[R&F] Civ of the Week: Netherlands

[acluewithout]

• Leader: Wilhelmina

• Leader Ability: Radio Orange. What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Internal Trade routes provide +1 loyalty to the starting City. Trade Routes to or from a Foreign City give +1 Culture to the Netherlands.

• Civ Ability: Grote Riveireren. Rivers priced +2 Adjacency to Industrial Zones, Theatre Squares, and Campuses. Building a Harbour provides a Culture Bomb.
  
  
• Unique Unit (Civ): De Zeven Provincien. Unique Naval Ranged Unit which replaces the Frigate (unlocks at Square Rigging). Melee Strength 50, Ranged Strength 60, Attack Range 2, Movement 4, Production Cost 280, Maintenance 5. Receives +7 Combat Strength v Defensible Districts.
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Polder. Unique Improvement (requires one Builder Charge). Unlocks at Shipbuilding, and must be built on a Coast or Lake tile adjacent to at least two land tiles. +1 Food, +1 Food per adjacent Polder, +1 Production, +4 Gold (Civil Engineering), and +2 Food and +1 Production per adjacent Polder (Replaceable Parts). Movement cost of tile increased to 3.

• Leader Agenda: Billionaire. Likes Civs that send trade routes, and dislikes Civs that don’t.

• Suggested Reading List: None. But I may add links to some threads later.

Notes:

• Sort of cool Netherlands gets all the District Adjacencies and a Unique Improvement.
  
  
• Previous CotW: Ancient: The Full Monty, Cree, Gilgabro, Greece, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock (Harold) the Third, Nubia, Egypt Classical: Kongo, Point Break, Price of Persia, Rome, Sythia, Medieval: China, Georgia, India, Japan, Khmer, Mongolia, Poland, Zulu.
  
  

 

[Archon_Wing]

Playing as Netherlands (will post about it later) reminds me of how awful Lake tiles are as well that associated wonder since they're pretty much only usable with polders; meaning Netherlands is really the only one that could use them (Maybe Indonesia? I don't have them) and also how awful lake starts are as well. But in any case, it's good that polders make bad tiles into good ones. They come a bit late though.

Radio Orange is actually kinda solid because of the early game culture and foreign trade is desirable anyways. The loyalty isn't very useful but could be in a pinch.

The river ability is the best especially for theater squares and campuses, and it's easy for the Netherlands to get +3. They're also one of the few civs to maybe consider IZs as well.

 

[Disgustipated]

Here's my initial start location. It's a fairly interesting map if anyone wants to play. I honestly like fractal maps better than continents, and that may have given me some advantage. I already finished my game so don't look at my screenshots further down to avoid seeing the map.

Spoiler :

• Leader Ability: Radio Orange. What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Internal Trade routes provide +1 loyalty to the starting City. Trade Routes to or from a Foreign City give +1 Culture to the Netherlands.
• I honestly don't know how much I was getting out of this policy. Doesn't seem like much. You usually don't do foreign trade routes until later in the game, so it's not really that good. I suppose if you had a city that was just barely under on loyalty this would come in handy.

• Civ Ability: Grote Riveireren. Rivers priced +2 Adjacency to Industrial Zones, Theatre Squares, and Campuses. Building a Harbour provides a Culture Bomb.
• This one is huge. Only one not that useful is the Harbor culture bomb. I suppose it could help get some sea resources earlier, but that's about it. I did build a lot of industrial zones with them, maybe didn't need to, but it's hard to turn down that adjacency. Theater squares and Campus are what win you games, can't go wrong with them.
  
