Into the renaissance with Sweden

jopegk

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 18, 2012
Messages
3
I'm trying to beat the Into the renaissance scenario as Sweden on Emperor and would like some feedback on my strategy. It usually works as intended the first 80 turns but then I realize I'm behind my opponents and give up.

Due to Sweden's starting position in the scenario, with pretty much room around to the closest neighbours, I try to build my empire wide. This gives me more benefit from the Stave church UB (the more cities, the more Stave churches) than if I would be building tall. Also, the possibility to get one extra settler, through social policies, is too tempting to neglect. With these arguments as ground I try to build as wide as fast as I can.

With the two settlers (including the one from social policies) I build one city to the west, right where Oslo is in the real world, and one in a location close to luxuries in southern Sweden. I send my swordsman east to explore the area northeast and east of Riga and Polotsk.

I set my capital to production focus and start by building two scouts, that I send down to Europe to meet other civs, city-states and finding Gibraltar. After the scouts I build a settler, that I send east to build a city in an appropriate location northeast of Riga. In my second and third city i start by building workers, followed by settlers to keep expanding west and south. After bulding the settlers I build stave churches, libraries and markets in my cities. My capital starts building my army, mostly consisting of longbowmen and swordsmen. The new cities that my settlers settle follow the same build order as the earlier until the point where there's no room left to expand.

My research strategy is to beeline the tech (metallurgy?) that unlocks the hakkapelittas.

With my stave churches up I can soon start buying cathedrals for faith. When that is done I use the faith to buy units to my army. The gold I produce I often spend on city-states (preferably vatican city) right before HRE elections.

Diplomatically I try to be friends with all catholic civs and go to war with Russia to get the VPs from their eastern orthodox cities. The problem is that my army always is too weak and I end up having to defend my own cities instead of attacking theirs. That's when I give up and start up another game.

Please give me feedback on this strategy. Where do I go wrong?
 
Hi there,
Do you have barbarians spawning in the game?
I just startet a game as Russia, and no barbarians still on turn 25 - which is strange. Saw Maddjins LP, and he has lots of barb action...
 
I took a quick look in the CFC rules and unless I missed it, there is nothing wrong with reviving an old thread instead of creating a new one with the very same subject, so here I go:

I've been thinking about giving Sweden a try in the ITR Scenario, but the very thought of facing Russia if frightening, because:

1. Most of the terrain is rough and cut by rivers, meaning they have a HUGE advantage maneuvering in combat (all Russian troops have 3 moves against 2 of mine, and can cross rivers with no penalty - thus, they can move either 2 or 3 tiles, while most of the time the Sweden will move 1 tile). It is like (or worse than!) facing an opponent that has Great Wall in regular games.

2. The Swedish trait (bonus moves when coming out of the sea) would be awesome - and historically accurate - against the coastal cities of Scotland, England, France and Netherlands, but such conquests would give no victory points. On the other hand, the trait is useless against Russian cities (which would give VPs) 90% of the time because they're so far inland.​

Facing these odds, playing Sweden seems like one hell of a challenge for me (King level player; can't even imagine doing this on Deity). But here's a crazy idea: BECOME ORTHODOX!

Seriously: with Stave Churches (4 faith), amass faith and buy Cathedrals in all cities plus some serious troops. After, convert to orthodoxy mid game: see your Stave Churches become even better (5 faith + 2 culture!), buy monasteries and raid European & British coasts for fat & easy points! It is like the vikings are back in business!!!

I will try this later this year. If someone does that, please report the experience here ;)
 
I don't know if you played the scenario through with other civs but there are some surprises there:
Spoiler :

1) the mongols spawn at some point and attack Russia. That can be really helpful if you also plan on invading them, I played games where Russia gets eliminated by the mongols so that is an advantage that will help you a lot in conquering russia
2) with the discovery of printing press a new religion arises, Protestantism, that has VERY high pressure compared to Catholicism so you can easily convert to Protestantism and start conquering the catholic guys.
 
Spoiler :
I've played enough to not rely on the Mongols conquering Russia for me. 2/3 of the time they just sit on their horses bullying everyone but not actually doing much serious conquest (again, King level). Sometimes they actually do it, but then again Russia also criples them hard sometimes.

Protestantism is a solid option for Netherlands and Austria, but I don't see it spreading to Sweden unless the Swedes plant a city close to Wittenberg. Don't get me wrong, it can be done! But I don't think it is a good idea: has to be done early and will likely create trouble with William and Theresa, they like to settle there. Better keep them friendly for the 1st half of the game for luxury trading, etc.


