Random UHV musings

[Silverbow]

So, today I've finally completed my goal of achieving all the UHVs in the unlocked 3000 BC start on Viceroy (which is actually hardly 'settler equivalent', as I've read somewhere, but I digress). So I thought I'd write down some thoughts on the UHVs' difficulty/experiences with them, plus toss in the screenshots of settled cities.

Greece

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Very Easy

This was my first one, as I got inspired to give RFC a chance by Neal's KOTW RFC Greek game. Very easy, as you're likely to catch Egypt without metal, and with all the land and production, plus with multiple marbles and coppers, it's been no problem at all to get both the tech and wonder goals done. Then just a beeline to optics and quick circumnavigation.


Egypt

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Easy

Aside from the first goal, not problematic at all.


India

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Very Hard

Founding 5 religions is extremely painful - you have to go for Judaism first, and still aren't guaranteed to get it. The Chinese religions are a lost cause, and forcing out enough GPs to bulb Divine Right ain't easy either, especially since you also need to expand for the population goal (which can be thwarted by untimely plague, as it happened to me the first time I managed to get the 5 bloody religions). Very luck dependent. And yes, I heard about an exploit involving warriors and China that makes it much easier, but that's just silly.


China

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Very Easy

Just spread a bit of religion, build The Great Wall and spam units. Nothing much to see there.


Babylon

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Easy

It's possible (though unlikely) to miss the techs. Otherwise, no problem at all. Basically an OCC.


Persia

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

The area goal is the main hurdle to overcome. One basically has to kill both India and Egypt (which also generally works for the shrines), which is quite ahistorical. Wonders can pose a minor problem, if Babylon/India/Egypt haven't been wonderspamming enough.


Carthage

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Easy

Outside of taking out Egypt and whoever controls the dyes in Phoenicia, the only challenge here are the barbs.


Rome

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

...once one knows about what exactly one has to do to get the Western Roman Empire goal it's actually easy. I didn't know it, actually, and tried hard to cover every tile of WRE with Roman culture. The rest ain't much, TGW owns the barbs.


Japan

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Trivial

Outside the ultimate boredom that finishing the tech tree entails, this UHV is absolutely no challenge at all. At worst you'll overexpand like I did, and still win.


Ethiopia

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Pure Horror

By far the hardest UHV of them all. Namely, the found a religion goal. Unless you get very, very, very lucky, you won't win Theo, and winning DR is basically impossible. But once you manage the miracle, the other goals are easy.


Maya

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Hard

I got lucky when the Dutch conquerors spawned on Jamaica, rendering them utterly useless. Had they spawned near a city, it would likely be nigh impossible to hold it. For the first two goals, one needs a specific research path and to start the temple ASAP, but it's not too hard.


Vikings

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

Took me looong time to realize that the quintuple gold is from PILLAGING, not conquering/razing. Once I got that and pillaged the hell out of collapsed Carthaginian and Roman lands, it was possible to get the goal. I completely ignored warring in Europe and conquered Aztec and Inca lands instead. Sinking ships may look daunting, but with no time limit, one just has to spam privateers once you can build them and eventually the win'll come.


Arabia

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

Pure war. Taking out Egypt and India, plus forcing a single GP yields the shrine goal. Vassaling/killing Spain can be a problem since one needs galleys. Overconquering and collapse are also real dangers (well, maybe not if you don't spread Islam via conquest like I did).


Khmer

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Trivial

If you realize just how much 14k culture is, and don't underestimate it, there's no challenge at all. Just force out three GAs for the culture. City size and Buddhism are basically autocompleted goals.


Spain

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Hard

Keeping the other Europeans out is major PITA. Untimely Aztec/Inca resurgence can really screw things up as well. The maintenance costs and stability hits are enormous.


France

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Very Easy

A few GAs easily handle the Paris goal, and the rest is quite trivial - once you find out what exactly counts as colonizing Quebec and Louisiana...


