1.16 England UHV advice?

[mingming99]

This guide involves some luck but the end result will see you finish UHV and propel the Brits to a humongous research lead with 5-10k beakers per turn as well as world dominance.

tl;dr, the key points are early conquest of Italy + free workers via slavery, then focus on research via republic + San Marco + switch to protestantism > Oxford, meanwhile settling scientists/merchants in capitol

1. start. capitol - Southampton 1SW of spawn. Newcastle 1N of deer. Inverness on fur. Dublin.
2. civs - switch to republic, vassalage and slavery on spawn. we will keep republic long-term, this is our core strategy to rely on specialists settlement in Southampton with a view to build +science +commerce national/world wonders to make the capitol a powerhouse. We will be founding protestantism and thus building its shrine here as well. Slavery will help us capture early workers. Vassalage is for happiness early while you build up colloseums, after that we will be building libraries/markets and thus switching to citizenship. As we pump out more specialists and settle them all in Southampton, the city will be able to support itself for food on fewer tiles, giving you room to settle Plymouth and some place 1NE of spawn for additional core population > additional stability.
3. Early units - put four crossbows into 2 galleys, use 3rd to ferrying units to/from Ireland. wait until France is war'able, (luck involved) and drop in on unprotected workers. Ferry workers back. First order of building in all 4 cities will be militia (cheap and good enough). I'd build a scout in Southampton as well and send to explore. more on this later.
4. next goal is to invade Italy and take Rome. Greece/Balkans is an alternative. You are aiming for cities that will pump out workers/settlers and (with big luck) great people. Look for the great library. Mandatory spawn of Italy in 1166 makes Italian conquest less fruitful as you lose the most productive part. Nonetheless, Italy also has good luxury resources to keep England happy before you build up/invade the Americas.
5. Back home, our goal is to have as many scientists/merchants as possible while keeping high pop and happy cities. Build up colloseums first, then switch to citizenship as you build up libraries and markets.
6. Research. occasionally Catholicism is not founded. If so, beeline for Doctrine and pump out a priest, shrine income early is worth it. Beyond this, research is aimed first at two wonders. Beeline for Patronage first to build Santa Maria in Southampton (for MORE specialists). This is easier if you make friends and get marble from [most likely] Arabs / Turks. (I will discuss scouting in more detail later). Next tech is banking, you desperately need San Marco Basilica to amplify your gold income. Timing wise you will build it roughly around the time of popping conquerors in Americas, which will support those units nicely and avoid a hit to research.
7. Scouting - 1 worker from France + 1 scout. Ideally you want to get through Balkans > Anatolia > Middle East > Persia > India > China for maximal access to tech trade. Give away techs if needed for relations. It's worth it. Korea often has good techs. Scout should go north via Russia (give them scholarship) > central asia > Turks > China.
8. You might be wondering - how will I defend from Vikings with militia. You won't. If Vikings attach - load back and (you should have friendly relation) ask for 1gold coin as a friend. That should auto-declare peace treaty for 10 turns. Rinse and repeat. If you frown upon loading auto turns, so be it. Sometimes they don't attack.
9. Timing ~ 1200s. You've pumped what you could out of your conquests in Italy/Greece, Italians/Ottomans are spawning, it's time to GTFO. You should be discovering optics and turning one galley into caravel early 1200s. Don't be too eager to send it to Americas, conquerors won't spawn within 10 turns of Aztec spawn. Can send it via Argentina/Chile around globe for +1 movement. You have built San Marco and Santa Maria, you've settled a few scientists into Southampton already. Your research is hitting 200, you are pulling ahead of everyone else. After optics, you're left with a choice - do I go for exploration to accelerate colonization, or do I beeline for Academia for protestantism (convert to it > instant +20 shrine) and build my Oxford and +2 happiness in all cities wonder. I'd go for the latter, both protentast wonders are a MUST. You will be begging for extra happiness when the # of cities goes up. +1 beaker to all specialists will obviously be a cornerstone of our research excellence. Not getting protestantism isn't the end of the world, but Germany is likely to beat you to one of the wonders, so beware. Popping a great engineer will require early forge and some luck, but will make life much easier.
