Spain UHV - v1.16 - any suggestions?

[TsarAndreas]

Has anyone managed to complete the Spanish UHV? I just tried and failed... I wondered if there is a preferred strategy for this challenge?

My approach was to attempt one thing at a time.

GOAL - UNITE IBERIA
1) Take Barcelona and raze Marseilles
2) Build up an army to take Cordoba
3) Take Cordoba

GOAL - SETTLE AMERICA FIRST
4) Colonize Havana

GOAL - CONTROL 10 GOLD & SILVER
5) Use conquerers' events on both Aztecs and Incas and take most of Mexico and Peru
6) Build the Colonisation Wonder to occupy Manila
7) Settle in NW Columbia* for gold and canal to enable ships to reach the West Coast
8) Settle near Seattle* for the 3 gold/silver in NW USA

*Apologies for the poor place descriptions, I can't remember the specifics.

GOAL - NO PROTESTANT NATIONS IN EUROPE
9) Invade the Protestant nations of England, the Netherlands and the Vikings to remove the religion from the Europe.

This is where I ran out of steam, because the time I got round to (9) in 1588 (ironic, I know), I couldn't realistically successfully invade England in enough strength before the deadline in 1648. My European army was mainly just Bombards and it would take too long to build enough Tercios to make it stick.

I clearly have my strategy all wrong. I focused on conquering and securing the Americas first, and that ended up draining my economy and occupying the bulk of my armies. Should I try to dominate Europe first? Once the Reformation happens, should I drop everything to ensure that Europe stays Catholic, and then return my attention to securing the gold/silver?

This is a fun UHV to overcome btw, so much to do!

Cheers in advance

 

[Xfactor]

Just some tips which i use

- Use despotism the first 15-20 turns to get the needed buildings in Spain + catapults for Cordoba. Later on it proves usefull as well for Italy as thats your first target, and it controls its foreign population.

- Dont really settle Havana first , its a good city but needs time to ramp up , I like New Orleans alot and usually its my first new world city. Consider Havana second/third if your economy allows it.
- After getting inca/aztec find out how much of your remaining army in the new world you are going to need , and delete the excess units. Focus Aztec + Inca cities on expanding in the new world, as in settlers. The function which makes you settle settlers in a city is really overpowered once you hit renaissance.

- In order to deal with protestants , i find best to go for Italy asap once you start , as the cities there are really good and you can use them as purely military cities. Often Rome has a general in on the 3000BC starts. and often they are not very well defended. A good start for Spain is absolutely essential. Italy always produces military in my case , i just build 1 settler for each city once i go renaissance for the free buildings.
- Portugal - they are really tricky , and in my games i just straight kill them for 2 reasons - you dont know if they will convert or not , which will make your goal very difficult due to the limited amount of turns, and on top of that - if you raze Lisboa , you can let Santiago + Cordoba grow alot more providing extra stability treshold. Razing Lisboa is a big stability hit and it might be tricky to balance it out with what comes next , so be sure to always have that in mind.
- HRE - build enough army and just straight go for HRE in the 1300s after you've dealt with Cordoba . Its either them or England which discover Protestantism. You can vassilize HRE due to stability/economy and just make them research something else. You can also just capture thier cities, dont vassilize and sack the cities + improvements + give them back for peace - that will for sure make them sluggish in research. As a bonus - alot of the times they send off their starting army in the middle east
- England - 100% espionage towards them + esp rate set to 20% - send spies to convert them, its quite tedious to conquer them and your stability/economy will prevent you most of the times. You can also try peacfully to convert them with missionaries + diplomacy. If it comes to it in the final turns its always a last resort just to capture London and seek peace + conversion
- Netherlands - wont spawn with protestantism if there are no protestant civs on their spawn date, and if its discovered later, there is a chance they dont convert. Still if they do - just use your army from HRE conquering to straight up kill them -
- Denmark/Sweaden usually collapses way before they get Protestantism so they are the least of your worry , but the same applies for them as England. - espionage , or peaceful conversion.
- Poland isnt usually the one to find it , And if France do , they very rearly convert , but you can always steam roll through 1-2 cities and vassilize + convert them.

Most Spain games are just good management of economy/stability + some espionage as you can really go overboard. You have to starve cities for stability , thus your economy is not that great , you do have really productive cities in Spain and Italy which can churn out armies, so there isn't someone in Europe who can stop you from dominating.

As a last tip - sometimes its based on luck with protestantism as how many civs convert and how early it is discovered. You can straight up ignore the above and wait for civs to convert so you know your targets, but you can also go on a spree and prevent it alltogether from appearing. Both cases work , but in general civs as Spain with such big multiple goals require some luck involved.

 

[EmperorNorton]

- Portugal - they are really tricky , and in my games i just straight kill them for 2 reasons - you dont know if they will convert or not , which will make your goal very difficult due to the limited amount of turns, and on top of that - if you raze Lisboa , you can let Santiago + Cordoba grow alot more providing extra stability treshold. Razing Lisboa is a big stability hit and it might be tricky to balance it out with what comes next , so be sure to always have that in mind.

