Viregel's Guide to Indonesia!

[Viregel]

Many moons ago, a diligent young traveller came across an island in the Indian Ocean. After many weeks of looking for human life on the island, he stumbled across a rice paddy, with a slightly overweight man brandishing a misshapen sword standing in it for no good reason. The traveller went up to him, and asked him why he was standing in this rice paddy for no good reason.

"I am standing in this rice paddy so that I can lead my nation" the man said.

"How can you lead a nation by standing in a rice paddy?"

"You obviously haven't played CiV" the man replied.

"OK, let me try then" the traveller said, slightly annoyed.

"Fine, but you can only play as...

wait for it..."

Indonesia​

The man took out his laptop and handed it to the traveller. Within about fifteen minutes he had been thrashed on Settler. Now, I hear you ask, why? The reason is he hadn't read this guide. So, to avoid being the laughing stock of the Civ world, read this.

Overview

Leader: Gajah Mada.
Back in the day, he was the Prime Minister of Majapahit. Like most politicians, he made promises, such as to conquer the whole Indonesian Archipelago. Unlike most politicians, he actually did it.

Unique Ability: Spice Islanders.
Gain 2 copies of a luxury for the first 3 cities you found on another continent (and they can't be razed, but that's not really important). Essentially, you can get +24 happiness with this, or a ton more resources and no happiness, or something in-between.

Unique Unit: Kris Swordsman.
Replaces Swordsman. Gains a free unique promotion after its first round of combat. These promotions are normally pretty damn OP, but if you get a bad one, there's ways to deal with that as well.

Unique Building: Candi.
Replaces Garden. +2 faith, and +2 for every follower of a different religion in the city. Pretty much the premier faith-generating machine.

Spice Islanders.​

What this ability encourages you to do is go out and settle on other landmasses. The advantages of this are that you can get more available trade routes if the cities are spread out enough, and you can get more trade deals with more luxuries (and possibly more from luxuries on other continents).

Kris Swordsman.​

As previously mentioned, the Kris Swordsman can get some unique promotions. The promotions are as follows:

Invulnerability: +30% Combat Bonus when defending. +20 HP when healing.
Sneak Attack: Flank attack bonus increased by 50%.
Heroism: Unit awards combat bonus to nearby units as if it is a Great General.
Ambition: +50% Combat Bonus when attacking. -20% penalty when defending.
Restlessness: May attack twice, 1 extra movement.
Recruitment: Heals all damage if the unit kills a non-Barbarian unit.
Enemy Blade: Takes 20 damage if the unit ends its turn in enemy territory.
Evil Spirits: -10% penalty when attacking. -30% penalty when defending.

(Thanks, wiki)

So, as you can see, the first six promotions are awesome, and the last two are not so awesome. If you get Enemy Blade or Evil Spirits, you may be tempted to give up the game. However, if you do get that, you could have the Enemy Blade as the Homeguard, or even put him next to a city during a siege so that the AI bombards it instead of your siege weapons. Anyway, it's probably worthwhile to kill them off and get new ones, and by killing them, you're even getting Great General points! In my opinion, Restlessness is the best promotion, athough others are likely to hold different opinions.

Candi.​

At first sight, you may mistake this for a common faith building, but it is far from it. In the late game, you can faith purchase some stuff just with the faith from the Candi, because if you have at least one follower of a religion of a city, that's already 4 faith. You're more likely to be in the region of 6 - 8 though, so you should be able to get sufficient faith. Furthermore, there is no requirement for building the Candi, so every city can get one. As it's got +25% Great Person generation, then you've got a lot of GPs.

Synergy in Diversity.​

So, as the intrigued reader may be asking, where is the synergy is this civ? Well, for a start, there's a ton that you probably just missed. First of all, the Candi's faith bonus and the settling on other continents go hand-in-hand, as you're likely to get a lot of religious diversity by doing this. Secondly, having more happiness works well with the Kris Swordsman, because as the unit is designed to be offensive, it can just take cities and forget about how massive unhappy the civ is. The best thing is, that if your happiness drops too low and you're forced to leave most of the captured cities as puppets, they will build Candis, and as they're on Gold focus, they'll generate a ton of Great Merchants, making Diplomatic Victory an option.

