The Netherlands

[ahawk]

I actually can see the OP's point about the Unique Improvement... as MadDjinn or one of the other well-known guys on here commented on one of my threads once, it's always better to have an earlier bonus that's smaller than a later bonus that's bigger. After all, a little boost early on -- say, getting one extra measly little hammer per Horse tile -- can mean a huge difference after 300 turns. That's Russia in a nut-shell. So, not getting to use the Unique Improvement until fairly late could be considered a minor handicap, I guess.

That said, mabalogna perfectly laid out how to use the UA in the list he made above.

All-in-all, Netherlands isn't perfect, but I see myself getting around to playing them and probably being able to win at Standard, King, and probably Emperor, which are the difficulties I've played most any other civ at across all the games I played in vanilla. They may not be quite so powerful as Persia, Russia, or Inca, but if it's a sea-based map, I'd rather play Netherlands than those guys I'd assume. After all, would you really play Netherlands on a land map all that much when their UU is a naval unit?

 

[Bakspatel]

Kevin, you're missing the whole point of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands has always been focussed on trading, its one of the main reasons that made the Dutch Republic so wealthy and powerful that even the French and the English started multiple futile wars against it.
But eventually everything comes to an end, and so did the Dutch Republic. But that still doesn't make the influence of its trading less important; the first shares were sold in the Netherlands, the first exchange was in the Netherlands, its even claimed that capitalism finds its origins in the Netherlands. A lot of its wealth and power came from the luxuries of the Indies or by trading with different nations. It would be an insult for the civilization in the game if it wasn't focussed on trading.
That said, at first hand the UA does look quite weak indeed. Only two lousy happiness points for trading luxuries? Sounds stupid yeah. But if you look a bit deeper than the surface, you can see that the whole purpose of that benefit is to promote active trading with other empires. For a small loss of your own happiness, you can gain large sums of money early in the game - or perhaps use them for strategic resources for the creation of a conquering army. You can also trade the resource for another empires luxuries, giving you +6 happiness instead of +4 happiness (which still excludes loving the king days and CS quests). The active trading could also improve relations with other empires, making it possible to have relative peaceful games. I for example can see the Swedish and the Dutch actively working together: both can profit greatly from each others' benefit. On top of that, the Dutch could terrorise the seas while the Swedish terrorise on land with their UU's.
To sum it up: the UA of the Dutch is a benefit to actively promote trading and might perhaps not be a civ for those that rather have an easy and big bonus.

As for the sea beggars, I can perfectly understand the choice of them. I would rather have them seen being nicknamed as Watergeuzen, but anyway: the Netherlands has always been known as a seafaring nation. Though also having a significant terrestrial military force in the latter part of the 80 year old war, the Dutch naval victories have had a far more bigger impact on Europe's history - surpassing both the English and the French fleet for quite a while.

Besides that I unfortunately can't really comment more on it because somebody decided that North America should have G&K a couple of days before the rest of the world - but the choices seem obvious to me. The Netherlands: not the best civ, but definitely the most active and maybe also the most challenging during a game.

 

[Arilian]

There was a reason why DEVs nerfed the original 4 happiness from 2 in the UA.
however with 2 I also feel this a bit week.

Essencially this is 120/unique resources. Bazaar is more powerful and not coming that mutch later.

 

[Loucypher]