  
• Unique Unit (Civ): De Zeven Provincien. Unique Naval Ranged Unit which replaces the Frigate (unlocks at Square Rigging). Melee Strength 50, Ranged Strength 60, Attack Range 2, Movement 4, Production Cost 280, Maintenance 5. Receives +7 Combat Strength v Defensible Districts.
• I can't comment on this much since I didn't use mine. I built for era score. I suppose if you want to war in this portion of the game it's somewhat useful. That +7 I'm sure is great at attacking cities.
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Polder. Unique Improvement (requires one Builder Charge). Unlocks at Shipbuilding, and must be built on a Coast or Lake tile adjacent to at least two land tiles. +1 Food, +1 Food per adjacent Polder, +1 Production, +4 Gold (Civil Engineering), and +2 Food and +1 Production per adjacent Polder (Replaceable Parts). Movement cost of tile increased to 3.
• This is a pretty awesome unique improvement, and oh so pretty. The spring patch made it "buildable" in even more tiles. If you get Auckland in the game and have lakes and build Huey you are golden. I did both and I'm quite happy.

• Leader Agenda: Billionaire. Likes Civs that send trade routes, and dislikes Civs that don’t.
• An annoying agenda without a doubt. She will complain even if you are too far away to send a trade route. And often early game I do internal trade routes regardless. If I did start off adjacent to her, I would send her one, but that doesn't happen very often.

Finished this game. My final thoughts. This is my fastest Science victory ever. Keep in mind I don't use chop exploits, and I don't even really read the strategy forum, and I don't go for low victory turns in general (for example I didn't build as many campus locations as I could have this game). Significantly faster than my Arabia and China games. I feel this civ is way overpowered compared to the vanilla civs. I think what we are seeing is power creep into the later dlc and Rise and Fall civs (though Georgia and Mapuche buck that trend). This is even faster than my Korea science victories (though I haven't played them on civ of the week on standard maps) from last spring. Granted, I am better at the game than I was 6 months ago. We'll see if I can beat this score when I play Korea. But at this point I have to label Netherlands as a legitimate science civ, and one of the strongest of them.

Ranking is A+. And really all around, it's not just science they excel at, with theater square adjacency bonuses they will excel at cultural victory as well. Conquest not so much, but improved industrial zones can help with that. They would be weakest at religious victory. And personally I don't even bother with a religion for them. This game solidifies them in my top 5 list without any doubts. At least in single player, I don't play multiplayer, and I know they would be vulnerable to early rushes by human players.

I did get lucky with Auckland in the game. And I am playing King level which allows me a good chance at wonders. I don't normally build Huey wonder since I usually lose out on it, but I beelined the tech a little earlier than I usually get it and got Huey. Though I only had 2 small lakes, but I still can't complain with 6 food, 5 production, 7 gold polders in the lake next to Huey. See my final screenshot below (yes I screwed up harbor position with Amsterdam, I could have put a polder there):

Spoiler :

And they are a quite fun civ to play as well. I didn't have as many polder locations as I would like. It's not like Indonesia where you can spam their UI everywhere. But given it's power it would be way OP if you could put it more places. A bit of a warning with Netherlands, don't be like me and forget about polders when choosing harbor locations. I think I have a couple harbor locations I could have put polders. I wasn't thinking when I placed them. Doh.

Check out this era score. This isn't necessarily because of the Dutch (though their awesome production helps), but this is my highest peacetime era score overkill. Had to screenshot it. Way over 100 points over the golden age threshold. Heartbeat of Steam just gives massive era score.

Spoiler :

Playing as Netherlands (will post about it later) reminds me of how awful Lake tiles are as well that associated wonder since they're pretty much only usable with polders; meaning Netherlands is really the only one that could use them (Maybe Indonesia? I don't have them) and also how awful lake starts are as well. But in any case, it's good that polders make bad tiles into good ones. They come a bit late though.

Yeah lakes suck unless you have Huey. Don't think you have any realistic shot at getting Huey on deity. Even on King level you do have to prioritize it. But oh were those polders so sweet.