Indonesia is also pretty good at any other victory type:

Science: Faith-buy/generate Great Scientists while playing tall with a ton of luxuries.
Culture: Faith-buy/generate Great Artists/Writers/Musicians and steal works with the Kris Swordsman.
Domination: Faith-buy/build units, trade luxuries for resources/gold for units and spam Kris Swordsmen like mad.
Diplomatic: Faith-buy/generate Great Merchants and trade luxuries for money.

OK, I think I'm done. Please forgive me if this isn't the type of thing for this sub-forum, as it's the first time I've done anything like this. Also, give me 5 minutes to create some reserves, please!

 

[Viregel]

Scientific Victory​

Science can be a pretty good victory type for Indonesia. Great People are easy to get with Indonesia, and I'd argue that of all Great People, Great Scientists are the best. So, let's explore this strategy!

General Tips.​

First of all, Indonesia is very good at going tall or wide. For Science, you'll want to go tall, so you'll need to know how to do it. Firstly, settle four cities (Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar), possibly more, but no less. The reason for this is that of you can get as many luxuries as possible, so you won't run into growth problems, and you'll take full advantage of your UA as long as you settle on other continents.

Secondly, Tradition fits perfectly with this, as it tends to benefit your first four cities. I'd recommend using it.

Finally, your preferred ideology is Freedom in this situation. The reasons are that it's bit good for small empires and it helps with Science Victory.

Early Game. ​

To start your game, I'd suggest getting Writing first. At the same time, get a monument in Jakarta. Full build list:

Monument -> Worker -> Library -> Granary -> Trireme -> Trireme -> Settler
Pottery -> Writing -> Luxury Tech -> Sailing -> Optics

After this, I'd suggest establishing some trade routes, and GET THAT SETTLER TO ANOTHER CONTINENT. You may want to build a Trireme instead of a Warrior, but it really depends how dangerous the seas are. After this, get some luxuries (athough you can hold off for a while, as the new city won't contribute any unhappiness initially). Try to get some iron for Kris Swordsmen, although they are not needed for this strategy. It may also be worthwhile getting the National College before settling the city.

Mid Game. ​

Now, you'll want to go into uber-trade-route-management mode. You need to get as much gold as possible for research agreements; however, do try to save some for buying Spaceship parts later. It's also worthwhile getting some tourism to help you when Ideology Pressure comes in later. Try to get Candis in all of your cities as well, and try to get four cities before the Renaissance, and once you do hit it, get Rationalism. Next, you'll want to get scientific theory, and after that, go for Industrialisation, but if you're going to hit Modern Era faster than you're going to research Industrialisation and build three factories, then do that.

Late Game. ​

Adopt your ideology (Freedom if possible) and then make sure that you're ahead in tech. Buy some Great Scientists with faith, and possibly put some cities on science focus. Keep getting Science buildings, keep tech lead, and build airports in your cities. Once you've got the Hubble Space Telescope, then build/buy spaceship parts like mad, transport them to Jakarta, and win. That's about all there is to it.

Also note that this has not been tested.

 

[Viregel]

Diplomatic Victory. ​

Indonesia is better at diplomatic victory than a lot of people think they are; gold is really all you need to win, and Indonesia can get a lot easily. One thing that may be quite useful is to sell all the bonus luxuries. That's about 42 gold per turn you can make from around the Medieval Era, possibly earlier. That adds up to a whole lot of gold and imminent diplomatic victory.

General Tips. ​

Get the best deals you can on your bonus luxuries. If you play your cards right, you'll be able to get 42 or more gold per turn from the early game (standard speed). If you keep that up, you'll be able to ally a city-state within around 25-or-less turns just from the bonus luxuries. However, your mass gold-ending doesn't end here. As your cities are going to be quite spread out due to the luxuries, you'll probably end up with more trade routes going to your cities, and a lot more gold.

