Has anyone cracked the Dutch UHV on a recent version of DoC? There is an old threat by Fresol but the mod has changed so much since then that I think there should be a new thread. After doing a very half-hearted and prematurely aborted test run of the Dutch UHV on Epic (Regent) I am quite puzzled about how one should approach this.
My idea was to settle Durban either on top of or 1 NE of the gold (the gold itself was occupied by English culture in my case) and build the Trading Company there in order to conquer Indonesia. To my surprise, however, the TC was only available at Economics (I swear it was available at Exploration when I played as Portugal). The tech rate being very slow it took ages to get to Economics, and then I discovered that Durban didn't have enough culture to build it, so I had to build it in Amsterdam while running 7 citizens. By this time it was already into the 1700s and the TC was still 20 turns away. To make things worse, the city at the western tip of Papua was occupied by the English, defended by a redcoat and covering all of the 4 spice resources around that city with its culture. I managed to get the spices in Northern Brazil (my settler landed there at the same turn as a Portuguese settler), and conquered Macapá and was about to conquer Recife. I would have probably been able to conquer two more Portuguese colonies but no way I was going to get the Caribbean spices that were defended by a Spanish musketeer. I could have conquered the Indy city in Mexico that had spices but with so much stuff to conquer and so little production and so little time ahead I just didn't see how it would be possible.
I generally feel that the Dutch, arriving on the scene so late, have a big disadvantage. Many European civs were already huge colonial powers when I spawned, and, with the exception of England, were all catholic and hostile. Low production and a slow tech rate don't help.
Any ideas?
My idea was to settle Durban either on top of or 1 NE of the gold (the gold itself was occupied by English culture in my case) and build the Trading Company there in order to conquer Indonesia. To my surprise, however, the TC was only available at Economics (I swear it was available at Exploration when I played as Portugal). The tech rate being very slow it took ages to get to Economics, and then I discovered that Durban didn't have enough culture to build it, so I had to build it in Amsterdam while running 7 citizens. By this time it was already into the 1700s and the TC was still 20 turns away. To make things worse, the city at the western tip of Papua was occupied by the English, defended by a redcoat and covering all of the 4 spice resources around that city with its culture. I managed to get the spices in Northern Brazil (my settler landed there at the same turn as a Portuguese settler), and conquered Macapá and was about to conquer Recife. I would have probably been able to conquer two more Portuguese colonies but no way I was going to get the Caribbean spices that were defended by a Spanish musketeer. I could have conquered the Indy city in Mexico that had spices but with so much stuff to conquer and so little production and so little time ahead I just didn't see how it would be possible.
I generally feel that the Dutch, arriving on the scene so late, have a big disadvantage. Many European civs were already huge colonial powers when I spawned, and, with the exception of England, were all catholic and hostile. Low production and a slow tech rate don't help.
Any ideas?