England

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Very Easy

When you know the continent boundaries, it's trivial. When you don't, and settle Indonesian cities like I did, thinking they'll count as Asia... it's still easy. Having to found crap cities on Kamchatka etc. sucks and makes no historical sense, though.


Germany

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Hard

Aside from the tech tree bore, conquering Russia is stability nightmare. Razing cities hits stability just as hard as conquering (which is one of the things I was surprised to find out and think it makes no sense, razing a city != expansion), and I didn't know if Russia collapses and you have a city or two in there, you get the goal, so I had to avoid collapsing, which was very hard. The conquests outside of Russia are easy though.


Russia

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Easy

Basically settler spam.


Netherlands

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Easy

The map goal is probably failable (though I didn't fail it here). Spices are the hardest part, since a) you can't trade for spices if you already have your own, unless trading with vassal; and b) improving the one-tile spices in Carribean doesn't count, one has to settle atop them; and c) Portugal tends to steal the Brazilian spices fast. Not particularly hard, though, Javan, Papuan and Madagascar spices are easy to grab...


Mali

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Hard

It's possible to fail the first goal even if one turns off research right off the bat... Even once past the first, the third goal is troublesome and requires several GMs to achieve. I've never had slider above 0% at all in this one.


Portugal

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Easy

I actually failed the map goal on first try (it was quite absurd game, Khmers were the first to reach Americas and won the map too). But generally, it's really easy, the settler spam and OBs are quite trivial.


Inca

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

It's surviving the bloody conquerors that's hard. Takes a lot of longbows in right place and time. The rest is rather easy, just spam gold after first goal and get a GM for the second goal, then if Spain actually settles in Argentina, take them out (you should be able to settle Venezuela and Guayanas before any Europeans have Astronomy).


Mongolia

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Very Hard

The extreme expansion without collapse ain't easy at all. Abusing GA bombs in remote, crappy desert areas helps a lot, but my stability was pure crap all the game. For the razing goal, I actually had to wait for Persia and Ethiopia to collapse, and raze the hell out of the barbs and independents. What makes it actually very hard however is the fact that China was always there whenever I tried, and always had bloody PIKES. The one time I finished the UHV China still had pikes, but was in midst of a plague. I'm not sure if I could pull it off otherwise. Oh and I never saw the UP take effect (but then as I said, I didn't really use razing).


Aztec

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

Once again, surviving conqs is the problem. OTOH they help in the enslavement goal. I have been a bit too slow settling islands and Spain snuck a horrible pseudocity on Jamaica, which I had to raze and resettle on Cuba...


Turkey

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Trivial

You start with enough military to easily overrun Greece, if it still lives. Probably one of the most fun games, easy expansion into Greece/indeps/barbs. I guess some might say getting vassals ain't easy, but I never found it hard - in fact I always get a ton of vassal proposals with any civ except Mali/Maya/Aztec/Inca anyway. I think I had five as Turkey, and could've had even more.


America

Spoiler :

Difficulty assessment: Medium

Not that easy to kick Europeans out, as you'll be behind in tech for quite some time. The oil goal was also a major pain, as it led to a war against half the world - I took Persia as vassal, and they warred Russia, Japan & Portugal & all their vassals. And once I made peace, the demeneted Persia actually had the gall to collapse, forcing me to fight indeps for oil and take huge stability hits. Urghble.

 

[Leoreth]

Interesting. Did you do China in the 3000 BC or the 600 AD scenario?

 

[killerkebab]

Well played, sir!
Now monarch!

Interesting. Did you do China in the 3000 BC or the 600 AD scenario?

I don't see Xi'an or Qufu, so I guess he did 3000BC?

 

[Leoreth]

Oh, I missed both the screenshot and the "Viceroy" qualifier, which puts things back into perspective a little. Because I definitely wouldn't label 3000 BC China "very easy" on Monarch (or 600 AD China, although that's a lot less constraining).

