The Argentina Thread

[triplebassist]

I won an Argentina UHV today and decided that was as good a time as any to talk about a civ that does not get much love at all, and I'd say for pretty good reason.

Argentina:

UP: Great Generals can start Golden Ages (more specifically, they count as a valid Great Person to start Golden Ages, so One GG and one other GP can start your first, etc)

UU: Grenadier Cavalry (Replaces Dragoon, starts with City Raider I, bonus vs. Musketeer and Rifleman)

UB: Cold Storage (Replaces Abattoir, +2 on Cow, Sheep, Deer, and Pig)

UHV:

Experience 2 Golden Ages by 1930

Have Legendary Culture in Buenos Aires by 1960

Experience 6 Golden Ages by 2000

Note that "Experiencing" a Golden Age means it must come to an end before the deadline. Additionally, if one Golden Age is started while another is ongoing, they're counted separately.


My Game: 600AD Start, Normal Speed, Regent Difficulty:

This was played on the April 4 dev branch. Buenos Aires and Montevideo were not founded, but Portugal did found Porto Alegre. I used my two starting settlers to found Buenos Aires and another city (Rafaela) in my core. Culture slider was at 100% as much as possible from turn 1 until 1960, when I got Buenos Aires legendary at the deadline. Buenos Aires built culture buildings as much as possible, prioritizing the National Gallery, then Culture. I ran as many specialists as I could, using the first Great Artist to build a Museum, but otherwise waiting until I had the needed Great People and using my starting military to deal with Mapuche units spawning in Patagonia. Meanwhile, Rafaela built a couple settlers to found cities which built Catholic Churches so Buenos Aires could build a Cathedral and put cultural pressure on Brazil for resources.

From there it was a lot of waiting. Buenos Aires had enough specialist slots that I was mostly able to control what Great Person I got. Brazil declared war in the 1910s, but I was able to quickly build enough military that Buenos Aires never had to stop building Culture and I was able to get my first Great General, which I parked to save for the last couple Golden Ages when I'd need a ton of different Great People. After Buenos Aires hit Legendary Culture I switched to running as much Science as I could and attacked Peru for my second Great General. We made peace and I waited until I got my last couple Great People to start the last Golden Age and let the time run down.

Thoughts on the Civ:

Argentina is a puzzle civ right now, where the real question is how to do what obviously needs to be done. This was my first real attempt, so I'd like to see the civ become a bit harder and have some more gameplay variety. I think there are three general problems with the civ as it stands:

1. There's a lot of clicking the end turn button during the slowest part of the game. Late game will have lag. There isn't much that can be done about that, but it does mean it's probably better if late game civs are more active, and Argentina really isn't a civ that requires a lot of decision making. I wasn't researching techs, so I wasn't in a position to fight wars, and there wasn't any value to them anyway except for the Great Generals.

2. I had to do a lot of specialist micromanaging. Even without switching to Monasticism or going for the Eiffel Tower or anything like that, I was fine on the number of Great People produced, but I didn't have room for error on which ones they were. I didn't feel like it was overly lucked based or that I needed specific Great People at times, but when you need 4 or 5 for a Golden Age it can be annoying to remember to turn your 8 Statesmen into Scientists right away to minimize the odds of getting a Great Person you already have.

3. I don't have any suggestions for the UU and UB, but I do know that they saw little use in my playthrough. The UB was nice, but didn't come in time to do anything for me. The UU was nice against the Mapuche, but wasn't a factor in either of my Great General hunting wars. That makes them feel a bit underwhelming.

 

[Maggy_domain]

My 2cents on what it makes it tedious: Argentina is supposed to fit a "tall" play akin US, Brazil and Mexico. Sure, you are warring a bit to leverage your UP, but essentially the main task is to expand and develop your territory. However, UHV2 removes any payoff to that. The optimal strategy is to turn down the science slider to zero from turn 1, essentially blocking you from the race for wonders or any fancy building/unit you normally would get a reward from boosting your cities pop, production and so on. You complete the "conquest for desert" by colonizing everything and then sit through it. I love the concept of the goal of having legendary culture in Buenos Aires, I think it fits. But as it stands now, imho it bears a lot of responsability.

