I Am Dreadful Playing As Brazil

[Convict]

It normally takes a few games for me to get the hang of a different leader. Brazil I just can't manage.

Forests- no advantage until machinery and a lot more workers- and then no production advantage. Early wonders are effectively ruled out.

Because production is so slow libraries etc are also a problem- so later wonders are beyond reach as everyone else has them.

It is more than wonders though- everything seems to be so slow. Yet the AI seems to play it so well.

Any ideas how to make it work?

 

[Seoul]

Granted I've only played and beaten Brazil on Emperor (vote for Pedro!), I think I can give you a few pointers anyways. I restarted the map until my start wasn't completely productionless. A few things you can do - 1. Set resources to Strategic Balance. This way, once you have animal husbandry no matter what your start you'll have 1-2 horse tiles - +1 production right there, +2 if you work it and +3 with stables. On that note, if you REALLY need the production you can research animal husbandry first rather than doing the typical pottery rush. 2. Beeline bronze working after pottery and animal husbandry and chop jungles if you spawned by a river - plains tiles on rivers turn into 3 food 1 production. 3. Don't be afraid to chop jungles! Hill jungles will turn into mines if you chop them, which translates into more production! While it's true that at machinery you get your brazilwood camps, those brazilwood camps won't be useable for the start of the game at all, and even once you have them up they still provide 0 production. Really, part of playing Brazil is choosing if you should keep a jungle or remove it - Jungles always turn into 1 food 1 production plains after chopping. However, chopping jungles remains slow and tedious, so your best bet in that scenario is to just restart until you get a spawn with moderate amounts of jungle. 4. If you spawn without any nice bonus resources, like say sheep or stone, consider restarting. Just because Brazil has a jungle bias doesn't mean Brazil spawns jungle no matter what. Oft times, you'll spawn with jungle to your south, but flatland / hills to your north. It really just depends on your spawn, so don't be afraid to restart! 5. Attack city states and steal their workers. Trust me, you need a lot of workers as Brazil. If your start isn't total jungle fest and you went liberty, pyramids helps too.

 

[Sclb]

These are good tips.
You can also try to reroll until you have a map with forest close to start. You can than chop them to speed up production. Also if you get a couple of non jungle hills/sheep/stone, then it can be an excellent start. Don't be afraid to steal workers off the closest civ also. Scouts are excellent when trying to steal in rough terrains. Scouts are also excellent at blocking AI settlers from good city locations in rough terrains. I always remove river/lakeside jungles, and most hills jungles. Sometimes I'll also remove flat non freshwater jungles if the city has trouble with production with only 2 food jungles. Once you get fertilizer even those turn into 3 food which is better than the 2 food jungles.

 

[Nick31]

Well, you need to learn a good Jungle game, which is a perhaps a different kind of game than most players initially think about. You need to play tall and play with an aim to get to Education and buy Universities to a) make Jungle work for you, and b) compensate for likely low hammers.

Scouting is key. Worker steals are a key. Often going just a 3-city, or even 2-city NC depending on land... then planting after the NC to make your core-4 Tradition. Don't be afraid to plant far way from your capital (providing you aren't forward settling some aggressive neighbor).

The key is to really excel and survive the early game so that you can leap forward with Education and start a strong science game, and scout/intelligently plan a way to build a tall empire. As ever, using your gold to bribe a warring AI the other way is vital in low-hammer starts.

Now, Diety Brazil is its own kettle of fish. But on Immortal and below, Jungle games can be quite fun and even dominant in the right conditions (Jungle Culture pantheon, good to decent lands, and avoiding war with AI until science empire is set-up). You need worker steals and scouting like crazy, though, and generally a good pantheon helps a lot, too.

I don't know how most people attempt to play Jungle, but learning a core 4-city Tradition with a Tall start in a Jungle is a most for Brazil, in my view.

 

[ShakaKhan]

OP- Brazil is one of the slowest starting civs, at least in my opinion. UU is modern, UB is almost renaissance, and UU doesn't factor in until you have some guilds + golden age and/or are generating tourism, which is also safe to say near the renaissance.

So from turn 0 until about the renaissance era, it's a civ without any bonuses that has a jungle bias. Never thought of it like that before, but he may be the worst civ as far as pre-renaissance play, except maybe Venice.

You just have to stick it out; the bonuses are quite effective later

 

[Phukit]

Brazil usually has low production starts,but they do tend to settle in areas that have good growth.

resources like banana and citrus are very common in the jungle making sun god patheon a powerful choice.

brazil is also typically in terrain that is much easier to defend.

worker steals become more important to chop thru some of the jungle.

