Rather than making a separate thread for each civ, it's better to have a single thread with suggestions/discussions/unintended workarounds related to UHV conditions.
So I'll start with Holy Rome. Monarch/Normal/600AD. The conditions are:
SpoilerUHV :
* Control Saint Peter's Basilica and the Church of the Anastasis in 1200 AD
* Found Protestantism
* Settle three Great Artists in Vienna by 1700 AD
#1 is doable, but still challenging. I played less than optimally so my army conquered Jerusalem only in 1190. This was despite the Vikings not attacking me at all. Now my issue is that #2 and #3 are far too easy. No AI prioritises Printing, so founding Protestantism is no challenge. The three great artists can also be done pretty quickly if you build the Leaning Tower for the last one. I completed both #2 and #3 in 1460.
My (very rough) suggestions would be:
#2: Control the protestant shrine with 20 income in XYZ date
#3: Achieve Legendary (or will this be too much?) culture in Vienna
Wait, WHAT!? +1 Gold to all Towns and Villages can easily give +5 gold to most cities. Whenever I play Spain I rush to Paper and then to Printing specifically for the commerce. Am I overvaluing this tech, or are the AIs undervaluing it?
With immediate availability of theatre, three GA in Wien is an easy target and you do not need Leaning Tower.
I suggest to extend to 5 GA, adding National Theatre and Palace, and change by 1700 to in 1700, in order to deal with Turks
The 1700 date is thematically misfitting for a UHV called "City of Music". The golden age of Viennese classical music (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Strauss ...) was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, not around 1700. My guess is that 1700 was chosen so that the player would not have to deal with rising Prussia. But it could be interesting to deal with them, and play as a more modern Austria (or Austria-Hungary). How about a 1900 deadline (corresponding roughly to the end of Austria as a world power and major cultural center after WWI) with a more difficult goal like achieving legendary culture, as suggested above?
I also feel like the first two UHVs could be merged, since they're both about holy cities. E.g. "Control St. Peter's Basilica in 1000, Church of the Anastasis in 1200, and All Saint's Church in 1600".
This would open a spot for a new UHV. Perhaps something about the Hanseatic league, or the prominent banking families like the Fugger. Random suggestion: "Produce X commerce through trade routes in Year Y", where I have no idea what a realistic value would be for X, and Y would be anywhere between 1400 and 1700.
Wait, WHAT!? +1 Gold to all Towns and Villages can easily give +5 gold to most cities. Whenever I play Spain I rush to Paper and then to Printing specifically for the commerce. Am I overvaluing this tech, or are the AIs undervaluing it?
The 1700 date is thematically misfitting for a UHV called "City of Music". The golden age of Viennese classical music (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Strauss ...) was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, not around 1700. My guess is that 1700 was chosen so that the player would not have to deal with rising Prussia. But it could be interesting to deal with them, and play as a more modern Austria (or Austria-Hungary). How about a 1900 deadline (corresponding roughly to the end of Austria as a world power and major cultural center after WWI) with a more difficult goal like achieving legendary culture, as suggested above?
Surviving Prussia would be a pain since they'll flip your two main core cities. Not a fun situation to play in IMO, which is why their UHV has always ended at 1700 (Same with India and Mughals).
I also feel like the first two UHVs could be merged, since they're both about holy cities. E.g. "Control St. Peter's Basilica in 1000, Church of the Anastasis in 1200, and All Saint's Church in 1600".
This would open a spot for a new UHV. Perhaps something about the Hanseatic league, or the prominent banking families like the Fugger. Random suggestion: "Produce X commerce through trade routes in Year Y", where I have no idea what a realistic value would be for X, and Y would be anywhere between 1400 and 1700.
The 1700 date is thematically misfitting for a UHV called "City of Music". The golden age of Viennese classical music (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Strauss ...) was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, not around 1700. My guess is that 1700 was chosen so that the player would not have to deal with rising Prussia. But it could be interesting to deal with them, and play as a more modern Austria (or Austria-Hungary). How about a 1900 deadline (corresponding roughly to the end of Austria as a world power and major cultural center after WWI) with a more difficult goal like achieving legendary culture, as suggested above?
Surviving Prussia would be a pain since they'll flip your two main core cities. Not a fun situation to play in IMO, which is why their UHV has always ended at 1700 (Same with India and Mughals).
So I tried this yesterday. With reasonable focus (settling several Great Artists in Vienna and getting all the cultural buildings, but no investment in culture or building culture directly) I reached legendary culture in Vienna in the late 19th century, so it's definitely doable. There was some challenge in surviving war: being in the middle of Europe is tough! The Turks were über-powerful and advanced, and I couldn't stop them from conquering Vienna when I continued my game into the 1940s. And I was attacked at various times by the Russians, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italians, not to mention that spies kept sabotaging my improvements.