PS: right now I'm playing Byzantium (tense game, but good and with a solid lead) and Ayubids (very easy, and yet still satisfying game, also with a solid lead). Muslims really have a good time in this scenario. I also have a badass Russia game I've stopped at turn 160 because I got bored, but the save is still there, I'll return someday.
 
After multiple failed attempts and reloads, I finally beat this scenario as Sweden on Deity!

Explanation :
Spoiler :

This scenario is extremely hard. You not only have to deal with the endless Dutch settler spam, but to actually earn points you pretty much have to attack Russia, who has ample room to expand. It's also easy to degenerate into a stalemate with Russia if you war for too long.

Swedish homeland (all self-founded cities)
Spoiler :



I took Collective Rule on turn 0 and settled Sigtuna. That exact spot is critical, it defends so well against the Dutch (since they have to embark to actually capture it).
Make sure to blockade the coast tile northwest of it to prevent them from sneaking Settlers past you.

In most attempts, I'm forced to DoW the Dutch (or they DoW me) because of Settlers. In this game though I got lucky, and Maria and the French wanted to DoW William, which I gladly accepted. Make sure to make peace with them so they don't get in your way later.

For the first 80-90 turns I spammed Settlers in my capital, and made my units, buildings, etc. in other cities. Every city you see here (except Malmo) was a Settler from the capital.

I prioritized filling up Scandinavia first, then settled Estonia (Turku), important for giving you a place to land (and denying Russia a coastal city). Then I settled that city south of Sweden, and finally Malmo (it was completely surrounded by my territory, so there's no need to rush) and Vasteras (far right).


Russia (final state)
Spoiler :




Bribing other civs to DoW here doesn't work well, because all civs will be at war with somebody the entire game, thus they won't accept bribes. Instead, I used the "Shall we declare war against.. " button to get wars started. This is important, since without help from at least one of Austria, Turks, Mongols, or Byzantium you won't get anywhere in Siberia.

Viking Fury is a really useful ability here because of your terrain and the movement bonus for embarked units. You essentially have 4-movement infantry, siege weapons, etc. (5 after Compass) when you stay coastal. With Roads, this ability can help you even against second-ring inland cities (such as Smolensk, Polotsk, and Arkhangelsk here)

This game is a rare instance where Austria isn't a crazy runaway, and instead i have Byzantium the runaway. Luckily they hate Russia though, probably because they took Riga & Polotsk.

On turn 110-ish I DoWed Cathy, who was already fighting the Mongols, with The Turks. Austria and Byzantium joining soon. Viking fury once again made short work of the coastals, but the inland cities were a pain, even when I built roads everywhere (removed most of them, but look at Polotsk and the eastern border). The war lasted until turn 150-ish, where I gave Cathy Vasteras for peace (because I'll easily recapture that city). At that point I had taken all cities up to Krasnoyarsk, but Cathy's southern cities (Chelyabinsk, etc) were too tough.

Spoiler :


Immediately after peace I bribed Cathy to DoW Genghis. 10 turns later, I asked the Turks to DoW Cathy with me (asking Byzantium might have been a better idea), and took the rest of the cities you see. I could've pushed further, but I already had 7k points and it was already turn 180, so I took Cathy's gold and then won the game.

An interesting idea I had was getting Open Borders with Austria and then DoWing Byzantium, but I figured they had more troops than Russia at this point (Russia had +300 gpt, while Byz had +1k). Might work in other games, though.




Facing these odds, playing Sweden seems like one hell of a challenge for me (King level player; can't even imagine doing this on Deity). But here's a crazy idea: BECOME ORTHODOX!

Seriously: with Stave Churches (4 faith), amass faith and buy Cathedrals in all cities plus some serious troops. After, convert to orthodoxy mid game: see your Stave Churches become even better (5 faith + 2 culture!), buy monasteries and raid European & British coasts for fat & easy points! It is like the vikings are back in business!!!

I will try this later this year. If someone does that, please report the experience here ;)

Sadly, this doesn't work. (although letting Russia/Byzantium convert your cities to get the temple boosts isn't a bad idea)
Sweden and the other Catholic civs are hard-coded into becoming Catholic (unless they flip to Protestantism). Same with the Muslim and Orthodox civs.
 

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Congratulations! I wouldn't even dream of achieving such awesome victory. :lol:


Catholic civs are hard-coded into becoming Catholic (unless they flip to Protestantism). Same with the Muslim and Orthodox civs.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up. :goodjob:
 
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