How to play as Sweden?

[Resipsa]

I don’t disagree with you at all, but what is the significance of Honor for a Tundra start? Why not “one being Sweden on any start?” I have been following this thread, but I am not understanding the tundra angle, except for Sweden possibility being less bad on tundra than other civs? When and how is a tundra start a strength? How is it particularly a strength for Sweden?

Tundra isn't a strength its a weakness because Tradition the best tree doesn't work as well on Tundra starts. Tradition is really good for 2 things growth and happiness to offset the grow. It actually quite good from a gold standpoint as well but that certainly takes a backseat to the growth and happiness that you get from Tradition. However on Tundra Starts you'll have some tiles that are okay namely deer, hills, and forests bu that's it once you fill those up and any specialist spots you're stuck with one food tile or an unemployed citizen until you get trading posts up and running. and Trading posts in your capital isn't a good thing either for Tradition.

Sweden can mitigate the affect of getting a Tundra rolling honor despite how bad honor is because; 1 they can get a huge flexible advantage early with the free GG. and 2 if they get faith per tile you can quickly buy and upgrade a military that quickly gains experience.

If Sweden is on a grassland or plains tile then they are more or less a vanilla civ that gets a bonus to GP generation and that's not bad its just not a unique ability strategy its just more or less a bonus you get.

 

[beetle]

Thanks for the explanation Resipsa. I also just noticed that Sweden has a Tundra Start Bias, so it is just as well that they can capitalize on it better than most. Russia is the only other civ that gets that handicap.

 

[budweiser]

My view on any game of Civ is that any advantage you get on turns 1-20 is roughly twice as beneficial as an advantage that you get on turns 30-60, four times as beneficial as a benefit you get prior to 120 or the renaissance and probably 20 times more beneficial to public schools etc. That's why I value Babylon so high, that free GS is what makes them top tier. It is for this reason that I support going full honor with Sweden on Tundra starts. Honor provides you with a fast initial tree via gifting your first GG that you'll get somewhere around turn 20. You don't need the GG to support your archers that are clearing barb camps or farming XP on other civs and the maintenance cost is largely probative any way. You'll usually get another GG around t60 when you want to start clearing Civs and another GG around t90 that you can gift or keep as needed. I like splitting my forces at this time into two separate armies finally You can gift another GG around t130. After that I usually keep them as I'll have several different army groups depending on map size.

Honor is a bad tree but it does have some limited uses; One being Sweden on Tundra starts. Honor provides you with a fast Policy path via gifting an early GP that doesn't count against your GSEM or GWAM trees. Its much easier to clear barb camps using honor. It provides you with border expansion on puppets and some happiness mitigation. Honor provides you with a ton of cheap swordsmen to provide support to your pre-made archers especially if you get a religion and holy warriors. Buy your warriors for 50 faith and then upgrade to swordsmen for 50 gold. Plus those swordsmen get a 15% combat bonus for adjacent units, finally you get gpk which scales with unit strength.

This is fine, but its doesnt explain any synergy between tundra and Honor, invites early war monger hate and if successful negates the need for 2 mid game UUs.

Lets say that we focus the first part of the game between focusing on strong FTP (we have dance of the aurora), steady teching to the UU and then finally expansion into the tundra.

Now its mid game industrial, we have some picks in honor, the UUs are out, we have strng faith generation and can now make wars against the AI with only minor diplo hits when we take cities.

 

[Resipsa]

This is fine, but its doesnt explain any synergy between tundra and Honor, invites early war monger hate and if successful negates the need for 2 mid game UUs.

Lets say that we focus the first part of the game between focusing on strong FTP (we have dance of the aurora), steady teching to the UU and then finally expansion into the tundra.

Now its mid game industrial, we have some picks in honor, the UUs are out, we have strng faith generation and can now make wars against the AI with only minor diplo hits when we take cities.

Tundra is bad dirt and Tradition can't perform on a high level with Tundra. Liberty can be done but you're already behind the AI from a starting point of Deity and you're also behind the AI on Tundra starts because you have bad starting dirt. There is nothing to parley into an early game advantage. With Honor you can gift your t20 GG and receive an immediate 90 CS bonus.

Early warmonger hate is fine you are going to be at war with everyone anyway and you are going to make more money off of killing those huge armies Deity Civs will throw at you.

The UU are throwaways; I already have march, plus either Medic 2 or Cover 2 on all my footsoldiers. I don't need a GG transporter that's really only useful when playing with Tanks anyway. Mid to Late Game UUs and Mid to Late game moves amount for little when you've captured several capitals.

 

[Abraxis]

Keep in mind barbarians spawn in fog, so, given a Honor start, you can easily farm barbarians pouring in from the snowy unclaimed regions at your back for plenty of gold and culture for most of the game. You'll get experience for your military too.

Also, since these are the two only tundra biased civs, in most maps, you'll start out with the option of having plenty of room to expand into the tundra. You'll never get boxed in and forced to make an army off 2 cities or give up your claim to more lands.
These cities won't get too big, but they can be great production cities for building up an army to invade more fertile lands. Later in the game you have much higher chance of strategic resources too I'm pretty sure, further increasing their production and your nation's military capacity.

I actually kind of like Tundra starts to be honest.

Edit: using perfect world maps mostly.

 

[topresch]

Question: Should I spend one turn to move my settler to a river at the start of the game to get the Garden opportunity in my capital?

 

[Resipsa]

Question: Should I spend one turn to move my settler to a river at the start of the game to get the Garden opportunity in my capital?

Depends, did you move off of a hill or a luxury or did you move away from an adjacent mountain?

 

[beetle]

@topresch, do you have a screen shot, or are you just asking in general?

I think I would argue that a garden is particularly valuable for Sweden, well worth a turn moving. Spawning on a lux is rare, but still I am not sure I would give up any lux or mountain for fresh water.

