[R&F] A general strategy for Robert the Bruce of Scotland

[megabearsfan]

Hi all,
in anticipation for the new Gathering Storm expansion, I wanted to try to get out *at least* one more strategy guide for Rise & Fall before the new exp makes landfall. The strategies that I've written so far have focused on the civs who are new to the series (civs that have never before appeared in a Civ game). It just so happens that Scotland was the last of the new Rise & Fall civs for me to review, so I guess it worked out...

Please check out the full guide at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/20...VI-Strategy-Robert-the-Bruce-of-Scotland.aspx

I welcome any feedback.

I've found the Bannockburn ability to be exceedingly difficult to use, to the point of being a borderline-worthless ability. The requirements for declaring a War of Liberation are so strict, that I've rarely been able to use that casus beli, especially since that casus beli doesn't seem to apply if the civilization you want to liberate has been completely eliminated (has no cities remaining). This completely rules out city states from being eligible. Bannockburn (to me) is a completely trash ability, especially compared with Australia's similar ability that applies any time Australia liberates a city -- casus beli or no.

In summary, I've found that it is not productive to plan a strategy around using Bannockburn. If you have an opportunity to use it, by all means do! But it's just icing on the cake.

Fortunately, Scotland's national ability is much better: Scottish Enlightenment grants a percentage bonus to production and science whenever your cities are happy, and a slightly larger bonus if the cities are ecstatic. Science and production bonuses are good in the Civ series in general, and Scotland gets both!

So try to acquire a diverse set of luxuries via colonization, trade, or conquest, and invest in Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks earlier than you might otherwise do so. Also keep an eye out for any wonders, great people, or city states that provide free luxuries or amenity.

Just be careful not to let your tech progress outpace your infrastructure and economic development. Build lots of units early so that you can upgrade them over the course of the game. You don't want to land yourself in a situation in which you've unlocked advanced units, but don't have the means to train them fast enough to defend yourself from barbarians or a surprise war.

Any other strategies, advice, or tips for playing as Scotland? I'd love to hear your tips. Feel free to comment on the blog post as well. If anybody comes up with anything that I missed (or was wrong about), I'd be happy to update or correct the strategy.

Happy New Year, and Happy Civ-ing!

 

[Lord Lakely]

Bannockburn is rubbish (it would be better if it lasted LONGER than a meager 10 turns), and the highlander is mediocre (I didn't use them at all, because Scotland is a peaceful builder civ, not a warmonger) but the golf course and Scottish Enlightenment are really great. I personally found Scotland an easy civ to master. Expanding is normally the best strategy, with Scotland you'll want maybe 8 cities total, and develop them as tall as possible. Roleplaying as them is very rewarding too; the Golf Course synergizes well with the EC, giving them +20% production and science. You'll be getting every relevant great Scientist and Engineer. Scotland can do everything you'd want to do for science victory anyway better than any other civ and that's why I think they're one of the strongest Civs in the game.

 

[megabearsfan]

I like the Highlander because I love to use Rangers and Privateers to go barbarian-hunting for gold.

And I definitely agree that Scotland is a good overall civ, despite Bannockburn being (as you say) rubbish. Any civ that gets a science bonus is probably going to be a good civ (IMO), and Scotland gets a production bonus on top of that!

 

[Archon_Wing]

We had a thread here lately: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-och-aye-the-noo-yes-its-scotland.638890/

There is a cheap way to use Bannockburn. All you need to do is give the AI a city or settle a city right against them so it flips to loyalty. There's your liberation war. But it is true it is not very good if not using these gamey methods It's not even that great with this method since settlers are expensive.

I'm honestly not the biggest fan of them; I think they're distinctly below average. Their science ability is good, but doesn't really justify entertainment complexes as much as something like Brazil would. You have to think about what 10% actually is early game. It may only be a couple of science points and this is very inferior to something like Japan/Brazil and simply not in the league of the actual heavy hitters (Korea/Sumeria/Australia) And you can hardly guarantee it either.

You are spending production and a district slot on those things after all and have to grow bigger if you want to place more districts-- defeating the purpose of getting amenities from them either. Furthermore ECs aren't exactly very good until zoos so except for the Collosseum one, I wouldn't suggest building too many Ecs unless you need the loyalty. The Golf Course is cool but comes at such an annoying place in the civics tree. The boosts it gains from adjacency are very marginal, so you don't need to worry about where you put it.

It's probably better to just do a standard science strategy (maybe oracle) and take advantage of the extra Great Scientist points. I woudln't even bother with the engineers, but I think I've directed enough hate towards them anyways. Maybe if you see the wonder guy or the printing guy, you should take a shot at it. Those early Great Scientists can help, and if you get a good Holy Site spot up, that one GS that boosts Holy Sites is definitely something you want to look at.

 

[BenitoChavez]

A non-gamey strategy for Brannockburn is to keep everyone happy with you by sending and accepting delegations, trading open borders, fulfilling agendas, etc. But don't declare friends or become allies with anyone. You want to be able to declare war at any time. Then do a lot of exploring. If you find a city that has been conquered, make friends with the original owner of that city and there you go.

It's still somewhat difficult to do because keeping everyone happy with you is a challenge, especially when there are agendas that are impossible to fulfill. Started next to Chandra? You can be sure he will hate you forever.

 

[Disgustipated]

If going for a religion I do like Zen meditation and Stupas with them for amenities. But generally I don't recommend more than 1 or 2 holy sites. I like campus and industrial zones (with workshops and select few with factories). Enough theater squares to keep things moving along. And yes, build more than 1 entertainment district. Playing the all ecstatic cities is a fun mini game. They are my fastest science victories no question. I did it multiple times to prove it wasn't a fluke.

