I am sick of hearing people talking about how since you can win with one to five colonies then the game is boring 
. I think one of the reasons this happens is because few people in this forum have written anything concerning playing with the inherent strengths with the different civs(thanks to those few that did); as developing strategies that tailor to the strengths of each civ is half the fun of the game. So, i am writing this strategy for the spanish. I have written a small part of this strategy on another thread, but i will go in depth on every part of the strategy here.
Map:
Big Western Map on marathon (the amount of turns in marathon allow the player to pursue other things in the game while still having the necesary time to win the game).
CiV:
Spanish; I personally prefer to use Simon Bolivar because his ability augments my military approach to winning, Jose de San Martin makes just as good of a choice( you will be in constant state of war for almost 250 years, so he can be a good choice).
Starting Moves:
To start, sail your caravel to the carribean, and drop off your pioneer and veteran soldier on either Modern Day Dominican Republic or Cuba (I place and name all my cities in historic sites of where they are, so when i mention Buenos Aires or Havana I will be talking about where they are now geographically). I personally settle in Cuba and create Havana. Settle your city with your veteran soldier and begin to improve the tiles around you with the pioneer. explore the Caribean a little but be ready to send back your caravel. During the course of the game, build havana to be an industrial center by building a dock, warehouse, dockyard, and eventually a cigar factory. After sailing back to europe and your colony a few times use the money you have accumulated to buy horses and ship them back to havana. Settle your pioneer in Havana. In the city you should still have your veteran soldier with his 150 guns and with the 300 horses you bought. you make him into a veteran dragoon. With this veteran dragoon, your conquistador, you are the most powerful player in the game and with his help you will establish the spanish empire in the americas. The year should be around 1519, give or take a few years.
Military Confrontations and War in the Spanish Main:
Take your dragoon and ship him over to latin america. usually there is one civ that makes up southern mexico, latin america, and panama. scout his cities out first and take his treasures and stick them off to the side of mexico. Declare war on the natives and take all the natives cities; because of the the geography of latin america, the natives will have a hard time getting around your dragoon. With every native settlement you destroy, you'll get a converted native and another treasure. once you destroy these native settlements establish one port city off southern mexico where Veracruz was established, this city should have a good amount of food around it, not to mention a lumber tile and ore tiles, and water tiles. This city is going to be one the most important cities in the Spanish Empire as it should later on be a big gun production center. Establish the rest of the cities near the mountains, except place one city on that little stretch of land that makes the isthmus of Panama, and establish Panama City. Panama City is the most important city the empire will have because of it's geographic location. At this point you trade all those treasures to the king for immediete gold. You might have enough or you will in a few turns, to buy another caravel and load it with a jesuit missionary and a scout. Ship them back to panama and send the jesuit missionary to establish a mission in the native settlements of northern mexico, and use the scout to collect more treasures from the natives in south america. Over the course of the next hundred years destroy every native settlement in south america that makes up modern day Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, argentina, and uraguay.
City Placement and economics:
In this strategy you will develop around 30-32 cities, so it's important to develop a strategy concerning with economics. establish cities with you captured, convertive natives along the wester edge of south america with three to four cities stretching to the east to connect Buenos Aires to the rest of the empire. Make sure each city is close to the mountains. In the beggining of the game only collect silver, create about six to eight wagons and transport all your silver to panama city where you caravels should pick it up. If all of your colonies in the americas produce silver you can ship over any amount of silver, ranging from 300 pieces of silver to 600 pieces of silver. With silver about 18/19, this silver will make you far richer than any other civ. With this money, it is important to buy caravels (so you can have around six to eight by 1650), silver specialists (with a native harvesting a single silver a turn, when you add the silver specialists you can triple your production of silver in that city), and cannons and veteran soldiers to help conquer natives and defend your colonies. For shipping purposes, send all your wagons and ships to panama city for transport because panama is directly in the middle of the map, between your northern colonies and southern colonies, and it allows your ships to travel between the carribean and the pacific ocean. If the europeans develop privateers, just start sending your caravels through the pacific, the prvateers will take forever to go around south america. By around 1550-1560 you should build mexico city just north of the water square in the middle of modern day mexico with converted natives from the mission you established earlier with your jesuit missionary. Put the city on full LB production to get LB points for Founding fathers. with all the money you get from silver, buy and place cannons in mexico city to protect it from native attacks. The natives will hate you, in one game they had -80 some points (-63 or so for raising all their cities, -10 for revenge, -6 for my life threatening their war of life, -5 for declaring war on thier neighbor, etc) so don't even try to repair diplomatic relations with them. Just do what the spanish actually did to them; kill the men, raze their towns, enslave the rest, steal their silver, and make the colonial government rich and powerful. Place one cannon on the peripherery of your south american colonies to protect from the natives as your dragoon conquers chile and argentina.
