Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



Throughout history, many nations seeked to tame the seas to build up their nation. But yours - the Netherlands - conquered it. Long before the Seventeen Provinces won independence from Spain, the water boards were established in order to protect the lands from flooding. Your people are skilled engineers - while most would seek to conquer, buy or colonise new lands, the Dutch had a fourth way - make more. But the most significant strength the Dutch have, above all others, is their skill for trading and economics. It was that which aided them in building a huge colonial empire, from Suriname to Sumatra and beyond.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the Netherlands were politically neutral. While keeping themselves safe from the senseless destruction of the First World War, such an approach would leave them vulnerable in the Second. The Dutch were to strengthen ties with the Allies - particularly Canada - and leave neutrality behind. They were to become founding members of NATO, the European Union and earn themselves a reputation as a tolerant, liberal nation. The fate of this influential, progressive nation is now in your hands. Build your civilization to stand the test of time.



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each. A start on or near floodplains can make this practical for the Dutch due to the strong food production from Polders.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UI - Unique Improvement (also referred to as Unique Tile Improvement) - A special form of worker tile improvement that can only be built by one Civilization. Unlike unique buildings and units, it doesn't replace anything else
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied (this only applies to land UUs that are of Civs not in your current game.)
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each. Due to the cash potential of Polders, this isn't a bad route to take as the Netherlands.

The Netherlands have a grassland start bias. This increases the odds of starting near marshland, which is one of the two tiles you can build Polders on (the other being Flood Plains.) It also offers decent food at the start of the game to get you going quicker, though the downside is that your capital often won't be coastal and hence can't build Sea Beggars.


The Dutch reach their peak in the renaissance, when their Unique Unit comes into play and their Unique Improvement becomes stronger after being unlocked in the era before. Their Unique Ability tends to be most useful in the classical and medieval eras.

• Trading your last copy of a luxury resource away still provides you with half its happiness
  
  • This bonus is affected by the Protectionism Social Policy in the Commerce tree, meaning 4 happiness rather than 2 when traded away.

A naval melee unit
*Assumes a normal speed game.


Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

Note: Privateers have Coastal Raider I and Prize Ships anyway, which both carry over on upgrade.

• 20% bonus against cities and steals gold equivalent to 33% of damage when attacking them (Coastal Raider II, on top of the normal Coastal Raider I)
  
• Can heal outside friendly territory (Supply)

*Does not remove the marsh, hence units on a marsh Polder have a 15% combat penalty, and it still takes 3 movement points to enter

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 5/10
Diplomatic: 9/10
Domination: 7/10
Scientific: 7/10

The Dutch can make money through trading luxuries, Sea Beggars attacking cities or from Polders - three rather different sources of cash. No-one trading with you or lack floodplains/marshes for Polders? Bring out the Sea Beggars! If you've got a good marsh or floodplain spot early on, you can build tall and push for science instead.


Overall

Who is also a sea-based Civ with happiness bonuses, gold bonuses and a naval UU? Portugal, that's who. Portugal's happiness advantages come later, and they don't have the food/production potential of Polders, but they make up for it with one of the highest gold outputs in the game. If you like flexibility, stick to the Netherlands, but if you want a pure diplomatic Civ that plays very similarly, try Portugal.

Similar to the Netherlands in a different way is Indonesia. They've also got early happiness bonuses and a decent military UU, but instead of the food, production and gold advantages of Polders, they've got one of the game's highest faith outputs.

Same start bias

The grassland start bias is shared with India. While the Netherlands has it to increase their odds of starting near marshlands, India uses it to give them a high-food start.

Similar to the UA

The most obvious parallel to the Dutch UA is that of Indonesia. Both offer early happiness bonuses that help support expansion. Indonesia's UA is harder to use - it requires settling on four different landmasses for full effect - but it tends to be more effective than the Dutch UA.

