Netherlands UHV, Regent/Normal, 600 AD, SVN rev.986

[Fresol]

This is a 600 AD scenario Regent/Normal Dutch game guide for SVN revision 986.

The three historical goals for the Dutch are:
1. Financial Center of the World: Settle 3 great merchants in Amsterdam by 1745 AD
2. Colonial Rivalry: Conquer 4 European colonies by 1745 AD
3. The Dutch East India Company: Secure or get by trade 7 spices resources by 1775 AD

The 1st goal requires your generating 3 GMs from Amsterdam, or if you are able, generate 2 GMs and be the first to discover Economics. It means Amsterdam should be hiring 4 merchant specialists(along with some other specialists) almost all the time. The city states civic is helpful at start(+1 from specialists) and scholaticism/republic(if you beeline Liberalism) can boost your :gpp: if you really need it. I prefer fanaticism because then I don't have to worry about religion problems in my cities, and units are produced at a faster rate(although many military units are actually hired with rather than trained with ).

The 2nd goal can be tricky and difficult at times. In most cases, you don't want to be at war with France or Holy Rome/Germany, since that probably means complete annihilation. So possible targets are England, Spain, Portugal and maybe Sweden(1 city near Vinland). Problem arises when some of these civilizations have defensive pacts with/are vassals of your strong neighbors, or when they too unstable(near/full collapse). If they(Portugal most likely) are too backward you can gift them techs(Gunpowder/Astronomy) to make sure they actually have colonies for you to conquer. Extremely advanced colonial powers are also a problem(Spain and France(and England?) with Rifling is a nightmare).

The 3rd goal asks you to acquire a total of 7 spices resource. There's 1 in the Caribbeans, 2 in Brazil, 1 in Sri Lanka, 4 in Indonesia(historical),1 in Mexico, 1 in Madagascar, 1 in India(after 1700 AD), and 1 in Thailand(foreign). Sometimes you need to venture out of the historical area to get 7 of the 12 spices.

The Dutch UP is very powerful in this version of game. Doubled trading company income applies to yield limit too, which means you can get as much as an extra +6 and +18 in your cities with trading company, which is a huge bonus.

 

[Fresol]

The game starts at 1580 AD. We need to check out how our European rivals are doing, it's very important and affects our starting strategy.



But first let's change civics to Slavery+Fanaticism.



Looks like France is the boss here. Paris is the Protestant holy city and Italy is under French control. Luckily they haven't started colonizing yet.



Holy Rome has the New World conquerors, both of them.



England is a non-problem. Their future colonies will be our targets.



From what information I've gathered, the Caribbean spices is free to grab, the 2 spices in Brazil too. 1 of our 2 East Indiamen carries 2 longbowmen and 2 settlers, it's going straight to found Adriaansz Fort(with 1 settler, the other will found Colombo on the Sri Lanka iron).

We meet Spain midway. Obviously they have Astronomy+Gunpowder and have triggered the TC event, but their second colony is a questionable Davao.



Our caravel contacts Russia. Poland has galleons already.



Portugal is at war with Spain and Holy Rome. This is a bad sign, neither collapse nor vassalization is what we want to see.



The current tech situation allows us to go Liberalism->Economics for a free GM, so we should try to get a great engineer(to hurry the production of the trading company national wonder).

Our 3 workers are building farms around Amsterdam. Our second East Indiaman carries 2 musketmen, 1 missionary and 1 settler to settle Jost Van Dyke. All except the settler will get transported to Colombo, we need the muskets to kill the barb swordsmen there, and use the missionary to spread Protestantism.

We hire a mercenary East Indiaman.

 

[Fresol]

There're 4 roaming dog soldiers. I've decided to delay settling Adriaansz Fort for a few turns and make sure the free wins(4 on Regent) against barbs help us found Colombo.



Charles V is willing to trade us Printing Press for Astronomy.



We buy map from Mali.



Jost van Dyke is founded on the plains hill. Maybe settle directly on the spices is better? Full and early control of the spices but allows for possible competition on the clam later.

Spain did not prioritize the Caribbeans so we are lucky here, also the Caribbeans is one of the trading company areas(others are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia) and cities there are well worth keeping.



Congo provides our first 2 slaves. But they are Catholic and hate us.



We have "circumnavigated" through map trades.



Portugal has capitulated and becomes a vassal of Holy Rome.



Seeing that our East Indiaman with 2 musketmen, 1 missionary and 1 settler is approaching Sri Lanka, we settle Adriaansz fort to grab the 2 spices.

France already has Rifling but not Astronomy yet, otherwise French Cayenne may cause problems. In that case Belem is a good choice for 1 spices.

 

[Fresol]

Free wins against barbs are best used here.



War between France and Holy Rome breaks out.



Hurried settler from Jost van Dyke founds Havana. It's on foreign tile but like I said, Caribbean cities are nice, especially the food-rich ones.



Colombo is founded on the Sri Lanka iron. A missionary is required to spread Protestantism here even though we are running Fanaticism. Protestantism has a very low chance to auto-spread here.

This is the best source of iron for Netherlands IMO, and there's a spices to boost. The South African iron is on desert hill(hard to cover with culture), and disrupts city placement. We need copper or iron to train bombards for the 2nd historical goal.



To our favor, our first GP is a great engineer. One has a decent chance of getting 2 GMs and 1 GE as his first 3 GPs.



1630 AD is the year for great people.



Slave plantation and road, our first spices(also first TC resource) is connected.