But once you hit unis/trading posts your science and culture really snowball fast.

 

[mikeburnfire]

Brazil is certainly unique, in that it requires very specific choices. The jungle start means that they usually begin slow and weak, and are susceptible to early-game elimination. As ShakaKhan says, all their uniques come into play late in the game (even the ones in the 3UC/4UC mod), so your main goal in the beginning is mostly to survive. You want at least once city (it doesn't have to be your capital) to be heavy on production. The only wonder Brazil *needs* is Chichen Itza. Wonders with Art slots, like Sistine Chapel and Uffizi? You don't really need them. You will be popping most of your Artists.

You will need to get lots of Artists, so get the guild up quickly and try to put it in a city on Fresh Water, to add a Garden as well. After Ideologies, get the Social Policy that gives +25% Great Person Generation. Complete the Aesthetics tree and save up your faith, so you can mass-buy artists in the Atomic~Modern~Information eras.

Once you start to hit the Renaissance era, get Brazilwood camps in your jungles quickly. With Acoustics and Universites, these tiles yield 2 Food, 2 Culture, 2 Science, 2 Gold (it's even better if you got the +1 Culture from Jungles pantheon). That's really strong. After adding Hotels and Airports in these cities, each tile will also essentially be yielding 2 Tourism. Start popping all your artists. This is when you need to start playing a basic Culture game: Open borders, declare friendships, spread trade routes, and send diplomats.

In short, Brazil is a terrible civ for warring and wonder-whoring, but perhaps the best at getting Cultural victories. They start weak and defenseless, but can easily be generating 1000 Tourism in the late game.

 

[Nick31]

So, as I'm assuming this is a bit of teaching thread, I'd like to emphasize that (at least on Immortal and below) Brazil can achieve all victory types very well. No need to make yourself go Culture Victory if you don't play that style. Brazil gets the bonus, but many people prefer Science or Domination and conquer.

However, the Tall Opening is essential. To the OP and others: Can you play 4-city Tradition, High-Growth? I say that in every teaching thread, but it's an essential CiV skill and certainly the main way to play Brazil. There are lots of strategy guides on it, but if you haven't mastered 4-city high growth, and are having trouble with any CiV or Victory condition, I suggest really focusing on it.

As an aside, so long as you can Grow Tall and go strong Science, you can rush into Ideologies on a good pace and then, particularly if you choose Order, rectify a low-hammer start into dominant position to then do any of the victory types you want.... including domination.

I played a game this morning with Brazil to show this. Now, I did choose Abundant resources this time to make sure I could demonstrate Brazil at its strongest, but other than that, it's a typical Jungle Start. I moved my Settler to a good spot, so I took 3 turns of movement.

So, here's my game as I'm a few turns away from researching Industrialization. Immortal, Pangea. Note how large my capital is. As Phukit observed, Sun God is a good pantheon if you miss Jungle Culture. I did not manage a Religion.

http://images.akamai.steamuserconte...807/1A8CDE20FADD28A1E09016983A3FBC8D35DAD0A3/

2-City NC, Build Settlers in 2nd City and planted them on Coasts immediately after NC finished, and the key: Stole 5 workers. You want to play Jungle Starts on High Difficulty? Learn how to target and farm a CS or 2. Brazilwood camps are great, particularly because they only take 6 turns to build instead of 13 turns for Jungle Trading Posts. With a Carpet of Workers, I built 20 Camps very quickly. All that Culture is great for setting up a World's Fair and stockpiling 3-4 Writers.

My Capital shows the benefits:

http://images.akamai.steamuserconte...679/6DE6234FE52568405AE6308D330B15A406CA78B7/

From this position, Science lead and Population lead, you can make up from poor hammers by going Order and setting up your late game victory of your choice. Brazil is fun, but it's Civ that requires Tall play and a Patient opening full of lots of Worker Steals.

 

[Primacide]

Or you can do what I do: run out of the jungle to the closest hill and river tile and settle there. Screw the jungle. That's for expos to work.

 

[Athenaeum]

Brazil should have a jungle start bias right? If you start in jungle, get bronze working and clear out a lot of it to have plains for production. Do this especially for river tiles because of civil service farms, and hills for some much-needed production tiles.

All jungle is plains underneath so once you clear the jungle (if you so choose) you have plains.

 

[Redaxe]

You need to play tall and play with an aim to get to Education and buy Universities to a) make Jungle work for you, and b) compensate for likely low hammers.

Is education still considered the go-to technology for a heavy jungle start? Granted I get how important the science bonus is from jungle tiles but I also think Metal Casting is highly desirable.
The sooner you get workshops the sooner you'll start to overcome that production penalty - although I'll admit it is off the route of the cultural wonders.

