations! Too many options, too many confusions.

And for London, I always 'cottage on every flat land, mine on every hill' but it never felt enough to build all those Oxford, Westminster, Cathedral, National theatre, Trading company, etc. I know Oxford and Westminster is not UHV goal, but it's my little happiness to build historical wonders on historical locations XD.

 

[WhiteEyes]

Two things I'm curious about, are optimal and/or historical African and Australian colony locations, and the source of production in London to build wonders.

For colony locations, I never manged to settle any colonies on Australia before UHV date, and for SAF region, just everywhere seems to be good locations! Too many options, too many confusions.

Best historical spot on Africa:

• Durban. Third largest city on South Africa, on the gold. Gets Iron, Copper, Fish, and Sugar all at once! A bit slow to grow though.
• Gaborone. Botswana's capital, on the desert. Gets Gems, and Iron.
• Salisbury. Zimbabwe's capital, North of Durban. Gets Ivory, Coal, Silver, and the Quelimane Sugar.

Historical but less optimal:

• Accra. Ghana's capital, the foreign area on the forest belt. Gets multiple Ivory, Fish, and Gold. Usually taken by Mali unless you settle it before 1600s. Actually a pretty good city, but takes too long to improve and no TC resources.
• Lagos. Cameroon's capital, 1S 2W from the Cow. May used as a passage to Egypt.
• Nairobi/Mombasa. Cramped by independent cities, you may need to raze them to have an historical area.
• Cape Town. Gets Fish, Whale, and Gems, but bad production.
• Sudan also has good spot in South of Khartoum but there is no named city there.

Good spot in Australia: Melbourne(copper, silver, sheep, wine and fish/aluminium depending where you settle it) and Sydney(fish, sugar, sheep, and coal) in Southwest area. Wyndham(iron, aluminium, and camel) in North. You may settle Canberra and Adelaide if you are short on time.

And for London, I always 'cottage on every flat land, mine on every hill' but it never felt enough to build all those Oxford, Westminster, Cathedral, National theatre, Trading company, etc. I know Oxford and Westminster is not UHV goal, but it's my little happiness to build historical wonders on historical locations XD.

Me too, England got so much wonder but most of them happened to be London's. I think Oxford should only be built with Great Engineer(between TC or Oxford use the GE on whichever more expensive). The rest can be built without GE thankfully.

More annoyance points if you want historical Hollywood, Menlo Park, and Golden Gate in San Francisco, or Statue of Liberty in New York.

*edit: change Winburg to Durban
*edit 2: change some city suggestions

 

[TsarAndreas]

Thanks for this guide.

My previous preferred setup has been:
- London -> science & wealth
- Manchester -> troops
- Inverness -> ships
- Dublin -> workers and settlers

My experience has been that the Vikings attack 50% of the time, so I always prioritise getting the iron up and running and then building 4 crossbowmen (one for each city) to supplement the starting units. This normally is enough, but I wonder if it slows down early development too much?

Does anyone advocate getting involved in continental wars to slow down the competition? I've seen some people win the UHV by invading France and Spain!

 

[WhiteEyes]

I think Vikings are less likely to attack England when I have strong navies. So I whip 3 Heavy Galley in the early game(before 1000AD) then use them to guard the coast of London & Edinburgh.

It's also a safer option since the ship can be upgraded to Caravel and Frigate. And you don't need to worry about Huscarl pillaging around if they ever declare war.

 

[TsarAndreas]

I’ll give it a go.

It won’t help with the landed Huscarls, but in my most recent run I kept 2 CBs in London, 2 in Edinburgh, and then left Dublin and Plymouth unguarded.

Is there a specific military ratio to maintain to prevent invasion? I’ve got as low as 0.5 in the early stages, so I’m not surprised I get invaded.

I did take Oslo at the end of the war - good offshore shipyard.

 

[WhiteEyes]

Even with 6 or 7 ships, there is no guarantee that they won't invade England.
And I don't think number of ships counts to the army ratio(or maybe Vikings just far overwhelmed me).

 

[danpat]

Even with 6 or 7 ships, there is no guarantee that they won't invade England.
And I don't think number of ships counts to the army ratio(or maybe Vikings just far overwhelmed me).

Well, when I cheat-spammed battleships with world builder the army ratio went higher so I think it counts, but, I'm not sure if AI consider it, especially the vikings.

