Dutch Unique Unit

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leon236

Future King
Joined
Aug 31, 2002
Messages
76
Location
Florida
May I ask one simple question... Why do the Dutch have the Swiss Mercenary? For those of you who are not familiar with them, they are actually called the Swiss Guards and they live and work in the Vatican City.

I am curious as to why Atari thought that it would be appropiate to completely disreguard the fact that the Swiss Guards live in the Holy See and not in the Netherlands. Perhaps I am wrong, and I would honestly prefer someone to point out that I am indeed wrong.

Why am I upset? Am I a left-wing Catholic who is upset that they misplaced them? No. Am I Dutch and feel offended that Firaxis could not have found a better unit for my home country? No. I am simply just wondering why Atari did that, and if somebody has made a unit better suited for the Dutch.

By the way, even though Atari calls them "Swiss Mercenaries" they are wearing the traditional costume of the Swiss Guards which is kind of hard to pass off as something else.

Okay... Someone please respond and prove me wrong.
 
Well, the next civilization to employ a mercenary UU type besides the Carthaginians.

But well, Landsknechte ARE NOT Swiss Mercenaries:
(source from above)

Under the leadership of Georg von Frundsberg, a contingent of Landsknechte decimated over 3,000 Swiss mercenaries using

Well... I still think leon has a point. They rather look like the ceremonial guard of the pope than swiss mercenaries.

But it is true that the Dutch hired troops from Switzerland, but not only... perhaps Landsknecht would have been better as a term for them.

The point is that there is no especially unique unit that is stated in a historical context with the Netherlands.

I only remember being a Dutch Privateer once in another Sid M. Game, Pirates! :)
 
i'd still prefer a seafaring uu for the dutch, after all, that's what we got our power from :/

willem van oranje's army consisted of mainly mercenaries, so that's pretty correct.
 
Originally posted by globester
i'd still prefer a seafaring uu for the dutch, after all, that's what we got our power from :/

willem van oranje's army consisted of mainly mercenaries, so that's pretty correct.
Click to expand...

Merchantman? maybe... A galleon with larger capacity and with some attack and defence value for starting golden age.

I have an other question. Who can be considered as "industrious" if Dutch are not? Americans? :eek:
 
You could consider Americans as:

Militaristic
Industrious
Scientific
Agricultural
Expansionist

But I think that would be just too much to be fair. :D

I would give the Dutch a Trade - Trait, but well... :)
 
Leon, quite simply, in and around the 16th century, indeed the rulers of what is now the territory of the Netherlands hired mercenaries from what is now (and was then) Switzerland. That these are dressed in uniforms like the Swiss Guard (who, I'm sure, also started out as mercenaries from Switzerland) is perhaps a historical anomaly, but probably appealing to the present day viewer, who, like yourself, associates any mercenary from Switzerland with the Swiss guard.

So indeed while you are familiar with the Swiss Guard, and while the Swiss may have a peaceful image now, they certainly were a major supplier of mercenaries in the late middle ages.
 
Not only that, I've seen at least one historian claim that whomever hired the Swiss mercenaries first, won. They were that good. However, those mercenaries were more of a heavy infantry (offensive) rather than simple pike guys. They did use heavy pikes to anchor a line and then halberds or similar heavy infantry on the wings to compress the opponent. But the pikemen themselves also attacked.
 
leon236 you say you can think of better UU's for the Netherlands, if so why not name them and edit the dutch to have that unit. Everyone here has mentioned the strong dutch connection with seafaring and shipping yet have failed to mention and really prominant, unique ships the dutch ever possessed. I suppose the dutch could have had a ships similar to man of war after all England bought many ships from Netherland at that period which I believe had better hull protection than French design for the period.
 
In the 16th century europe, every body was working on a farm or in some small city as a smith of something else. Those farmers used to get many childeren. This way they could be supported by them. As you might have seen on a map, Switserland consists largely out of mountains. Thus limiting the space for good farm land. Because of this and the fact that skiing wasn't a industry back then (so half of the time farming was out of the question) a lot of swiss boys had to find a different occupation.
As you might have heard those were turbulent times and thus armies ( read mercenaries) where good occupations. That is why there was a group called the swiss' mercenaries.
Because they didn't have much to go back to they were pretty fiers. And therefor much hired. We dutch needed them, and had the money/ (same believe), to fight. That is probably why it became the dutch UU.

As for a ship UU,.... Well that is something we build ourselves and let many other people sail (crew)!!! Originally I would have liked to see a dutch UU ship, but I seem to have grown attached to the swiss mercenary!!
 
IMO the dutch should get two unique buildings instead of an unit:

The coffee shop and the sex shop. :p

No, to be honest:

Why not a stronger Dutch Privateer Unit?

Ugh, well, they were traders, not pirates...


Kaboth is probably right, the Dutch have a history as a seafaring nation, but they are not closely tied to any particular military unit that immediately comes to mind.

So I guess the Swiss Mercenaries are not too shabby at all.

Hell, think of games like Medieval: Total War, Swiss Armored Pikemen are the DOOM of any cavalry and most Infantry there! :goodjob:
 
The Dutch should have something like the man o war.

Man we've beaten the english navy twice in their glory days.

And the coffee shop of course, a building that gives tourism a 100% bonus. :cool:
 
IMHO, I feel that the Dutch should have had some kind of ship as their UU, along with Seafaring and Commercial as their traits.

That said, having a stronger pikeman as a UU suits my Civ3 playing style and is the main reason I've played as the Dutch in some of the games I've had.

The coffee shop sounds good. I must put that into my mod!
 
Well the problem is, the Dutch were a merchand power so their naval UU should be a merchant UU and not a militaristic one. Now how can you implement a merchant UU ? I don't know. So I think the Swiss merc is fine :)
 
Our navy was a militaristic one as well as merchants.

Ask the english.

But I like the Swiss merc though, no reason to change it.

And I think agricultural and seafaring are both pretty nice traits.
 
Civilopedia entry for Swiss Mercenary
Mercenaries first came to prominence in Europe in the 14th century, when soldiers from the Hundred Years' War preferred to
continue fighting for a living rather than learn peacetime trades. Swiss soldiers in particular enjoyed an especially high
reputation for loyalty and professionalism, and several European nations incorporated Swiss mercenary regiments into their armies.
The Netherlands, in particular, employed huge numbers of mercenaries, since the strength of the Dutch nation was commerce and wealth.
This allowed Dutch princes and stadtholders to pay mercenaries well and regularly, which led to extremely effective fighters.
The most famous assignment of Swiss mercenaries is the personal safety of the Pope; a special unit of Swiss soldiers, the Swiss Guard,
has pledged to protect the Pope and the Vatican for the last 500 years.
Click to expand...

i also believe the Dutch should have gotten a naval UU though, something like the Man-O-War maybe
 
Well, having a pikeman uu, it seems reasonable to be a "Swiss pikeman", as the Swiss were quite strong in the pike vs. knight battle. This ended in the 16th. century, as new battle styles came up, involving amongst others crossbows and gunpowder-weapons and the knights were disappeared. And Swiss mercenaries stayed the fashion until the 19th century in armies and particularly as guards for royals and stuff. If I am not mistaken, Swiss guards were also in England, France and Italian kingdoms anyway. I don't see a special reason why the dutch have a pikeman uu, but if there's a pikeman uu, I don't see why it shouldn't be a "Swiss Mercenary". By the way, the pike was also not uninvolved in the securing of Switzerlands existence in the beginning, it helped to persuade others to stay away, back then.
 
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