Hey guys! I am looking for a new challenge and was wondering, what do you think is the most challenging UHV that is possible without cheating and doesn't require a ton of luck (like receiving a lot of techs from goodie huts or getting lucky on low percentage GP spawn)?
I personally have had the most diffeculty with the Japanese UHVs. Capturing large swaths of land, while keeping ahead technologically against the US and UK took many a run.
Well the most challenging civUHVs are the ones that require a ton of luck along with a high if not impossible difficulty.
Some of them are: Inca, Congolese, Egypt, Babylon.
But if you instead wants some hard but yet possible you should try:
Byzantine (a constant military struggle)
Arabs (both a military struggle and a science one)
And if you really want to try it hard do it on Paragon difficulty.
A lot of these civ's UHV test your ability to balance multiple priorities (conquest, economy, culture, etc) at once while containing little luck.
There are many UHVs I would avoid, which contains goals that I think require an unreasonable amount of luck in order to win. They generally fall into two categories:
1) Most civs with a "Be the first to research X, Y and Z" goal simply have to pray that another civ doesn't research it first, as civs spawning before you often have superior commerce and infrastructure. Sure, you may have the better research modifiers, but it takes quite a while before you can properly leverage that.
2) Most civs with a "be the first to build X, Y and Z wonder" are in the same boat as the research goal civs. America can very very easily have it's wonders stolen by Europeans, who will probably be half an era ahead of you by the time you spawn. It will take you the better part of a century to close that gap, by which time you can easily have one of the multiple wonders you're required to build sniped from you. Don't even get me started on Brazil.
The worst offenders are:
Egypt (Greece can randomly decide to build the Great Lighthouse early. If it chooses to do so, you lose)
Japan (Good luck trying to out-research AIs who pay 60% of what you do to research a technology even on the standard difficulty)
Inca (To be honest, seems impossible outright)
Italians (The Holy Romans will probably start at tech parity with you while having superior infrastructure and production, you will be easily beaten to ALL of your needed wonders unless you get extremely lucky)
Honorable mentions go to Prussia and America, who pretty much require you to do weird cheesy things like invading and destroying England, Netherlands and France at spawn (more or less) so you can actually meet your tech goal (Prussia) or build the needed wonders (America).
Now, to be clear, I'm not a perfect player and it's possible that say, the Incan UHV is actually possible and has challenges that I can't overcome as a player. These are just my opinions on what's fun and what isn't!
I think it's Japan. the tech disadvantage you have is brutal and I have no idea how to close the gap in the industrial/modern eras.
Also HRE, good luck recruiting 8 content European civs.
I've been doing test runs with Japan, and I will say the following:
Maintaining tech parity or superiority requires ahistorical gameplay, but it is doable. If one sends units to explore Eurasia, one can get favorable trades from the Turkmen, Byzantines, Germans and Mughals and easily outpace China and Mongolia. The SE Asian neighbors are very weak with technological advancements and thus staying within East Asia is ill-advised for the tech goals. One can get much faster tech progress if one maximizes great scientists (academies, settled great scientists, bulbing) and adopts civics to maximize food and commerce yields (meritocracy for super rice and extra commerce from specialists and wind/water mills; caste system for extra food on plantations; regulated trade for extra commerce on plantations, workshops and lumbermills).
The more difficult goal, I feel, is the cultural one. Getting a high average city culture (average of 9,000 points on the Epic speed, by year 1600, and without losing cities) is super difficult because Japan's home territory is very low on production potential, keeping Buddhism as the state religion (clergy for faster production or monasticism for faster GP spawning) can only do so much. The Himeji Castle wonder isn't that helpful because it only provides the fortified unit cultural bonus in the city holding the wonder, rather than in all cities (this would make it far easier, and far more historical), and its own cultural output is quite low as well. If one wants to get the high average culture within the current constraints, it would be by neglecting expansion and research to an absolute extent: getting only great artists, focus on building cultural buildings rather than units, workers, research buildings or well-being (health/happiness/economic) buildings.
Japan also suffers from insufficient health and happiness yields from the resources within its home territory, and given that the resources were placed with the goal of self-sufficiency (one of each in most cases), there isn't much available for trading either. This has made me adopt the settlement of the Philippines super early on, ideally before the Mongol conquests to secure it against Spain's later arrival. Food loses its utility if the major cities (usually Kyoto and Edo, sometimes Himeji, Matsuyama or a well-played Nagasaki) because the population can't be kept happy and healthy enough.
On the specifics of the production strategy, I tend to favor lumbermills over mines because they preserve the forest (and thus health bonus), can get commerce from them once paper is researched, and can add production to flat grasslands. I also alternate production between Kyoto and Edo, by having one of them use both metal mines while the other produces something which uses food (settlers, workers or military units under the Tributaries civic). I also avoid developing the silks until the riverside tile next to Edo gets the forest, otherwise I get the watermill in there.
As for settlement in other areas, Manchuria might be the best bet to add a higher production output. Iron, horses, forests for chopping/lumbermills, hilly areas and plains terrain towards Mongolia and northern China. It is, however, a risky gamble because it's a contested area against Mongolia, Korea and later Russia. The other strategy is rushing Korea, which has a nearly identical assortment of resources as Japan's (thus opening trade opportunities) but is also a gamble due to Korea vassalizing to China or Mongolia. Meanwhile, Hokkaido is super weak because it lacks food. If it had a water-based food resource, deer or even a river, then this wouldn't be a problem. For that reason I've tended to settle Aomori (silver tile) and use cast system food on the dye and both silks north of Edo.