in 1620 begin to to develop new products because by 1650, silver will have dropped to one, so you have to develop new ways to make money. To make micro management easier, i would establish vicerroyalities (usually the ones the spanish had in the seventeenth century: New Spain, New Mexico, New Granada, Peru, La Plata, florida and the carribean colonies). these vicerroyalities represent divisional administrative areas, "mini states," that produce certain products for different purposes. For example, the vicerroyality of Peru will probably have around six cities, with lima being it's "capital." they should produce ore and eventually begin to make a blacksmith and an armory in Lima, so your other cities there can use the ore to produce tools and guns. The Vicerroyality of Peru will be your tool and gun manufacturor; vicerroyalities are good because they specialize areas of your colonies just like one would specailize each individual city if one only has five. another bonus: four cities producing cigars or tools will outproduce a single city with factories, unless they that single city has a pop of twenty. New Granada (Modern day Venezuala, Columbia, and Ecuador), should produce tobacco and cigars, and maybe some sugar. Latin america should harvest timber to giver to you mexican colonies, la plata (argentina) should develop cotton, and Weavings, and eventually make buenos aires a production center for horses. You can always settle some parts of the caribean and florida later.
Developing Administrative Capitols:
YOu should develop around four to five decent sized cities for war production purposes and trade. Mexico city, panama city, lima, buenos aires, VeraCruz and Havana (optional) should be these cities. Make each one produce tools, guns, and horses, and allow them to get populations of around six to eleven. All major production should occur in these cities.
Developing New Mexico and preventing the natives from destroying your empire:
Mexico City in the north should have it's borders very big, and it could have destroyed one or two native settelments while your dragoon was conqering the south. (to prevent hostilities with the northern tribes give them 1000 gold every so oftern. Don't worry about the money, the amount of silver you have means you can afford almost anything). You should have garrisoned at least two cannons there by this time. Eventually, buy guns and horses from europe an make another dragoon, and colonial soldier, for you are about to bring war to mexico, california, texas, and new mexico. Delcare war on the natives just north of mexico city. Conquer them and establish colonies in northern mexico, one to represent texas, two in arizona and new mexico, one where los angeles is, and one where san francisco is. keep fighting the natives until you have destroy that native civilization. that should leave alot of space between your northern colonies and other natives, but leave a cannon in your northen cities just in case of attack.
In south america, you should have to only deal with one more native civ. they should make up brazil or so, and to prevent them from randomly declaring war, do what the spanish did: keep up low level conflict in the interior of brazil by razing their settlements. the natives will follow your dragoon around and mostly not try to destroy your cities. after destroying four cities or if the natives get close to one of your cities, get peace. in ten turns declare war again and repeat this process. If the natives attack in large numbers, kill one or two the braves with your cannons as they approach your cities, and give 1500 gold to the natives. usually this buys 20 turns of peace, but don't worry because as long as you keep 2000 gold on you, then you can always get peace. If your economy is running as well as it should be, then this is chump's change.
Founding fathers to get before the revolution:
With mexico city producing LB's throughout most of the game, you can get most of these founding fathers.
John Paul Jones- gives a frigate( send all your ships to europe at once and keep the frigate their to protect them against privateers. Spanish treasure fleets in the late sixteenth century had all their ships travel anually with protective ships to protect the cargo ship's cargos from attack. In the game, if you are facing a semi intelegint person in multiplayer they will develop the same idea that the british did in 1570: Piracy on a massive scale. The spanish never developed an effective navy for the colonies until the 1588, but that armada was destroyed by the brits and the weather, so just keep to the spanish tradition of anually sending out protected treasure fleet to europe. If piracy becomes a problem, ship your goods through the pacific).
Marquis de La Fayette- increases gun production by taxes. by the time of the revolution you should have 50-65% taxes and this will help you to develop that huge army you need to win.
Hernan Cortes- free stockade in every city. When the indians and spanish royalists come in your borders, the extra defense is amazing and many times it can mean the difference between losing six cities or repelling an indian attack.