Early Game. ​

To start your game, go for the fairly standard Indonesian strategy of settling on other continents. There's not really a paticular build order, but you'll probably want to go for Writing, followed by Optics, and then gradually go towards Currency to get Markets. Once you get Kris Swordsmen, however, you can destroy everyone on the map in the name of diplomacy!

Wait, what?

"Viregel, what the hell are you doing?!? ", I hear you cry out in a single, pained breath, looking at this screen as if it were your worst enemy. "You're crazy, I'd known it from the start! War isn't diplomacy! You'll never win this game now! This isn't strategy, this is madness!"

To anyone repeating these lines, I'd like to say that a) It (probably) works, b) War is a continuation of diplomacy by other means, and c) This. Is. Sparta!

The reason for this is that puppeted cities will be on gold focus by default, which gives you both more gold and higher Great Merchant generation, which are important for diplomatic victory. Taking these cities will also get you more trade partners, and hopefully a city in a good location that has loads of luxuries that are rarely found on the map.

Mid Game. ​

In the mid game, you'll want to make sure that your trade routes are as profitable as possible. Try to found the World Congress if you can, but it's not a necessity. I'd suggest trying to grab the Forbidden Palace if you can, so take Patronage as soon as possible, and get Banking for the banks/wonder. Try to trade every last luxury, because if you've got at least 10 happiness, you should be fine. Notre Dame may also be a good wonder to pick up for this strategy.

Late Game. ​

All that's really required now is to sit back and enjoy victory. Both Autocracy and Freedom are fine, but Order isn't too bad either. If you can, keep a ton of Great Merchants until the World Leader vote, and then ally with most of the city-states, and use your immense wealth to pick up the rest. You may also want to faith-buy a couple of Great Merchants, as you will get quite a lot of faith from the Candi if you use the Trade Routes to their fullest.

That's about all there is to Diplomatic Victory for Indonesia, and they could even be better than Venice, as trading benefits you, but actually gives the other person less gold, making for a good diplomatic strategy.

Rest of the strategy up in a couple of days!

 

[Viregel]

Domination Victory.​

Again, taking over the world is a good way for Indonesia to claim victory. The main reason for this is the amazingly overpowered abilities of the Kris Swordsman. However, the awesomeness of Indonesia's reign over the world doesn't end there. Seeing as you can get 12 happiness just from the bonus luxuries, and even manage to get 24 with some luxury-for-luxury trading, you can easily get enough happiness to win.

General Tips.​

First off, you'll want to get those luxuries as fast as possible. Found four cities in major happiness locations if possible. If you are playing on Archipelago, you may want to take advantage of Gajah Mada's Armada. To construct this fleet, you'll probably want to get a ton of Frigates, probably a Privateer or two, and get them to attack everything. Once you get +1 range on them, they'll be unstoppable.

Early Game.​

You'll want to build up as many Kris Swordsmen as possible. It may not be the best idea to use them in the early game, but you can become the Scourge of Barbarians and eradicate them from the earth. If there are a lot of barbarians near your start location, then Honour is definitely a good path to go for. Let everyone else do early warmongering, while you build up a formidable military and out-teaching most people. This is the point that you need to get as much gold as possible, as everyone's going to hate you in the mid and late game. You'll also want to explore the world so you can find your targets and create a plan of attack.

​

Mid Game.

​

Now you can start warmongering. Build up a navy, and possibly take a couple of capitals. Make sure that they are well-defended so that if some idiot thinks they can retake their city, they will get destroyed. Make sure that you have promoted Kris Swordsmen to launch land attacks as well as naval, and make sure that you have quite a strong tech lead. If you can attack with both sea and land units, then do so, to make sure you have minimal casualties. Keep getting useful techs and staying ahead in Science. Also, aim to take just the capital is possible, as this will make sure that people don't immediately hate you. Rely on trade routes to city-states, preferably near your borders, so you can have a reasonable income. This is the point where you need to build up your Culture as well to prevent you from taking much unhappiness from ideologies. However, don't aim to win the game now if it's pretty difficult; perhaps take one or two capitals, and then sit back and get experience for your navy. Once you have about five frigates with +1 range, you'll be unstoppable.