 

[KayAU]

• Leader ability - Radio Orange
  • Internal trade routes provide +1 loyalty to starting city
  • International trade routes provide +1 culture to the Dutch city

This is a weak ability. +1 loyalty is too minor to matter in the vast majority of cases. The extra culture could be okay if you luck out and get some incoming trade routes very early on, but I don't think it is going to be very useful in any case.​

• Civilization ability - Grote Riviereren.
  • Rivers provide +2 adjacency to Industrial Zones, Theatre Squares, and Campuses
  • Harbour district triggers culture bomb

This, on the other hand, is an excellent ability. The culture bomb is only very marginally useful, as the tiles surrounding Harbour districts will often either be useless deep ocean tiles or already owned tiles near the city center. The adjacency bonus, however, is awesome. Rivers run between tiles, and that extra +2 will more often than not come in addition to normal adjacency bonuses of +2 or more. In my last Netherlands game, I rarely saw any of these districts with less than +4 adjacency, and had some with +7. Combined with the appropriate policy card to double adjacency bonuses, this is huge.​

• Unique unit - De Zeven Provinciën
  • Replaces Frigate
  • Ranged strength 60 (vs 55 for the Frigate)
  • Melee strength 50 (vs 45 for the Frigate)
  • +7 ranged strength vs defensible districts

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, there is no doubt that it is a very good unit. It is a direct replacement to an already useful unit, and it is strictly better than it. These ships can take down city defences really quickly. The one reason I have mixed feelings about it, though, is that I am not sure how necessary it is. Frigates already bring down city defences very quickly, and the Zeven Provinciën doesn't really do anything for you which the Frigate doesn't already do well enough. If you compare it to the other Frigate replacement, the Jong, that ship is available sooner in the game, can get around more quickly, and can ferry other units. Still, I can't be too hard on the Zeven Provinciën. It is a good unit, strictly better than the one it replaces, and something you would have wanted to build in most cases anyway.​

• Unique infrastructure - Polder
  • Unique tile improvement
  • Unlocks in the Medieval Era, at Guilds
  • Must be built on a Coast or Lake tile adjacent to at least three land tiles
  • +1 food
  • +1 production
  • +1 food per adjacent Polder (+2 at Replaceable Parts)
  • +1 production per adjacent Polder at Replaceable Parts
  • +4 gold at Civil Engineering
  • Tile movement cost increased to 3

So, this is my favorite thing about the Dutch, mainly because it is fun to place these. In terms of usefulness, the Polder is pretty good. Yes, it arrives a bit late in the game, but it is a food/production/gold improvement, and the yields can get pretty impressive. It is also an improvement which makes otherwise weak tiles (I'm looking at lakes) very useful for the Dutch. A basic lake tile with a single Polder will yield +2 food +1 production +1 gold initially, +5 gold later. This is decent. However, lakes are often more than one tile large, and getting at least 1, sometimes 2 adjacent Polders is not uncommon. I'm a bit of a sucker for high yield tiles, so just for the fun of it, I present to you, the ultimate setup of Polder tiles: since Polders must be adjacent to 3 land tiles, the maximum adjacency you can get is 3 other Polders, and this will happen if you luck out and get a 4 tile lake. In this case, you will get 2 Polders with 3 adjacencies, 2 Polders with 2. To get the most out of your Polders, you will also want this lake to be within range of a city with a Lighthouse and a Seaport (as Seaports seem to apply their gold bonus to lakes as well). You will want to have built the Huey Teocalli wonder, and you want to be the suzerain of Auckland. This will give you, for each of those four lake tiles:

• 1(tile)+1(Polder)+1(Lighthouse)+1(Huey Teocalli)+6(Polder adjacency)=10 food
• 1(Polder)+2(Auckland)+1(Huey Teocalli)+3(Polder adjacency)=7 production
• 1(tile)+4(Polder)+2(Seaport)=7 gold

That is 2 24-yield tiles, in addition to 2 21-yield tiles, providing the city with 36 food, 26 production and 28 gold. Are there any better potential tile yields in the game? Perhaps if this lake could appear next to a natural wonder?​

Overall, I really like the Dutch. They have the ability to get both some very strong district adjacencies, and some very good tile yields. They can make good use of terrain which others may find pretty useless. The Wiki claims that the Dutch are very weak in the early game, but I don't agree with that. Their excellenct adjacency bonus to important district types will make them pretty good from very early on. Polders will give them a nice ramp up of city yields in the mid to late game.

