Spain Emperor Goal UHVs. Help pls!

[outofthebox]

Hi,

I am trying Spain atm, emperor level

I am thinking of 2 approaches:

1) Rush optics, conquer aztecs easy, incas more tedious. Hopefully get astronomy before 1500 (Netherlands spawn) to found 1st city in america. My problem here is the horrible tech rate due from having many crappy cities and never ending hordes of barbs that keep those aztecs cities from becoming any good ones.

2) Will try this one now. Rush Optics, get the conqueror events, but dont cap any aztecs/incas untill late 1650 to avoid getting crap tech rate. Main goal is preventing another civ to get the small conqueror armies. Tech rate should be better to get astronomy in time: Galleon+settler at around 1500 i think.

Any other ideas/Strat?

Also whats the best city setup as Spain?
2-3 or 4 cities in Spain?
And which location/city spots should i go for?

Should i raze lissabon?

All help welcome! thx

 

[J. pride]

Also whats the best city setup as Spain?
2-3 or 4 cities in Spain?
And which location/city spots should i go for?

I personally go for Madrid, Santiago, Valencia and Seville. Now this is not the best strategy but it is the most historically accurate. Santiago is especially powerful as you can capture 2-3 seafoods and limit Portuguese influence.

 

[strijder20]

I don't know, but I recently got the idea that founding Madrid might be a mistake. It can't grow.

 

[Cosmos1985]

From a strict gameplay point of view Madrid is a terrible idea, without a doubt.

 

[artyom]

sounds legit. i'd make 4 cities in spain and one in north africa and capture lisbon. and yeah dont capture the aztecs/incas before astronomy, just tech your units while attacking the defenders but not capturing cities.
I did this on empreror 1-2 weeks ago. the hard part was I was at like -40 and higher stability during 1700's and my territory wasnt the biggest: russia was. but eventually i surpassed them just in time.
Also, very important: capture Alexandria for the great lighthouse

 

[soul-breathing]

madrid,santiago,cadiz,barcelona.Rush marsille at first,RUSH to GUNPOWDER,and rush portugal and raze lisboa asap.then build city in iceland and newfoundland,you can even found city in america in 1300.
and you need a great spy to steal techs from french or italy or germany.if possible,you can cap roma
why gunpowder?cause it brings you the spanish UU,much better then knight.
after you control america,you can even attack an east asian city and build porcelain tower in MADRID!

 

[Jusos2108]

This is the city placement that I went for in my domination victory game, but if you don't found Madrid, move Palos one tile east.

Spoiler :

 

[iOnlySignIn]

There is absolutely no reason to found Madrid, when you could cover the entire Iberia in 4~5 Coastal cities. You are not forced to found away from the Coast like France or Prussia, so why cripple yourself for no reason.

Disband all the Pikes, Siege and Native units in your Conqueror stack - they are worthless. Instead of using your Conquistadors for killing Aztec and Inca, use them for Pillaging and hunting Barbs/Natives for XP, and focus on Astronomy. Ideally, you should postpone your conquering of Aztec and Incan cities until you have Military Tradition (which means Occupation).

It highly possible and recommended that you collapse Aztec by pure Pillaging (and Worker capturing, as Aztec will have excess Workers everywhere due to their UP). They tend to found a lot of crap cities. As for the Inca, you should let them live and thrive - they will found good cities. But you need to prevent the Inca from Vassalizing to your European rivals (France or England) - by remaining at war with Inca but not taking any of their cities until after Military Tradition.

 

[outofthebox]

Alright!

I gave it a good try emperor level.

skipped Madrid, capital Sevilla, cities bilbao, barcelona at start.

rushed optics got conqs, didnt attack just waited abit to not trash my tech rate.

Had to stop the netherlands, positioned my aztecs conqueror army near new york killed the first duthc settler team there just in time.

Managed to get astro, founded La Havana 1600 or so.

Managed to get all aztec + inca cities in time. 2/3 achived.

Then.... Russia was the largest empire... tried to culture max+ pop max what i had.

France, portugal leftovers and netherlands gangbanged on Spain, close calls, managed to survive and raze marseilles in return

Finally at 1760, Russia was still the largest empire :-(

Btw what counts as Largest Empire? is it based on land area? or population? or both?