 

[Lord Lakely]

In my last Scotland game (on King), I didn't even bother with Holy Sites at all. I did build 4 ECs (over eight cities), which ensured every city I had was exctatic by the end of the game. +20% prod in every city is nothing to scoff at. I also managed to grab Scott-Amundsen for even more of the same, so by the end, I effortlessly won Science with +30% production in every city.

Brazil *does* play a more powerful happiness game (When I played Brazil, I went wide AND STILL had +4 happiness in every city, up to +7 in every city with a Street Carnival crazyeye:) but that's for another guide.

For a religious game, defo go with Stupa's and religious community. Religious Communities +% production stacks cumulatively with that of Scottish Enlightenment and rewards going tall, which is what you want, Stupa's also provide synergy with amenities. The other tenets are optional (Tithe is good and I'm partial to Defender of the Faith here. Scotland isn't a wide civ by design, so a defensive boost is really great.) I personally don't see why you would with Scotland, though. Production is their main focus and should be maxed out at all costs and as good as Religious Community is, it's generally not worth building the Holy Sites for over, say, a Comm Hub or even an IZ. (I will grab an IZ if it I can get good adjacency, so sue me! ) The extra prod bonus may be small, but you can easily get up to 20-40 production in a city by just working tiles + one good domestic trade route, getting +2-4 on top of that definitely stacks over the course of the game, and will shave turns off any late game buildings (research lab, stadium) and wonders you might want to grab (Colosseum, Maracana, Scott-Amundsen, Eiffel Tower, Oxford, Bolshoi, Great Library and Oracle are all wonders you'd want as Scotland and the higher your production, the likelier you are to get them.)

The district build order I used for Scotland was Campus or Commercial Hub => Harbour or Campus => Entertainment Complex or Industrial Zone => Theatre Square, with very few exceptions (if you start close to an aggressive neighbour, you throw in an Encampment, if close to a NW you could do a Holy Site, etc. Standard theory.). Water Parks are also good, but Golf Courses sadly get no adjacency from those (why not???), but you should spam them anyway once you've unlocked them. An early EC (at 7 pop) is immensely important in a good production city because Colosseum and Maracana are the two single most important wonders for Scotland imo and the sooner you get them, the better. I also ensured I founded my cities in a diamond pattern whenever possible, so that I could use one EC overlap as many cities as possible, as well as provide optimal Gold Course yields and boosted yields from the Colosseum.

 

[Legacy of Smiles]

There's definitely a powerful strategy utilising Bannockburn but it's really gamey. Similarly to the other Casus Beli leaders like Cyrus, assuming you have a strong military and two enemies you can chain the boost, declaring war every alternative ten turns then making peace ten turns after. There are two issues with this:

• Very luck-based to the point where it won't apply at all about 50% of games. Be as quick as you can forming alliances then have them join a joint war with a neighborhood for the best results.
• You need a military strong enough to repulse the occasional AI military attack.

It's finnicky and gamey but a permanent +2 moves and +100% production is possible.

 

[megabearsfan]

The district build order I used for Scotland was Campus or Commercial Hub => Harbour or Campus => Entertainment Complex or Industrial Zone => Theatre Square, with very few exceptions (if you start close to an aggressive neighbour, you throw in an Encampment, if close to a NW you could do a Holy Site, etc. Standard theory.). Water Parks are also good, but Golf Courses sadly get no adjacency from those (why not???), but you should spam them anyway once you've unlocked them. An early EC (at 7 pop) is immensely important in a good production city because Colosseum and Maracana are the two single most important wonders for Scotland imo and the sooner you get them, the better. I also ensured I founded my cities in a diamond pattern whenever possible, so that I could use one EC overlap as many cities as possible, as well as provide optimal Gold Course yields and boosted yields from the Colosseum.

I agree that the Golf Course not getting a boost from Water Parks is lame. It really hurts coastal Scottish cities. I kind of feel like this should be considered a bug, since Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks are (as far as I can recall) completely interchangeable in every other way.

We had a thread here lately: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-och-aye-the-noo-yes-its-scotland.638890/

There is a cheap way to use Bannockburn. All you need to do is give the AI a city or settle a city right against them so it flips to loyalty. There's your liberation war. But it is true it is not very good if not using these gamey methods It's not even that great with this method since settlers are expensive.

Does War of Liberation become available if a friend or ally's city is flipped from loyalty? I've never actually thought to check if loyalty flipping enables that casus beli.

Also, if you gave them one of your cities, or let one of your cities flip from loyalty, wouldn't that be a "Reconquest" casus beli, and not a "Liberation" casus beli?

 

[megabearsfan]

Thanks all for the feedback!
Based on this feedback, I have added the following paragraph to the "Bannockburn" section of the guide:

There are some rather "game-y" ways to utilize Bannockburn. You could befriend everyother civ, and then just wait for one to declare war and conquer another's city. You could also maintain amicable relations with every other civ, but not declare a formal friendship or alliance. Then when another civ's city is conquered, declare friendship with the civ who's city was conquered. Either of these tricks should allow you to gain access to a War of Liberation casus beli against the aggressor civ, but it will still be mostly up to luck whether you get to use these strategies reliably.

Keep the feedback coming!

 

[Archon_Wing]

Does War of Liberation become available if a friend or ally's city is flipped from loyalty? I've never actually thought to check if loyalty flipping enables that casus beli.

Also, if you gave them one of your cities, or let one of your cities flip from loyalty, wouldn't that be a "Reconquest" casus beli, and not a "Liberation" casus beli?

It doesn't matter how they get it if it falls into their hands. I've had that CB used against me even when I never took any cities

And oh yea, I guess that is a mistake. That's probably my fault for taking it from a post in the forums. That is kinda useless and I didn't even remember there was a difference between the two.