 

[Nick31]

Is education still considered the go-to technology for a heavy jungle start? Granted I get how important the science bonus is from jungle tiles but I also think Metal Casting is highly desirable.
The sooner you get workshops the sooner you'll start to overcome that production penalty - although I'll admit it is off the route of the cultural wonders.

So, suppose you've gone 2 or 3-city NC and you've got at least one caravan into the Capital, potentially 2. And you've executed solid opening with good scouting of trade partnes and snatching a few ruins. That puts you at around T120 Education +/- 5.

Now, assuming you've got a Capital of 14+ Population, and growing well with Tradition finisher and Caravans, if you insta-buy a University, your Science is nearly doubled if you've got 10+ Jungle Tiles in your 3-ring. I can't think of a reason to go Metal Casting and insta-buy a Workshop, rather than get the University and immediately set off on the Machinery into Acoustics path to enable Brazilwood Camps at full throttle. All those culture camps helps you fly into Rationalism, as well.

From my vantage, pretty much any core-4 Tradition start demands a beeline to Education. You get your university, and you both a) put that Jungle to work, and b) get a GScientist started so you can plant an Academy ASAP.

The best way to get hammers in a low-production game is through Ideologies, and especially Order, so Science your ass off in the Jungle is pretty much the plan.

As for moving away from the Jungle, even if you're on a Large Pangea (and assuming you want the difficulty of not re-rolling), it's a dicey proposition unless an obvious one presents itself. Personally, I like Jungle games sometimes, especially with good science civs or with Brazil. The speed of those Brazilwood camps is fantastic. But, it's definitely a SimCity opening and using camp gold to Diplo-bribe your way to safety.

This Brazil game referenced above is nearly over and is on track for a T290 Space win. I use the smart AI v.2 mod, which lets the AI a) move-and-shoot, and b) Propels them to go Rationalism. Bribing AI is pretty important at all times, but especially a move-and-shoot AI that if it snowballs goes into Rationalism and gets its Science up and becomes pretty competitive. My eastern Neighbor, Assyria, actually beat me to Nukes this game and Korea further East was on my science pace. Pretty competitive Immortal game, but was certainly SimCity to Ideologies rather than try a low-production war with Persia to my Northwest. I took their 2 juicy cities with the Pracinhas and GWar Bombers. Cobra Commander, for the win. Far easier that way .

 

[Sclb]

Nick31 is correct, in almost all science driven games, you would go Education first for tradition starts, then buy university in capital and the cities with fewest hammer. However, I disagree with Order for Brazil. If you're planning for culture victory, you should go freedom no matter what, since the unconditional tourism bonus is strongest and synergizes well with a huge capital. Your other cities can have low hammers, you can rush buy most essential things if you focus on gold buildings. If your capital is very low on hammers, then you might as well not do culture victory, since it's highly hammer dependent.

Actually I'm surprised that the AI still couldn't win before 250 with smart AI mod, given all their starting advantages.

Liberty is a different game in which you should go engineering, metal casting, then education.

 

[Nick31]

Ha, to clarify:

I suggested Order for non-cultural victories . I'm trying to demonstrate in this thread that Brazil is good for more than the Cultural, hence my Space Victory demonstration. Freedom is certainly an option, but doesn't change your hammer potential like Order. This game I went Order, used the hammers to build some Cobra Troops and bombers, and then went to go eat some Persian Cuisine in their capital. Finished in T288 Space Victory. Personally, I find cultural victories less my taste, even with Brazil, so I tend not to go that route.

As an aside, I've ever never seen an Immortal AI go to Space before T300. But I haven't played all AI mods. Even on Diety, the AI really struggles to go sub-T280 from my experience.

 

[Redaxe]

Nick31 is correct, in almost all science driven games, you would go Education first for tradition starts, then buy university in capital and the cities with fewest hammer.

Yeah and then hopefully you can get to Metal Casting soon enough to get a Great Engineer out so you can rush one of the Renaissance Cultural Wonders. I expect that is probably the bigger challenge in early Brazil.

 

[Sclb]

Yeah and then hopefully you can get to Metal Casting soon enough to get a Great Engineer out so you can rush one of the Renaissance Cultural Wonders. I expect that is probably the bigger challenge in early Brazil.

It is non optimal to generate any non faith bought engineers as it delays GS, also it's difficult as universities have 2 slots, but usually only 1 slots for engineer specialists until factories. Usually can only be done if capital has built a couple wonders that generate engineer points, namely ToA, Pyramids, Petra etc. Then it's sometimes unavoidable unless you sacrifice science from secularism engineering specialists.