​

Late Game.

​

It's possible to win a Domination Victory before this, but if you haven't, then go straight for military techs. Get a modern navy and land army to help you finish the game. If you really want to, use some nukes. Also, if any capitals are inland, this doesn't make your navy useless; in fact, the opponent is less likely to have a formidable navy, so you can wreck their costal cities and have them far too distracted to see your massive land forces approaching their doomed court.

It's pretty much standard domination strategy (i.e. kill everyone) but has been somewhat adapted to Indonesia.

 

[Viregel]

Kinda need another reserve, just in case.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Trade routes to faraway holy cities are a great way to leverage the candi. This favors coastal cities in a way that is not immediately obvious.

 

[Viregel]

Trade routes to faraway holy cities are a great way to leverage the candi. This favors coastal cities in a way that is not immediately obvious.

I'd indirectly implies that with the Religious Diversity, but thank you for clearing that up properly.

 

[Petiscator]

I'm liking this so far and will test the scientific strategy on emperor. I only have two remarks:

- The first four Indonesian cities are Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar, not Jakarta, Medan, Surybaya and Bataman (I believe the 5th is actually Batam);

- Is this strategy intended for Archipellago?

Thanks for the guide. I'm looking forward to reading it all.

 

[Viregel]

I'm liking this so far and will test the scientific strategy on emperor. I only have two remarks:

- The first four Indonesian cities are Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar, not Jakarta, Medan, Surybaya and Bataman (I believe the 5th is actually Batam);

- Is this strategy intended for Archipellago?

Thanks for the guide. I'm looking forward to reading it all.

Thanks! I remembered that the city name looked kind of like "Batman", and I meant to look it up, but I was too lazy to do so. The strategy is best suited for archipelago, but it can be used on any map type. It does look like it is only of any use on maps with a ton of islands, but as long as there are four distinct (and fairly big) landmasses, then it's viable. Also, would you mind taking some screenshots of how you get on in your game? I've fired up a game myself, and aside from getting two "Evil Spirits" faint I'm doing fine. However, I'm too busy writing this to actually test it, so if you can, please do so, thanks!

Edit: I'm away for the next few days without an Internet connection, so the rest of the guide will take a while to get up, possibly Monday or Tuesday. I'll keep writing it while I'm away, though, but it means that I'm going to have to do everything from memory and leave it mostly untested.

 

[Petiscator]

I haven't started playing yet, but I think I will in the next few hours. I will sure provide some feedback! I might not be the best player to test this, though

 

[Viregel]

I haven't started playing yet, but I think I will in the next few hours. I will sure provide some feedback! I might not be the best player to test this, though

Thanks! I really want to know if this works myself.

 

[Petiscator]

Thanks! I really want to know if this works myself.

I played it for a while on an Arquipelago, Emperor level. I will post the screenies later. I think there are a few things I would change:

- The trireme instead of an extra warrior seems essential to me, on an Arqui map. If we are going to settle 3 cities on other islands, there should be one or two triremes exploring the seas to find the best spots available.

- The archer didn't seem really necessary to me. Maybe because I had 0 barbs on my island, but I didn't train it because...

- ... there are too many stuff to build with that build/research order. This is probably my main complaint: it took me a lot of time to get the settler, but I had already finished optics many turns before.

- Some starts require a few other techs to work. I had a lucky 2 salt + 3 wheat + river + 1 jungle spices start, so until I researched mining (after optics. I decided to strictly follow the strat) I could farm some tiles. But I wonder what would have happened if I had spawned on a huge jungle - perhaps the worker would be useless for many turns, costing 1 gpt. I guess it is possible to switch archery for a lux tech or even insert a lux tech in the Research Order. I know Spice Islanders means we won't be needing luxuries so soon, but the tile development of the capital is important too.

- I didn't see a shrine at the build order, so I built one after the settler, to get a decent pantheon. This seemed to work ok. The candis will make up for the "religious race", I guess.

