King Sweden vs France (Balance) Photojournal (of an amateur) [with Mods]

[amateurgamer88]

Hi everyone! I'm amateurgamer88. As you can see in the title, I'm going back to King difficulty but do note that this is Standard Speed. Why is there balance in the title? The goal here is, with the mods I'm using, check how balanced these two civs are. Why Sweden and France? These two civs are both war oriented with their UA and their both have a Public School replacement as a UB in the modded game. The test is mainly to see how well they do throughout the ages and hopefully I won't snowball too much early game. Note that this is my second game as Sweden and first game as France.

I made a modpack myself and I hope I didn't make any mistakes here. If the game crashes somewhere, then I'll have to abandon the game and hopefully I'll be far enough in the game to give a good idea of these two civs. The mods used are below.

I know I'm not a great player so I appreciate any advice as I want to learn more. I have many areas lacking so feel free to point them out to me. I like to improve more as I actually want to eventually win some deity matches. As a result, I'm doing these photojournals so people can see what I'm doing wrong and give me constructive criticism.

An additional note is that, due to various reasons, I have to play this game windowed so, in later eras, you'll see the various things like gold, resources and etc overlapping. I also have to lower my graphic setting so my game can run smoother. I apologize for that but it's the limitations I work with.

Spoiler Game Settings :

King (5) Difficulty
Standard Speed
Standard Size, 10 civs, 24 city states
Continents
Strategic Balance
No events, vassalage, ancient ruins, tech brokering and tech trading
Disable Nuclear Weapons
No Mongolia (too broken for my liking)

The Patch used in this game is 1-15.

Spoiler Mods :

-3rd and 4th UC (adds another UU and a UB/UI for all civs)
-Enlightenment Era (An era sandwiched between Renaissance and Industrial)

Spoiler Initial Thoughts on the Civilizations :

My thoughts on Sweden can be found here.

As my first time with France, below are my thoughts for Napoleon.

This UA is definitely geared for war. It's also broken into two parts. First, you get +10% CS for each subsequent attacks against a unit or a city. That's extremely powerful, especially in the early game. Ever had a time when you wish you had one more unit to finish off an enemy? Now you can do more with fewer units which is extremely powerful. On higher difficulty, I can, with proper city positioning, hold off attacks other civs can only hope to hold off by wounding multiple units and forcing the AI to rotate units and slowing their momentum. Secondly, city capture gives you GWAM points and two captures can get you Great People. France will only get stronger from here on out. The temporary boost is negligible but I guess it's nice to have, especially if you want to complete a WC project and time it that way.

The French Tercio replacement, Musketeer has decent CS. The extra movement and ignoring ZoC is actually what I have my eyes on. Why? The ability to find openings in the enemy's lines and disrupt them can be huge. Pushed a bit too aggressive with one of these units? It's easier to pull him out of there. Ignoring ZoC and the extra movement also means this unit can pillage and move two tiles. While Sweden Caroleon charges into the enemy to spearhead an opening, I see Musketeer as a unit that outmaneuvers the enemy and can do some crazy things to get to the enemy back line.

I do believe that Fighters are overall nerfed but that doesn't make this unit useless. It works quite well with the UA where you get more damage with consecutive attacks on an enemy. It doesn't do much damage? It can certainly soften enemy up a bit and start the counter to increase the damage of other units. Fighters are still useful in many areas and, if the nerf is sufficient, this Fighter might be the only one still very useful against land and naval units. As a UU, I think it should be like that.

This is the French UB that replaces the Public School. It gives you Production and Science relative to your population. It also gives specialists (Scientists and Engineers) more yields to make them more powerful. This UB gives a city lots of yields and more so if you are working specialists. This is honestly one of the things I want to check as to how strong it is. Public School is some distance away so we'll see how that goes.

The Chateau is a UI for France and it's requirements are like the Brazilian Wood without tiles being Jungle/Forest. That actually makes this easier to put and the yields are quite good overall. This will help grow cities when you definitely have the happiness to do so while the extra Culture and Gold will go a long way. The extra defenses can be very nice as well but it's more situational. I usually build my cities with terrain in mind. I guess I can work with Chateau but that's too long term to plan for, especially with how random border growth can be.

Spoiler Starting Location :

Let's see the starting location.