A very unconventional strategy would be one based on espionage: weakening the East Asian neighbors (China, Mongolia, Korea) with spy missions, tech theft (and thus not benefitting them with tech trades) and using most of the commerce output for aggressive cultural investments.
A final strategy to boost the economy early on is to vassalize the SE Asian states under the colonialism or tributaries to maximize commerce output and getting the happiness bonus from dominating other civs. This would allow the attainment of the territorial expansion goals early on and would provide opportunities to strengthen the vassals' techs while getting preferential access to their resources.
Here's some views of my Japan run, showing most of these strategies and challenges:
on 1.16 for me quite challenging are -
Persia - stability issue, indians not wanting to build a shrine when you get them, greek conqs might also give you a hard time since they are quite early (around 117 turn)
HRE - Pleased civs , Specialist victory is really hard and you need quite the luck to get it
Congo - 1st UHV is luck dependant due to protestantism being found early on and you growing at a decent pace, second goal is also hard as sometimes you just dont get enough slaves to sell.
Japan - as stated above it a whole game based on luck, Culture victory is doable with Despotism whipping buildings + army by 1450 , but later on conquring and tech it's dependant on a huge amount of stuff.
Turkic (600 AD one) - depends on start really if Persia is alive and has well defended cities, Arabia being a hard opponent to get through , and Mongols later on. Culture is doable but still luck based tbh.
From what I've read in other discussions, the Japanese strategy to max out average culture is conquering major Chinese cities, specifically the Taoist and Confucian holy cities. This is extremely ahistorical, as Japan was nowhere near close to having interest nor capabilities to conquer China before the year 1600 AD.
From what I've read in other discussions, the Japanese strategy to max out average culture is conquering major Chinese cities, specifically the Taoist and Confucian holy cities. This is extremely ahistorical, as Japan was nowhere near close to having interest nor capabilities to conquer China before the year 1600 AD.
Another strat is to only settle Edo and Kyoto and build culture buildings, Himeji Castle and lots of military units and buildings. Keeps you out of the Mongols' crosshairs while still allowing you to build up your military ahead of time
What's the easiest UHV?
- Tamils. UHV3 is basically UHV1, and the only conquering you have to do is against far weaker civs. Run two great merchants, 50% gold and culture, and win first try every time.
- Moors. I've seen some people struggle but I've never had trouble, run a few engineers to rush the wonders and then spam heavy swordsmen to easily conquer Spain and Mali. Only threat is badly timing Spain conquest so that they can rebirth. UHV3 is dumb though I guess.
- Vikings. If you figure out the compass-culture strat UHV1 and 2 are easy. UHV3 similar to Moors is a boring slog but doable.
- Portuguese. Everything basically synchronises together, only strat you really need is remembering to save a GE and some money for trading company.
- Mughals. Whip out the buildings and run culture, don't forget to keep your army alive to kill England.
On what game speed do you play the Moors? On Normal speed I find the UHV pretty difficult, crossing the Sahara generally takes too much time. I assume this is a lot easier on Epic and especially on Marathon speed.
This is generally true for conquest UHVs by the way. There is a lot more planning required when playing on a faster game speed, since movement and siege rates are not affected. This makes a lot of difference for example for America, where you have to plan multiple invasions.
On what game speed do you play the Moors? On Normal speed I find the UHV pretty difficult, crossing the Sahara generally takes too much time. I assume this is a lot easier on Epic and especially on Marathon speed.
This is generally true for conquest UHVs by the way. There is a lot more planning required when playing on a faster game speed, since movement and siege rates are not affected. This makes a lot of difference for example for America, where you have to plan multiple invasions.
The key is to:
A. Start building roads in the desert before the invasion, you don't really need that extra farm in Utica or whatever
B. Send a few lancers down there to harass their units before the main invasion
I have to agree with some of the previous posters by saying that Byzantines are probably one of the most difficult ones. Having to face a war first with the Arabs after which the Seljuks, the Mongols and finally the Turks invade you will ensure you're really going to focus on building adequate military, which is something I tend to fail at times.
The Arabs, the Dutch and the English have so far been one of the easiest UHVs imo. Canada felt pretty straight forward also as there will be many wars in the latter stages of the game.
Byzantine UHV hasn't been too difficult for me (Monarch diff), but that's on 3000BC starts. Greece's wonderhoarding and settled great people help a lot. I haven't tried the 600AD start as Byz.
So I just decided to re-download DoC after years and the Tamils were my second run and I didn't find it boring. Easy sure (waaaay easier than my first game on Harappa), but not boring. For the first goal you're fully relying on Great Merchants, so there's really only a brief period where you have to sit on the gold between the first and second GM. Your real focus is getting the culture goal anyway. Once the second one banks you can switch civics and buy yourself the army you need for UHV 2. I found it very satisfying putting my gold to good use, unlike a lot of the gold UHVs I remember where it mostly ends up just sitting there, taunting you. And while the third one seems like another gold goal, it's really an exploration/diplomacy goal. I won by getting to Cartography and selling maps to everyone in 1100, but a better/more attentive player should probably be able to get it done simultaneously with UHV 2. Like I'm sure there were a bunch of small trades that I could have gotten if I had been smarter about getting/maintaining contact. I never even met China or the Byzantines, and was only briefly in contact with Greece and Rome before their collapses.
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