So, here's my little review on the UA, based on how my game went.
I was in a rather remote corner of the world. My scouts did find the Celts, India, Sweden, Germany, France and the Iroquis, but the only one close to me was Rome. The rest was friendly to me, none of them particulary minding what I was doing.
Anyway, I move on to found Rotterdam early game, and Ceasar tells me to stop settling near him. Sure thing. So I move my next two cities away a bit from him, and he seems fine with that...but then he plants a city right next to Amsterdam. Right. He then decides to DoW me.
Now I had Cotton, Silk and two sets of Elephants close to me. However, Caesar already had Iron and his Legions were coming my way. I also had 8 happiness...and was getting close to a Golden Age.
So I sold the Cotton, Silk and both Elephants to the Celts, Germans, Iroquis and India. I still had positive happiness and could now afford a set of Composite Bowmen to defend Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Two turns later, I hit the Golden Age and I end up barely deflecting Caesar's assault (he got slowed down by the bogs - the beauty of starting with Holland), and with the profits made from the Golden Age I could raise an army that would later proceed to wipe Caesar off the map.
This couldn't have worked without the UA. Now you could say "But Bazaar", but NO. This was Early Classical age we are talking about (From the way Caesar's empire looked like, he probably beelined Iron), and I was working on the naval side of the tech tree, meaning that it would've taken quite a while before hitting Economics, leave alone the Bazaar.
The UA grants Holland that ability to defend itself better while retaining a growth towards Golden Ages, which have been buffed. It may not be worth as much as in my specific example all the time, but it definitely is better then generally given credit for.

 

[mabalogna]

Ok i've gotten farther this morning in my Dutch game and i have to say that the UA is still wonderful after the early phase IF you exploit it using the Commerce tree.

They upgraded the luxury bonus in the commerce tree to 2 happiness per luxury instead of 1. What this effectively means is that a smart Dutch player going commerce can trade away all their resources for other resources and get +4 happiness when its your last one. This may sound a little weak, but when you're out exploring finding new continents you're opening up new luxuries that didn't spawn on yours and thus you have the opportunity to gain lots of happiness. In my current game, just by being able to trade away my last resources I was able to get everything i was missing and profit +16 happiness from the UA + Commerce combo. this isn't including the happiness i gained from even exchanges where i lost no resource.

This buff to the Commerce tree alone has made it a great synergy with the Dutch UA

 

[Arkangelus]

I'm not sure how the melee naval units level up, but with the aforementioned B17 starting with a city attack bonus, that means often from turn 1 if you've got barracks etc your bombers can instantly start with logistics, air repair etc. Starting on level TWO means even a simple armory/barracks in the producing city lets you unlock the absolute top tier of promotions that it'd normally take an entire game to get - logistics and range in the past, but I'm not sure what it'd be now for melee.

Oh and it has Supply! And the Privateer's normal prize ships.

My first thought when seeing it was a click of understanding, AH, they seemed weak before we knew everything about them, I get it now, they're ludicrously uber at that tiny specific niche.

 

[MaximusK]

So, playing the hemispheres small map. Probably my new favorite script.

I've been fighting Greece for about two thousand years. Theodora spawned next to me, we share Alex as an enemy, I tried to set up a religion but didn't have the faith to withstand the spread of Christianity. In any case, here is my take:

UA, I decided to just sell all my luxuries all the time. This gold was integral to upgrading units and building courthouses.

UU, great for stealing ships, with cities . . . there is a problem. If the coastal city is somewhat sheltered the Sea Beggar ends turn outside the city slightly damaged if the city is taken. A city + crossbow killed it off! Arg!! Very weak to bombardment. I'm about to experience an invasion from Monte (Theodora told me via intrigue). So i'll see how they work in the open water.

UI, ONE MARSH TILE ON THE WHOLE CONTINENT! Fail. (and no flood plains)

 

[ahawk]

ONE MARSH TILE ON THE WHOLE CONTINENT! Fail. (and no flood plains)

That's just terrible luck. I've played Netherlands twice already, and both times have found a substantial amount of marsh around or near my first city (playing standard map settings on Pangea Plus).

I'd say that for me, with start bias on, I still see 1 out of 10 times where I don't get the terrain usually connected to my chosen civ (no desert as Arabia, no snow as Denmark, not on the coastline as England, etc.) Start bias seems same as ever within the expansion, since 1 out of 10 is what I got in vanilla, too.