Alexander Hamilton- +3 hammers per Town Hall, this helps with late game production military and political points for more founding fathers.
Vaco Nunez de Balboa- +25% defense per settlement; just like hernan cortez's ability.
Juan de Bermudez- +1 movement for Caravels, Merchantmen, and Galleons; shorten trips to europe are heavily needed during war.
Patrick Henry- +3 Liberty Bells per Town Hall; with such a large empire you need liberty bell bonuses.
Samuel Adams- Increases Liberty Bell production by the tax rate.
John Jay- +25% Liberty Bells per settlement
James Madison +3 Guns per Armory, Magazine, and Arsenal
LB production surge:
around 1640-1650 change all your cities to LB production. Buy up horses and guns in europe and stockpile them in your large cities.By the time of the Revolution, you should have stockpiled at least 2000 horses and 2000 guns. you should also have about two dragoons, one colonial militia, one veteran soldier, and seven cannons already made, and although many people would say that that army is nothing for such a large empire, they have to realize that you have maybe 2-3 great generals already, with a huge amount of promotions for those units. your units are the greatest in the game and could beat any of the other europeans at this point.
Preventing other euorpeans from getting independance:
Trade guns to natives close to other european's settlements, as well send over your merchant marine and some of your units to the europeans settlements. Raze on or two of their cities and leave; if your lucky the natives might jump in at the last second and finish them off for you.
Constitution:
the two most important ones to have are monarchy and free slaves.
Monarchy is great because with your huge empire it'e impossible to effectively blocade all your major ports. avoid the royal navy like you avoided the privateers, and continue to sell products in europe for much need cash during the revolution.
Free slaves is pivatol to victory because they will provide you with the late game bonuses in production (in major cities) and provide you with more then enough colonists to increase your army. Think about it, with 30 some cities this constitutional amendment gives you 60 free colonists to do with what you please. I would put a lot of them in your production cities, and leave the rest to produce more industrial goods for sale in europe. when the royalists numbers become too large, draw colonists out of the countryside to fight alongside your normal army.
Military strategems and tactics to win:
YOur large empire furnshes you with many benefits that other players colonies can never match. Specifically, the amout of money you can produce, the quality of troops you have, the ability to ship goods even during the revolution, as well the military doctrines you can use. Most of these tactics i use stem from military tactics used by Rommel and his Afrika Korps and the mongols.
First off, to win a battle one needs two things, superior mobility and firepower. Firepower is usually represented in civ games by more having more men, but in this game your troops have a vast amount of experience in war from all their promotions, and this pretty much gives them more "firepower" then the royalists. Mobility is something thats even more important. This single element in war can allow you to win anything. World war 1 was a static war; a war without much mobility and this allows for economic and societal collapse. But, in WW2, rommel and the nazis developed a new strategy to make dynamic warfare: Blitzkrieg, Flachenjarsch, and the Schild and Schwert.
Specifically the Schild and Schwert is the most important, as this will allow your limited troops to defeat an enemy that can appear on any of your borders and who has a much bigger army then you. The tactic used in the game goes as follows: leave two cannons in each of the vicerroyalities with an administrative city that has a colonial musketeer. Build up a force of ten dragoons and station them in panama to await the first attack. For me the spanish royalists first attacked buenos aires. If they land way too many troops, abandon the city with your troops and take up a position on a hill about five to six squares away. collect all your defensive troops in the area, cannons and colonial musketeers, on the hill and send six of your dragoon down there. if royalists get near the hill destroy a unit or two with the cannons, but if four or five seem to want to go around your hill fortification then let them do so. Now is the time to employ the flachenjarsch; have your dragoons spread out to have two dragoons in each square with each division taking up a square going three across. with your dragoons traveling over a wide area, you can kill those royalists that went around your fortifications. just kill enemy troops with your dragoons by picking them off one at a time as they go around your hill fortification. eventually your can bring all your forces together and remarch on buenos aires and recapture the city. Repeat this process throughout most of the game. By about 1760-1780 you should win.
I developed this strategy while playing on governor, so there might be some problems with it. I would like to hear if anyone else has strategies specifically developed for the spanish, and for veteran players, i would like you mention if there are ways that you could find to defeat this kind of a strategy in a multiplayer game.