Similar to Sea Beggars

Although there are no other Privateer UUs, the Ottoman Unique Ability lets all their melee naval units capture other ships like a Privateer can, resulting in similar tactics. The gold-gaining aspect of Privateers has a peaceful counterpart in Portugal's Nau.

Other UUs that start with basic promotions allowing you to get to better ones sooner include both of America's UUs, Hunnic Horse Archers, Japanese Samurai, Polish Winged Hussars and Ethiopian Mehal Sefari

Similar to Polders

Strong, terrain-dependent food outputs can be seen in the Aztec UB: the Floating Gardens as well as the Incan UI: the Terrace Farm.

For something more multipurpose, look to Morocco's Kasbahs. They may offer smaller yields, but they can be built on any desert tile - not just floodplain (although they cannot be built on marshlands unlike Polders.) They also have defensive bonuses and reach their full yield immediately rather than in the late renaissance.

The Netherlands can perform well at diplomacy, domination and science.

• Diplomacy is probably the most conventional option. Your UA lets you more easily trade luxuries for gold, Polders gives you gold directly and Sea Beggars can get you gold when attacking cities. All that makes it easier to hold City-State alliances. You should be building wide so you can maximise luxury and trading post gold.
  
• Domination is perhaps the trickiest route, resting on Sea Beggars to capture coastal cities, supported by the happiness your UA offers you and the gold from Polders.
  
• A scientific route rests on having a good marsh or floodplain location for a high amount of food for filling specialist slots with. Building wide is still possible so long as you can generate enough science to overcome the increasing technology costs the more cities you have.

While you can potentially build tall or wide with the Dutch thanks to the Polder improvement, your UA encourages you to build outwards. How so? Well, wide empires are more demanding on happiness for one, but more importantly building wide gives you a bigger range of luxury resources. This is important to make the most out of your UA.

So, how does this work? Well, normally, if you trade surplus luxuries, you don't lose out on any happiness but as soon as you trade away your last luxury, those 4 points of happiness (6 with Protectionism in the Commerce Social Policy tree) are gone. When the Dutch trade away their last luxury, they still keep half the happiness - 2 normally, or 4 with Protectionism (Protectionism's bonus is applied after the halving.) Usually, trading your last copy of a luxury is a bad idea unless your happiness level is very strong, but the Dutch can pull it off.

Right. You know how it works, but how best to use the UA? Trade, trade and trade again. In the early to mid-game, you should be trying to get as much happiness as possible, so first trade your surplus luxuries for luxuries you lack, before trading the last copies of luxuries for more you lack if possible - the latter gives you a net gain of 2 happiness. This can sustain more cities so you can grab the best city spots early on. Look out for floodplains, marshes, luxuries and iron. The first two will let you build Polders; the last one will let you build Frigates to accompany your Sea Beggars later in the game.

There's a catch, however. Trading your last copy of a luxury in exchange for another will give that other Civ more happiness than you get back. For that reason, spread out your trades if you can amongst as many different Civs as possible. Has Byzantium got two crabs and Rome got two crabs and two gold? Get the crabs from Byzantium and the gold from Rome. That kind of thing. Generally, the more Civs in your game, the more powerful this UA is.

In the late-game, happiness becomes easier to come by thanks to powerful ideology tenets, not to mention Protectionism giving you 50% more from your luxuries, and double for those traded away. If you're not using upgraded Sea Beggars to assist with world conquest, consider trading luxuries for gold. Not only will it give you more gold for buying out City-States' favour or setting up research agreements, but also reduces other Civs' gold for doing the same thing.

• Trade surplus luxuries first before starting on last copies
  
• In the early-game, trade for more luxuries
  
• Use the happiness to expand quickly and take good marsh/floodplain spots
  
• Trade with as wide a range of Civs as possible to prevent one getting excessive happiness
  
• Get the Protectionism Social Policy to enhance this UA
  
• Trade luxuries for gold in the late-game unless you're after conquest

Above: Both marsh and floodplain Polders before the Economics technology.

