The Dutch: Useless?

[bigbrownbeaver]

Since I've been playing G&K I, and from the look of the forums, many others have found no viable paths to victory while using The Netherlands. Does anyone have any way to make these guys even remotely good? I was pleased to hear that these guys were going to be included in the expansion only to find out that they are god awful.

 

[luukdeman111]

Since I mostly heard that happiness was quite abundant in GAK trading your last copy of a recourse away might be a good source of income.

 

[Drawmeus]

They have a solid economic UA and a solid economic tile improvement. They certainly don't look like the best civ in the game, but they have to be better than, say, Greece...

 

[luukdeman111]

Add to that (sorry for double post, can't edit posts on iPhone) that if you trade your last resource away for one you don't already have you gain 2 happiness, altogether it creates some awesome, historically accurate, resource brokering options.

 

[bigbrownbeaver]

Greece isn't terrible, just... overrated

 

[Peng Qi]

I don't play MP, but I played a game with them that I won via Diplomacy extremely handily. I think I even had an extra 7K gold sitting around when I won (so I could re-bribe CS if I had to; turned out I didn't).

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=465351

This is a thread about the sea bagger, Dutch UU

 

[GenjiKhan]

Dutch AI is a very easy civ to get DOF if you try to grab their last luxury resource . They literally stab you,but at least,they don't deny a DOF .

 

[mabalogna]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=465022

There is a thread already discussing the Dutch and several people, including myself, have tried to illuminate the strengths of the dutch

I'll sum it up here though:

the dutch are an economic civ. if you don't like playing a trade/diplo game and exploiting their UA then your're not going to like them at all. but they're not weak at all, just people dont seem to understand how to use them effectively. theres more detail in the link i shared

 

[cccv]

What I've read about the Dutch looks good so far-- pretty solid UA and UU. But I do have a question about the UI. It's not available for a little while into the tech tree, right? So in order to take advantage of it, aren't you going to have to let your capital sit in unimproved marshes for a while? Does that work out well? Are there enough other tiles to improve or do you end up using a few sucky-ish tiles for a while when waiting for the polder to come online?

 

[Drawmeus]

Greece isn't terrible, just... overrated

Greece wasn't terrible when their military units were actually good in the ancient/classical era. Now they're pretty much outclassed at early rushes by several other civs, and have no benefits at all after the early rush phase of the game. Useless.

 

[ShahJahanII]

What I've read about the Dutch looks good so far-- pretty solid UA and UU. But I do have a question about the UI. It's not available for a little while into the tech tree, right? So in order to take advantage of it, aren't you going to have to let your capital sit in unimproved marshes for a while? Does that work out well? Are there enough other tiles to improve or do you end up using a few sucky-ish tiles for a while when waiting for the polder to come online?

It's not like you will settle inside 6 marshes and it applies to floodplains too. You will have a few good tiles around them to work in the meantime. Then beeline to Guilds for the Polder. If you aren't planning on any naval conquering you should make Education and Economics your next priority.

 

[nokmirt]

Polders are great for a later game growth spurt. Your cities really grow fast, enabling you to specialize gold, production, or science, whatever you want.

I have 3 polders in a crappy desert city, amazingly this is one of my largest cities, all my desert tiles in the city radius have TPs. It creates a fair amount of gold, and I have plenty of pop for science specialists, since this is one of two cities with an observatory. After those polders were finished the city went from size 6 to 15 in no time and it is still growing.

 

[iconocast]

they are a diplo civ like arabia. and they seem to do it in a very interesting way.

 

[bhavv]

For those of us who dont have the game yet, what does a polder do?

 

[Morningcalm]

It just generates extra food from a swamp, and gold in later ages. I sincerely thought they would add a cool Tulips resource. Oh well....sigh.

In my opinion, the Dutch should also have an increased chance of generating a Great Merchant, or at least get a free Great Merchant upon discovering Banking.

 

[iconocast]

it will give u +3 food on flood plains/marsh ( uniqe improvement) it realy shines as u get archeology ( i think, could be wrong) giveing u +production and gold

-edit bah u beat me to it;P and yeh +merchants would be nice

 

[Camikaze]

It might be useful to note that, as a lot of people have experienced, gold is a tad harder to come by now. So the Dutch's early gold or early happiness (depending on whether you trade for gold or a different luxury) is even more useful than it would've been in vanilla.

 

[Zenstrive]

Hmm...so Dutch is the equivalent of Arabia of vanilla CiV...hmm..to think that I love Arab in CiV and Dutch in CIV:COL....

I think I'll try Dutch

 

[mabalogna]

The Polder turns Marshes into 4 food tiles, and flood plains into 5 food tiles once you research Guilds. this is actually better then any farm on a non-river tile (marshes) and a civil service farm on a flood plain. The later boost that comes from Economics essentially gives the polder the effects of a trade post with an extra production. In the end the Polder is a very high yield tile improvement that becomes available in the medieval era, and matures in the renaissance. It essentially turns a rather useless tile (marshes) into a very powerful one that will provide whatever city works it with a really well timed mid-game boost to city growth, just as happiness buildings/resources come available and allow you to grow a wide empire past 6-8 pop