. I think one of the reasons this happens is because few people in this forum have written anything concerning playing with the inherent strengths with the different civs(thanks to those few that did); as developing strategies that tailor to the strengths of each civ is half the fun of the game. So, i am writing this strategy for the spanish. I have written a small part of this strategy on another thread, but i will go in depth on every part of the strategy here.Map:
Big Western Map on marathon (the amount of turns in marathon allow the player to pursue other things in the game while still having the necesary time to win the game).
CiV:
Spanish; I personally prefer to use Simon Bolivar because his ability augments my military approach to winning, Jose de San Martin makes just as good of a choice( you will be in constant state of war for almost 250 years, so he can be a good choice).
Starting Moves:
To start, sail your caravel to the carribean, and drop off your pioneer and veteran soldier on either Modern Day Dominican Republic or Cuba (I place and name all my cities in historic sites of where they are, so when i mention Buenos Aires or Havana I will be talking about where they are now geographically). I personally settle in Cuba and create Havana. Settle your city with your veteran soldier and begin to improve the tiles around you with the pioneer. explore the Caribean a little but be ready to send back your caravel. During the course of the game, build havana to be an industrial center by building a dock, warehouse, dockyard, and eventually a cigar factory. After sailing back to europe and your colony a few times use the money you have accumulated to buy horses and ship them back to havana. Settle your pioneer in Havana. In the city you should still have your veteran soldier with his 150 guns and with the 300 horses you bought. you make him into a veteran dragoon. With this veteran dragoon, your conquistador, you are the most powerful player in the game and with his help you will establish the spanish empire in the americas. The year should be around 1519, give or take a few years.
Military Confrontations and War in the Spanish Main:
Take your dragoon and ship him over to latin america. usually there is one civ that makes up southern mexico, latin america, and panama. scout his cities out first and take his treasures and stick them off to the side of mexico. Declare war on the natives and take all the natives cities; because of the the geography of latin america, the natives will have a hard time getting around your dragoon. With every native settlement you destroy, you'll get a converted native and another treasure. once you destroy these native settlements establish one port city off southern mexico where Veracruz was established, this city should have a good amount of food around it, not to mention a lumber tile and ore tiles, and water tiles. This city is going to be one the most important cities in the Spanish Empire as it should later on be a big gun production center. Establish the rest of the cities near the mountains, except place one city on that little stretch of land that makes the isthmus of Panama, and establish Panama City. Panama City is the most important city the empire will have because of it's geographic location. At this point you trade all those treasures to the king for immediete gold. You might have enough or you will in a few turns, to buy another caravel and load it with a jesuit missionary and a scout. Ship them back to panama and send the jesuit missionary to establish a mission in the native settlements of northern mexico, and use the scout to collect more treasures from the natives in south america. Over the course of the next hundred years destroy every native settlement in south america that makes up modern day Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, argentina, and uraguay.
City Placement and economics:
In this strategy you will develop around 30-32 cities, so it's important to develop a strategy concerning with economics. establish cities with you captured, convertive natives along the wester edge of south america with three to four cities stretching to the east to connect Buenos Aires to the rest of the empire. Make sure each city is close to the mountains. In the beggining of the game only collect silver, create about six to eight wagons and transport all your silver to panama city where you caravels should pick it up. If all of your colonies in the americas produce silver you can ship over any amount of silver, ranging from 300 pieces of silver to 600 pieces of silver. With silver about 18/19, this silver will make you far richer than any other civ. With this money, it is important to buy caravels (so you can have around six to eight by 1650), silver specialists (with a native harvesting a single silver a turn, when you add the silver specialists you can triple your production of silver in that city), and cannons and veteran soldiers to help conquer natives and defend your colonies. For shipping purposes, send all your wagons and ships to panama city for transport because panama is directly in the middle of the map, between your northern colonies and southern colonies, and it allows your ships to travel between the carribean and the pacific ocean. If the europeans develop privateers, just start sending your caravels through the pacific, the prvateers will take forever to go around south america. By around 1550-1560 you should build mexico city just north of the water square in the middle of modern day mexico with converted natives from the mission you established earlier with your jesuit missionary. Put the city on full LB production to get LB points for Founding fathers. with all the money you get from silver, buy and place cannons in mexico city to protect it from native attacks. The natives will hate you, in one game they had -80 some points (-63 or so for raising all their cities, -10 for revenge, -6 for my life threatening their war of life, -5 for declaring war on thier neighbor, etc) so don't even try to repair diplomatic relations with them. Just do what the spanish actually did to them; kill the men, raze their towns, enslave the rest, steal their silver, and make the colonial government rich and powerful. Place one cannon on the peripherery of your south american colonies to protect from the natives as your dragoon conquers chile and argentina.
