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I'm making my way into my first game as the Spanish, and stopping now to file an early report gathering a few strategic first impressions.
I've been looking forward to playing the Spaniards because the combination of commercial and religious seemed very potent for empire building. As various shoguns and pharoahs and so on have already discovered, switching governments on the fly, along with rapid cathedral construction ,certainly accelerates conquest. Then, once you have new conquests in hand, being commercial makes a relatively broad range of territory productive.
Plus, the conquistador sounded like a fun unit to run.
So far my game is competitive. I'm definitely finding, however, that several pre-PTW habits definitely need tweaking.
With cultural linkage on, you will start near the European civs, of course: French, Germans, English, Russians and/or Celts. The [AI-run] French, of course, are very agreeable neighbors -- either as preferred trading partners or as oscillation victims. The [AI-run] Germans can be unruly, but easy enough to contain because they're fairly predictable. (Don't look weak -- make your neighbor look weak; whichever looks more vulnerable is definitely going to get a visit from Bismark.) The [AI-run] Russians are containable, so long as they can be pruned before military tradition/cossaks.
The [AI-run] Celts are harder to read. In my game I managed to bottle them up above a chokepoint. They did have iron, and soon enough I saw Gallic Swordsmen pacing around near my borders. But they never came down out of the hills to take me on -- and they appeared to coexist fairly peacefully with the Russians to their east.
Things proceeded more or less as they usually do for me through the early middle ages. I took a piece out of civs to my immediate north and then south, then settled in to build. Set up a twin-radius (FP/Palace) infrastructure, set my cities to work erecting improvements, now in republic, of course.
I happened to have woeful luck with leaders, though. And the PTW-scrambled AI tech/wonder priorities messed up several wonder pre-build manuevers. So I'm playing without several of the wonders to which I have grown accustomed. (I particularly miss Sistine's.
)
I stayed optimistic, though, looking forward to unleashing conquistadors
and triggering a golden age right in the medieval wonders sweet spot.
But b the time I reached navigation, it was late in the middle ages. The next time I try Isabelle, I will beeline for navigation. Otherwise, the Spanish UU comes later than I realized it would. By the time my conquistadors were riding north to mass with an attack force on the Russian border, most of the AIs had metallurgy. Which means, in my case, my conquistadors may well be going up against cavalry.
This UU seems somewhat underpowered, given where it comes in the game. What we have here might be comparable to something like the Egyptian war chariot or the muskateer -- in other words, a GA trigger that is otherwise not particularly effective militarily speaking. A good pillaging unit, perfect for breaking through mountainous terrain. But nothing that will turn the tide of a major war. Too expensive to pile up en masse and unleash like a horde of jaguar warriors.
On the other hand, the animation is cool. It jangles as it travels. And I love the dogs.
I've been looking forward to playing the Spaniards because the combination of commercial and religious seemed very potent for empire building. As various shoguns and pharoahs and so on have already discovered, switching governments on the fly, along with rapid cathedral construction ,certainly accelerates conquest. Then, once you have new conquests in hand, being commercial makes a relatively broad range of territory productive.
Plus, the conquistador sounded like a fun unit to run.
So far my game is competitive. I'm definitely finding, however, that several pre-PTW habits definitely need tweaking.
With cultural linkage on, you will start near the European civs, of course: French, Germans, English, Russians and/or Celts. The [AI-run] French, of course, are very agreeable neighbors -- either as preferred trading partners or as oscillation victims. The [AI-run] Germans can be unruly, but easy enough to contain because they're fairly predictable. (Don't look weak -- make your neighbor look weak; whichever looks more vulnerable is definitely going to get a visit from Bismark.) The [AI-run] Russians are containable, so long as they can be pruned before military tradition/cossaks.
The [AI-run] Celts are harder to read. In my game I managed to bottle them up above a chokepoint. They did have iron, and soon enough I saw Gallic Swordsmen pacing around near my borders. But they never came down out of the hills to take me on -- and they appeared to coexist fairly peacefully with the Russians to their east.
Things proceeded more or less as they usually do for me through the early middle ages. I took a piece out of civs to my immediate north and then south, then settled in to build. Set up a twin-radius (FP/Palace) infrastructure, set my cities to work erecting improvements, now in republic, of course.
I happened to have woeful luck with leaders, though. And the PTW-scrambled AI tech/wonder priorities messed up several wonder pre-build manuevers. So I'm playing without several of the wonders to which I have grown accustomed. (I particularly miss Sistine's.
)I stayed optimistic, though, looking forward to unleashing conquistadors
and triggering a golden age right in the medieval wonders sweet spot.But b the time I reached navigation, it was late in the middle ages. The next time I try Isabelle, I will beeline for navigation. Otherwise, the Spanish UU comes later than I realized it would. By the time my conquistadors were riding north to mass with an attack force on the Russian border, most of the AIs had metallurgy. Which means, in my case, my conquistadors may well be going up against cavalry.
This UU seems somewhat underpowered, given where it comes in the game. What we have here might be comparable to something like the Egyptian war chariot or the muskateer -- in other words, a GA trigger that is otherwise not particularly effective militarily speaking. A good pillaging unit, perfect for breaking through mountainous terrain. But nothing that will turn the tide of a major war. Too expensive to pile up en masse and unleash like a horde of jaguar warriors.
On the other hand, the animation is cool. It jangles as it travels. And I love the dogs.
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