I always thought Portugal was oriented towards remaining Catholic, similar to the Spain AI. Maybe it's just coincidence in my past games? I've always kept them alive for this reason, hoping they'd be more likely to spread Catholicism on their own to their colonies.

 

[Xfactor]

Yeah but there is a small chance they go protestant, either way its not wrong to ignore them , they usually dont do much or interfiere in my games. I just like the extra space for the cities + the reduced chance they go protestant , which makes it harder to deal with later in the game

 

[DanLT3]

I personally prefer to conquer and vassalage Europe first.
Its possible to rush Cordoba right away with all your troops and with some luck capture it with minimum losses right away. You can also whip some Catapults like suggested above, you will need them for Rome anyway.
You definitely want to conquer Rome as its a great source of income with the shrine (600 AD start), raze Venice (its a rather bad city next to Vienna and if left independent Italy will spawn).
Get rid of your competition for settling America first (ie. France and England). I prefer to collapse France (keep Paris, possibly raze both other cities since they interfere with your core cities) and vassalage England.
Portugal needs to go ASAP (you would want that bigger core).
Its also important to plan right from the start for 4 big core cities on Iberia (plan to raze Lisbon and keep Cordoba). It might be good to not found Madrid on the spot but instead 1 or 2 squares to north/northwest (planning for a raze of Bordeaux and capture of Cordoba). This setup will yield the most core city points and expansion stability will not be a problem later on.
And at some point also vassalage Holy Rome to stop them from founding Protestantism.
Vikings and Poland is likely to collapse before they can found Protestantism.
Protestantism can then easily be avoided all together by ordering your vassals to research something else.
Also when having all European civs as vassal or gone you can possibly found Protestantism yourself and hope that noone dares to convert.
There is still a chance that they might (and break out to be independent again). The conversion is random so saving the game and doing something else right before will also change the outcome.

 

[Xfactor]

I like the above , just want to add something for not settling Madrid, but Santander? + razing bordeoux - if you raze it , you have to take a stability penalty ( probably a -6 to -10 one) . In addition you are splitting your starting army + some additional units into 3 goals - Razing Bordeaux + dealing with France after that , Captuing Italy and Capturing Cordoba, and thats just before 1240s (Portugal's 10 turn peace ending). I've never done all 3 in a same game without an insane starting situation like weakly defended italy , or Bordeaux just being razed by barbs after the Romans. Its indeed the "best" strategy , but very hard to pull off.

In a Spain game , a starting situation plays a very strong role how the game goes, and on top of that executing the first ~30 turns , for example Getting Cordoba+Italy+ developing your core before portugal spawns, is what determines how easy the game is going to be later on

 

[DanLT3]

Naturally you go for one conquest at the time. It helps if you like me usually play on Marathon game speed.

 

[Xfactor]

Yeah just tried going for all 3 for fun - getting Italy, harrasing the French and killing Cordoba , not the best stability management from my side and plague hit me on 1100s

Result is i just collapsed without razing anything, since had the rare luck where Bordeaux was razed on start + italy was pretty badly defended. 3000 BC starts are the way to go with this imo.

Game pretty much went as
- Settle Pamplona + Santiago , capture Barcelona ASAP.
- Catapults + xbow in santiago , Pamplona , while barcelona grows. Switched to Despotism for whipping.
- Captured Rome first, was 1 turn late for Milan which had 2 horse archers and just my 1 of my Knights could attack. Was a barb city as well, so french snagged it which changed my plans.
- Got my army back to spain , while training cats in Spain + swordsmen in Rome, and i swept through cordoba without any casualties.
- Cordoba even had La Mezquita built around 900s which was soo good and i was very optimistic.
- Declared war on France to get Milan, Ljubljana and Duras ( as you see in the screenshot they just went ham.
- Got Milan , plague hit on the 1100s and i was already unstable after capturing it, went blindly for Ljubljana and captured it while harrasing France with 2 knights by pillaging improvements.
- Plague ended around 1200s and i decided to gift Ljubljana to Poland (potential ally against HRE) , went for Lyon as a last target just to prevent France from getting too far ahead , we were equal in score at this point.
- Sieged Lyon while prepping for HRE, my stability was something like -23 expantion at this point, but economy pulled me to -10~ overall.
Then i just collapsed before even getting lyon.. its kinda sad was a good start . I even build jails in Cordoba + Rome for the stability boost , but wasnt enough. Was also winning every war with minimum casualties , and had like 4-5 knights , 10-12 swordsmen (1-2 heavy) , and 4-5 trebs which wouldve been enough to murder HRE and focus on exploring. Also had a Carvel ready for conquerers

maybe i shouldve delayed dealing with France and HRE after i got the the renaissance just for the stability boost.