in 1620 begin to to develop new products because by 1650, silver will have dropped to one, so you have to develop new ways to make money. To make micro management easier, i would establish vicerroyalities (usually the ones the spanish had in the seventeenth century: New Spain, New Mexico, New Granada, Peru, La Plata, florida and the carribean colonies). these vicerroyalities represent divisional administrative areas, "mini states," that produce certain products for different purposes. For example, the vicerroyality of Peru will probably have around six cities, with lima being it's "capital." they should produce ore and eventually begin to make a blacksmith and an armory in Lima, so your other cities there can use the ore to produce tools and guns. The Vicerroyality of Peru will be your tool and gun manufacturor; vicerroyalities are good because they specialize areas of your colonies just like one would specailize each individual city if one only has five. another bonus: four cities producing cigars or tools will outproduce a single city with factories, unless they that single city has a pop of twenty. New Granada (Modern day Venezuala, Columbia, and Ecuador), should produce tobacco and cigars, and maybe some sugar. Latin america should harvest timber to giver to you mexican colonies, la plata (argentina) should develop cotton, and Weavings, and eventually make buenos aires a production center for horses. You can always settle some parts of the caribean and florida later.
Developing Administrative Capitols:
YOu should develop around four to five decent sized cities for war production purposes and trade. Mexico city, panama city, lima, buenos aires, VeraCruz and Havana (optional) should be these cities. Make each one produce tools, guns, and horses, and allow them to get populations of around six to eleven. All major production should occur in these cities.
Developing New Mexico and preventing the natives from destroying your empire:
Mexico City in the north should have it's borders very big, and it could have destroyed one or two native settelments while your dragoon was conqering the south. (to prevent hostilities with the northern tribes give them 1000 gold every so oftern. Don't worry about the money, the amount of silver you have means you can afford almost anything). You should have garrisoned at least two cannons there by this time. Eventually, buy guns and horses from europe an make another dragoon, and colonial soldier, for you are about to bring war to mexico, california, texas, and new mexico. Delcare war on the natives just north of mexico city. Conquer them and establish colonies in northern mexico, one to represent texas, two in arizona and new mexico, one where los angeles is, and one where san francisco is. keep fighting the natives until you have destroy that native civilization. that should leave alot of space between your northern colonies and other natives, but leave a cannon in your northen cities just in case of attack.
In south america, you should have to only deal with one more native civ. they should make up brazil or so, and to prevent them from randomly declaring war, do what the spanish did: keep up low level conflict in the interior of brazil by razing their settlements. the natives will follow your dragoon around and mostly not try to destroy your cities. after destroying four cities or if the natives get close to one of your cities, get peace. in ten turns declare war again and repeat this process. If the natives attack in large numbers, kill one or two the braves with your cannons as they approach your cities, and give 1500 gold to the natives. usually this buys 20 turns of peace, but don't worry because as long as you keep 2000 gold on you, then you can always get peace. If your economy is running as well as it should be, then this is chump's change.
Founding fathers to get before the revolution:
With mexico city producing LB's throughout most of the game, you can get most of these founding fathers.
John Paul Jones- gives a frigate( send all your ships to europe at once and keep the frigate their to protect them against privateers. Spanish treasure fleets in the late sixteenth century had all their ships travel anually with protective ships to protect the cargo ship's cargos from attack. In the game, if you are facing a semi intelegint person in multiplayer they will develop the same idea that the british did in 1570: Piracy on a massive scale. The spanish never developed an effective navy for the colonies until the 1588, but that armada was destroyed by the brits and the weather, so just keep to the spanish tradition of anually sending out protected treasure fleet to europe. If piracy becomes a problem, ship your goods through the pacific).
Marquis de La Fayette- increases gun production by taxes. by the time of the revolution you should have 50-65% taxes and this will help you to develop that huge army you need to win.
Hernan Cortes- free stockade in every city. When the indians and spanish royalists come in your borders, the extra defense is amazing and many times it can mean the difference between losing six cities or repelling an indian attack.
Alexander Hamilton- +3 hammers per Town Hall, this helps with late game production military and political points for more founding fathers.
Vaco Nunez de Balboa- +25% defense per settlement; just like hernan cortez's ability.