Our starting troops(6 musketmen and 2 bombards) are transported to India to try to steal some of the indie cities from Mughal.

This time it's a success, but I don't like the city placement so I choose to raze the city.

 

[Fresol]

Don't hesitate to hurry settlers with population, even in Amsterdam. More cities earlier means stronger and bigger empire later.



Turkey has collapsed.

Have many East Indiamen to transport your units.



We capture and burn down Madras. Ideally I'd like to found a city on the gold hill.



The 2 longbowmen are enough to hold the attack of the 4 dog soldiers.



Portuguese Recife has seceded. I'm starting to worry about not having enough available European colonies to conquer.



England is about to settle Bridgetown. But for some reason the city gets founded quite a few turns later.



Unfortunately the gold hill is covered by Mughal culture, we can only found a city here.



Even China dares to demand our tribute! Of course we refuse.

 

[Fresol]

A great merchant(Willem Barentsz) is born in Amsterdam! He should join the city as a super specialist.





We found Kaapstadt and Pietermaritzburg. Durban might be better, if England settles a city between Kaapstadt and Durban, it'll be an easy target to conquer.

We hire a crossbowman in Pietermaritzburg for defence. Pombos are quite dangerous.



Holy Rome collapsed after Frankfurt was taken by the French.



Caracas has no Dutch name? Cities like Caracas are not critical for Dutch UHV, but settlers are not expensive after you've had a few cities already.







Liberalism gives us Economics and a great merchant.

 

[Fresol]

Why are we cancelling our open border agreements?



Because we are experiencing stability crisis, OBs under Mercantilism have cause great stability penalty for us along with razing penalty.

Havana has seceded.



City States gives bonus for each specialist, but it also creates extra peripheral polulation. We adopt the Theocracy civics or more happiness and more importantly, stronger units. We are about to conquer other Europowers' colonies.



We found the city of Fort Zeelandia in Surinam.



Our great engineer hurries the Trading Company in Amsterdam. We need 600 for the TC event.



Trading is what the Dutch do.



The Prussians have taken over Germany.



Fort Lydsaamheid.

 

[Fresol]

Bridgetown has seceded from the Kingdom of England.





The second option will cause a -2 population, +2 effect to all of our cities. We choose the first option.

The trading company national wonder in Amsterdam also attracts trading company to the city.



Normally the trading company yield is capped at +3 and +9, but not for the Dutch.



Palembang and Batavia are both good cities.



We found Maastricht.



Spain has defensive pact with Germany, it's impossible to take their colonies now.



I'm signing DP with Germany for no reason. A war between them and France may be lethal to us.

 

[Fresol]

We pay tribute to Louis XIV for peace.



I've declared war on England, and its cities will fall easily to our muskets and bombards(NA settlements are constantly harassed by natives, and this time the plague had weakened the defenders). Our troops were hurried and hired from our many colonies.



We still have enough time for all the historical goals.



Razing Ternate is a dumb move. Indie culture remains on the tile and I cannot settle a new city there.



Our Sub-Saharan African cities can provide slaves for our empire.



Another great merchant(Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer) is born in Amsterdam.



And our first historical goal is achieved.

 

[Fresol]

Nabire is razed and will be resettled. Settling directly on top of the spices 2N instead would be much better, but I wasn't smart enough to do that when playing.



As soon as I declared war on Portugal, its cities in Brazil seceded.

Looks like there're not enough European colonies to conquer.



Our first GG is born in Batavia.



Peter is willing to trade Military Tradition to us.



We take Providence from England.





We cease fire with England and return the cities to Elizabeth. Of course, the returned cities won't have defenders in them.

 

[Fresol]

Doing more trading with Russia.



Nabire is re-founded. Like I said, it's a bad choice. Settling directly on top of the spices is way superior.



Our troops in SA capture the indie city of Recife.



Amsterdam can grow huge with the trading company.



Stealing tech from Germany is an option, but it's meaningless.





Declare war on England again and retaking empty New York and Providence fulfills our second historical goal.(Exploit.)



You can see the game would be already won if we had not razed Ternate and had settled on the spices instead of Nabire. Those were mistakes.

 

[Fresol]

Those two spices are not connected the whole game.



We take indie Rio de Janeiro.



Finally we can cancel our tribute to Louis XIV.



1748 AD is another magical year.



We are not involved in the war between Germany and Russia.



We invade Thailand in search of another source of spices.



A great prophet is born in Amsterdam.



Our culture controls 1 additional spices on the respawn of the Indians.

 

[Fresol]

And it's just enough to win us the game.



We take Ayutthaya on the same turn.



And fail to steal Replaceable Parts(enables dike) from Germany. Netherland has great late game potential with its UB dike.



French TC troops have taken Saigon and Thailand is gone.



I think the peak blocks trade connection, so the only way to connect these two calendar resources to your empire is to build a fort or a city on these tiles.



Victory! It's interesting to see the year 1754 AD.









A Dutch game is quite short(less than 50 turns), but you need careful planning at the start. I suggest grabbing the 4 spices(Caribbeans, Brazil, Sri Lanka) with the initial settlers. And keep expanding until shortly before 1700 AD. Then prepare armies to conquer colonies and Indonesia(TC event helps if you can manage to build the TC wonder). Acutally you can win the game without touching Indonesia, although it's harder and has no point other than for entertainment.

 

[ales_]

Great and surprisingly short game!

 

[Eric Cartmenez]

Dat colonial empire

So the way to play as Dutch ... is to be expansive, sneaky and lucky.

Thank you for another unexpected guide Fresol, keep goin'!