Will try again later, thread went way off track anyways with us discussing

 

[BaneFire]

Clearly I'm doing something wrong because I lose half my starting army against Crossbowmen in Barcelona and only conquer Cordoba in 1250 or so

 

[Xfactor]

Well if Barcelona has Xbowmen + walls , its usually a reroll for me, archers + walls is still "doable" , barb barcelona - you have free barb wins so nothing to worry about there.

You cant really afford much losses in the begining. As a rule of thumb for most civs - judge your start well, cant really think of many civs where with bad starts you can have an good game.

 

[GuitarDemon]

Well you don’t have to completely destroy Protestant religion, just force all civs to convert back to Catholicism. Usually with bribes or by force. If you’re winning a war badly the option to convert them comes up during negotiations, as long as they have one city with Catholicism.

Ive tried the making sure Protestant religion never comes strategy and it works but sometimes i love me some good old religious wars.

Usually I struggle with the 30% goal but my strategy is usually ignore my tech Rate and just spam cities every where and let them grow as big as possible. While running theocracy to make sure only catholic moves into my cities. Then purge other religions from my cities Too. Spain has a huge historical area so spanning cites isn’t hard

I usually go for good relations with Portuguese. Unless they turn protestant. then they will get crushed. I gift them all exploration techs , convert them to theocracy and let them settle Brazil so I can send missionaries there too

 

[BaneFire]

Do you need Theocracy/purging? Does that actually increase the % Catholic, or does just Catholic being present in the city matter?

 

[Hickman888]

Do you need Theocracy/purging? Does that actually increase the % Catholic, or does just Catholic being present in the city matter?

Bump, because I'd also like to know if this matters or not. Also, does growing your Catholic cities nice and large increase Catholicism's influence, or is the quantity of cities with Catholicism present the only thing that matters?

Edit: I just ran a quick test in the worldbuilder. I don't know the exact workings of the numbers behind the religious influence, but I can confirm that multiple religions present in the same city works to reduce the influence of your state religion. Not only that, but growing your cities larger also plays a role in increasing the influence of the religion. So grow your cities large, and persecute the heretics!

 

[davcjohn]

I'm not sure if it is a bug or an intentional change but i had completely suppressed Protestantism and the Netherlands spawned with it. That then caused HRE and England to flip and half the cities to convert. I had England and HRE vassilized and was occupying all of Sweden. I had re-directed them away from researching academia. If this is intentional, given how late it happened i think i would have been better off forcing a beeline by England to trigger it much earlier so i would have had fewer cities to deal with and more time to spread catholicism and stamp out protestantism. I wasted turns invading/collapsing France when i realized they were getting close to researching it, in order to stop them.

 

[Derdan]

I think the easiest way to complete the final goal is to convert Protestant civs back to Catholicism using spies. It's a surprisingly cheap mission, and you only need to do it once for each civ a few turns before the end date. Put 2-3 spies in a rival city that has Catholicism (further reduces the mission cost) to ensure their conversion. Use Caravels to transport spies to England if necessary, since they do not require open borders.

 

[BaneFire]

I think the easiest way to complete the final goal is to convert Protestant civs back to Catholicism using spies. It's a surprisingly cheap mission, and you only need to do it once for each civ a few turns before the end date. Put 2-3 spies in a rival city that has Catholicism (further reduces the mission cost) to ensure their conversion. Use Caravels to transport spies to England if necessary, since they do not require open borders.

The Gunpowder Plot!

 

[Inoé]

Hi guys.

Can anyone give some insight as to how the triggers for the conquest of the Incas and the Aztecs work? Is it possible to get both? I got the one for the Incas and received the bonus conquering army, but never got the trigger for the conquest of Mexico.

I've read that scripted events are supposed to happen, but I'm not sure how they work or what I did skip....

thank you!!

 

[Matara]

Are they meeting you before you reveal their territory? For example, their workboat meet your fleet at the sea. In this case, you will make contact but not trigger conquistador. This is the situation of Maya UHV.

 

[TsimTsigal]

Hi guys.

Can anyone give some insight as to how the triggers for the conquest of the Incas and the Aztecs work? Is it possible to get both? I got the one for the Incas and received the bonus conquering army, but never got the trigger for the conquest of Mexico.

A non-native (aka not Incan, Mayan, Aztec and, amusingly enough, Polynesian) ship in a map rectangle roughly surrounding their historical area, with date being between (iirc) 1200 and 1600 AD, and this civilization not having contact with any non-native one. It's possible to break conquerors if you meet an American civ outside of its rectangle (and vice versa; since Aztecs/Mayans usually get invaded before Incas, you can station a scout in Yucatan as Incas to avoid being invaded).

Btw, an amusingly ahistorical and easy way to fulfil UHV2 is to use the conquerors army to vassalize Mali. Capturing their lands is ill-adviced due to severe stability problems Spain has, but luckily vassals' gold also counts.