All in all, was fun, and thx for your help, it got me quite far 2/3 not bad.

 

[soul-breathing]

just based on land area

 

[artyom]

madrid,santiago,cadiz,barcelona.Rush marsille at first,RUSH to GUNPOWDER,and rush portugal and raze lisboa asap.then build city in iceland and newfoundland,you can even found city in america in 1300.
and you need a great spy to steal techs from french or italy or germany.if possible,you can cap roma
why gunpowder?cause it brings you the spanish UU,much better then knight.
after you control america,you can even attack an east asian city and build porcelain tower in MADRID!

we are talking about emperor difficulty here

 

[outofthebox]

Hi again!

Just finished Spain emperor level on third try!

What i did this time.

Found Madrid, Palos, Santiago, Barcelona + Bilbao (wait for explanation).

Opening Move:

2 longbowmen+ 1 swordsmen to Bordeaux. its just enough to kill the lonely crossbowmen. Razed the indep city before it becomes French

2 longbowmen + 1 swordsmen to Marseilles. Same story, razed the indep city, founded Barcelona just 1 tile SW of previous marseilles.

That move cost me most of my units but crippled the French without doubt!


Then Build up an army to take Rome at the same time as France/Germany. They tend to attack Rome so just sneak it away from then after they removed Romes City defenses

Then Raze Lissabo, portugal usualy capitulates then.

Research order: Guild, banking, Optics (trade with Byzantium for compass, calendar).

Get the conquerors, conquer slowly by razing all the captured cities so you dont trash your tech rate for astronomy. (Got Astro at around 1550 or so)

Move the army from Rome to wait for Dutch Spawn, they are the primary contender to found a city in America. Eradicate the Dutch 1505 or so to give you time to research Astro.

Prepare a Settler, a defender and a galley that you will upgrade asap with Astro. Found La havana, counts as America and no barbs.

Rest of the game was tech rate ubercrap, build money+culture and go spam settler+Theatre mode all around the world. I settled Asutralia, conquered most african tribes etc.

The most difficult part is to be the largest empire in time cause Russia is Huge and realy hard to attack (tried that. Genral winter made most of my attacks fail after 10 turns. You conquer 3 cities, your units die slowly, russia builds up counterattacks SODs and you have to abort the campaign).

In the end Russia+ 3-4 other civs decared on me 1730. I lost rome+barcelona thought it was all over. but i managed to delay the slaughter on my mainland and finish the game 1760 with the largest empire in the world.

Speaking of delaying actions:

Wait for enemy stack of Doom (SOD) in city, wait till AI removes your defense. Evacuate all units leave 2 defenders that will force the AI to use artillery to get the city. The goal is to make the AI lose as many Aritllery as possible.

Then position all defenders by stacks of 2 on different tiles so the AI takes some losses there.

Fighting this way, Gerilla style makes the AI wait to Heal or get more troops to finish you. That gave my just enough turns to finsih the game in time.

The AI had stacks of 10 cannons + 10 random attackers. I had no where near anything to stop that.

 

[artyom]

nice guide.i tried these guys again on emperor/marathon (svn last version this time) and did a few thing differently and seemed incredibly easy.
opening move is as written above: destroy burdigala and massilia and found barcelona, and oviedo and madrid. you should have 4 total cities in spain, and raze lisbon. try to get cities in cagliari, melilla, and south of mali as soon as possible since they will boost your economy.

researcg guilds into banking into astronomy. I had astronomy at 1435. conquerors should be kept alive I guess and you could just disband all the quecha and other crappy warriors. In my game, I lose the aztec conquerors very quickly but I think it only helped economically because i had too much upkeep.
capture alexandria before finishing astroniomy. my game I had it like at 1370

I quit at 1600 because it was basically gg. a few "mistakes" I did and iam not sure how to go about it is capturing italy seemed hard early on and I didnt even attempt it. Italy was captured by germany at like 1100 AD, and Iam not sure it would be a wise decision to spend precious time and hammers on building several knights to go capture rome. also, i should of founded a few cities in south africa prior 1200 AD because it seemed as though stability was not an issue at all. (remember that for spain, every additional city will benefit your science until you reach 11 cities)
note that Spain is probably the easiest civ on emperor