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Grayson's Spanish Strategies
--------------------also posted on civfantics and 2kforums-----------------
I'm gonna write up some strategies for Spain. I know there are several strats for them now posted on the board, and most are pretty good, some are incomplete in my opinion, and really leave out their versitility and their true potential. I have used Spain more than any other civ, and have been able to win with them about the same rate as I have with China, the Americans and other power civs. I do think they are a top 5 civ, especially if you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve. I think Spain is one of the craftiest and deceptively powerful civs out there (Americans are probably the most crafty, but in a different way).
Bonuses:
Start with Navigation
Ancient: Double exploration gold
Medieval: +1 Attack/defence for sea units
Industrial: 50% production of gold
Modern: +1 Production from the hills
There are several ways to start with Spain, each with their owns risks involved. They include:
- settling immediately
- moving settler to find whales
- moving settler to rush
- moving settler to save some turns.
Settling Immediately
This involves the least amount of immediate risk compared with whale hunting or moving the settler for other reasons. There is a predicatible move order that I have used when settling Madrid on the first turn.
- 4000BC- settle captial, set city to 2 forests and pump out 2 warriors.
- Somewhere in your first five turns, you should be able to find your first exploration square, which you will get 20 gold for. use this 20 gold to rush another warrior, it will almost always pay for itself (all you have to do is find one more exploration square, plus the extra warrior gives you more huts, and usually means you have just as many warriors on the map as any other civ can possible have).
-3500 BC- set your city to food and grow to 3 pop. If there are Zulu or other rushers in the game that you think will go for the kill in the first 10 turns or so, consider researching Bronze Working before growing in your Caprital.
-3000 BC- set workers on 2 science and 1 food and set research to Bronze Working.
- Somewhere around this time you should be getting your 100g settler. Whenever you get to 100 gold, rush a galleon and put the settler on the galleon. Explore a for a turn or two close to your capital with your galleon looking for islands with whales, and rush another settler from your capital for 40 gold.
- Go find islands with whales, fish or whatever you need to grow fast in your 2nd and 3rd cities.
- Focus on growing and getting archers in your capital. Usually it's wise to go ahead and rush archers in your captial, because a rush is likely on it's way. If you don't feel safe before rushing a settler in Madrid, build archers before rushing a settler in your cap.
- Keep exploring with your warriors to find more gold squares, whales, chokepoints, and lookouts.
- After Bronze Working, here is the tech order I use most of the time:
Bronze Working
Pottery
Masonary
Irrigation
Alphabet
Writing
Code of Laws
Currency
-After settling your two island cities you should rush settlers as often as possible from your islands and load them on your galleon. I like to have at least 4 cities by the time I get to Code of Laws, but I always try for more. Keep settling islands till you can't, or till you have established a lead to where you are better off focusing on buildings or units.
- Madrid is usually not a science or gold city when using the "settle immediately" strat. I usually just bunker down with defesnses, offensive units, or whatever I need to do to have my capital survive on the mainland, since Spain usually won't have much physical presence there. Madrid can be used for more settlers, to build more cities to create a buffer zone agaisnt other civs. Other mainland civs usually have the same goal for me as Madrid. Basically I use other mainland cities to produce units, expand culture, production cities, and produce settlers. Science and gold is more focused in the island cities.
- A key factor for the Spanish is to get Currency first. This give you a free market in one of your island cities. Couple this with the 50% gold bonus in the Industrial Era, and you'll have a huge advantage and will be producing 50-100 gold very early in the game from one secluded island city. Just make sure to research Currency before you get to the 250 gold mark, otherwise you won't get the free market. This requires special attention whenever you find seven cities of gold, so if you do find yourself over 250 gold gold before you get Currency, spend till you get below that mark.
- Don't rush libraries till you get your gold flowing. Just rush settlers. After you have your gold flowing in, you can then start rushing libraries or the occasional additional market in your island cities.
Whale Hunting w/ your settler
I know there's been much discussion on this board about whale hunting, and many people don't think it's worth the risk. Let me be clear about something: If you do find a whale with your settler, especially if it's next to two forests, it is extremely powerful. Finding a square with two whales is ridiculously powerful. Whales with only one forest takes a little more skill, but is still usually more powerful than your standard starting spot. The huge drawback to looking for a whale right away is that you may not find one, or it may be too close to other civs. I suggest playing against the AI where you only look for whales (and exploration squares) for some practice till you pick up some techniques about finding them fast and figuring out what are the pros and cons of do it, not just how much time it takes to find the whale, but what does the game look like when you have one forests, two forests, multiple whales, etc.
