Treasure Fleet Tips?

[Ashmantious]

I haven't played CIV VII since the last couple of updates came out. I love the Economic Victory Path, especially the option to retain all of your cities instead of them all converting back to towns. Before, the treasure fleets came way too easy in the Exploration Age. I often would sandbag and store the fleets in safe harbors and navigable rivers so I could progress in other exploration goals. Now, it seems like the pendulum has swung hard in the other direction. I'm in my second game since the last update (I know another one is due out soon so this may be moot), in my first game, I barely hit the first milestone. I'm in my second game and I'm not sure I will even hit that as the treasure fleet resources in distance lands are so scarce, I'm not sure if I can settle enough to get the points. Those of you who have mastered the Economic path of the exploration age, I would love to hear your tips and strategies for how you navigate this part of the game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I haven't played CIV VII since the last couple of updates came out. I love the Economic Victory Path, especially the option to retain all of your cities instead of them all converting back to towns. Before, the treasure fleets came way too easy in the Exploration Age. I often would sandbag and store the fleets in safe harbors and navigable rivers so I could progress in other exploration goals. Now, it seems like the pendulum has swung hard in the other direction. I'm in my second game since the last update (I know another one is due out soon so this may be moot), in my first game, I barely hit the first milestone. I'm in my second game and I'm not sure I will even hit that as the treasure fleet resources in distance lands are so scarce, I'm not sure if I can settle enough to get the points. Those of you who have mastered the Economic path of the exploration age, I would love to hear your tips and strategies for how you navigate this part of the game.

As said, a new Update is coming tomorrow, so we may be shouting into an empty barrel to hear the echoes, but the Exploration Economic (Treasure Fleet) Path is still utterly map-dependent. I've played a couple of games in which 5 - 7 resources were clustered on islands and the Legacy Path was easy to get - finished half-way through the Age, in fact .

Then, in my last three games, I had fabulous Antiquity Ages: finished all the Legacy Paths, set up to charge into the Exploration Age
- And in the three games combined I found a total of 4 treasure fleet resources on all the islands - and only 1 resource per island, so requiring 4 settlements to exploit them all. In the third game I kept playing until the map was completely revealed, and there were a total of 7 resources on the entire map, which means for the 7 Civs in the game (I play Standard Map with one less AI Civ to provide lots of exploration room), unless one of them managed to grab half the resources, there was no chance of any of them completing the Legacy Path.

Hopefully, tomorrow's update will fix the resource allocation and distribution, but I am not optimistic: in three renditions (Civs V, VI and VII) they still haven't gotten something as basic as Starting terrain bias consistently right, so getting any other terrain problem solved doesn't look likely.

 

[javier51]

The economic legacy points from the Age of Exploration are now (Patch 1.2.1) by far the hardest. Only the antiquity cultural ones can compare in difficulty. The problem with treasure fleets is that they depend heavily on the map you have (I note while writing this that Boris Gudenuf has already answer in a similar way). In most cases, I get between 1 and 2 points, if I'm very unlucky, 0 points, and if I'm very lucky, 3 points (for example, a settlement with 4 treasure resources and a couple more with at least one).

If your priority is already deploying ships to explore the ocean from the start, risking a bit of sinking and preparing settlers before knowing where to send them, there's little else you can do. Starting researching Astronomy for the observatories to get shipbuilding as soon as possible, but it's not too much what can be done.

In terms of setup, the map type doesn't help me; anything from Archipelago to Pangaea Plus can work or become imposible. It does seem to help to reduce the number of civilizations so they all spawn on the same continent. That is, for example, on a standard-sized map, setting up the game for 4 computers + yourself will definitely help.

With patch 1.2.2, the ability to use inland resources will definitely help. We don't know if they'll fix the problem with something additional, like more frequent resources. With the new patch I'm also thinking about a game using a large or huge map and removing some civilizations so that there would be land left to conquer on the other continent. This can be fun as a making different game styles, but it's not a definitive solution. Certainly, on the standard setup, the economic legacies of the Age of Exploration should have a similar difficulty to the rest.

 

[Navelgazer]

Not much to add beyond what others have said here, except that Songhai is currently super-buffed specifically for Treasure Fleets, in a way that's dependent on Navigable Rivers in the homelands rather than treasure resources in Distant Lands. Maybe that feels like cheating to you, but it virtually guarantees getting the Treasure Fleets GA (provided you have the rivers, of course.)

 

[uppi]

The chances are obviously map-dependent: if there are only 3 eligible treasure resources on the map, the 3 legacy points are not going to happen. But if you want to maximize your chances try to do the following:

• In Antiquity, try to secure access to both costs (east and west) of your homelands. You will have an easier time discovering treasure resources as well as bringing fleets back
• Build up a good gold economy. Shipping things over will take too much time and it will be a while until you have good production in distant lands, so you want to be able to buy things there
• Plan on having to use violence and bring over army commanders as soon as it is safe to do so.
• Try to secure yourself a base of operations in distant lands early. Preferably, on both coasts with some treasure resources in range, but you need something you can buy stuff in
• If you can settle something: great. Immediately buy buildings to bring the population up to 5, so you can buy settlers
• If you cannot settle: Look for lightly defended towns of the AI you can take off them (but be aware that it will take 10 turns until you can buy something there). Cities are often much harder to take, so this is more something for when you have already a base in distant lands.
• If there is an independent power hogging treasure resources, you need to kill them. In the best case you time it, so you have a settler nearby when you do it.
• Aim for hostile relations with at least one AI in the distant lands. You may even want to use hostile greetings.
• If you can find land with treasure resources to settle, buy settlers and do that. If not, identify juicy AI settlements, buy an army and liberate those resources
• Every point counts, settle any treasure resource in sight.

 

[Suicidekills]

Scouting is very important to find the best locations. Taking out city-states is useful as they usually spawn on one or two of the treasure resources, or if you got the influence, you might prefer to suzerain and then incorporate. Rushing to shipbuilding is probably also beneficial. When you place your distant land settlements, you can use urban districts to help spread out your land to make sure all treasure resources are online. Also, try not to complete any other legacy paths too quickly, as this could shave off some turns you need to finish the economic legacy path.

I welcome the update of the trade convoys as it probably should have already been in the game, but I don't think it will do much to alleviate the map/RNG dependent issues said by others. I do however highly recommend Hatshepsut/Egypt run into Songhai as Navelgazer has mentioned. Their version of the ecomonic legacy path is a lot of fun. In fact, after playing Mongolia, I think every Civilization should have a unique way to complete one specific legacy. Or maybe they have their own unique legacy path?

 

[user746383]

Something to keep in mind, if you conquer some/all of your opponents in the non-distant lands, they have nowhere to deliver their fleets.