I had to spend one turn moving to where Paris is at. The Settler was one tile northeast of this position. I wanted to move so I can work the Incense that has 3 Food and 2 Gold immediately. Even the Perfume is pretty good with the gold income. Let's just say that I'll be needing the gold for the early wars I have planned. I just hope I have a close neighbor to invade. I know this move means less Chateaus but I feel that getting strong yields early on will be far more worth it.

 

[chicorbeef]

So this is going to be two Photojournals baked in one?

Isn't King a little too easy for you?

 

[amateurgamer88]

So this is going to be two Photojournals baked in one?

Isn't King a little too easy for you?

Ya, it's basically me exploring the two civs. Honestly, I've only won 1 King game on Standard so far so... xD

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 1: 0-90 Turns

I am doing this photojournal a bit differently. Since I have to play two different games, I can't do my traditional 10 pics per update for a civ. Instead, I'll handpick a few pics that are important and summarize what happens. There isn't that much happening at the start that can't be summarized in a few sentences. I will also do the update for every 90 turns in game. The next update will be 90 to 180 turns. I think you get the idea.

I wanted to try to use the same map and try to make the games as similar as possible but it's proven to be very tough to have the same starting location. Therefore, I just have two separate games that will hopefully highlight the strengths and weakness of each civ.

Spoiler I. France :

We will first begin with France. As much as I wanted to go Authority, I wasn't sure how close my neighbors were. That made it difficult for early wars and it will likely be even tougher should I get a large front to defend. Therefore, I actually went Progress with France. As you've seen in my first post, my monopoly luxury is Incense so Progress should allow me connect them much faster. The only issue lies in how spread out the Incense is on this map so, despite faster improvement rates, it will still take awhile. The screenshot below shows Indonesia literally at the other end of the continent. Conquering them wasn't going to be easy, that's for sure.

Berlin is a bit closer than Jakarta but the terrain between us is quite messy. It's very rough and logistics can be a big issue. Hamburg is in a rather annoying location but I can see it as my first conquest. The question is the timing as those early German UU (replacement of Warrior) will soon be obsolete and I need to strike before Germany has a bigger tech lead. For my Pantheon, I went Spirit of the Desert. The Pantheon will make the Incense tiles amazing and the Incense on Floodplains even better. As you can see below, the luxury is bad spread out and it's quite frustrating. I guess I should be glad that Progress will help me Workers connect them sooner.

On Turn 90, I have 9 techs and 4 policies. I have 5 cities and plan on settling two more. One will be west of Berlin while one is northeast of Lyon. The last civ that is likely further north is Inca and this civ will make the Mountains not so useful in my defenses. Looking at how things are going, I do intend on attacking Germany first and maybe take Berlin. All three civs I share the continent with went for Tradition so it's going to be interesting. My army is very lacking at this point but my income is very solid at 35 GPT. Petra and Spirit of the Desert are really helping with my early income. My first prophet will be available in 13 turns unless something terrible happens. I'm also sitting on 0 happiness right now so that can improve for sure.

Spoiler II. Sweden :

Onward to Sweden who I picked Authority. Looking at this start, I honestly had no idea what my monopoly was. It's either Silver, great for early game, or Incense, great for religion. It proved to be Incense and I guess that's one of the few similarities between the two games. Both should find a religion, though it's questionable who will discover a religion first. Unlike the France game, I do have Celts on my continent and we know the Celts can be quite powerful with religion, though no need to worry about pressure anymore. Why did I pick Authority this game? I actually had a neighbor about 10 tiles away and that's a prime target for conquest. The irony is this civ is in both my games.

On Turn 90, I have 9 techs and 4 policies as well. I have 5 cities and plan on settling 3/4 more. One is between Stockholm and Jakarta, one south of Jakarta, one east of Sigtuna and one south of Sigtuna. Two of those cities are meant to serve as defenses against the Celts. The Celts went Tradition and Poland went Progress. Indonesia is the unfortunate soul to lose his capital to me. I managed to capture it before he even got his second city. In addition to Petra, I also got Statue of Zeus for Sweden. My army is in a better state than France and, while happiness is at 0, I still have Perfume to connect.

Both games sees me rather short on Workers so that can be a problem. I also took Spirit of the Desert with Sweden but I do believe this Pantheon helps Sweden more. The Incense luxury is also less scattered so it takes less cities to connect them. Ironically, Sweden only needs one fewer turn to get a religion than France. I didn't plan that. However, the Celts can be a big religion competition. My first prophet will be available in 12 turns unless something terrible happens. If I can settle the cities I need, the Celts might be very limited in terms of her cities. Currently, she only has 3 cities while Poland has 4.