Here are some tips that will help you in whale hunting and avoid getting rushed or have disaster strike early:
- Before moving your settler, try to orientate yourself on the map. Are you close to the north or south or in the middle of the map? Where are the mountains in relation to where you are at? I find that I have better succuess finding whales and more importantly a safe spot to settle with the Spanish at the far north or far south of the map. If you are right in the center, there is a bigger chance you will be found early.
- Basically you are trying to acheive two goals when looking for whales: 1. finding the whale with some forest next it, 2. putting space in between you and your closest opponet. Going to the poles or peninsulas will help you acheive these goals.
- Finding an exploration tile equals 20 gold, which saves you three turns. So if you find a gold square, and settle before 3700BC, you're no worse off than when you started. If you get scared or don't think you'll have much luck, just go back to your origanal spot once you have 20 gold, or anywhere that has two forests, two oceans and two grass, and you can use the "settle immediately" strat.
- I don't like to spend more than 5 turns looking for a whale. Always spend more time looking for "backup" settling spots as a contingency agaisnt not finding a good whale location.
- Once you do settle with your whale. Set your workers on one forest, one whale, and research bronze working. If you picked up 20 gold before then, rush a warrior and start exploring. In five turns with one whale you should be halfway done with Bronze working, and your capital should now be at 3 pop.
- If you only have one forest in your settling spot, it's wise to put an archer there to keep others from camping out on your only source for production.
- From here you should follow the same basic strat as the previous one: get 100gold, rush galleon, rush settlers, get to the islands, defend heavy in your cap, keep expanding, get code of laws, currency, expand, rush building and you should be set.
- With a whale, you can have a lot more settlers from madrid, but it can also be used a science or gold city. It should be growing fast.
Rusher/Aggressive Strategies and Tips:
There are a few ways that Spain can be aggressive early on, as oppossed to just expanding fast and getting the tech lead and lots of gold:
- Exploring with your settler to pick up gold, settle close to any enemy, hopefully in the first five turns, and rush a few warriors with the gold, try to get a walk in. This is very risky, but can catch people off guard and is a good last ditch strategy if your whale hunting isn't successful.
- Galleons+Warriors can be very powerful. if you get a galleons early, it's a good idea to put a unit on there, because the galley drop tactic can often work at any point in the game. Straight up attacking with a offensive unit + a galleon early on is powerful as well.
- If you find Angor Watt early and get the pyramid (which happens a lot for the spanish since they explore quicker with galleons), you can consider using this tactic: 1. Choose Communism 2. Build lots of offensive units, and galleons, and a defensive unit or army to protect your attacking force. 3. Send them out to the an enemy civ 4. switch to fundamentism, and overwhelm them. The naval support plus the attacking bonus from fundamentalism can easily take out archers. You just need to try to pull this off before they get pikemen, or before the Pyramid obseletes.
- Let me stress that it is very rare that you want to be particularly aggressive with the Spanish. Ususally your best bet is to expand and get your tech and gold lead, and become more aggressive as the game goes on.
Playing from behind/ catching up
Usually with Spain I can keep up with any techers, even the Chinese, but there are times when you need to catch up.
- Gold is what will keep you in the game. If you find yourself behind early in tech, and need to catch up, make a beeline for currency and get that market.
- Always keep expanding, sooner or later they're gonna run out of land on the mainland, and you're gobbling up all the islands.
- If you don't get Currency, get to 14 techs as soon as possible, set all your cities on gold for a few turns, then rush a market first, and then either more settlers, or libraries, or offensive units if you are gonna strike soon.
- Have your ships roam the seas, especially close to their cities, to try to sink their ships and also to drop units into their empty cities.
- A great builder will always get you back in the game because you've instantly got East India Company.
- Otherwise, try pestering them from every angle, on the mainland, on the seas, camp out on their squares, sell techs to the AI, whatever you can to throw them off guard.
Final Thoughts
Spain does have a lot of options going for them, but the basically strategy is to survive on the mainland, get those islands, and expand and amass trade quickly. Not all the tatics that I have listed are always a good idea, but it's nice to have some tricks up your sleeve whenever you need them. They are pretty weak in the first 10-20 turns, but after that they are elusive if they get the ball rolling, and are really hard to uproot after that. Hope you like the strategy.
