How to Brazil?

[Apple111111]

Time to start another one of these threads where I'm not necessarily struggling at these UHVs but more so puzzled on how to do them...

Having just finished Mexico's UHV, I've moved onto Brazil... However, this one's a little confusing...

I'd ran 2 different starts, one landed me 4 slave plantations on start, the other one 6, so obviously, I ran the latter.

I managed to secure three more plantations with slave trade, but now it seems that the Europeans aren't getting any more slaves, so I'm guessing I get the last three through American/Caribbean conquest, as there are some plantations over there?

The part of the UHV that's confusing me even more, though, is the free specialists... 12 is a LOT of specialists... The first three are obvious: Republic, Constitution, Statue of Liberty, but what about the other 9?? Is there a technique or strategy I'm missing??

 

[Apple111111]

Wait a second... Slaves count, don't they...?

But how am I meant to secure 12 more slaves?! That's a huge number...

 

[Tao paï paï]

The part of the UHV that's confusing me even more, though, is the free specialists... 12 is a LOT of specialists... The first three are obvious: Republic, Constitution, Statue of Liberty, but what about the other 9?? Is there a technique or strategy I'm missing??

National Park, with 12 nature reserves on jungle in the BFC of the city where it is built.

 

[Apple111111]

National Park, with 12 nature reserves on jungle in the BFC of the city where it is built.

Thanks for letting me know, I somehow never picked up on this idea.

Still... I've already failed an attempt... England got to Wembley pretty quick, at which point I was a whole three techs off Radio.

Maybe instead of beelining straight for Radio, I should pick up Civil Rights along the way for nature reserves and egalitarianism?

 

[AOS9001]

I'll be watching this thread closely. With how Britain and the Netherlands snowball in the 1700 start currently, I've never come remotely close to achieving Brazil's UHV. There's just too few slaves available, and you're too far behind in techs when you spawn.

 

[Apple111111]

I'll be watching this thread closely. With how Britain and the Netherlands snowball in the 1700 start currently, I've never come remotely close to achieving Brazil's UHV. There's just too few slaves available, and you're too far behind in techs when you spawn.

I figured out the slave goal at the very least. To some extent, I was lucky, since I started with 6 plantations, but I managed to get 14 in total, so I think it’s very possible with a lower number like 4.

I got 4 via trade. I think the Dutch gave me 2 and the English gave me 2. The Kongolese had none, and the French and Germans had nationalism so hence slave trade was banned.

The last 4 I obtained by shipping my units to the south of the USA. There’s almost always a city there that’s occupied by natives, and by adopting slavery/colonialism, your chance of obtaining slaves is quite high. I managed to get 4 from there. If I got my units there a little earlier, I probably could’ve got a couple more, but there was no need.

If you’re desperate, there’ll probably be a few slave plantations in the Caribbean, and also in Washington.

The greater problem right now seems to be the Europeans, as you mentioned. In essence, Europe has a high commerce cottage economy, and ever since individualism lost the double growth ability, it’s hard to replicate that economy anywhere in the new world, (except possibly the USA) what this means is that you’ll probably have to run a specialist build to get your science pumping.

As Brazil, you can reasonably pull the Statue of Liberty out in time, with the help of a Great Engineer. This, alongside constitution, allows for two free specialists in every city you own, which amounts to a bonus 4 science per city with egalitarianism, boosted to 8 science when you add the average modifiers of your cities. To top this off, most of those specialists will be scientists, (with some engineers), so you’ll get about 12 science per city. An extra 120 science obviously goes a long way, and that’s not even mentioning the great people you’ll get, which are produced rapidly by democracy and strengthened in effect by egalitarianism itself.

But one minor problem is that getting the Statue of Liberty limits you from getting Bell Rock Lighthouse, which is pretty huge for trade economy. Therefore, a decision has to be made…

The other more major problem is that civil rights gets in the way of you beelining Wembley which the English are adamant to get out somewhere between 1890-1915. Not to mention it contradicts with your UHV of slave plantations, which egalitarianism explicitly bans.

So this is where my problem lies right now. Brazil doesn’t have a clear path to follow when it comes to the route to modernisation and technological success… Cottage economy, specialists, and trade routes all offer possibilities, but none are strong enough by themselves and contradict with one another…

 

[Matara]

Is it possible to bulb techs? This is the essential part of specialist economy.

 

[Apple111111]

Good news, I at least managed to get as far as getting Wembley just in time, in 1907. Unfortunately, Germany got Cristo Redentor in 1917 so I failed the UHV despite that. I pulled off the third UHV though which is really not very hard.

The strategy to get there is not quite what you think. Instead of beelining radio start researching the techs on the lower half of the tree since the AI tends not to prioritise those. Getting civil rights early allows you to trade for a bunch of techs as the AI doesn’t really like civil rights, and also enables egalitarianism which synergises well with your Statue of Liberty.

So that’s basically it so far… If only the AI built the wonders at the time when they were actually built IRL, since that’d make this so much easier.

I’d imagine Itaipu Dam will also be difficult to build in time since the AI likes to take electronics astonishingly early and tends to have it by 1900, so it wouldn’t be long until they build it…

 

[Kott]

I have not tried this on the newer map, but on the previous one you could:
1. Take London and/or Edinburgh, thus making England less capable of building wonders.
2. Trick Germany into wars, preferably land wars, directing their attention to units rather than wonders.
3. Spy heavily on America, find cities that build your wonders and use spies to remove a building progress when it is 1-2 turns till being finished.