- I was on my way to Philosophy when my computer shut down because of the heat. Here in Brazil it's Summer, and today is 32 C, so I usually have these sorts of problems by this time of the year. Before it shut down, I had 3 cities on 3 separate islands, but no trading partners (Boudicca was poor and Ashurbanipal was miserable). Exploring with triremes should solve this, but my map had sort of an isolated coastline... My empire was pretty happy, though. I chose to delay the foundation of Makassar so I could build the National College asap, but the cities of Medan and Surabaya would still take many turns to finish their libraries. I expected a NC by turn 100 or so.

Well, these are the major remarks. I hope I helped! I might post some screenies I took later, but, for now, this is it.

 

[Viregel]

I played it for a while on an Arquipelago, Emperor level. I will post the screenies later. I think there are a few things I would change:

- The trireme instead of an extra warrior seems essential to me, on an Arqui map. If we are going to settle 3 cities on other islands, there should be one or two triremes exploring the seas to find the best spots available.

- The archer didn't seem really necessary to me. Maybe because I had 0 barbs on my island, but I didn't train it because...

- ... there are too many stuff to build with that build/research order. This is probably my main complaint: it took me a lot of time to get the settler, but I had already finished optics many turns before.

- Some starts require a few other techs to work. I had a lucky 2 salt + 3 wheat + river + 1 jungle spices start, so until I researched mining (after optics. I decided to strictly follow the strat) I could farm some tiles. But I wonder what would have happened if I had spawned on a huge jungle - perhaps the worker would be useless for many turns, costing 1 gpt. I guess it is possible to switch archery for a lux tech or even insert a lux tech in the Research Order. I know Spice Islanders means we won't be needing luxuries so soon, but the tile development of the capital is important too.

- I didn't see a shrine at the build order, so I built one after the settler, to get a decent pantheon. This seemed to work ok. The candis will make up for the "religious race", I guess.

- I was on my way to Philosophy when my computer shut down because of the heat. Here in Brazil it's Summer, and today is 32 C, so I usually have these sorts of problems by this time of the year. Before it shut down, I had 3 cities on 3 separate islands, but no trading partners (Boudicca was poor and Ashurbanipal was miserable). Exploring with triremes should solve this, but my map had sort of an isolated coastline... My empire was pretty happy, though. I chose to delay the foundation of Makassar so I could build the National College asap, but the cities of Medan and Surabaya would still take many turns to finish their libraries. I expected a NC by turn 100 or so.

Well, these are the major remarks. I hope I helped! I might post some screenies I took later, but, for now, this is it.

Thank you very much for the feedback! I'll be sure to update it. I agree with the Trireme over Warrior, so I'll change that. Also, for the build order, it's more what I generally do; besides, for Tradition, monument first is normally a good plan. I very rarely take Archery early, but I decided it would be needed if you had a large empire to defend. I'll replace Archery with a luxury tech as well. As for the shrine, I'd say there's no harm in founding a pantheon, but I deribalitly wouldn't found a religion just to get more religious diversity. I'd say you just got unlucky with the map type, but again thank you very much for this, it's much appreciated.

 

[echolalia]

Your map choice is very important when you play Indonesia as you cannot settle 2 cities on the same island and receive the bonus Luxuries in both cities. (the first one will gain but not the second) . So if you play on continents map type you might only get one set of luxuries unless you are prepared to settle on a one tile island if there are any. Pangea is risky , pangea plus is a total no-no. Huge earth is pretty good if you spawn in east Asia, as you can settle on the (surprise, surprise!) Indonesian islands,Taiwan , Japan,Australia and New Zealand.

 

[Viregel]

OK, Domination done! I'll get Culture Victory done within the next few days.

 

[qemist]

Certainly some good ideas in this guide! I do think founding a religion is a good play because of the synergies with Peace Gardens (+2 Candi never tasted so sweet!) as well as Jesuit Education. Using this I was easily able to establish a tech lead (on emp) by the mid-game and never had any happiness problems. For domination you could consider Holy Warriors so you could use all that faith to spam out kris men.

Although I added my own ideas I went much better after reading your guide than in my first Indon game where I got obsessed with overbuilding those kris men. It was like a lucky dip. What did I get this time? Evil Spirits, dammit! Try again...