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Congrats, but I don't agree on some of the difficulties you gave:

Babylon[Should be Hard]-Haven't you been beaten by China to writing even once? For me even on viceroy the Chinese would get writing 7 out of 10 games. The only time I won was by popping math from a hut, founding Confucianism and getting the wheat from Shushan early. So I didn't even try it on monarch.

Inca[Should be Easy]- Just keep 1 scout in southernmost part of south america, and one at the easternmost. Then spam settlers, get them everywhere, but DON'T SETTLE. Wait for them to see your settlers, then settle at once.

Germany[Should be Easy, if played right]-WAIT FOR OCCUPATION. On viceroy I had no problem in stomping everyone without occupation, but this habit almost collapsed me in my monarch game. Right now I'm in the middle of a Germany emperor game, I've got half of Russia and it is 1800, and I am stable.

China[Should be Medium]- The temple whipping can get close for new players. Though on monarch I managed to get it 10 turns before the limit by extensive use of the whip.

America[Should be Easy, if played right]- I find this easy - just don't war for the oil, colonize. See here.

Personally, I don't think I will be going for all viceroy UHV victories. Some of them just bore me[like Mali,Mongolia, and Ethiopia], and I prefer going to the higher difficulties with the leaders I like.

 

[Barbuesque]

I had a long post written up, covering all civs, until I erased it all when I managed to hit 3 keys at the same time, so I'll just stick with a few observations that seem to be different from yours.

Games were played at monarch, except Japan and Germany at Emperor. I don't reload out of bad RNG results. I feel it's worth mentioning since a lot of strategy guides advise it as a "tactic" while imo, it's just plain cheating.


Carthage: The early rush against either Egypt or Greece is a complete crapshoot. The levant coast (dye) situation can vary widely from one game to another. Being spread all over the mediterranean makes the empire hard to defend.

Rome: Similar to Carthage, except not quite as random. I lost Mediolanum once to 3 consecutive 24% odds celt attacks. These things CAN happen and the roman opening doesn't have contingencies for early bad RNG results.

Ethiopia: Agreed that the first VC is simply laughable. In fact, getting it is so unlikely, and so beyond the player's control, that I advise just researching Theology until you get beaten to it, reload to the latest autosave, gift yourself Theology through the worldbuilder and move on to the next 2 conditions.

Spain: I actually have it at easy after trying twice. Getting the first city in the americas, conquering the incas and aztecs is trivial. Don't keep more than one city of each to minimize maintenance costs and stability issues. For the third VC, it's far, far easier (and profitable) to simply conquer them in Europe than try to blockade them and raze their NA colonies. France and Netherlands don't have metals, so you can just research guilds (otw to optics) and tackle them with knights/catapults

Germany: It's actually one of the easiest, after Japan, Portugal, Greece and the Netherlands. I won at emperor, both the UHV and a domination win. I suggest you read the various domination threads, because the stability considerations and tricks detailed there definitely apply to the german UHV.


Other random thoughts:

I hate victory conditions that run contrary to the nation long term interests. There are several civs that going for and "winning" the UHV could leave you crippled or at the very least weakened if you were to keep on playing:

China
Babylon
Rome (because of the flips, so a slightly different issue)
Aztecs (not quite as much, but can we please remove the silly, 100% useless carribean islands from the requirements?)

 

[Akbarthegreat]

with most your stuff Barbusque.

Ethiopia: Agreed that the first VC is simply laughable. In fact, getting it is so unlikely, and so beyond the player's control, that I advise just researching Theology until you get beaten to it, reload to the latest autosave, gift yourself Theology through the worldbuilder and move on to the next 2 conditions.

Or start as Rome, found crap cities after razing Greece. Or just collapse yourself.

 

[Leoreth]

Rome: Similar to Carthage, except not quite as random. I lost Mediolanum once to 3 consecutive 24% odds celt attacks. These things CAN happen and the roman opening doesn't have contingencies for early bad RNG results.