--------------------also posted on civfantics and 2kforums-----------------
I'm gonna write up some strategies for Spain. I know there are several strats for them now posted on the board, and most are pretty good, some are incomplete in my opinion, and really leave out their versitility and their true potential. I have used Spain more than any other civ, and have been able to win with them about the same rate as I have with China, the Americans and other power civs. I do think they are a top 5 civ, especially if you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve. I think Spain is one of the craftiest and deceptively powerful civs out there (Americans are probably the most crafty, but in a different way).
Bonuses:
Start with Navigation
Ancient: Double exploration gold
Medieval: +1 Attack/defence for sea units
Industrial: 50% production of gold
Modern: +1 Production from the hills
There are several ways to start with Spain, each with their owns risks involved. They include:
- settling immediately
- moving settler to find whales
- moving settler to rush
- moving settler to save some turns.
Settling Immediately
This involves the least amount of immediate risk compared with whale hunting or moving the settler for other reasons. There is a predicatible move order that I have used when settling Madrid on the first turn.
- 4000BC- settle captial, set city to 2 forests and pump out 2 warriors.
- Somewhere in your first five turns, you should be able to find your first exploration square, which you will get 20 gold for. use this 20 gold to rush another warrior, it will almost always pay for itself (all you have to do is find one more exploration square, plus the extra warrior gives you more huts, and usually means you have just as many warriors on the map as any other civ can possible have).
-3500 BC- set your city to food and grow to 3 pop. If there are Zulu or other rushers in the game that you think will go for the kill in the first 10 turns or so, consider researching Bronze Working before growing in your Caprital.
-3000 BC- set workers on 2 science and 1 food and set research to Bronze Working.
- Somewhere around this time you should be getting your 100g settler. Whenever you get to 100 gold, rush a galleon and put the settler on the galleon. Explore a for a turn or two close to your capital with your galleon looking for islands with whales, and rush another settler from your capital for 40 gold.
- Go find islands with whales, fish or whatever you need to grow fast in your 2nd and 3rd cities.
- Focus on growing and getting archers in your capital. Usually it's wise to go ahead and rush archers in your captial, because a rush is likely on it's way. If you don't feel safe before rushing a settler in Madrid, build archers before rushing a settler in your cap.
- Keep exploring with your warriors to find more gold squares, whales, chokepoints, and lookouts.
- After Bronze Working, here is the tech order I use most of the time:
Bronze Working
Pottery
Masonary
Irrigation
Alphabet
Writing
Code of Laws
Currency
-After settling your two island cities you should rush settlers as often as possible from your islands and load them on your galleon. I like to have at least 4 cities by the time I get to Code of Laws, but I always try for more. Keep settling islands till you can't, or till you have established a lead to where you are better off focusing on buildings or units.
- Madrid is usually not a science or gold city when using the "settle immediately" strat. I usually just bunker down with defesnses, offensive units, or whatever I need to do to have my capital survive on the mainland, since Spain usually won't have much physical presence there. Madrid can be used for more settlers, to build more cities to create a buffer zone agaisnt other civs. Other mainland civs usually have the same goal for me as Madrid. Basically I use other mainland cities to produce units, expand culture, production cities, and produce settlers. Science and gold is more focused in the island cities.
- A key factor for the Spanish is to get Currency first. This give you a free market in one of your island cities. Couple this with the 50% gold bonus in the Industrial Era, and you'll have a huge advantage and will be producing 50-100 gold very early in the game from one secluded island city. Just make sure to research Currency before you get to the 250 gold mark, otherwise you won't get the free market. This requires special attention whenever you find seven cities of gold, so if you do find yourself over 250 gold gold before you get Currency, spend till you get below that mark.
- Don't rush libraries till you get your gold flowing. Just rush settlers. After you have your gold flowing in, you can then start rushing libraries or the occasional additional market in your island cities.
Whale Hunting w/ your settler
I know there's been much discussion on this board about whale hunting, and many people don't think it's worth the risk. Let me be clear about something: If you do find a whale with your settler, especially if it's next to two forests, it is extremely powerful. Finding a square with two whales is ridiculously powerful. Whales with only one forest takes a little more skill, but is still usually more powerful than your standard starting spot. The huge drawback to looking for a whale right away is that you may not find one, or it may be too close to other civs. I suggest playing against the AI where you only look for whales (and exploration squares) for some practice till you pick up some techniques about finding them fast and figuring out what are the pros and cons of do it, not just how much time it takes to find the whale, but what does the game look like when you have one forests, two forests, multiple whales, etc.
