[R&F] Netherlands Strategy

[VainApocalypse]

Does anyone have a strategy for playing the Netherlands in R&F?

They're not specifically optimized for any specific victory condition, so figuring out what to do with them is a bit tricky. Their kit is all over the place.

What victory condition, wonders, civics, and broad strategy would you have in mind?

 

[Sprenk]

I don't have a good answer to your question. I don't sense that they are a compelling civ option yet, maybe because they are dependent on rivers and lakes to make their various benefits valuable.

All I've noticed about the Netherlands is that the Poulder improvement is best used to fill in lakes. It's hard to use it on coast line unless there's an inlet, but even then you need the 3 flat tiles. And if you have an inlet leading to a city, poulders are almost useless unless you want to block off your own access to the sea.

So maybe the fractal map? That's what the developers used when showing off the Netherlands--it provides a lot of lakes

 

[Japper007]

Grote Rivieren gives you excellent Campuses, even on maps with few mountains, you can use this to beeline 7 Provinciën. Upgrade into them for a small 125 gold fee with Professional Army civic. Then you just take every city that dares to be coastal. That UU is nuts, 3 of them can take down any walls before the industrial era with 2-3 shots. Just make sure you have some Trade Routes ready so you can send them out of your new cities and keep a hold on your coastal conquests through Radio Vrij Oranje.

After that the game is wide open: you can use your science lead to go for Spaceship, or continue to conquer your way inland to finish of the severely crippled opponents that just lost all their coastal cities to you.

Polders are just fluff sadly, placement requirements are almost impossible to satisfy and they aren't all that good even when you can build them.

 

[Softly]

Haven't played them much yet, but Netherlands seems strong for culture victories. Can build city+theater+commercial district triangles on rivers for very strong +2 culture theaters and +4 gold commercial hubs. Polders also allow you to get some production on coastal cities without the need to over-do it with mines, which means you will have plenty of spots for seaside resorts. The +1 culture for foreign trade routes aren't much, but late game you'll want at least one trade route to each civ for the 25% tourism anyways so its not too bad.

 

[VainApocalypse]

I think Japper really nailed it. I don't think the yield bonuses are sufficient enough to accomplish either a cultural or science victory on their own, but it could help you rush to your UU. It's an awkward, multi-step strategy, but it's the only thing that ties together all of their bonuses.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Yeah beeline straight for Frigate tech and curb stomp everyone with those boats like Japper said. I was way behind Sumeria and used this strategy to completely flip the tables on them - it's pretty surprising how fast they go down. After that I could already tell that it was game over and didn't play the rest out. You'll probably lose some of the cities to revolts but you will still be doing major damage to the other civs. Unfortunately this won't work on pangea and you still have to survive the early game.

 

[chazzycat]

the UU does seem to be the strongest part. Don't bank on polders carrying you, they seem hard to build in numbers.

You'll probably lose some of the cities to revolts but you will still be doing major damage to the other civs.

Their internal trade routes can help with this. +1 loyalty isn't a lot, but stack a few and all the food will add population quickly. Population is pretty key to loyalty

With the right land (lots of rivers lakes and polder spots) they can be played peacefully, but otherwise you'll probably want to utilize the UU

 

[EditorRex]

Advice to build with fractal maps is probably good. They are a good moneymaking civilization, which means you can afford a strong military without devoting too many Civics cards to things like Conscription. Conquer your neighbors and then conquer their neighbors. That is victory. Everything else is cheese.