A Spain Game

[Fresol]

Hello again, you know I'll come out with a new game every now and then. This time it's Spain. What should I say, as the first appearing colonial European civilization, a Spain game is interesting in that you get to build one of the largest colonial empires of the world and become the dominating world power. But of course in a Spain game there are also heavy religion and espionage elements, which were seldomly mentioned in my previous games. So be sure not to miss this one.

I have a few too many screenshots to post so don't expect the game to be finished in a single day.

The three historical goals for Spain are(on Regent/Normal 600 AD, SVN 983):
1. Plus Ultra: Be the first to found a colony in America
2. The Treasure Fleet: Secure a total of 10 silver and gold resources by 1650 AD (Turn 130)
3. Soldiers of God: Spread Catholicism to 40% of the world population and allow no Protestant civilizations in Europe in 1700 AD (Turn 140)

 

[Fresol]

Dawn of the Spanish civilization.



We adopt the Theocracy+Slavery+Warrior Code civics on the first turn. Two knights go to destroy independt Bordeaux. The longbows and swordsmen go capture Barcelona.



Alt+Left Click on the indies on the scoreboard to declare war. Then founding Santiago as our capital will not have our units expelled out of the indie cultural borders.



Usually the Moors are also trying to take Barcelona. It's easy to take.



However Bordeaux can be a problem. We have a 0.7*0.7~=50% chance to raze it without loss. Time to S/L . This is more or less the only time you need to S/L this game so don't feel too bad about it.



Then there's enough space to found Pamplona.

The workers chop trees to accelerate the pagan temples in the two newly-founded cities.



After the pagan temple is finished in Santiago, we spread Catholicism there. Chop the other forest for the work boat.

 

[Fresol]

Gift the French 10 gold to OB.

We want to conquer Cordoba as soon as possible. Leave the French be.



France has founded Rennes. I didn't try to raze Marseille because it requires more S/Ls(the odds are bad), and it's actually a convenient city as we'll see later.



Sea turtles makes Barcelona grow just a little bit faster. Don't try to build work boat there yet, very likely indie triremes are going to destroy it.



Santiago and Pamplona hurry catapults. A road can help the catapults reach Cordoba faster.



We've won the Apostolic Palace Election! It's only because the time order, we have the same number of votes.

 

[Fresol]

Declare war on the Moors. We've brought all our troops.



After suicide attack with the catapults, we win the battle. GG El Cid is born in Santiago. Notice I've trained a few warriors while the iron is not mined yet.



We take Cordoba the next turn. Only 1 swordman was lost.



Moors is willing to sign Peace Treaty. Good, then we don't need to worry about their triremes.



Hurry the monastery in Santiago and train a missionary there. Spread Catholicism to Pamplona.



Byzantium can reliably provide the Compass technology. Trade for it.



El Cid has become the super medic explorer.

 

[ales_]

Great!

 

[Fresol]

Next we want to take Roma. It's heavily defended so we'll wait a while.



Doing a bit of exploring.



We're building forges in our cities.



Don't forget to spread Catholicism to Cordoba.



Hurrying spy training with 2 pops will give us 2 spies. We'll train 4 spies first.



These newbies will have their first mission at Marseille. Only 1 succeeded and returned safely back to Barcelona. Well, they'll get better.

 

[Fresol]

Not sure why I'm spending all the money. Building barracks and train 4 catapults. We need them for Roma.



As we are finishing Engineering, Justinian I is willing to share his Marble with us. A good guy he is.



Engineering unlocks citadels and the Notre Dame, trebuchets and 3-move roads.



Holy Roman armies have weakened the defence in Roma. Time for us to take it!



After suicide attacking with City Raider II catapults, we take Roma.



We're spreading Catholicism to French Marseille.

 

[Fresol]

Trade routes, our state religion, city culture, espionage points spent, these factors can significantly reduce cost of . I believe these factors are multiplicative, but I'm not getting the exact numbers right.

Also notice the Great Spy points we've accumulated through constant Spread Culture missions. Hurry spies in cities with not too many , and direct all espionage points against France(Ctrl+E as hotkey).



Our first Great Spy is born! Well, that was easy. We don't have use for him yet, just have him explore the world. Contact the Arabs for example. He'll be useful in stealing Gunpowder from the Turks later.



Spies being caught too often will cause diplomatic penalty.



Somehow the Colosseum still provide ? Having the Holy City will significantly reduce cost in missions.

 

[Fresol]

Stone provides +100% in building walls. Citadels don't need stones though, I believe it was my suggestion and Leoreth accepted.



Santiago finishes Notre Dame, it'll counter the problem from excessive whipping.



We know France has researched Guilds. And we are stealing it. Look how cheap it is even with only -30% stationery spy!

Why not wait 2 more turns for a -50% cost? Because France is going down! against them is no longer useful.



We adopt Guilds.



Promote the spies with the anti-detection promotion(or whatever the name is). Soon they'll have 100% success chance in missions.



What does excommunication do exactly? Anyway, it and inquisition resolutions usually fail.

 

[Fresol]

A glance of relations between the civilizations.



In year 1130 AD we direct all our against Portugal. We can also farm GS points with missions in Lisboa.



