Conquest of the New World Shoshone Strategy (Deity)

Conquest of the New World – Shoshone Strategy (Deity)

Playing the Conquest of the New World Scenario as one of the Native American civilizations on Deity difficulty is the hardest things I’ve tried in this game since going for the Praise the Victories Steam Achievement in the Scramble for Africa.

All the stars need to be aligned for this one to succeed. Here’s the prerequisites:

  1. Your starting position needs to be in South America
  2. You need 2 Cultured City States near you
  3. You need to be on a river to build Texcotzingo

I’ve started dozens of games until I had all of this. And even this game I restarted, since the Aztecs bet me to Texcotzingo by 1 turn:

This wonder is essential though: Without it your capital can’t support maintaining one or more specialists and occupying all resource tiles and all special Faith tiles (e.g. Tipis). Furthermore with it your Native American enemies will grow stronger themselves. Improve resources and chop some forests and get Texcotzingo!

Over the course of the game I came to overthink my advice regarding coastal cities: Maybe a capital by the coast is good. Gave me some early trade routes with the Europeans in which boosted my science income by 100%…

Even as my Comanche Riders (turn 41!) started heading towards the Aztecs, I had already denounced them, putting me on better relationships with the Europeans. (Brown nosing really doesn’t hurt here, as long as they then focus on warring other nations…)

Native American Social Policies

The Social Policy Order is equally important when playing the Shoshone (or any Native American civ) on Deity difficulty: You’ll need Republic very early on for the additional production. Every hammer counts! Getting Collective Rule second for the settler is alright — as long as your workers haven’t improved the luxuries near the capital a 4th city would cause too much unhappiness 🙁

Landed Elite beats Double Pyramid at first: Growing your capital is more important than getting more Faith from temples you haven’t even built in any city! Once basic infrastructure is built, you can go for Temple of the Gods (build temples faster) to then only 10 turns later have them yield more Faith with Double Pyramid.

Horsemen of the Plains is more important than Sacred Land, because survival is more important to winning than early Victory Points. However: Head for Sacred Land ASAP after securing your realm with the Comanche.

Tier 1 Social Policies Tier 2 Social Policies Tier 3 Social Policies
Republic

1st SP: Turn 3

+1 Production in every City and +15% when constructing buildings.

Landed Elite

3rd SP: ~ Turn 13

+10% growth and +2 Food in the Capital.

Horsemen of the Plains

6th SP: Turn 41

6 units are maintenance free and receive 6 Comanche Riders immediately.
+8 Faith in the Capital.

Collective Rule

2nd SP: Turn 7

1 Free Settler +50% faster production of Settlers in the Capital.

Double Pyramid

5th SP: ~ Turn 30

+1 Faith from Shrines and Temples.

Sacred Land

Turn 102

Gain a bonus belief.

Temple of the Gods

4th SP: ~ Turn 20

Builds Temples in half the time, Temples grant +25% Gold output per city.

Citizenship

Turn 80

-33% costs when purchasing buildings, +1 Faith from every special resource building.

Pyramids of the Gods

+6 Faith from each World Wonder.

Pukara

Turn 57

+1 🙂 +1 Gold, +1 Faith from Walls.

Mandate of Heaven

+20% discount on purchases with Faith.

Warrior Code

+15% production of melee units, 1 free Great General, +50% generating Great Generals.

Oligarchy

Garrisoned units are free of maintenance costs and cities with garrison gain +50% ranged combat strength.

Patriotic War

Turn 125

+15% attack bonus when fighting in friendly territory.

Unified Nation

+1 🙂 and +1 Faith from National Wonders

 Aristocracy

+15% when constructing Wonders, +1 Faith per Workshop

 

Shoshone Deity Build Order

Given the above prerequisites, the build order for all cities is:

  1. Worker (to get nearby resources improved!)
  2. Workshop (more production ASAP, even neglecting the powerful temples)
  3. Temple
  4. Amphitheater
  5. Walls (for defense and the bonus from Pukara (~turn 57, but this will most likely have passed already)

Conquest of the New World – Research

The primary goal of Research is to build units able to defend against the Europeans. I usually aim for Crossbowmen first, so it’s

  1. Engineering
  2. Machinery (turn 54)

and then head straight for castles, which is at least gets your cities to fend of some attacks by ships or conquistadores:

  1. Horseback Riding
  2. Civil Service
  3. Theology
  4. Chivalry

Of course going for Theology earlier allows building the National College boosting the Science gain from the capital.

Conquest of the New World – Shoshone Prevailing

So how do you win the Conquest of the New World scenario? By never being at war with the Europeans! Several aspects make this more likely:

War against my Aztec neighbors

I’ve been at war with the Aztecs from ~turn 41 when I spawned Comanche Riders. Unfortunately even then I could not capture even one single city. So what was the Aztec front in 1533 AD, hadn’t moved much by 1620 AD:

But capturing Aztec cities was never the goal. The primary goals are:

  • Having a constant Faith income by killing Aztec units (from the Pantheon Belief you chose in turn 2)
  • Training the Comanche Riders
  • Spawning Great Generals (for Citadels and Combat bonuses)

Watch out to not lose even one of the Comanche Riders. Especially at the start this happens easily. Once they’re veterans it’ll be much easier. Here’s the promotions I chose:

1 Medic

  • Shock I (bonus in open terrain)
  • Medic (Adjacent units heal +5 HP per turn)
  • Medic II (Adjacent units heal another +5 HP per turn)

3 Open Terrain Specialists

  • Shock I
  • Shock II
  • Shock III
  • March (heal each turn)
  • Blitz (attack 2x for faster XP)
  • Charge (+33% vs Wounded)
  • Formation (+33% vs Mounted)
  • Mobility (+1 Movement)

2 Rough Terrain Specialists

  • Drill I
  • Drill II
  • Drill III
  • March
  • Blitz
  • Charge
  • Formation
  • Mobility

With these Comanche veterans I was able to stop overwhelming Aztec forces from conquering me. Some occasional Crossbowmen supported, but mostly to shoot once at fresh units for the cavalry to gain the “Charge” bonus.