Polders make strong tiles in places that may otherwise lack it. Don't clear marshland because you can build a Polder on top for a total of 4 food, regardless of other technologies or freshwater access. And floodplains become even better - they now give you 5 food. The lack of a technology requirement to get that high amount of food means it's not a bad idea to pick up Guilds before Civil Service to grab Polders sooner.

Like nearly all UIs, you need to settle your cities with it in mind. Focus on expansion in the early-game. Floodplain heavy regions are your top priority, marshland comes second, but be sure to also pick up a good range of luxuries while building the cities so your UA can support even more expansion.

While floodplains offer more food, marshland has its advantages, too. For one, you don't drain the marsh to build it, so it takes half the time to build there than other Civs take to build improvements on them. By not draining the marsh, they become particularly hard to pillage - moving onto a marsh uses up 3 movement points which usually stops the unit being able to move further that turn. As units recieve a 15% defensive penalty in marshland, they're easy prey. And if they try pillaging the tile, it'll usually end their unit's turn, giving you another chance to exploit their defensive penalty.

Now, what can you actually use the food for? Very much like a normal farm. For now, anyway. But when you unlock Economics, the Polder will become a spectacular tile of rapid city development.



Above: Tulipomania! Now let's just hope the price doesn't collapse...

Once you've got Economics, you will discover the value of tulips, then disregard that value and buy them for 10 years' salary. No, in actual fact your Polders will start giving you 2 gold a tile, and also 1 production, making them pretty amazing tiles. Get Economics before Steel and Navigation so you can use these super-Polders to help build Armouries and Sea Beggars.

Let's look more at the production bonus, as it adds production to tiles that usually can never recieve such a bonus (the only other UI to offer production is the Moroccan Kasbah.) As Polders are great for food anyway, you can dedicate plenty of tiles to further production and get an edge over other Civs. This is good for building an army, or just for infrastructure generally.

Now, the gold. Like all gold-granting UIs, it makes Golden Ages stronger as all your Polders will gain +1 gold, but outside that niche Polders are good generally for helping out with supporting armies, buying units, running research agreements or bribing City-States depending on your victory route.

Do not underestimate the power of Privateers. They've got the strength of Musketmen and over double the mobility for the same cost. They can capture other naval units, and that ability carries over on upgrade. They've got a bonus against cities, and get gold for attacking them. They can't deal with land units well - that's the job of Frigates, but overall plenty of Privateers makes for a very cost-effective navy.

But, Privateers also come with flaws. Like all naval units, they can only heal within your own territory by default (as well as friendly city-states or Civs with an Open Borders agreement) making them difficult to use on long campaigns. Plus, despite their strong strength for their era and a bonus against cities, they're still only half as effective as Cannons against cities.

Enter the Sea Beggar. It can heal outside enemy territory (and at 15HP a turn, that's more than your standard Musketman.) And, it has another Coastal Raider promotion giving it an effective strength of 35 vs cities, which might not be up to Cannon standard, but is still strong considering its high mobility and good defence compared to them.

That's just base stats. The real beauty with Sea Beggars is that by starting with Coastal Raider II, all you need is an Armoury to get them straight to Logistics, allowing them to attack twice (for this reason, get the Steel technology some time before Navigation. You'll need Physics anyway on the way to Economics, so it's not much of a detour.) Still, you shouldn't just have Sea Beggars on their own. Frigates are very strong against land units (which Sea Beggars can't deal with at all) and can attack cities without being damaged themselves. They'll need iron to be built, so be sure to pick some up as part of your early-game settling.

Attacking twice thanks to Logistics lets you take down cities faster, but be careful not to leave a Sea Beggar, damaged after a couple of attacks, in range of the enemy. The promotion also lets them move after attacking, so they can attack and then pull out of range of the enemy city's defences. Furthermore, it also allows you to weaken a sea unit faster for capture. Many Civs tend to neglect naval defence as it takes quite some time until such technologies lead anywhere other than more naval techs, and in the early-game, most war is done by land.