 

[1SDANi]

In my game I used my starting stack to take Uraguay and Chile, then used those two cities to build settlers and armies to conquer Peru and Bolivia and make Colombia and Brazil my vassals, I only used the culture slider for like, the last 10 turns of UHV2, the entire rest of the time I was beelining culture or specialist techs. Switched to Monasticism, Bureaucracy, Regulated Trade, Isolationism, Manorialism turn 1 so I could get my capital online, then once my capital had most of the buildings it needed I switched to Nationalism and Central Planning to get Jails and Courthouses online in my other cities, as well as to explode my capital's population with food from Engineers and Scientists, and finally I switched to Egalitarianism and Public Welfare mostly just because I could.Buenos Aires ran only tiles with resources, the hill, and the 4 food tile up until I got that tech that gives +1 Food to all farms, at which point its population exploded. Expansion instability was never an issue, the whole game I was stable or solid.

 

[Aradziem]

How did you control 80 universities (this number is shown in religious victory section)?

 

[triplebassist]

That's the number controlled by all Secular civs combined. I had 7 cities at the end of the game.

 

[Aradziem]

Looks like a bug/misleading text

 

[Hickman888]

I haven't had the chance to play Argentina on the big map yet, only 1.17. I thought Argentina had the bearings of a very unique gameplay loop:

• Run the slider at 100%, thus maximizing the amount of in your cities
• With a huge surplus of in your cities, you can afford to draft the hell out of your cities, building a standing army
• Use your standing army to acquire more Great Generals, thus helping to achieve more Golden Ages

I think the two biggest roadblocks in this gameplay loop are:

1. You essentially halt technological progress, and eventually it becomes very difficult to wage war while being an era behind.
2. The Great Generals can only contribute one piece to a Golden Age, and you need other Great People to do the rest

I really like the potential of this civilization, though I do think it needs some tweaking at the moment. Maybe more can be said about it once We Love the King Day gets updated into something practical...

I only used the culture slider for like, the last 10 turns of UHV2, the entire rest of the time I was beelining culture or specialist techs.

Woah, how did you manage that? Did you use a lot of Great Artists for great works? On 1.17, I had to essentially max out the slider at the beginning, and keep it there as much as I could, and I only hit Legendary status in Buenos Aires with roughly 10 turns to go, IIRC.

 

[1SDANi]

I haven't had the chance to play Argentina on the big map yet, only 1.17. I thought Argentina had the bearings of a very unique gameplay loop:

• Run the slider at 100%, thus maximizing the amount of in your cities
• With a huge surplus of in your cities, you can afford to draft the hell out of your cities, building a standing army
• Use your standing army to acquire more Great Generals, thus helping to achieve more Golden Ages

I think the two biggest roadblocks in this gameplay loop are:

1. You essentially halt technological progress, and eventually it becomes very difficult to wage war while being an era behind.
2. The Great Generals can only contribute one piece to a Golden Age, and you need other Great People to do the rest

I really like the potential of this civilization, though I do think it needs some tweaking at the moment. Maybe more can be said about it once We Love the King Day gets updated into something practical...


Woah, how did you manage that? Did you use a lot of Great Artists for great works? On 1.17, I had to essentially max out the slider at the beginning, and keep it there as much as I could, and I only hit Legendary status in Buenos Aires with roughly 10 turns to go, IIRC.

I built a ton of culture buildings, ran Artists whenever I could, spammed farms once I had the tech that gives +1 Food on Farms, and ran Regulated Trade and Bureaucracy. Oh, and my 3 National Wonders I built in my capital were in that order.

All Great People went into Golden Ages. Won circa 1970 or so IIRC on the Thalassocracy/City Flip patch