EDIT: Disgustipated actually got really close to the ultimate Polder setup I was talking about. If you could have found a different location for Huey Teocalli, you could have put another 3 adjacency Polder in that lake, and each of the other 3 Polders would have gotten another adjacency for +2 food, +1 production. In any case, you should have shown the yields for the Polder in the middle, as that is the best one. It will have 7 gold, 8 food and 6 production.

 

[Disgustipated]

EDIT: Disgustipated actually got really close to the ultimate Polder setup I was talking about. If you could have found a different location for Huey Teocalli, you could have put another 3 adjacency Polder in that lake, and each of the other 3 Polders would have gotten another adjacency for +2 food, +1 production. In any case, you should have shown the yields for the Polder in the middle, as that is the best one. It will have 7 gold, 8 food and 6 production.

I forgot about the polder adjacencies . That's what I get for skim reading the description when starting my game. I sometimes do that when starting a game of Civ6 and just skim through the leader bonuses and forget about other stuff. Let that be a lesson out there for you kids. I'll let this be a learning moment. Regardless, I don't think I could have gotten Huey built anywhere else unfortunately. I eventually settled on another lake, but I don't even think that city existed when I started Huey.

The middle tile:

Spoiler :

My other lake: The middle tile would have been a good spot for Huey, but I don't think this city even existed back then, and would have had trouble finishing in time. And I have 2 unimproved tiles, very good tiles. Embarrassing. I only got the plastics tech a few turns before the end of the game, and the coal I think was recently expanded by city culture. Must...resist...urge to keep playing after the finish. The completionist in me is bothered by those 2 unimproved tiles. Anyways this picture is good to show you that mountains do not count when placing polders, too bad.

Spoiler :

 

[Leathaface]

I like that it's easy to get a +3 Campus adjacency bonus with The Netherlands so you can get the boost from Rationalism much easier than almost every other Civ. This boost can be hard to get, especially since getting a +2 adjacency then using Natural Philosophy to make it a +4 adjacency doesn't work. It has to be a natural +3.

Plus if you are going for a Culture game, you can enact the policy cards that gives you +50% Culture if you've a +3 adjacency bonus from a Theatre Square (the name of the policy cards eludes me)

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well this was a decent spot for once.

Though Germany kept invading Brussels.... took care of them with oligarchy. And had to fight over Russia for that polder spot

Spoiler :

Honestly, I think Huey was probably a waste. Couldn't build it in a good spot since Peter was in the way. But hey, Polders.

Spoiler :

Capital @ end

Spoiler :

 

[KayAU]

I don't get why Peter put the Harbor District there, instead of next to the City Center. That position in the middle of the lake would have been an optimal placement for Huey Teocalli: the theoretical maximum of 5 adjacent lake tiles (any more and it wouldn't have been a lake anymore), and not in the way of any Polders. Anyways, some awesome poldering in that game.

It's weird how your civ turned into Arabia at the end.

 

[Disgustipated]

Though Germany kept invading Brussels.

This sounds familiar. Germany, Netherlands, Brussels you are ripe for some WW2 action in that game.

And your last screenshot looks like your Arabia game, unless you have some wild wacky mod in there.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I don't get why Peter put the Harbor District there, instead of next to the City Center. That position in the middle of the lake would have been an optimal placement for Huey Teocalli

I put the harbor there because it was the only tile left to put in the lake. And couldn't put Huey there because Peter owned the tile at the time of building.

That is why I was just thinking of just building an extra polder.

This sounds familiar. Germany, Netherlands, Brussels you are ripe for some WW2 action in that game.

Yea I killed Germany after the 2nd time he invaded Belguim. I've seen how this usually goes.

And yea I posted the wrong image lol.

 

[Sostratus]

I didn't have as many polder locations as I would like.