Blocking all the land

Cities can be founded only leaving 3 tiles distance towards the next city. So make sure to build within 6 tiles to cover the land with as few cities as possible. When an unfortunate European settlement appears — reload and make sure to cover the ground with a city of your own.

Diplomatic Strategy – Sowing the seeds of war

The Netherlands were pretty strong all through the first half of the game. But they didn’t make many friends. Bribing England and Spain against them in turn 94 was the first step.

I might have gone too far by also bribing Portugal against them only 10 turns later. By shortly after, England had captured Amsterdam. One opponent down. But this made England and Portugal (close friends) very strong.

So I set England against France and later even Spain against Portugal. Oh and of course I kept most of my trade routes with all of them over the entire time. Check out my happiness 🙂 🙁 on these screenshots: Sometimes I’m deep red unhappy, because I gave them the last luxury resources I had. Deal with this. Build zoos etc. It’s vital to keep Europeans warring each other!

Strengthening the economy and scoring VP through Faith

Depending on the resources in your realm choose the Sacred Land Social Policy bonus belief wisely. On my map I again went for Earths Bounty (+2 Faith from gems and ores). With this Moson Kahni was a massive production hub for all the empire needs: Production, Gold, Science, Faith. The massive amount of incoming trade routes contributed to all of that. Moson Kahni was the only city to build a University. It just wasn’t worth the effort in the other cities.

Incoming Missionaries are a threat to your steady flow of VP through Faith. You can’t declare war though. Contain them with units and let them starve (-250 conversion strength per turn, so they’ll disappear after a few turns).

When France threatened to capture Yanomami, one of my early allies for Culture, I again reloaded, brought down some Comanche Riders and captured it in 1 turn (after heavy bombardment by the French Navy). The treasure it generated was a welcome 300 Gold.

Winning the game playing Shoshone on Deity

All the above measures made me first catch up in score massively. And even after the Europeans get their “gain double Gold from trade routes” Social Policy, I still made ~20 VP more per turn than they did. As you can see in the score graph, every single war the Europeans wage with one another stalls their GPT income for some turns, whilst they pillage each others trade routes. My score advantage in the end: ~ 270 VP. Without their wars it would have been a close call.

Conquest of the New World Shoshone Deity Conclusion

Civilization 5 Conquest of the New World Shoshone Deity ExpansionPlaying Conquest of the New World as the Shoshone on Deity difficulty, or any Native American civilization for that matter is a bitch. Only with all prerequisites met can one even have a chance to win.

In that aspect I again can only stress how imbalanced this scenario is, especially compared to Into the Renaissance, where it’s well possible to win with each civ on Deity.

Still: If you either

  • don’t care about the imbalance
  • are willing to reroll for good maps or
  • (easiest) play on a lower difficulty

this scenario is great fun, immersive and very rewarding once you make it, not only survive, but win the game as one of the rightful emperors of the Americas! Let me know how it went for you in the comments below! 🙂

 

8 thoughts on “Conquest of the New World Shoshone Strategy (Deity)”

  1. some how the system doesnt let me to leave longer coments 🙁 btw if you can read my comment, i win as shoshone in diety with only 3 cities.

    1. Hey! Thanks a lot! Sounds like an impressively easy way to achieve Deity victory! Is it reproducible? 🙂
      (Of course “my way” was only reproducible with a lot of pain getting to the right setting with city-states, so anything that easier to achieve is great!)

  2. lol you picked the hard way to win as shoshone. pick Republic, Warrior Code, Pukara and Patriotic War in the first tanent, Landed Elite, Mandate of Heaven in the second tanent, Horsemen of the Plains in the third tanent; pick the “faith purchase wall, fort +2 faith, citadel+4 faith” belief; settle down with only 3 cities that can build at least 5 shoshone’s ub ; buy workers and theatres; rush musketeer; use internal trade routes to make more food in the first half of the game; build up your army and go to war with every european civs to earn some more citadels and slowdown their score rate, and you will get a sure win with about 6000 score 🙂

    1. Nice, congratulations! How was your map? Did you make it without Cultured City State allies?

  3. The Imbalance is intentional, like how the Zulus have virtually no possibility to win in Scramble for Africa and Germany having more difficult times compared to other colonists there while Ethiopia is way easier than the others.
    In my game with Incas it starts really good: I starts with coastal capital (wasted a turn moving settler) but is at the westmost of south america with hills, mountains, jungles, and Potosi! So west that a Nau from Cusco reaches China in a single turn! Also a 1-tile corridor connecting me to the Shoshone which i blocked with a city. And when Portugal captured Tenochtitlan a little north of me in southern na i redirected all cargo ships there and speed through the tech tree!
    Portugal is so strong in that game they captured Plymouth! Also i went for sacred land (chose +2 from Jungles which i later spammed brazilwood camps on) first because my area is not really suited for Horsemen. By the time another t3 policy comes up i already tech muskets lol.

    1. Also with all the hills i managed to built texcotzingo without much problem. And machu picchu too because no one else have territories near mountain.

    2. I dare claim: If you built Naus with a Native American civilization, you didn’t play on Deity difficulty 😉
      This scenario is really piece of cake on the lower (normal) levels of difficulty, I completely agree.

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