With the tundra bias, how common is it for Sweden to spawn on a hill?

 

[dragonxxx]

As with any CIV, its 50%. You either spawn on a hill, or not

 

[eisforeccentric]

I know it's not as ideal as a diplo win, but with the GP bonuses Sweden gets, is a cultural victory viable?

 

[Resipsa]

I know it's not as ideal as a diplo win, but with the GP bonuses Sweden gets, is a cultural victory viable?

Sure, if you foster DOF it can result in a few more GWAM. The problem with CVs is that now you can't gift your great musicians but that's not that big of a deal.

 

[eisforeccentric]

Sure, if you foster DOF it can result in a few more GWAM. The problem with CVs is that now you can't gift your great musicians but that's not that big of a deal.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. I'm in the Industrial age in my current game, and I should easily achieve a Diplo win with the amount of GP I'm producing. But a good portion of them are GWAM. If I'd built early on for a CV, I might've had a shot. Next time I draw Sweden I think I'll give it a shot.

 

[Lay_Lay]

After reading this thread, I just finished my first diety win, Diplo win of course.
Never even came close previously. In diety I usually get destroyed. I do not win over half my immortal games, so I never really play diety level.
This thread gave me hope. So I spin up,
Sweden, Pangea, Standard size, Epic speed, no ruins
I started at the edge of the tundra, hemmed into the southern tip of the pangea by Rome, who quickly blocks me into a tundra zone that can support 6 cities. I choose to build 3 cities and remain with only those 3 for the entire game.

Honor, Patronage, open Rationalism, Order (because that's what most everyone else did.)
Built lots of archers early. In the classical age, I paid Rome to attack Germany instead of me (this started the wars that lasted until I ended the game with globalism.)
I was blocked in by Rome, though during the industrial age Rome got eliminated by a growing Germany and Aztecs (who got huge.)
Missed out on a pantheon, but would not have mattered because there was no way to keep a religion established.
Sweden never fought or joined in any wars. Had someone seriously wanted to eliminate me, they could have. I was hemmed in by Rome for so long. Rome and Germany were being very aggressive in slowing down what otherwise would have been a game-ending sprawling huge Aztec empire.
The map played a huge role in my win. Otherwise a diety win is out of my league.
I gifted a lot of great people to city states - all but 8 scientists 2 engineers, and a merchant of venice!
I was pretty evil with my city state coups there for a while.
I was friends with everyone, allies with all the city states, but ultimately needed diplomats and globalism to finish out the game (because a few city states had been conquered reducing the vote pool.)

Starting position was bad (bad dirt.) UU's were useless. All Sweden's stats were last place by far. Score was awful. I was way behind tech wise. All game long - until end game when I caught up a bit and then burned scientists to globalization, just in time for the third vote. A fourth vote was going to be too late - Aztecs, Germany, and Polynesia would be able to complete their ships before that.

Sweden/Tundra/Honor/Patronage was not the reason for the win.
Map Luck seems to be more the factor in this game. Other civs were slow to build their ships due to all the warring.
But it should be noted that Sweden/Tundra/Honor/Patronage is my first diety win.

 

[beetle]

Congrats Lay_Lay. Deity win with cooked start is deity win, something I have not managed myself. Why epic speed? Why no ruins? Regular barbs?

 

[bhavv]

Ruins assist the already overpowered AI on higher diffs too much, and leave a lot of the early game based on good or bad luck. Turning them off also means you can save turns by not building scouts. Epic / Marathon speed prolong the lifespan of your units, and also gives you more time to prepare for AI DOWs. But if doing slower speeds, raging barbs becomes more valuable as you get more gold from camps, and much more time to farm camps.

 

[InDubioProReo]

It's been awhile since the last post in this thread, but I didn't want to open a separate thread instead to ask about Sweden strategies, so I'll post here.Even though BE has been released, with the latest patch I am still playing Civ V since the changes made the game (somewhat) fresh again.

I play on Deity, Standard, mostly on Pangaea/Continents and even though I have won on every victory conditions so far, my Domination games (and wins) are few and far between. I managed it with Maya once, on some ridiculous turn like 383 (simply because I basically crushed AI's hopes for any VC through my military force, but actually finishing the game off took long ) and with Germany on a somewhat ok-ish turn (338, but waited like 20-25 unnecessarily for nuclear missiles and such, could have been early 300s I think if I did it properly). Because of that I'm going for Domination nowadays. For my domination games, because I am terrible at fighting before Industrial era, I like going for really tall, full tradition 3-4 cities style and push as soon as I get Dynamite and my Artilleries ready.

I have been trying to make Sweden work for past few days, but I'm having trouble. My main problem is this: Their start bias seem to be really bad. Even if you don't get tundra start, I find that you rarely get decent nearby city spots to expand. It's basically at most 1-2 decent spots. Also, I try to build all guildies in different cities and gift every writer/artist/musician until I get all cultural CS allies at least. Is this ok strategy?

I have not tried going for 2 city and then taking cities from AI (since I'm terrible with early warmongering) though, maybe this is the answer. Maybe I should disable the start bias and try that way? I am not really sure, would really like some help on this.

 

[tetley]

Yes, disable the start bias, and also the latest patch halved penalties for early warmongering. Also on the General discussion board I was discussing Sweden on a sea map and pick Exploration tree. The same principle applies: constantly fight on the water, spawn Great admirals, gift them. And if you start with enough sea resources, a tundra start can be not too bad. I started tundra, but I had lots of forest, hills, and 9 (!!!!) Fish.

On the small continents/continents plus maps you can do both honor and exploration, work your way just up to +50% great generals and +50% great admirals, and fight lots of sea and land battles. That'll generate lots of GP for your new CS friends.