Juan de Bermudez- +1 movement for Caravels, Merchantmen, and Galleons; shorten trips to europe are heavily needed during war.
Patrick Henry- +3 Liberty Bells per Town Hall; with such a large empire you need liberty bell bonuses.
Samuel Adams- Increases Liberty Bell production by the tax rate.
John Jay- +25% Liberty Bells per settlement
James Madison +3 Guns per Armory, Magazine, and Arsenal
LB production surge:
around 1640-1650 change all your cities to LB production. Buy up horses and guns in europe and stockpile them in your large cities.By the time of the Revolution, you should have stockpiled at least 2000 horses and 2000 guns. you should also have about two dragoons, one colonial militia, one veteran soldier, and seven cannons already made, and although many people would say that that army is nothing for such a large empire, they have to realize that you have maybe 2-3 great generals already, with a huge amount of promotions for those units. your units are the greatest in the game and could beat any of the other europeans at this point.
Preventing other euorpeans from getting independance:
Trade guns to natives close to other european's settlements, as well send over your merchant marine and some of your units to the europeans settlements. Raze on or two of their cities and leave; if your lucky the natives might jump in at the last second and finish them off for you.
Constitution:
the two most important ones to have are monarchy and free slaves.
Monarchy is great because with your huge empire it'e impossible to effectively blocade all your major ports. avoid the royal navy like you avoided the privateers, and continue to sell products in europe for much need cash during the revolution.
Free slaves is pivatol to victory because they will provide you with the late game bonuses in production (in major cities) and provide you with more then enough colonists to increase your army. Think about it, with 30 some cities this constitutional amendment gives you 60 free colonists to do with what you please. I would put a lot of them in your production cities, and leave the rest to produce more industrial goods for sale in europe. when the royalists numbers become too large, draw colonists out of the countryside to fight alongside your normal army.
Military strategems and tactics to win:
YOur large empire furnshes you with many benefits that other players colonies can never match. Specifically, the amout of money you can produce, the quality of troops you have, the ability to ship goods even during the revolution, as well the military doctrines you can use. Most of these tactics i use stem from military tactics used by Rommel and his Afrika Korps and the mongols.
First off, to win a battle one needs two things, superior mobility and firepower. Firepower is usually represented in civ games by more having more men, but in this game your troops have a vast amount of experience in war from all their promotions, and this pretty much gives them more "firepower" then the royalists. Mobility is something thats even more important. This single element in war can allow you to win anything. World war 1 was a static war; a war without much mobility and this allows for economic and societal collapse. But, in WW2, rommel and the nazis developed a new strategy to make dynamic warfare: Blitzkrieg, Flachenjarsch, and the Schild and Schwert.
Specifically the Schild and Schwert is the most important, as this will allow your limited troops to defeat an enemy that can appear on any of your borders and who has a much bigger army then you. The tactic used in the game goes as follows: leave two cannons in each of the vicerroyalities with an administrative city that has a colonial musketeer. Build up a force of ten dragoons and station them in panama to await the first attack. For me the spanish royalists first attacked buenos aires. If they land way too many troops, abandon the city with your troops and take up a position on a hill about five to six squares away. collect all your defensive troops in the area, cannons and colonial musketeers, on the hill and send six of your dragoon down there. if royalists get near the hill destroy a unit or two with the cannons, but if four or five seem to want to go around your hill fortification then let them do so. Now is the time to employ the flachenjarsch; have your dragoons spread out to have two dragoons in each square with each division taking up a square going three across. with your dragoons traveling over a wide area, you can kill those royalists that went around your fortifications. just kill enemy troops with your dragoons by picking them off one at a time as they go around your hill fortification. eventually your can bring all your forces together and remarch on buenos aires and recapture the city. Repeat this process throughout most of the game. By about 1760-1780 you should win.
I developed this strategy while playing on governor, so there might be some problems with it. I would like to hear if anyone else has strategies specifically developed for the spanish, and for veteran players, i would like you mention if there are ways that you could find to defeat this kind of a strategy in a multiplayer game.
I hope that you finish conquering the sioux and not leave them there for later like i did (they ended up being a like a festering wound on my empire......) keep us updated on your progress and your innovations to my strategy.
...... But if you still have a lot of money, i would send all my caravels to Europe, buy all their silver and watch the price of silver skyrocket. then resell all the silver and all the silver you've collected since that time 
(got this economic strategy from another thread).
. 