While I am forever grateful that Firaxis changed the requirement from 3 flat tiles to any 3 land tiles for polder placement, my biggest beef with the dutch is that they give you a unique improvement with massive adjacency bonuses... but the map scripts rarely give you an opportunity to use it. It's nice that lakes are usually amazing polder sites, but looking at coast: the actual land arrangements to get adjacent polders on the coast are almost never satisfied. Coastline generates way too straight for that. And R&F gave us reefs and turtles, which block a lot of polder spots. I would almost rather they tone down the yields a bit, and in exchange allowed the dutch to build them adjacent to 3 land tiles OR 2 land tiles and a polder. You could make some limited polder chains up the shoreline then, although you could never go around corner of your coastline. The point is that at least you could actually "turn coastland into farmland with dutch ingenuity" as Sean commands instead of "place one polder in your coastal capital and hope you find lakes later." It's an extra slap in the face that a lone polder could be a fishery improvement for another civ, so you don't even get more food out of the deal. (Now if you could build them on marsh tiles...)

It's not that the dutch are weak given the civ ability, but I often get more frustrated by being just barely locked out of polder spots than I get excited about finding nice lakes and abusing the river bonuses. I know it's pure luck, and there's very little decision making- the only choice is sometimes you put down a harbor for the adjacency instead of a polder. But mostly, on coastline, it's just turtle reef blocking the God-given right of Wilhelmina to create more netherlands.

 

[Disgustipated]

They should give us the ability to destroy reefs. Who needs reefs anyways.

I sometimes miss the terraforming options from Civ2. Don't like that mountain? Tear it down.

 

[Vandlys]

Just FYI Riveireren = Rivieren. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_rivieren

I thought I would have loved the Dutch more than I do. I like playing as them, but not all that much. To me the music is okay enough, but not great, and not being able to use polders that often is just sad. I might play them once again using a mod to be able to add more polders though. See if that makes the game more fun.

 

[UWHabs]

While I am forever grateful that Firaxis changed the requirement from 3 flat tiles to any 3 land tiles for polder placement, my biggest beef with the dutch is that they give you a unique improvement with massive adjacency bonuses... but the map scripts rarely give you an opportunity to use it. It's nice that lakes are usually amazing polder sites, but looking at coast: the actual land arrangements to get adjacent polders on the coast are almost never satisfied. Coastline generates way too straight for that. And R&F gave us reefs and turtles, which block a lot of polder spots. I would almost rather they tone down the yields a bit, and in exchange allowed the dutch to build them adjacent to 3 land tiles OR 2 land tiles and a polder. You could make some limited polder chains up the shoreline then, although you could never go around corner of your coastline. The point is that at least you could actually "turn coastland into farmland with dutch ingenuity" as Sean commands instead of "place one polder in your coastal capital and hope you find lakes later." It's an extra slap in the face that a lone polder could be a fishery improvement for another civ, so you don't even get more food out of the deal. (Now if you could build them on marsh tiles...)

It's not that the dutch are weak given the civ ability, but I often get more frustrated by being just barely locked out of polder spots than I get excited about finding nice lakes and abusing the river bonuses. I know it's pure luck, and there's very little decision making- the only choice is sometimes you put down a harbor for the adjacency instead of a polder. But mostly, on coastline, it's just turtle reef blocking the God-given right of Wilhelmina to create more netherlands.

I do find there's a decent number of spots for them overall, although ironically often along the tundra. But I would agree, it tends to be rare to find a spot that you can even get 2 adjacent to each other. Would definitely rather they cut the adjacency bonuses in half but allow the 2 land/1 polder. Would open up a ton of new spots for them.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I do find there's a decent number of spots for them overall, although ironically often along the tundra. But I would agree, it tends to be rare to find a spot that you can even get 2 adjacent to each other. Would definitely rather they cut the adjacency bonuses in half but allow the 2 land/1 polder. Would open up a ton of new spots for them.