If you go for the risky strategy of trying to take out both Carthage and Greece early, that's right. But if you have enough troops in your core, you shouldn't even let the Celts get close to your Italian cities, and defend the Alps with Axemen instead. Even if they die you'll a have contingency in Mediolanum's defenders

Ethiopia: Agreed that the first VC is simply laughable. In fact, getting it is so unlikely, and so beyond the player's control, that I advise just researching Theology until you get beaten to it, reload to the latest autosave, gift yourself Theology through the worldbuilder and move on to the next 2 conditions.

Yeah, I only managed to win that by messing with the game by starting as Rome.

Other random thoughts:

I hate victory conditions that run contrary to the nation long term interests. There are several civs that going for and "winning" the UHV could leave you crippled or at the very least weakened if you were to keep on playing:

China
Babylon
Rome (because of the flips, so a slightly different issue)
Aztecs (not quite as much, but can we please remove the silly, 100% useless carribean islands from the requirements?)

I disagree. UHVs that force you to play differently than usual are my favorite ones, because you can't apply your usual Civ strategy to them and have to find other ways to get it done. It's even better when the UHVs get you in a bad situation while your historical counterpart was also in a bad situation.

 

[Tlönitte]

I think the most interesting strategy for Ethiopia on this board (not mine) involved using mercenaries to help rush Delhi, hoping to catch a shrine and then spawning a Great Prophet. However when I want to found Christianity as an early Civ I just make sure that all the independent and barbarian cities around the med are razed, so there is nowhere for it to autospawn. Good tactic for getting all religions as India as well.

 

[Jusos2108]

I think the most interesting strategy for Ethiopia on this board (not mine) involved using mercenaries to help rush Delhi, hoping to catch a shrine and then spawning a Great Prophet. However when I want to found Christianity as an early Civ I just make sure that all the independent and barbarian cities around the med are razed, so there is nowhere for it to autospawn. Good tactic for getting all religions as India as well.

Yeah, I did that in my Ethiopian domination game, but just for the better land though. Getting all religions as India is surprisingly easy, if you attack China early.

 

[Leoreth]

I've always thought that it would make a lot more sense if the effects of Obelisks and Steles were swapped in RFC. The Egyptians would benefit a lot more from extra culture and the Ethiopians could spawn a prophet themselves, making both buildings actually useful for their UHV.

 

[Barbuesque]

I disagree. UHVs that force you to play differently than usual are my favorite ones, because you can't apply your usual Civ strategy to them and have to find other ways to get it done. It's even better when the UHVs get you in a bad situation while your historical counterpart was also in a bad situation.

I understand your perspective there. I think it's a matter of taste, I like to keep on playing after the UHV and go for domination. Kind of rough with some of them.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Yeah, I did that in my Ethiopian domination game, but just for the better land though. Getting all religions as India is surprisingly easy, if you attack China early.

Could you tell me how? I mean with which units, and when.

 

[blizzrd]

Could you tell me how? I mean with which units, and when.

Warriors, from the start, preferably with City Raider promotions from goody huts/barb victories.

 

[Wessel V1]

To elaborate a little more on that: the goal isn't neccesarily to conquer a Chinese town. It's more like a psychological game. The AI sees 'danger' nearby, and decides to defend itself. Since you have or build a couple of Warriors in the beginning anyway and you need only one (if any) to collect goody huts in Europe, the others can go straight to China. Another possibilty is to try to get the Woodsman II promotion, that gives double movement in forests. This means more variation of opportunities so more potential danger and some defense against archers. Also, you can try to kill a Chinese worker. Killing an early worker has two advantages: 1. it takes time to build a new one, and the city can't grow and 2. no worker means no improvements.

 

[strijder20]

Great thread idea.

 

[Silverbow]

Congrats, but I don't agree on some of the difficulties you gave:

Babylon[Should be Hard]-Haven't you been beaten by China to writing even once? For me even on viceroy the Chinese would get writing 7 out of 10 games. The only time I won was by popping math from a hut, founding Confucianism and getting the wheat from Shushan early. So I didn't even try it on monarch.

