Conquest of the New World – Spain Strategy (Deity)

Initially I thought Siglo de Oro was a “Seal of Gold”. I was wrong: It translates to “Golden Age”, “Golden Century”. A Golden Age it was indeed: The Spanish colonization of the Americas was by far the most extensive and impressive and given its head start (Columbus sailing west) it was also the longest: The Spanish colonial empire, starting 1492, lasted until 1975. Quickly after Columbus made landfall in the West Indies, the Spanish had conquered the Incan empire in the south and the Aztec and Mayan realms in Central America. All this is even more impressive since the Spanish had just reclaimed their homeland from Moorish rule in the very same year 1492. Read more about the Reconquista in the Into the Renaissance Spain Strategy (Deity) guide.

Over centuries the Spanish monarchy managed to not only be a major player in Europe, but to establish an empire where the sun never sets. As early as June 1494 the Portuguese and Spanish had split the globe into two hemispheres with the Portuguese claiming the land between Brazil in the West and present day Indonesia in the East and the Spanish gaining exclusive rights to establish colonies anywhere else, ranging from west of Brazil to the most eastern islands in Asia.

Siglo de Oro

Unlocked 21 Nov 2017 @ 12:41am

Win the New World Scenario as Spain.

German and French names of this Steam Achievement:
DE: Siglo de Oro
FR: Siglo de Oro

The following Steam Achievement Guide is basically the same as Conquest of The New World – Tea and Crumpets for Everyone Steam Achievement Guide, which describes how to succeed with England. The same strategy was already validated with Conquest of The New World – Tout le Monde Francophone? Steam Achievement Guide and now, winning on Deity, with an even higher score will be my final validation. If you need more details on something, please check out the English strategy first. I will use this guide to point out small variations and improvements to the aforementioned strategy.

Part 1: Dominate Europe

Chapter 1: Initial Build Order and Research

The AI in this scenario is dominant as always. So as usually we need to defeat the main AI players as early as possible.

Now in Conquest of the New World, European Nations can not declare war on each other until the discovery of Piracy. This means in order to get the Siglo de Oro, you need two things:

1. Direct your Research straight to Piracy
2. Meanwhile build a military strong enough to capture those European capitals

The initial build order shows exactly that focus on Production improvements and right after only units:

Seville	no 2nd city founded the first 75 turns
1. Ironworks (5)	—
2. Forge (8)	—
3. Cargo Ship 1 (11)	—
4. Navigation School (16)	—
5. Cargo Ship 2 (18)	—
6. Seaport (bought with Gold from unique ability)	—
7. Cargo Ship 3 (26)	—
8. Cargo Ship 4 (28)	—
9. Galleas 1 (29)	—
10. Galleas 2 (31)	—
11. Galleas 3, 4, 5, 6	—
12. University of Oxford (turn 47, Researching “Warships”) Upgrade to Frigates	—
2x Trebuchets	—
2x Conquistadores	—
Researched Piracy turn 48	—

This build order pretty much guarantees to by turn 54 have an army of:

• 6 Frigates
• 4 Privateers
• 2 Trebuchets
• 3 Conquistadors

After conquering Portugal, this grew to 7 Frigates and 6 Privateers, so +30%.

Research

1. Navigation (10)
2. Trapping (15)
3. Calendar (18)
4. Printing Press (24)
5. Education (29, starting University of Oxford ASAP)
6. Imperialism (34)
7. Piracy (48)
8. Gunpowder
9. Chemistry
10. Economics (72)
11. Banking
12. Religious Orders
13. Treasure Fleet
14. Advanced Piracy (111)

The Spanish Unique Ability — Seven Cities of Gold

Gold bonus for discovering a Natural Wonder (Bonus enhanced if first to discover it). Culture, Happiness, and Tile Yields from Natural Wonders doubled.

This bonus is great: You’ll most likely discover at least 2-3 natural wonders and will receive around 1000 Gold. In my game I bought a seaport further improving production in Seville, thus speeding up the European conquest.

European Social Policies

Timing is essential: First getting the production bonuses is great for building the army. Only then adding City Sack and Ransom supports the European conquest.