10. Conquerors. Late 1200s. If Maya are still alive you are in luck, otherwise conquer Aztecs (will pop workers and settlers for NA colonies here). Delete native units after you're done (upkeep). Keep knights above all to fight dog warriors. Take central America as it's historical and gives passage via Panama canal to 'straya. With Incas, try to pop conquerors as far North as possible. Do not conquer, peace out ASAP, keep units in Colombia. Keep three land units for city guards to our 3 Northern South America cities. All the excess units will be useful for a variety of purposes - city guards in NA or Carribean, or even (more on this later) - early conquest of Egypt.
11. Early colonization. You are popping settlers and workers back home. You have switched back to manoralism after you got those French workers. around 1400 you've converted your galleys to galleons and sent a bunch of settlers and workers our. Hit Northern coast of SA. Georgetown 1SE of pearls. Fort Willoughby on sugar. Road Town in Carribean. Mobile in NA. be prepared to settle Oklahoma 2N of deer as Frenchies love settling New Orleans and screwing your roadworks (no open borders cz they hate you for taking those workers). DO NOT settle Canada/East coast. Too much wood cutting, no luxury resources, constant barbs/natives spawn - not worth your time. For UHV, we will end up settling the Midwest, Canadian prairies and Vancouver.
12. Next target - South Africa. Winburg 1S of cows, Cape Town, East London. will need some units to def against impis. good luxury resources. South Africa will help us settle Australia and East Indies later, put effort into developing Winburg. Long term you aim to take Zimbabwe and branch up with Egypt via Mombasa.
13. Remember those extra conquerors? if Egypt is weak/independent and you haven't squandered the units, send them to Egypt via [friendly] Morocco. Good luxuries, and what the hell - you can afford it. Otherwise units will always come in handy in NA/Africa.
14. With # of cities growing, research is getting out of control. You are keeping cities happy w luxury resources. Beelining for economics and start building research company. Meanwhile - beeline for Replaceable Parts (riflemen / big boy cannons). It's a longer wait, but believe me it's worth it. Somewhere ~1550 you pop conquest armies in India. They will absolutely roll through India/Mughals/Chola. luxuries there will keep your expanding empire happy. Your beaker rate is passing 1000. Hitting techs UHV goal is almost automatic. Go on to settle requires territories (don't settle in period close to / before Indian conquerors as pop will be slashed) - those settlers you kept idle in Australia, NZ, maybe even Brunei. You are expanding into midwest and Canada (keep WEST of Mississippi or Americans will pop them on spawn).
15. Make some ships or w/e, that UHV goal should be easy. Dry docks help. I never bother with this goal tbh, just attack whoever. You could do a sneaky by making privateers and starving Europe/China/whoever. With how far ahead you are it should be a walk in the park.
16. Looking into the future, your main problem will be that your hammers don't match your research and you don't have enough of them to pop wonders. Resolve early on to focus on trying for Great Engineers. Keep them. Use them to pop Industrial wonders that create free buildings in every city - Westminster, Brooklyn Bridge, the one with free sewers. Makes a biiiig difference.
17. It's 1800s, you are dominating. UHVs are met. If you have the extra stability (did you forget to found more cities in your core? Southampton should be approaching size 30) and happiness (not too hard with control of India/Egypt/South Africa/Carribean) - go and conquer Burma and South China. You can even pop the Forbidden Palace for the upkeep.
18. Research - time to switch gears and beeline for civic-related techs. Your aim to switch to egalitarianism, republic, central planning (all those engineers..), constitution and isolation. more and more and more specialists with bonuses on each one. Into 1900s, you are hitting 5-6-8k research, going into space and making modern armor vs (at best) riflemen in Europe and Russia. The world is your oyster, you can subdue America/Canada, you can subdue Russia, colonize Africa to maximal extent, colonize SEAsia/Indonesia, Oceania, China. You can win a domination victory. Don't forget to build the internet for (you guessed it) - more specialist bonus.
Afterword. England's unique (overbuffed) core + unique power make it a ridiculous civ. Greece could do this early on, but around 1500 they fall off due to stability issues, tech modifier, lack of land to expand into. Russia and America tend to be more land-based (farms, etc) and cannot tolerate republic due to cost to production on towns/farms.