Here are some tips that will help you in whale hunting and avoid getting rushed or have disaster strike early:
- Before moving your settler, try to orientate yourself on the map. Are you close to the north or south or in the middle of the map? Where are the mountains in relation to where you are at? I find that I have better succuess finding whales and more importantly a safe spot to settle with the Spanish at the far north or far south of the map. If you are right in the center, there is a bigger chance you will be found early.
- Basically you are trying to acheive two goals when looking for whales: 1. finding the whale with some forest next it, 2. putting space in between you and your closest opponet. Going to the poles or peninsulas will help you acheive these goals.
- Finding an exploration tile equals 20 gold, which saves you three turns. So if you find a gold square, and settle before 3700BC, you're no worse off than when you started. If you get scared or don't think you'll have much luck, just go back to your origanal spot once you have 20 gold, or anywhere that has two forests, two oceans and two grass, and you can use the "settle immediately" strat.
- I don't like to spend more than 5 turns looking for a whale. Always spend more time looking for "backup" settling spots as a contingency agaisnt not finding a good whale location.
- Once you do settle with your whale. Set your workers on one forest, one whale, and research bronze working. If you picked up 20 gold before then, rush a warrior and start exploring. In five turns with one whale you should be halfway done with Bronze working, and your capital should now be at 3 pop.
- If you only have one forest in your settling spot, it's wise to put an archer there to keep others from camping out on your only source for production.
- From here you should follow the same basic strat as the previous one: get 100gold, rush galleon, rush settlers, get to the islands, defend heavy in your cap, keep expanding, get code of laws, currency, expand, rush building and you should be set.
- With a whale, you can have a lot more settlers from madrid, but it can also be used a science or gold city. It should be growing fast.
Rusher/Aggressive Strategies and Tips:
There are a few ways that Spain can be aggressive early on, as oppossed to just expanding fast and getting the tech lead and lots of gold:
- Exploring with your settler to pick up gold, settle close to any enemy, hopefully in the first five turns, and rush a few warriors with the gold, try to get a walk in. This is very risky, but can catch people off guard and is a good last ditch strategy if your whale hunting isn't successful.
- Galleons+Warriors can be very powerful. if you get a galleons early, it's a good idea to put a unit on there, because the galley drop tactic can often work at any point in the game. Straight up attacking with a offensive unit + a galleon early on is powerful as well.
- If you find Angor Watt early and get the pyramid (which happens a lot for the spanish since they explore quicker with galleons), you can consider using this tactic: 1. Choose Communism 2. Build lots of offensive units, and galleons, and a defensive unit or army to protect your attacking force. 3. Send them out to the an enemy civ 4. switch to fundamentism, and overwhelm them. The naval support plus the attacking bonus from fundamentalism can easily take out archers. You just need to try to pull this off before they get pikemen, or before the Pyramid obseletes.
- Let me stress that it is very rare that you want to be particularly aggressive with the Spanish. Ususally your best bet is to expand and get your tech and gold lead, and become more aggressive as the game goes on.
Playing from behind/ catching up
Usually with Spain I can keep up with any techers, even the Chinese, but there are times when you need to catch up.
- Gold is what will keep you in the game. If you find yourself behind early in tech, and need to catch up, make a beeline for currency and get that market.
- Always keep expanding, sooner or later they're gonna run out of land on the mainland, and you're gobbling up all the islands.
- If you don't get Currency, get to 14 techs as soon as possible, set all your cities on gold for a few turns, then rush a market first, and then either more settlers, or libraries, or offensive units if you are gonna strike soon.
- Have your ships roam the seas, especially close to their cities, to try to sink their ships and also to drop units into their empty cities.
- A great builder will always get you back in the game because you've instantly got East India Company.
- Otherwise, try pestering them from every angle, on the mainland, on the seas, camp out on their squares, sell techs to the AI, whatever you can to throw them off guard.
Final Thoughts
Spain does have a lot of options going for them, but the basically strategy is to survive on the mainland, get those islands, and expand and amass trade quickly. Not all the tatics that I have listed are always a good idea, but it's nice to have some tricks up your sleeve whenever you need them. They are pretty weak in the first 10-20 turns, but after that they are elusive if they get the ball rolling, and are really hard to uproot after that. Hope you like the strategy.