Rhye’s and Fall of the Netherlands

UHV

The Netherlands’ unique historic victory conditions are:

  1. Have the most extended map of the world in 1600 AD
  2. Be the first to found a city in Australia
  3. Secure or get by trade 7 spices resources by 1775 AD

Unique Power

Trading companies: All naval units may enter enemy territory.

The Dutch unique power is essential to move ships from the Netherlands into the Atlantic Ocean in the first place. That’s it. It’s not overpowered, it’s not particularly useful otherwise – it’s just a prerequisite to any exploration and colonization at all.

Unique Building – Dyke

unique building

The Dyke is a very powerful building for any coastal city. While in normal games it makes the Dutch overly powerful on Archipelago maps, in Rhye’s and Fall Netherlands it’s not very useful, because you’ll only get to build dykes after industrialization. Until then you will already have won.

Unique Unit – East Indiaman

Rhye's and Fall Netherlands Unique Unit East Indiaman

As useful as the Dyke for making Amsterdam a production powerhouse (later), as useless is the East Indiaman. Yes, of course it’s nice to ship some more units off to your colonies on one ship (this one comes with higher capacity) – but you’d rather need some stronger units to resist Germany or France, which always envy your little European kingdom.

Dutch Strategy

Here’s as quick summary:

  • Explore a lot and buy other players maps (but never sell yours). This will secure goal one.
  • Settle South Africa ASAP. Aside from Amsterdam, which is an amazing location for a city, South Africa will be the back bone of your economy.
  • To settle Australia first, be the first to build a Galleon (or East Indiaman) and load it with a settler. You can upgrade galleys, so ideally have both ready the turn you research Astronomy.
Rhye's and Fall Netherlands South Africa and Madagascar
South Africa – Stepping Stone to the World and Madagascar

Settling South Africa is essential to victory. There’s an argument on whether or not to send the first galley (loaded with settler and a defensive unit) to Australia first, but I’d prefer South Africa for several reasons:

  • Nobody will settle Australia around the time you will get there
  • South Africa provides Sugar, Gold and Gems, important happiness resources you need, plus really good production
  • Other Europeans might capture Quelimane before you might
  • You can found a city here dozens of turns BEFORE you could possibly be in Australia

Improve your cities quickly. Don’t let your South African workers be captured by native Impis! Capture Quelimane and found a city on Madagascar (Spice No 1).

Now with Amsterdam growing steadily (almost unstoppable regardless of heavy use of slave labor/whipping) and another production base in South Africa focus on researching Naval techs first.

Rhye's and Fall Netherlands Indian Spice
Culture-pushing my way to Indian Spice

You should be able to get Optics ahead of the competition. Send your Caravels exploring. I never bothered with manning them with Explorers. Actually I almost never built explorers in Civ 4 or Rhye’s and Falls. Also you won’t need it: Discovered land tiles don’t count any more than discovered sea tiles.

Don’t forget to buy everybody else’s map, but never sell yours!

With these (obvious) tips, goal 1 should be no problem.

Now there are more spices waiting for you! Here’s where I got mine from (if I remember correctly… it’s been a while):

  1. Madagascar
  2. City in South America (one spot covers 2 Spice)
  3. ^^
  4. City on New Guinea (one spot covers 2 Spice)
  5. ^^
  6. Jakarta (on Java)
  7. Cochin in South India

In the order shouldn’t matter much, but you never know of the game turns out for the other civs. Most likely the spot in South America will be most competitive, since both France and Portugal like to settle there. Take this first. Then go for New Guinea and Java, before the Khmer expand too much.

I settled Cochin in India last and quite late actually. A bit of a risk with Barbarians/Independent nations right north of me and the spice in range of their city. Also you never know if and when India respawns or whether England settles there. So hurry up!

European Politics in Rhye’s and Fall Netherlands

When it comes to the unique historical victory, Europe doesn’t play a role at all for the Netherlands. But survival is not self-evident! A lot of things can happen:

  • Being too culturally dominant will anger the Germans as you’re pushing your border into their land
  • If they survive they might attack you. In my case they didn’t… Survive. (Pressure from me and Russia was too much)
  • France and England are normally peaceful – they have problems of their own and both London and Paris are culturally strong enough to resist the pressure of Amsterdam.
  • Settling Denmark might anger the Vikings – not too much of a threat as your navy is strong enough to deal with theirs.
Rhye's and Fall Netherlands UHV
Unique Historical Victory with the Netherlands

Here’s how my game of Rhye’s and Fall Netherlands ended: By the time I got the 7th Spice both Germany and the Vikings had collapsed and I dominated central Europe. Russia’s military was strong as always, but our (in the end common) war with Germany improved our relationship. Furthermore Berlin would soon flip to me, putting me in a better defensive position.

The usual official strategy guides are still here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090514073418/http://rhye.civfanatics.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rhye%27s_and_Fall_of_Civilization_-_Dutch_strategy

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