Tier 1 Social Policies	Tier 2 Social Policies	Tier 3 Social Policies
Maritime Infrastructure 1st SP +3 Production in coastal Cities	Total War 3rd SP: ~ Turn 37 +25% Production when building units New units start with +15 XP	Overseas Empire 6th SP: Turn ~ 83 1 Great Admiral +2 Movement +1 Sight for Great Admirals +2 Movement for Naval Units New Cities start with +3 population
City Sack 2nd SP +33% Combat Strength when attacking cities	Barter System 5th SP: ~ Turn 71 +1 Gold per Trading post +2 🙂 from each Luxury resource	Conquest of the New World Turn ~ 128 Double Gold from Treasures (thus double VP)
Ransom 4th SP: ~ Turn 62 Gain Gold for each enemy unit killed	Merchant Navy Turn ~ 110 +2 GPT for Trade routes with City States
Naval Tradition Turn ~ 95 +1 🙂 for each Harbor, Seaport, Lighthouse
Monarchy Turn ~ 147

 

Chapter 2: Conquest of Europe

With the army listed above it was as planned super easy to gain my Siglo de Oro by conquering the European capitals. Already in turn 52 I declared war on Portugal. Lisbon fell in turn 58, granting more land for Seville. A fact that will make Spain and Portugal more powerful when you play them and conquer the respective other.

Making peace with Portugal turn 59 I headed straight for England: I picked them next, because with their unique ability, making their navy even more powerful they had to be taken out as quickly as possible. They already were on a good way building their navy so it took several until Plymouth got captured (turn 65)! It granted me another 3 treasures (so 3x 25VP and 300G). In the peace deal in turn 67 I only got 9 Gold per turn.

Before heading for the Netherlands I needed to ally their cultured City States for the Culture boost. Taking this time was okay, since shipping to the Netherlands always takes a bit longer due to the English Channel protecting them from big fleets. After healing all units and bringing them in position, I declared war in turn 70. Amsterdam fell in 2 turns (71) and in turn 76 we had peace.

During the peace negotiations with the Dutch, war with France was already going on: La Rochelle fell in turn 78. War with France was going on for some longer as France already had quite some colonies on the other side of the Atlantic.

Playing Spain, Europe was liberated only in turn 78, some turns later than in the France game. Still: With Seville getting stronger than any other European capital due to taking the tiles from Lisbon, this will be the most successful playthrough of the Conquest of the New World Scenario!

Part 2: Conquest of the New World

Chapter 3: Defeating the European’s Colonies

Having a Northern Archipelago is the best that can happen: All cities are accessible by our battle fleet. In this game, I took one French city, made peace, healed and went for the Dutch cities. In a peace treaty I demanded their continental cities (because they’re harder to conquer). Then I went for France and England again and after 10 turns declared war on the Netherlands for the third time. Capturing their last northern city, I demanded their second-last continental city, leaving them only a tiny naval base easily conquered in the 4th Spanish-Dutch War.

Chapter 4: The Native Americans

Other than playing England and France in the first two European games, I won’t provide a detailed log of the conquest. It’s very individual per map anyways, so I’ll just use the following gallery to highlight some of the main aspects like:

• promoting battleships for Logistics (2 attacks) and Range as this gives you 4 Range when upgrading to Ships of the Line
• saving treasures until you get the Conquest of the New World Social Policy as this gives you double VP from treasures
• bribing the Native Americans to war against each other as every unit they kill themselves is one you won’t have to kill (yes, killing units grants gold, but time is of the essence, when aiming on defeating them)

From my first war with the Inca I got 11 GPT for making peace. The Shoshone gave me 24 GPT. I used only a fraction of it (7 GPT each) to first bribe the Aztecs against the Maya (whose capital I took in turn 113) and later against the Iroquois.

With Veteran Ships of the Line (Range 4 and Logistics) I was able to bombard all their cities, even those 5 tiles inland, from a coastal city on hills. This and a good rotation of ships dealt with the Iroquois army very quickly.

Same worked for the Shoshone, who until late in the game lead the scoreboard. But even their powerful navy fell victim to my veteran Privateers and Ships of the Line.

Eventually playing Spain I got the highest score of any Conquest of the New World games so far: Almost 8000 VP!

 

Siglo de Oro (Deity) – Conclusion

This last European Steam Achievement playthrough for Conquest of the New World went super smoothly. Other than playing France I never was worried about having enough time to score VP. It worked and it’s been fun as usually. Challenging? Not so much. The amazing 7900 score shows as much! 🙂

The strategy is proven. Most likely the Netherlands and Portugal matches will only result in image galleries.

Comments, feedback? Please express yourselves below!