 

[RealHuhn]

So, here's my little review on the UA, based on how my game went.
I was in a rather remote corner of the world. My scouts did find the Celts, India, Sweden, Germany, France and the Iroquis, but the only one close to me was Rome. The rest was friendly to me, none of them particulary minding what I was doing.
Anyway, I move on to found Rotterdam early game, and Ceasar tells me to stop settling near him. Sure thing. So I move my next two cities away a bit from him, and he seems fine with that...but then he plants a city right next to Amsterdam. Right. He then decides to DoW me.
Now I had Cotton, Silk and two sets of Elephants close to me. However, Caesar already had Iron and his Legions were coming my way. I also had 8 happiness...and was getting close to a Golden Age.
So I sold the Cotton, Silk and both Elephants to the Celts, Germans, Iroquis and India. I still had positive happiness and could now afford a set of Composite Bowmen to defend Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Two turns later, I hit the Golden Age and I end up barely deflecting Caesar's assault (he got slowed down by the bogs - the beauty of starting with Holland), and with the profits made from the Golden Age I could raise an army that would later proceed to wipe Caesar off the map.
This couldn't have worked without the UA. Now you could say "But Bazaar", but NO. This was Early Classical age we are talking about (From the way Caesar's empire looked like, he probably beelined Iron), and I was working on the naval side of the tech tree, meaning that it would've taken quite a while before hitting Economics, leave alone the Bazaar.
The UA grants Holland that ability to defend itself better while retaining a growth towards Golden Ages, which have been buffed. It may not be worth as much as in my specific example all the time, but it definitely is better then generally given credit for.

But think about what would have happened if you sold those ressources right away.

The early game with netherlands should look like this: Scout, get the required techs and a worker to hook up your luxuries asap. Sell them immediately. Expand to more luxuries. Buy workers straight away to sell those new resources as well. Rinse and repeat and sell everything as long as you can stay happy.

With this strategy you'll swim in cash and as soon as you hit commerce -> -20% on rush buying, you are very flexible:

You want to:
win science? rationalism, buy universities, public houses in your core cities
win diplo? patronage, invest into city states which offer investments
win domination? buy and upgrade units *derp*
win culture? not that good unless you go for a tall empire

 

[mabalogna]

I think people aren't giving the Polder enough of a chance. So far in the game i'm working on it's provided a HUGE growth boost during the mid-game, and in the middle of the renaissance it gave me a really welcome Commerce bonus in the two cities i had which were each working 3 of them. This improvement is better then people give it credit - though it's certainly not a crutch ability that the Dutch player can rely on, but really it is useful if you plan your cities properly

 

[Calouste]

Polders are also quick to build. It takes 6 worker turns to buils a Polder on a Marsh, it takes 11 turns to build a Farm. Of course you are reliant on finding Marshes or Flood Plains, but Spain, Russia, Inca, Iroquois, Polynesia, Carthage and the Huns are also reliant on terrain features to make the most out of their UA/UI/UB.

 

[Monthar]

I just won a Diplomatic game as the Dutch.

By trading my luxuries early on for a luxury I didn't have nearby I was able to expand faster, thus hooking up even more luxuries to trade. The other benefit of these trades was I kept everyone friendly to me the entire game and had no wars.

The no wars at all with me was quite surprising since this game had the Huns and Mongols. I also had Siam, Iroquois, Spain, Korea and someone else who was killed off before I met them.

Twice Spain converted my capital/holy city with a GP.

The biggest surprise was when I completed the UN. First off, you can no longer vote for yourself. Secondly every civ voted for me so I ended up winning by a larger margin than I expected. I think they all voted for me because of all the trades and keeping pacts of friendship with everyone, even though several of them were constantly warring with each other.

As for the complaints of that reduced happiness making it harder to get an early golden age, early golden ages aren't that good because you don't have all your improvements done yet, nor the population to work very many tiles. By delaying the GA to grow another citizen in each city and have the improved tiles for that citizen to work you'd gain a lot more of a bonus from the GA.