Above: Taking Barbarian ships is a great way to boost your navy size. Just be sure to return them to your lands to upgrade them if need be.


Above: When you capture enemy ships, they'll start with half-health. This means your enemy will tend to focus fire on those units rather your Sea Beggars. The downside of capturing ships is that you can't move them straight away, meaning in a narrow sea they block your route. Use Frigates to avoid that if need be.

Sea Beggars are good for invasion and capturing both units and cities alike, but consider the gold from the Coastal Raider promotions. This can serve as an extra gold source besides Polders (and trading surplus luxuries.) If you're going for diplomatic victory, keep this in mind, but also consider this: capturing cities makes other Civs angry at you, unless it's an act of liberation. Sea Beggars get gold from attacking cities - who gets the city in the end doesn't matter. A diplomatic Dutch player should therefore be at war to liberate, not to conquer. Liberating City-States earns you an instant long-lasting alliance.


These are the promotions kept by all Privateers being upgraded:

• Coastal Raider I (20% bonus vs cities, 33% of damage to cities is given to you as gold)
  
• Prize Ships (20-80% chance of stealing defeated ships)

And Sea Beggars have these as well:

• Coastal Raider II (20% bonus vs cities, 33% of damage to cities is given to you as gold)
  
• Supply (Can heal outside friendly territory, 15HP healed per turn)

One of the best bits about Privateers is that they retain the Prize Ships promotion when upgraded, as well as Coastal Raider I. Now, you keep four promotions (Sea Beggars have more keep-on-upgrade promotions than any other unit) in addition to the two to three you got from Barracks, Armouries and maybe Military Academies and the Brandenburg Gate.

One strategy is to hold off on Combustion for a while to stockpile Sea Beggars, then use Polder gold to upgrade the lot rapidly. Destroyers never go obsolete, so there's no need to worry about falling greatly behind there.

• Always make sure you have at least one coastal city before the renaissance, and at least some iron
  
• Get Steel before Navigation for Armouries
  
• Promote new Sea Beggars with Coastal Raider III and Logistics (even if you're using it to fight other naval units, Logistics is better than having two Boarding Party promotions.)
  
• Accompany Sea Beggars with Frigates to help deal with land units
  
• Know your safe spots to heal your Sea Beggars up where they won't be picked off
  
• If playing diplomatically, use them to liberate captured City-States

Go straight into Liberty to get those luxuries and Polder spots, although if you have a really Polder-friendly starting location, Tradition can work as well. After that, go to Patronage if you're heading along a diplomatic route, followed by Exploration for the Treasure Fleets bonus or Commerce for the gold and happiness bonuses. If you're going for war, dip into Exploration before going into Rationalism once the renaissance starts. Scientific players take a similar route to domination, but with Commerce instead of Exploration for Mercantilism's useful science bonus.


Opener

Liberty's opener, as always, allows your cities to expand their borders without needing to build anything. One problem is that cities don't tend to spread naturally towards marshland, so you'll have to buy those tiles yourself normally.

Republic

If someone else takes marshland, they'll soon drain it and it'll be gone forever. If another Civ takes a good floodplain spot, that's a very valuable area that'll be much harder to take. As such, your first target should be towards Collective Rule - Republic is on the way, and will help set things up faster with the +1 production bonus.

Collective Rule

Not only is there the free Settler, but Amsterdam will churn out more Settlers at a rapid pace in future. While floodplains are the most desirable spots, do not let opponents get hold of marshes either, as they can drain them.

Citizenship

When you're building wide, a free Worker is a great help for quicker development. Once Polders come along, you'll be able to set them up faster, meaning any floodplain regions you've held off on building farms on can be more rapidly be brought up to speed.

Representation

This policy helps you squeeze in more Social Policies over the course of the game. The free Golden Age is mostly useful for a production boost at this stage of the game.