 

[FraggleJock]

I've been getting nice results lately with a turn 0 revolt to despotism, citizenship, monasticism, tribituaries,
settler+missionary shipped to Glasgow, settler+ xbow shipped to Dublin, settler walks to Manchester. xbow walks to Manchester and Glasgow
the Dublin xbow only lands if needed for safety from the goodie hut else it gets shipped to hamburg and walks across Europe to the Middle East for trades, researching education then paper seem to get most early techs traded to you although I NEVER trade anything with the french not even open borders

London forge(whip) arena, market/knight, ...
Glasgow worker(whip) library(whip), monastery, any missionaries needed
Manchester worker(whip) library(whip), arena, Knight, Knight
Dublin worker(whip) library (whip) archer(Dublin), archer(Glasgow), market
with 2 xbow in manchester and the 3 knights as a roving force you handle the vikings pretty well. I've been finding they invade far more frequently than they used to.
this gives London a manufactory and Acadamy pretty quickly and consistently from London engineer and then Manchester Scientist

 

[TsarAndreas]

Hello all

Thanks to a lot of the tips on this thread, I'm finally close to completing my first UHV for England. Again, massive shout out to @Leoreth for creating such an immersive experience. I really loved cranking out Man-O-Wars (Men-O-Wars?!) and decimating the Spanish navy. Wasn't so funny when they started building Ironclads and I couldn't upgrade my Frigates because I needed them to count towards my score...

This is only a rough overview because I didn't record anything so I'm reciting this from memory...

Home Islands

I did the London-Edinburgh-Dublin configuration to generate science, military and workers/settlers.
Early on I got a quest to get 8 knights, so after a couple of scouts to visit the continent, that was Edinburgh's top priority.
Dublin built 12 workers and then pumped out settlers.
Beelined Academia to get Protestantism. Only France declared war.

Colonisation

Nova Scotia/Quebec was my first colony and long-term naval shipyard. The 8 knights were split into pairs to protect the two cities and the two sets of 6 workers used to deforest the area. Great kickstart for the early colony buildings, removed the tactical advantage for the natives, it's a win-win.

Next colonies were Louisiana (New Orleans first, then Denver and Omaha later after roads had been built) and the Caribbean (Havana, Bluefields and the native city north of Peru). Managed to be the first to meet both the Aztecs and Incas, so gained the conquerers units and redistributed them around. Priority builds in this region were workboats, workers and more ships.

Used the Bluefields canal to settle one city in Australia with 3 defensive units. This colony took care of itself until the others were developed and more workers

Conquered and vassaled the Mysore for India, and Africa needed a short war with Portugal and 3 rapid settlements and the first goal was complete.

Rule the Waves

I had very few wars early on - this was the first game in ages where the Vikings didn't attack - so I only started given this attention later (around 1650s) and had only sunk around 5 ships. Playing on the slowest speed makes naval combat in the Age of Sail really fun. Most colonies had about one frigate per ocean resource, and I have two stacks of about 6 frigates each that were spare to fight as needed, with my colonies now pumping out Man-O-Wars. So I declared war on Spain and got my killcount up to around 30. When the Spanish ran out of ships, we made peace and then I turned my attention to the French and Portuguese. Managed to just get over the line with them before they ran out of ships, otherwise I would have had to go back to war with Spain but this time it would have Man-O-Wars vs Ironclads.

I was very grateful for the Golden Age, as all those colonies really make your science rate sag! I also ended up building Newcastle and Plymouth to improve my expansion score.

Industrial Revolution

Spain and Arabia have been very strong tech competitors in this game. Spain has a super-Habsburg thing going on - they own Southern France, all of Italy, and all of Eastern Europe. They recently acquired America (just the Eastern Seaboard) as a vassal. I have Northern France and Prussia as my vassals. The rest of Europe is Independent Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and then Russia.

I won the race to 8 Renaissance techs, but I can't see if I'm winning the Industrial tech race. From checking the tech trading screen, I know which techs my opponents can't research, so I have a vague idea that I'm ahead, but I won't know if I've won until it happens.

The Problem

My problem is that the discovery of Refining seems to crash my game. Initially it crashed in 1832, so I reloaded, moved some units around and dropped my science to 0% to see if that helped. That got me to 1833, without discovering Refining, so I increased science again and pressed End Turn. Crashed again.

I'm on Shaky stability, but I don't think I'm due a collapse? (I say this because I think that was the answer the last time something like this happened.)

I've uploaded my savegame file from 1832.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

TsarAndreas

P.S. I turned science back down to 0% and managed to limp on to 1836. I returned Montevideo to the Spanish (for some reason neither the Argentines or the Brazilians would take it) to try to reduce my overexpansion. Maybe I need to give St. Augustine back to the Americans, or give up on the Raj and release British India?

It is looking like a stability issue, but I didn't think I could go from Shaky to out without at least a warning.

 

[Lzz]

Following some of the advice in this thread I was also finally able to win my first UHV as England. I just wanted to share some of the tips I found useful that the other posters haven't covered. I played on regent, normal speed.