And ban them from lakes. Make them exclusive to coastal tiles. Relax the placement rules even more if needed so that almost any sea coast will provide a few locations for them.

 

[Disgustipated]

I do recommend fractal maps if you want more polder locations. continents tends to have too many straight coastlines. I found myself wanting to play them again so started a new game, but I was right in the middle of a continent. I had a ton of rivers which was good, but no polder locations until I would have settled on the coast. Restarted with an archipelago map which isn't too bad for polder locations. Biggest problem is I ran out of room for good city locations.

I did try out their UU this game. Not much to say about it, it's like a frigate but better. There's not much to say because the strategy is the same. Take down walls, bombard, bring in caravel. I would actually love it more if they got rid of the +7 strength and increased the range by 1. But that might be too powerful. I have a screenshot in the quick questions and answers thread of that game as I had some trouble flipping a free city and had a question on bread and circuses.

One additional note about the strategy of taking only coastal cities is I was doing this in a dark age, and it was extremely difficult to hold on to cities. I had to keep reconquering free cities and wait until my heroic age. And I racked up enough warmongering penalty to lose all my alliances and everyone denounced me. I found because of loyalty issues I had to take German cities as well on this "large island which was really a small continent". There's a reason Japan was so far ahead, they had much room to expand and I did not. The point is taking cities in a ring around a large island/continent is tough on loyalty.

 

[liv]

I played them. It was a horrible start. My own continent with lots of tundra and desert. Not a lot of rivers. It had lots of lakes but it takes quite a while to get those useful. But I got super frigates and everything went well after that. In certain situations (lots of enemy cities on the coast= frigates are so over powered. In the end maybe de zeven provinciens were all I really used of their ability.

Where do the Dutch rank do you guys think? I think Indonesia is better due to their early faith and their UI is really easier to deal with than the Dutch, maybe. I am not sure if the super districts save the Dutch?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I played them. It was a horrible start. My own continent with lots of tundra and desert. Not a lot of rivers. It had lots of lakes but it takes quite a while to get those useful. But I got super frigates and everything went well after that. In certain situations (lots of enemy cities on the coast= frigates are so over powered. In the end maybe de zeven provinciens were all I really used of their ability.

Where do the Dutch rank do you guys think? I think Indonesia is better due to their early faith and their UI is really easier to deal with than the Dutch, maybe. I am not sure if the super districts save the Dutch?

I don't know if it makes them "better" but it does make them super flexible

 

[Sostratus]

I think Indonesia is better due to their early faith and their UI is really easier to deal with than the Dutch, maybe. I am not sure if the super districts save the Dutch?

I think all of Indonesia's bonuses require coast. Dutch have polders and harbors, but the super river districts is a very flexible and powerful ability. Since most of the usable map is land, and there are usually a lot of rivers around the map, you have much better ability to utilize both the terrain generally and conquered cities (which are often on rivers.) More science, culture, and hammers is just a very broadly powerful ability.

And ban them from lakes. Make them exclusive to coastal tiles.

I believe you can build Kampungs on lakes. Why not lakes? While I hate making these kinds of arguments, historically, they just kind of drained and filled in all sorts of low lying watery areas:

Some coast, some lake, some marshy swamp. These can really start to run together when you're dealing with the fact that water is ultimately running to the sea. While the current rules definitely favor lakes, at least lakes give you something to work with on inland starts. But I usually dislike historical arguments because I think game play is the bigger concern. Curious for your reasoning!

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Curious for your reasoning!

As I understand it, the recovery of land technique is primarily about keeping the sea from rushing in. Eliminating an inland lake would require diverting the fresh water inflow to another location, causing the lake to dry up. Kind of a different technology.

Mostly it's because I'd prefer the Netherlands (and Indonesia's) bonuses be directed to making coastal cities better, as these cities are generally weaker than inland cities. Inland cities don't really need a boost, to my mind, even if they include a few lake tiles.

Just in general, I'd prefer that lakes not be treated like sea coast tiles, but it's not a big issue for me.