thanks for reading

 

[Lzz]

That sounds insane, but how exactly do you conquer Italy or Greece with 4 Crossbowmen?

 

[mingming99]

@Lzz
one way is brute force a weakly defended city
another way if wait for France/Germany to attack, leave weakened unfinished defenders and pounce on it
third way is capture one, use it to pop catapults and capture other city slowly but comfortably
fourth way is be friendly with Spain/Moors (will cost techs) and simply galley them into Mediterranean

 

[black213]

One way to prevent a Viking attack is by asking them to adopt one of your civics. This will give you a mutual truce for 10 turns (I think, on standard speed?)

 

[black213]

The English UHV feels easier than it seems (Monarch/Epic, maybe I wouldn't have managed on Standard speed?)! Maybe I just got lucky because the tech lead rival France got stuck in a multiple front war for centuries after converting Protestant along with me.
@Dannimal 's guide was helpful although I didn't follow it to a tee, there's a lot of possible leeway here.
One big difference to take into account if playing on a recent git version is that the new world conquerors are mercenaries now, and thus cost a lot to upkeep. They're still good for the quick conquest but you'll need to disband and ferry some military over.

 

[WhiteEyes]

Is Mexico and Peru conquerors really necessary? How easy to win the UHV without ship-racing to America?

 

[Dannimal]

Based on the new changes:

I find the Mexican conquerors more useful than the Incan. The free units are not useful for garrison duty, so I suggest taking Mexico city for unit production.

My feelings about the early game:
I still suggest settling London, Edenborough, and Dublin upon spawn.
With the free civic switch I suggest switching to despotism, tributaries, citizenship and redistribution immediately, switching to regulated trade ASAP. Caste system is useful early on.

I find redistribution very helpful for the medieval Europeans to accelerate worker production and get early population for super early great scientist academy. Merchant trade really isn't useful for a civ with 3-4 cities.

London can build a few super-food accelerated workers, then library and other infrastructure. Workers build workshops on all available tiles until London runs out of useful buildings to construct, then convert workshops into cottages.

Dublin can be treated as a true colony and build military units & basic infrastructure (theatre & catholic buildings) until the renaissance. Hopefully by the time the Vikings attack, 2-3 heavy galleys can defend the coast. A farm on the south tip of Ireland helps accelerate unit production.

Edenborough can build mostly infrastructure since Dublin can handle the early naval production.

 

[BigSchwartzzz]

Dublin is a spawn. No need to settle. So here's my Regent way on 3rd longest speed.

The trick with Mexican conquerers is to get bombards which are necessary for India.

I found London 1 South, Manchester, and Edinburgh. I send the missionary to Edinburgh and have them build the monastery. I use my civics as despotism, caste system, citizenship, redistribution, and nothing for the last one.

Advanced start gives London a library. First turn I turn culture to 100, second turn tech to 100, and third turn culture to 100 until Edinburgh's culture expands to the fish and then I go tech 100. I gift vikings ethics and trade them for machinery. London goes for arena then forge and Manchester library then arena, whipping when reasonable. Edinburgh's meanwhile building the monastery, then two missionaries (unless Catholicism spreads), then a library, then arena.

Techwise I'm beelining to patronage, then financing, then academia, bulbing when possible except for 1 engineer than I use to build Santa Maria. I just build San Marcos basilica, which finishes around the same time as academia, so usually I have to hold off. I have to revert back if somebody gets academia first which means I have to use an engineer to build the basilica then rush academia at all costs.

Vikings aren't too bad. Helps if they don't attack but if you can take out their first ship with a cog and a galley you're golden.

Meanwhile for workers, never waste a single turn. Like no two tile movements. You move one tile, build a road, stop, then get to the next tile. I send one worker to build the cow pasture then the other two the wheat, then the sheep. No roads yet. Once cow dude is done I send him to the stone, then the other two to the forest above Manchester, build a road, then the three of them build in the iron mine right after. So that's opening moves. I never need more than 5 workers, once the tiles are nearly all worked I switch to manorialism and send them to Ireland. I don't take Dublin until it's 2 pop and I have another missionary.

Once I'm done whipping on great Britain I stitch to republic, monasticism, and regulated trade. On Dublin I build nothing I can't build with a Renaissance settler.

The key to remember in all this is ABC. Always Be Chrading... technologies. If you don't trade the AI will trade amongst themselves, and bulbing gives you a lot of leverage.

So I embrace the reformation, with two or three Catholic missionaries already built, build oxford university once I get an engineer, then switch back up Catholicism for better relations.

I always go for Mexico once I have gunpowder so I get bombarss, if I can wait for arquebusiers I do, but not necessary. I take a city or two and capitulate them but give them back and fortify their North. If I can I do the same with the incans I will but they usually meet me too soon and block conquerers. The bombars are necessary for India.

The cities I settle are first South America and the Caribbean to beat france, Spain, and Portugal there. I take where the Dominican Republic is, 1W of the river in Guyana, and 1W of the Sugar just above the mountain. Good cities.

For North America I start with Vancouver and work my way in. I leave the east coast alone. Africa is easy, just need two settlers down there and they build their own. With India, I usually get lucky where theres a bunch of Mughal workers and I switch to slavery and take them then switch to caste system to build up Africa faster. I usually India as a settler farm to take care of Australia.

And thats my strategy.

 

[BaneFire]

Finally completed this one after years of frustration. Turns out all I had to do was stop rushing Exploration, and rush Protestantism instead.