Meanwhile the war is on! I forgot to take screenshots about taking Marseille. It fell so easily to City Raider III trebuchets(thanks to citadels) and Combat II knights. The next step is to diconnect the iron.



Loss is kept to the minimum.



And we take Paris.



France collapses 2 turns later.



And we proceed to take Rennes. The Spanish army is already invincible.



Of course, we are not fighting against this guy.

 

[calad]

Can you wrote a guide about espionage? Most of readers dont have any idea how it works and what potential it has.

 

[Fresol]

No one expects the Spanish inquisition! But it fails.



Meeting Mughals, but there's no trade route connection. Time to bring our Great Spy back.



Doing a bit of trading with the Arabs, it doesn't really matter.



Time to deal with the Portuguese! Don't worry, Neapolis will be our next spy training camp.



We have Optics now. Upgrade a trireme to caravel and we are ready to circumnavigate! The Spanish UP provides Navigation I&II promotions to naval units and is just amazing.



Lisboa is captured and burnt to the ground.



We are having some problem with expansion stability. It's mainly from newly captured foreign unhappy populations. Maybe I can talk about the details of expansion stability in my Tibet game, which I haven't got a chance to post yet. Or you can just find it in stability.py yourself.

 

[Fresol]

I'm upgrading the trireme to caravel, it's faster this way.



We accept Portugal's capitulation.



Caravels open up new horizons. We get Divine Right from Mansa Musa.



The GP Ignacio de Loyola is born in Roma. He'll stay in Santiago for the time being.



The spy training program continues in the training camp in Neapolis.



After the flip, our Great Spy can walk safely into the city of Konya. Meanwhile we should send two experienced spies there too.





Our caravel gets to contact even Indonesia and China in the Far East.

 

[Fresol]

We've barely won the second Apostolic Palace Election! Again we win by time order. It's useful to have Portugal as vassal after all.



I'm persecuting Islam in Cordoba. Maybe it's too early to do this? It's possible to build Islamic wonders after adopting Secularism. But I want to use this chance to explain how the religion spread percentage works, since it's a part of our historical goal 3.

I'll use an example. Say there are two cities in the world, each with 50 pops. Spread Catholicism to one of them, and the Catholic population percentage is 50%. Spread Islam to the same city, and the percentage drops to 25%. In other words, population in a city is divided to equal parts for all religions present in the city. To reach the 40% Catholic population goal, we need many big Catholic cities with little to no other religions in them.

 

[Fresol]

Mongolia's menace is just talk. They can't reach us.



Our second caravel is waiting at the Caribbeans. As soon as we get Astronomy and Gunpowder it's going in.



More persecution. It causes city revolt and a decrease in population, and has a chance to fail too.



We get Civil Service from Poland. Looks like we don't need to steal it from the Ottomans then.

 

[Fresol]

Can you wrote a guide about espionage? Most of readers dont have any idea how it works and what potential it has.

Maybe later? I have a total of ~240 screenshots to post in this Spain game. And the use of espionage in this game is not very heavy. Mind you, I have another Congo game up in my sleeve and it's really espionage heavy.

I can write it in a separate thread I suppose.

And I take a pause in posting. We'll begin the Renaissance era in a few hours.

 

[Fresol]

We have entered Renaissance era through Astronomy.



You can see all historical area plus one missing tile in Iberia have turned to core. This happens when Moors are driven out of Iberia and Spain enters Renaissance era.

Meanwhile we have circumnavigated. Not really, but the program says so.



Check our expansion stability potential. Wow, 4 core cities + Renaissance, there you go. I think there's a need to explain how expansion stability works for those who don't read codes.



On the same turn, our spies get to work in Konya.



What a waste of , we are only using the 506 out of the 3000 points.



Gunpowder + Astronomy unlock conquistador, the best land unit at the time.





And we get both conquerors.

 

[Fresol]

Trade routes are secured by having Astronomy. We do some trades.



Limatambo is our first city in the Americas. It doesn't qualify as being "founded by Spain" though. We need to found a city with a settler. Galleons upgraded from galleys can do the job.



We have entered a period of rapid expansion.



Irrelevant prairie dogs.



With conquistadors and a bombard, we take Tenochtitlan with relative ease.

We are saving money to upgrade the galleys and knights at homeland, we need them to take control of the Americas.

 

[Fresol]

We raze the city of Tiwanaku. The city is useless if you're not Inca. But there are no better alternatives, so the razing is questionable.



Meanwhile our other spy is stealing from Turkish treasury.





Don't forget about the Old World while you're conquering the New World. We do more tradings.



Cartagena de Indias is the first American colony we found. It doesn't really grow before culture border expansion, but it acts as an strategically important canal.



And so we have achieved UHV goal 1.

 

[Fresol]

We're razing the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza.



With help of a 6 galley, these two spies can perform espionage missions every turn, to earn more spy points.



We have discovered the Congolese.



The city of Yax Mutal is also razed by the cruel Spanish conquerors.



I've never understood why this random event is useful in any way.



We don't need when works. Unfortunately(?) we are the tech leader so we don't really rely on .



If you just care about spy points and spy experience, choose the less costly missions.