Despite the fact that it is frustrating to lose most of your core to the Prussians, I stand by my point. The game became very different and interesting after 1700, giving a sense of how difficult it must have been for Austria to survive as a major power in the middle of a hostile Europe.
Argentinian UHV needs finetuning as it seems you can basically do anything and win. TL;DR: first two UHV are easy but ok. You have some room for error. The last one has too big time window so either a) change time limit from turn 159 to turn 139, b) change to "finish six golden ages by 2000", c) change second UHV from turn 119 to turn 109, or d) change second UHV to 50000 culture by T119.
So, I've played three games on normal speed 1700 start: one 8 city Monarch, one 8 city Paragon and one one city challenge Paragon (mainly to check if winning is feasible even if you fail to capture Spanish cities). Win dates on all are within five turns of the second UHV deadline (T114-124).
Our unique ability is to use great generals to start golden ages. UHV targets are
1. finish two golden ages by T91 or 1930
2. have 25000 culture in Buenos Aires by T119 or 1960
3. finish five golden ages by T159 or 2000
1. This is ok. You can reach it easily without playing perfectly but it's still fun. You also have an option of stockpiling hard to get great people before starting a 16 turn golden age. Turn 86 deadline is an option.
2. This can be ok too, although it's possible to force great artist culture bombs with a turn 109 deadline. For the record, by T119 in Paragon OCC game, I estimate I could have had 41000 culture +/- 2000 even without culture bombs. Increasing culture demands to 50000 here would make the third UHV slower too as you'd be inclined to work artists a bit longer but someone should double check if it's feasible.
3. This is not ok since I reached it T120 easily. Either lower the deadline to turn 139 or increase golden age demands to six or change second UHV to be more demanding. It's fine to have a relaxed endgame but too relaxed is not motivating.
Additional option is to make up a completely new UHV target because UHV 1 can be made redundant with proper time limits on UHV 3. All I can think of is "reach global era by (date)" or something related to industrialization. The golden ages already represent the high living standards that were achieved in late 1800's, and continuing to get golden ages in the 1900's can be interpreted as having a healthy economy that is likely to avoid the recession that forced Argentina to take structural adjustment loans in the 1980's. What we don't have is balanced economy, research and production.
Still, I'm not sure if it's worth it to dilute the unique aspects of this UHV to force the player to advance technologically or industrialize properly (ie. with coal or hydro power). How would you even measure industrialization in-game? "Have 4 cities with power"? "Have a population in Buenos Aires that can only be achieved by farming your pastures, buying all health resources and getting the +10% food from supermarket"? The latter would be 56 food *1,1 = 61,6 food per turn which could also be achieved just by planting great merchants.
SpoilerThe dates I reached UHVs and something about strategy :
I reached first UHV on turns
82 (Monarch with great general)
79 (Paragon, probably with great general)
~86 (Paragon OCC, no generals, Statue of Liberty, postponed to have fully developed city before golden ages).
I reached second UHV
~T97 (Monarch, two cathedrals, free enterprise, egalitarianism and republic, the only game where I didn't kickstart culture by whipping Theatre and Estate but instead culture bombed twice)
T107 (Paragon, two cathedrals, free enterprise, egalitarianism and republic until forced democracy at T66)
T96 (Paragon OCC, no cathedrals, regulated trade, individualism, isolationism and democracy).
We basically learn that in first two games I undervalued regulated trade and the three free specialists from civics+wonder. In exchange I was able to focus my secondary cities to specific great people without high build costs. Therefore it might be possible to reach better times with wiser civics. You'd maybe get less great people from secondary cities but their main purpose is to build temples for cathedrals. You're practically guaranteed two religions in Buenos Aires. Anyone want to play a 4+ city game with regulated trade, individualism, isolationism and democracy to see if the dates can be pushed further back?
In first two games I conquered Montevideo and Santiago de Chile. Capturing Montevideo is not a necessary gambit as it has poor infrastructure and will flip anyway between first and second UHV.
We also notice that difficulty level means very little in this game. On Paragon it's very difficult to force cities from Spain it's more difficult to get tech trades, someone's going to send a space shuttle around T115 and nukes are a thing.
It seems fairly safe to go to war with Rifles against multiple more advanced civs. Getting great generals for extra golden ages shouldn't be difficult. Plus there's always weak targets across the sea. I didn't war that much in any of my games. You get the first general immediately and the second one can be reached fairly quickly too. Third one probably requires a war with Brazil or Peru. More war = faster golden ages.