Meritocracy

Together with your UA, this policy will be a great help to early expansion. Besides the marsh and floodplain areas, you should seek to have at least one coastal city for Sea Beggars and as wide a range of luxuries as possible to make the most out of that UA.

Finisher

Settling a Great Scientist to make an Academy is a reasonable option, considering the more cities you have, the more expensive technologies are.

Alternatively, if you've got a floodplain city with plenty of nearby desert hills, try rushing Petra. It won't affect floodplain tiles, but it'll make for very strong production on those hills. One trick is to take a Settler with a Great Engineer to a good Petra spot so you can rush it as soon as the city's founded.


Opener

Whatever your strategy as the Netherlands, you can make a lot of cash out of Polders and it'd be a shame to not make it go further. Patronage's opener lets you get more out of your money with a slower influence decay rate. Just remember you can't trade luxuries you get as City-State gifts.

When the Medieval era hits, switch to Exploration or Commerce, and finish this tree off later if you're after a diplomatic victory.

Consulates

It's very easy to make friends with a City-State with this policy, and not too difficult to start making alliances.

Philanthropy

And now your gold goes further. Along with the opener and Consulates, you could potentially half your gold payments to City-States, or save even more.

Scholasticism (Later on, diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

By the point you've got the opener and the previous two policies, it'll probably be the Medieval era, so put this one off unless you've got good gold but poor science. Later-on policies in Patronage tend to be about rewards for City-State friendship rather than making it easier to be friends with them, this one included.

Cultural Diplomacy (Later on, diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

While City-State luxuries cannot be traded, they can get a tonne of happiness along with Commerce's Protectionism. Lots of happiness will allow you to grow your cities faster and hence make them hard to attack.

Merchant Confederacy (Later on, diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

This policy screams use of the Freedom ideology's Treaty Organisation to gain influence, and that's probably the best route to take as a diplomatic Netherlands.

Finisher (Later on, diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

Like this policy, the Patronage tree in general tends to encourage alliances rather than lots of friendships (aside from Consulates, which gives pernament friendship to City-States who have your religion if you also have the Papal Primacy belief.) Hence, be careful which cities you target.

Exploration is great for a Sea Beggar-centric warmongering approach by making your sea cities more productive, but it's also good for diplomacy as well with Treasure Fleets.

Opener

The speed and sight bonus to sea units makes this a must-have whether you're focusing on war or diplomacy. With 6 moves, a Sea Beggar can go from just outside a city's range to attack it twice then pull out of range again, while the sight bonus helps exploration (if you haven't already discovered every Civ in the game, here's your chance to do it before anyone else.)

Maritime Infrastructure

A militaristic Dutch game leans on Sea Beggars, while diplomatic Dutch players don't need coastal expansion quite so much - but production in a place that often lacks it is still useful.

Naval Tradition

A diplomatic Netherlands player can pick this one up if they're greatly in need of happiness, but again, militaristic Dutch players should have a bigger focus on coastal cities, hence make more out of the policy. Squeezing out more happiness out of your cities helps make up for the loss of happiness when everyone starts denouncing you for going to war.

Navigation School (Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

Hopefully, you can grab this before your Sea Beggars really start tearing apart enemy cities. A free Great Admiral gives you the upper hand early on in a fight, as your opponents will probably lack any. To cause maximum trouble to an enemy navy, expend a Great Admiral to heal up units you've just captured, so they can't be sunk quite so easily.

Merchant Navy

Now, it's all about raking in cash. This policy isn't as good as the following one for it, but money is money. Treasure Fleets' emphasis on coastal trade routes means it's a good idea to build the East India Company in a coastal city, if you do intend to build it for this policy's bonus (build the East India Company as soon as possible, before this policy, or else getting it up and running will be much harder.) This will stack nicely with Maritime Infrastructure to help churn out a navy faster.