I think it took me maybe two tries.

Inca[Should be Easy]- Just keep 1 scout in southernmost part of south america, and one at the easternmost. Then spam settlers, get them everywhere, but DON'T SETTLE. Wait for them to see your settlers, then settle at once.

How does that help against a huge stack of superior troops showing up on your doorstep in random place?

Germany[Should be Easy, if played right]-WAIT FOR OCCUPATION. On viceroy I had no problem in stomping everyone without occupation, but this habit almost collapsed me in my monarch game. Right now I'm in the middle of a Germany emperor game, I've got half of Russia and it is 1800, and I am stable.

Does it come with Fascism? Yeah I guess that might've helped. BTW I had no stability issues even with basically whole Europe under my control, but Russia's bazillion cities and far distances nearly broke the camel's back. I went from maybe +20 to -70 in like two turns.

China[Should be Medium]- The temple whipping can get close for new players. Though on monarch I managed to get it 10 turns before the limit by extensive use of the whip.

I actually think the troops were closer for me, stupid plagues.

America[Should be Easy, if played right]- I find this easy - just don't war for the oil, colonize. See here.

Eh, it really depends. If the Europeans settle NA in a poor fashion, you're facing quite the battle to liberate the whole continent. Concerning oil, settling Brazil and Venezuela at that point was impossible (Portugal and Spain got there before US spawned). I got the Mexican oil by warring with Dutch (who conquered Aztecs), settled the Texas/Denver/2 Canadian oils, settled the Mali and Borneo oils (and those two surely ed up my stability a LOT)... but that's still not enough (7), and one needs to conquer indeps/whoever holds the oil for the last 3.

 

[Silverbow]

Spain: I actually have it at easy after trying twice. Getting the first city in the americas, conquering the incas and aztecs is trivial. Don't keep more than one city of each to minimize maintenance costs and stability issues. For the third VC, it's far, far easier (and profitable) to simply conquer them in Europe than try to blockade them and raze their NA colonies. France and Netherlands don't have metals, so you can just research guilds (otw to optics) and tackle them with knights/catapults

France can actually end up with iron if it settles/flips Metz. I know conquering them in Europe would do the trick, but that's hardly historical. Pluss having the western hemisphere be a massive yellow blob was fun.

Aztecs (not quite as much, but can we please remove the silly, 100% useless carribean islands from the requirements?)

I don't think they're actually useless, they're good for commerce.

 

[Barbuesque]

France can actually end up with iron if it settles/flips Metz. I know conquering them in Europe would do the trick, but that's hardly historical. Pluss having the western hemisphere be a massive yellow blob was fun.


I don't think they're actually useless, they're good for commerce.

You can actually do both! Emperor win attached, I could have lost at the last 2 turns when I dipped into shaky because of massive overexpansion for no good reason except fun. The file name has"fail" in it but that's from my overwriting my first emperor attempt (which failed obviously)

Regarding Iron, entirely depends if Frankfurt gets razed before the german spawn. They're still not much of a challenge though.

Regarding the carribean islands, the problem is that the RFC mechanics heavily penalize going beyond 10 cities, and with the other choices available to the aztecs, there's like 25 better locations available. Really frustrated me. But that's just my imperialist self

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I think it took me maybe two tries.

Took me 7-8 tries at least, and I won with some luck from the huts.

Does it come with Fascism? Yeah I guess that might've helped. BTW I had no stability issues even with basically whole Europe under my control, but Russia's bazillion cities and far distances nearly broke the camel's back. I went from maybe +20 to -70 in like two turns.

Nationalism, actually. On viceroy, I had managed to get all the UHV areas w/o occupation. But as I said, on monarch that kills. And I hope you know that you need only European Russia, and you only need more cities than the Ruskies. You don't have to get all the cities.

How does that help against a huge stack of superior troops showing up on your doorstep in random place?

Because if you see their caravel before they see your borders, they don't get the conquerors!

I've got to do something now, will reply for the rest later.