Does anyone have any pointers for a 1700 AD America game? I've never played them in all my DoC years. They seem to have a nice core, and Chicago-Denver-New Orleans were the ancient golden triangle, that's all I know. But what is the civics choice and strategy for the start? Recommendations?
Thanks for the feedback, this is great. I originally had GAs only as a first goal and something else for economic prosperity, but then I realised economic prosperity is represented just as well with GAs too. The focus on GAs in conjunction with the UP (which allows you to solve it economically or militarily) is something unique to Argentinia and I'd like to keep it.
Since I'm a dull chap I decided to play Argentina once more, on normal/monarch with the optimal civics. I refused to build the Statue of Liberty although it's practically uncontested. Might dilute the earliest great people even if you'd end with more GP in general. I had built a Museum with great artist and had four extra great people plus two generals in store before starting the first golden age T73. Had 27000 culture T90 just from cottages at 100% culture with second cathedral on the way. Buenos Aires had 50000 culture T111 again without culture bombs so upgrading the second UHV seems possible. Finished the fifth golden age T113 which is the earliest yet, and started the sixth in time to finish it before T159 deadline so that's possible too although you can't afford to have more than one or two useless great people. Seventh GA would be torture even with extra time.
This game was interesting as Inca were independent and Spanish South American colonies became independent within decades. For testing purposes I didn't abuse the opportunity for easy generals although Peru did attack me, as did Brazil and Korea. Got two generals that way. Didn't make peace with Korea and later on Great Britain inherited the war. Didn't make peace with them either to see whether being blockaded and airstriked would bury the six golden age dream. In similar vein I chose to get the third general by fighting the Brazilians who already had biplanes, infantry and tanks. Unsurprisingly it ended badly, with Buenos Aires dropping from 21 pop to 9. Did get the general though.
I had only one extra great person after starting the sixth golden age which means that it's definitely doable, especially if you build Statue of Liberty and don't let Buenos Aires fall to ruin. Definitely doable still means tricky, as your chance of getting the great person you want from Buenos Aires is only around 88% and getting one takes around 15 turns at that point. Six golden ages are cool but you might not want to force the player to chase that dream as the sixth took ~40 turns to achieve. Makes the ones before that feel like a breeze.
SpoilerPics as it happened :
Ready to start first golden age, the great people shown are extras. One artist has built a Museum.
Buenos Aires with brand new Triumphal Arch, 21 turns from becoming Legendary and being promptly pillaged, starved and bombarded in a war of folly.
The last Ottoman UHV (more culture than all European civs combined) is pretty easy and not too fun (culture whoring for 100 turns? No thank you!). Maybe make it something like "Be more scientifically and culturally advanced than all European civs in 1800AD".
With immediate availability of theatre, three GA in Wien is an easy target and you do not need Leaning Tower.
I suggest to extend to 5 GA, adding National Theatre and Palace, and change by 1700 to in 1700, in order to deal with Turks
I confirm what i previously said.
Holy Roman UHV is too easy.
The hard part is to conquer Venice and Rome in the beginning, after that the game is a piece of cake.
I won in 1400, settling the third GA in Vienna (with another GA available within 3 more turns), and Palace and Academy built in Vienna.
I think a more interesting UHV is to settle 5 GA in Vienna, or to build Academy, National Theatre, Cathedral, Palace, and suggestion accepted.
What about Moors? 5 is just an absolutely insane number. Why not 4? You can get 5 maybe if you need any great person, but if merchants and artists are excluded one does not even have enough vacancies to hire the right people.
About 1st French UHV: 25000 culture in Paris in 1700AD
I was not able to achive it.
Built theatre and weaver in Bordeaux and Marseille,
changed civ to monasticism to increment GP rate
Built salon in both cities to increment GP rate
In Paris i built NotreDame and Versailles, and other cultural buildings.
I got not enough GA to make 25000 culture in Paris in time.
About 1st French UHV: 25000 culture in Paris in 1700AD
I was not able to achive it.
Built theatre and weaver in Bordeaux and Marseille,
changed civ to monasticism to increment GP rate
Built salon in both cities to increment GP rate
In Paris i built NotreDame and Versailles, and other cultural buildings.
I got not enough GA to make 25000 culture in Paris in time.
GAs culture depend on era, so I am thinking technology is the key. You need to save your GA for much later and use them after you got to industrial age or even Global (with flight). Did you use your Great Artist right after you got him?
And what is a Pendent Tower? The Leaning Tower you mean? I would assume yes, the most crazy GP generator (+100%!) is a must have for this civ.
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income in XYZ date
