1.16 Poland Tips

[BaneFire]

For some reason no one wants to play Poland, which is a shame because they're actually super fun. Anyway, here's my tips. Expect restarts! 600 AD specifically.

UHV 1 - The actual challenge and the most luck dependent.

Starting turn:
First of all your three cities are almost definitely going to be Krakow, Gdansk (1left of the Vistula/2left1up from Berlin) and Kiev (already founded in 600AD).
Krakow is a free settle, Gdansk is 99% a free settle. If Gdansk is for some reason occupied perhaps by the Vikings or Holy Rome... restart.
Kiev is typically an independent, but sometimes owned by Holy Rome. If it's independent and untouched, chances are there's 2 crossbows, which is a pain, but doable. If it's Holy Roman this may actually be easier, since they've killed the xbows and will just have a lancer or something.

Coming turns:
Settle Krakow and Gdansk, and pump out workers. Up to you how many, I did something like 9 (plus the 3 original so 12 total workers), Manorialism will help.
Conquer Kiev. Now look towards Budapest - it's either independent, independent with a big army, or German. If possible take it, though you don't actually need Budapest for this strategy, so if you've lost your units killing Independent Xbows, don't worry. Taking it helps though, since that's another worker pump.
Switch to monarchy(+regulated trade, if you want) when needs be.

Further:
Throw cities onto food focus, or micromanage. I did fine with auto-food.
Science to 0%, culture to 100%. You want to nab the Berlin and Budapest wheat tiles (assuming you haven't got them naturally), plus the pig/wheat/horse tiles from Russia. If Russia settles Donetsk this may be hard, if they settle in Crimea or the Volga it's a lot easier.
Don't bother exploring, Europe will come find you. Trade techs, you can get Machinery (!!!) from France, Alchemy from England.
Send your worker hordes out - you have limited time, so focus first and foremost on improving resources, then roads, then chopping/farms.
Once you have machinery and the needed tiles, put science back up and grab crop rotation. Crop rotation will allow you to plant more farms, and crucially, improve farms on plains which Kiev needs. Plus, crop rotation can be traded.

Finishing UHV1:
By doing all this you should naturally be growing towards the 12 pop. Make sure to build granaries, aqueducts, baths and smokehouses when possible.
Unfortunately the European plague will be on its way. This can just ruin your run at the wrong time. You want it either nice and early so that you can outgrow the deaths, or obviously after the UHV1 date. If you get the plague 1350, tough luck, run's over. From every try, doing no open borders + regulated trade + baths in every city simply doesn't suffice, you will get plague.

UHV3 - Now some strategic planning
Once you've secured UHV1 you will likely be a regional power. Start pumping out units and infrastructure and figure out who's weaker - Russia or Germany. You're going to need a decent number of cities since Notre Dame isn't an option, so plan ahead in advance. Poland proper can easily support 4 Catholic cities, but you'll want 2-3 German cities to guarantee Protestantism, and 1-2 Russian cities to guarantee Orthodoxy.

While you're doing this start spreading Catholicism and Orthodoxy so that you can grab some early Cathedrals. WARNING! Losing a religion loses the Cathedral, so try place them strategically. The Orthodox Cathedral is best in Kiev for example, the Catholic one in Krakow, the Protestant one whereever you see fit. Alternatively, you might just be able to aim for 8 cities with Catholicism each, but that's less fun IMO.

Once you've got all the cities, switch to despotism and whip+chop as needs be. You may shave it pretty close, some strategies I didn't try include conquering deep into Germany for more Protestantism, switching state religion to allow easier spreading, or embracing the Reformation.

UHV2 - Final
By this point you're a European hegemon, so just click Civil Liberties in the tech tree and research as normal. Sell techs to make your life easier. Great Prophets will get you the closest, but no AI power focuses civil liberties (Ottos are going for Urban Planning, Euros for Colonialism), so all things considered this should be the easiest focus.

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This was my endgame Poland. Should have took Hamburg!

 

[Dannimal]

After Kiev, I suggest conquering Russian St. Petersburg / Novgorod / Minsk with the starting army. Russia starts with very few units.

My general opening is monastery in Krakow, settler in Danzig (to settle Riga near the cow in the north). Workers & missionaries only until crop rotation is discovered. I try to time the chop production with citizenship accelerated buildings.

I think it's one of the most fun civs to play. Unfortunately, the Winged Hussars aren't really used in the UHV timespan.

 

[BaneFire]

After Kiev, I suggest conquering Russian St. Petersburg / Novgorod / Minsk with the starting army. Russia starts with very few units.

My general opening is monastery in Krakow, settler in Danzig (to settle Riga near the cow in the north). Workers & missionaries only until crop rotation is discovered. I try to time the chop production with citizenship accelerated buildings.

I think it's one of the most fun civs to play. Unfortunately, the Winged Hussars aren't really used in the UHV timespan.

True actually this might make sense, Russia only starts with Archers right

 

[Hickman888]

My opening for Poland involved me adopting citizenship and despotism (to whip out specialist buildings ASAP), and getting two great people to get me an early golden age, which gave me enough population in my cities without micromanaging too much. Culture slider + arenas to boost . The most frustrating part of the Polish game for me was I kept having Orthodoxy and Catholicism disappear from my cities, because it wasn't in their "historical" territory. So I figured out that I needed to settle/take more cities in their respective areas. I see you captured Moscow, historically accurate!

 

[Dracosolon]

You can bypass the limits of a religion's historical territory if you have it as your state religion, I believe.

 

[Lzz]

That's a great write up. I decided to tackle Poland soon after reading this and also managed to score the UHV. I would add a few pointers that may be worth considering:

- Even though it's not necessary as you are not likely to run into overexpansion issues, there is potential for a third core city to the northeast of Krakow that can work the cows
- I decided to embrace the Reformation which spread Protestantism to four cities instantly so building the Protestant Cathedral was a piece of cake. Catholicism did not leave Krakow so I didn't lose the Catholic Cathedral that was there. Maybe I got lucky and there is a chance that Catholicism leaves the city. But if it often doesn't, then embracing Protestantism is perhaps an easy way to expedite the last cathedral. Also you get lots of gold so you can fund 100% research for a long time. And perhaps even better, if you are the one discovering it first you can get the shrine too.
- In many of 600AD games Arabia survived well into the renaissance and became a teching monster. And unlike the European powers, they would sometimes research Civil Liberties quite early (as early as 1600) so I would recommend rushing it for that reason.
- And finally, while switching to Monarchy makes perfect sense since your cities will surely hit unhappiness while growing towards 12 pop, I actually stayed with Elective all the way until the end. The reason is that Krakow, Kiew and Gdansk can easily grow to 12 even with some unhappy citizens and the extra commerce you get from Elective is totally worth it in my opinion.