Beginning:

- I kept the starting civics until I got Guilds and then switched to Regulated Trade and Tributaries which served me well until much later
- I settled London, Edinburgh and Dublin as per the suggestions and used the culture slider to access the two fish sources
- I built only one additional worker, I felt four in total was enough
- As soon as I had Compass I gifted a tech to the Malinese to get open borders and I used my fourth settler to settle a city in the rainforests south of their lands (where Dutch Elmina is in 1700 scenario) to get access to gold, crab, gems and ivory and my first city in Africa
- To begin with my three main cities built only Monasteries, Libraries, Forges and Walls (just in case against Vikings, which didn't attack this time) and the rest was all military units for quite a while - mostly Crossbowmen and Galeasses. I built many, I must've had like 12 Galeasses and countless Crossbowmen at the end of the medieval era. Before mass colonization began I built Markets in all three cities, Theatres in Edinburgh and London and finally a National Theatre in London.
- A great engineer and scientist build a Manufactory and Academy in London
- I wanted to try and have a fun tech race with France so I traded with them just as everyone else

Middle:

- I decided not to spread our religion so whatever spread I got happened naturally
- A great merchant was sent to Rome to get us 1800 gold to fuel a high research rate for quite a while. Later I got two more scientists which I used to bulb some technologies
- The Reformation happened in about 1450 just as I was starting to colonize North America and I converted. England, Portugal, Poland and France all declared war on me which was fantastic as I could put my Galeasses to great use blockading every sea tile from England down to Morocco. At that point I decided to commit myself to the war effort so Edinburgh built nothing but Galeasses and later Frigates for a couple of centuries. I must've destroyed 50 ships before I even built my first Man-of-War. The goal was completed around 1715 and after almost three centuries of naval warfare I signed a peace treaty with Spain, Portugal and France. Later I built a bunch of Man-of-Wars just to get the 25 ships goal out of the way also.
- I got the Aztec conquerors but not the Inca ones. I decided to keep Mexico City and another city north of it and Yax Mutal as the three I needed for the UHV goal. Yax Mutal built a few ships but for the most part these three were completely self-sufficient, providing nothing and taking away nothing from the rest of the empire. I used the conqueror units to fight the natives and get a bunch of slaves.
- In North America I settled a city slightly west of Halifax, Montreal, New York, Annapolis (Washington) and Chicago in that order. Only the first two were built by settlers from Dublin, the rest were built locally. I built lumbermills everywhere and as a result these cities ended up with very impressive production. They built some ships but like the Central American ones they were mostly self sufficient.
- In Africa I settled three cities in the south to get the total four for the goal - Cape Town, East London and Winburg. Winburg built a bunch of ships and some military units and Cape Town built the three settlers needed for Australia
- In Australia I settled the east coast - Cairns, Melbourne and Sydney
- In total Dublin actually only built 4 settlers (I expected I would do way more there but it was not needed) and ended up focusing on infrastructure (Bank, Wharf, Customs House etc.)
- With Centralism and a Manufactory London had the necessary production to build both the Bourse and the Trading Company without a great engineer. The Bourse helped us get another merchant which build the Stock Exchange to further help the economy.
- The Trading Company troops (as per the suggestion I waited until I had Replaceable Parts and Physics to finish building it) destroyed both the Mughals and Tamils in rapid succession. I stopped at seven cities but could've easily gotten more. That was the Asian UHV goal in the bag.
- The eight renaissance era techs race was close but I think I got to 10 of them first. France did beat me to seven of them I think and Arabia and Korea to a couple each
- Civic switch to Free Enterprise, Tolerance and Individualism helped our economy quite a bit

Ending:

- At some point in the early 18th century Portugal got their conquerors (normally they get it earlier but I was at war with them for three centuries which probably slowed down their tech rate considerably). I forgot about that and almost lost Winburg to them. Luckily I had the gold to promote some Arqebusiers to Riflemen and take them out but I could've lost the city with bad combat rolls.
- I also almost lost my first African city when I got involved in another war with Spain in the 18th century and their vassal Morocco came knocking at its door. Luckily I signed peace just in the nick of time or the city would have fallen.
- I got some really nice and unexpected tech trades with Korea (I probably got like 6 technologies from them in total) which only solidified my tech lead
- Shortly before the end we got another great engineer to rush the Bell Rock Lighthouse
- With Markets and Wharves in most of my cities and a super infrastructure in London the tech rate was already good before we hit the golden age that we got for 2/3 UHV goals. After the golden age it just went bananas and I was researching the early industrial era technologies in 1-2 turns each
- I discovered Biology as my 8th industrial era technology in 1775 just as Americans showed up to declare their independence. By then Chicago and Montreal both had Levees, Factories and Coal Plants and were rocking very impressive production so the Americans likely wouldn't last very long even if I surrendered Washington and New York for a bit

All in all this was the most fun UHV I've completed so far and I thank you guys for the great advice that helped me get there