Treasure Fleets

If you're playing diplomatically and have some culture left over after everything else, you could work your way to Treasure Fleets, as coastal trade routes are worth more cash than land ones.

If you're warmongering, coastal trade routes will probably be safer than land ones (on maps like continents, pangea and terra) as you can escort them with your strong navy.

Finisher

Fairly useless on the whole for a non-cultural Civ, though you can cover hidden antiquity sites with units to stop anyone digging them up for archaeological purposes. Producing lots of archaeologists isn't really a great use of your production.


Commerce is preferable to Exploration if you're heavily based inland or you can afford to have smaller gold bonuses in exchange for a greater potential happiness bonus.

Opener

As your capital is always guarenteed at least two luxuries within a workable range, (in a generated map) you can always make sure you get a bit of cash here. Unfortunately, floodplains or marshes near your capital aren't a sure thing, so you can't reliably use this opener to make lots of polder-gold, as such this policy's no better or worse for you than pretty much any other Civ.

Mercenary Army

The reason for picking this up earlier is that it's more effective early on, when Landsknechte are at their strongest. If you're using war as a way to make money, then make sure Landsknechte always get the last hit due to their doubled gold-on-city-capture bonus. Otherwise, they provide cheap midgame defence.

For warmongers picking up this policy later on, upgrading a Landsknetch to a Lancer is costly, so the main point of the policy is to get Mercantilism's cheaper unit purchasing and maybe the little science bonus too.

Mercantilism

Again, this policy is more valuable earlier on - the science bonus is more significant earlier on than later, and in the late-game your gold will need to go towards maintaining City-State alliances.

Wagon Trains

When you've got a wide empire, halving route costs is a considerable injection of cash. A bonus to land trade routes is handy for late-game City-State trade with the Treaty Organisation tenet from the Freedom tree.

Entrepreneurship

Floodplain cities are excellent for making use of this policy. Being beside a river lets you build a Garden for higher Great People generation, and Polder gold encourages the building of Markets and Banks, which also allow Merchant specialists. In the late-game, the ability to gain lots of influence in a city (as well as gold for buying more influence) with Great Merchants is greatly useful for swinging every last city.

Protectionism

This is the real reason you're here. It makes luxury resources provide 50% more happiness - if you trade carefully, you'll pretty much not have to worry about happiness again. When you trade away the last copy of a luxury you have, it'll provide 4 happiness instead of 2 as mentioned before.

Finisher

Because Polders provide gold, you may be tempted to avoid building trading posts. But consider that Polders also give as much, if not more food than a farm, meaning it's no great loss to dedicate a few open-terrain tiles to trading posts and get the +1 gold bonus this policy gives. With both Polders and trading posts together, Markets, Banks and Stock Exchanges become powerful buildings.


Opener

Rationalism's Opener immediately gives you a 10% global science bonus so long as you keep your empire in positive happiness. For those with good floodplain and marsh spots building tall with highly-productive cities, this won't be a problem. If you're at war though, dipping into unhappiness is likely to happen making it all the more important you manage it well.

Secularism

Although your UA encourages you to build wide, filling specialist slots isn't too hard for an immediate science bonus.

Humanism

If you can make use of Secularism, you can make use of Humanism. Fill a few scientist slots and start making Great Scientists more rapidly.

Free Thought

Strong bonuses whether you're building tall or wide. If happiness is tight, set your cities to work more trading posts instead of farms (and be sure to check the "avoid growth" option.) This allows your cities both to create plenty of gold to support your army or research agreements, and to create plenty of science without having to have a high population.

Sovereignity

Wide empires tend to make the most of this policy; science buildings are high priority, so you'll have them even in relatively small cities. With Sovereignity, you'll therefore get lots of cash back. If you've got good Polder spots and are building tall, this won't be quite so good, but you'll probably make more use of the following policy.

Scientific Revolution

If you're warmongering, it may be hard to make the research agreement bonus work, but the strong finisher for Rationalism makes this worthwhile. If you're persuing a science victory, you can stretch your Polder/traded luxury gold further.