Well, that's it for our update! What beliefs should I pick for both these games?

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 2: 90-180 Turns

This is a quick update! After this chapter, future chapters will be videos 45 minutes to 1 hour long. It's taking a long time for me to both play and write the update so I'll take the faster route. Just note that I'm still pretty bad at this speed so please tolerate with my amateur playstyle.

Spoiler I. France :

Progress has been keeping me in a good position in terms of tech and I actually managed to nab the Great Library. Sadly, the timing wasn't great so I didn't get a very expensive tech. However, I wasn't risking all those hammers go to waste so at least I got it. Plus, I got a free Library too. On the religion front, three civs on my continent found a religion. We have me, Indonesia and Germany. Indonesia found the first religion and I was third after a civ found the second one on the other continent. With Inca without a religion, I chose to actively spread to him to get my Reformation.

Sadly, I wasn't the first to get my Reformation and I was the last to enhance my religion. The screenshot below shows what I picked. My reformation is Crusader's Spirit in preparation of future wars. Since I'm going Artistry, I wanted to protect my Great People so Mandirs makes sense. Mosques and Divine Intervention work quite well during Golden Ages which I aim to get more of. Being the last to enhance, I had some pretty awful choices so I pick Dioceses that seems to give the most yields now.

Germany attacked me but the French UA made defending with lots of rough terrain rather easily. Chokepoints and at least two ranged units halts any advances Germany makes. Even his Knights had limited impact. I somehow got the Forbidden Palace which means that there are no other Progress civs or I got very lucky. We won't know until I discover the other continent. My empire is steadily growing but happiness has been a constant problem. That 1 happiness won't last long so I have to more actively manage each of my cities. This is usually why I'm terrible at Tradition with all that micromanagement. At this point, I have 27 techs and 7 policies. The leader on our continent is Indonesia with 32 techs and 10 policies. Indonesia has a huge lead and that's quite worrying for sure. I know I can catch up in tech eventually but the number of policies...

Spoiler II. Sweden :

While the French game seems quite difficult, my Sweden one is certainly better. Eliminating the Indonesia in that game probably helped a lot. Poland and the Celts are most definitely getting along as they got into a war on turn 93. Luckily, no cities traded hands in that war. I was the second civ to find a religion with the Celts taking the first one. Oddly enough, both the Celts here and Indonesia in the French game went for Way of the Pilgrim. I wonder if that Founder belief is broken or not. Poland doesn't have a religion so I'll be converting him over, at least that's the plan.

The screenshot below is my beliefs. Holy Law can give me some really decent yields quickly as I had enough time to spread my religion to two cities before I unlocked a new policy. The science will help my tech early on and the gold can help improve my infrastructure. I wanted to try out the new Veneration and, while nerfed, it can still be relatively strong, especially with border growths if you want to get a tile faster. The gold is a nice added plus as well. Synagogues gives me more production while Iconography is still powerful after its nerf. For my Reformation thanks to Poland converted to my religion, I went for Jesuit Education. I want to see how well it works for Veneration as I purchase those buildings, including my UB, with faith to save the hammers.

I annexed Jakarta once I had enough happiness and can build Courthouses. A civ on another continent lost a capital so we might have a snowballing civ there. I got Alhambra so my future armies should be quite strong, though it's a shame Stockholm isn't coastal. At turn 175, 5 civs (me, Poland and three civs on the other continent) have 27 techs so it looks like this game is far from over. Someone might just snowball quickly on the other side. The Celts declared war one me so I have to deal with her. Ironically, she demanded tribute on two CS so, upon being declared on, I got 8 happiness and two CS allies. Below is the state of my empire. I thought expanding so quickly would be hindering me but I'm doing alright so far. At this point, I have 27 techs and 7 policies. Poland is leading with 28 techs and 8 policies.

Well, that's it for our update! I'm playing catchup in my French game and my Swedish game will see me competing with some powerful civs. What will happen next?

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 3:

The current plan is to update this every 3 days alternating between France and Sweden. This seems to work for my current schedule. Hope you enjoy the first update! This French game is going to be very hard indeed.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 4:

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 5

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 6

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 7

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 8

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 9

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 10

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 11

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 12

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 13

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 14

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 15

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 16

 

[amateurgamer88]

Chapter 17