Finisher

A free technology is good for anyone. Be sure to pick something you're not already researching for maximum effect.

For the standard diplomatic route, take Freedom seeing as you can't win through diplomacy with the Order ideology.

If you want The Hague Amsterdam whichever city you feel is the capital of the Netherlands to be the capital of the world by force, Order will allow you to utilise a strong, wide empire to victory that way.

For science, either Freedom or Order will do. Choose Freedom if you've settled a low number of polder-heavy cities, or Order if you've got lots of cities.

As ever, I've listed the best choices for the first inverted pyramids of tenets (3 level one tenets, 2 from level two and 1 from level three.)


Covert Action (Diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

While you could influence World Congress votes with Diplomats, the opportunity for a greater chance of rigging City-State alliances will pay off more once world leader votes roll around, as you should be able to get more City-States firmly in your grasp.

Capitalism (Diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

Even if you have plenty of happiness already, there's always Golden Ages to aim for. Polders and trading posts are particularly effective in Golden Ages thanks to the gold bonus, and the extra cash potential could be a handy lift up. Otherwise, this allows you to build up your cities a bit taller, making Markets, Banks and Stock Exchanges easier to construct in cities you don't have them in already.

Avant Garde

Great People are useful for anyone. For diplomatic Civs, this means a chance to generate even more Great Merchants for more trade missions. For scientific Civs, more Great Scientists.

Civil Society (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

Building tall? Build taller with reduced food consumption by specialists.

Economic Union (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

This might look appealing to diplomatic players, but remember that Treaty Organisation depends on trading with City-States, and City-States cannot follow ideologies making the gold bonus impossible to get from them. Instead, use it as an extra source of gold for Space Procurements if you're playing scientifically.


Arsenal of Democracy (Diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

You can now utilse production towards diplomatic victory, with more influence from gifting units to City-States. Remember there's a 3 turn delay between sending a unit and the City-State recieving it, so try not to use it too close to a World Congress vote.

New Deal (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

New Deal makes Academies and Manufactories (among other Great Tile Improvements) more effective, which will really come in handy for late-game scientific players.

Universal Suffrage

The idea is to boost happiness to try and generate a Golden Age for the high cash and production potential.


Treaty Organisation (Diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

While City-State trading typically gets you less cash than trading with larger Civs, the influence potential from this policy far outweighs that of if you used the extra money to bribe the City-State. Keep your routes safe, and use Arsenal of Democracy's unit production bonus to build up a defensive force if there's late-game warmongers about.

Space Procurements (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

Although the Netherlands are disadvantaged in science output compared to more traditional scientific Civs, one trick they have up their sleeve is a decent gold output, which can here shave off a few turns off an eventual spaceship launch.


Hero of the People

Take this first if you're playing scientifically, or last if you're warmongering. Great People are useful to everyone, but to varying extents. For warmongers, the opportunity to get the next couple of Great People sooner is generally outweighed by the usefulness of Socialist realism's happiness bonuses.

Double Agents (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

Because you don't want anyone leeching off your technological advantages.

Socialist Realism

An inexpensive route to lots of happiness. Excess happiness means possible Golden Ages and the massive cash potential, or simply more happiness available when you're off conquering.

Young Pioneers (Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

A wide-building Civ at war needs all the happiness it can get.

Skyscrapers (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

This can be handy for getting Research Labs, Spaceship Factories or other crucial late-game buildings up faster. After all, you'll probably have plenty of excess gold at this point and need somewhere to spend it.


Workers' Faculties

One of Order's strongest tenets, you'll want this whether to get ahead in the space race or get ahead in the arms race.

Five-Year Plan

The more production, the more units you can build and the easier it is to achieve conquest. Your Polder-based economy should be able to support a large army. Alternatively, use the bonus to build the spaceship faster.


Iron Curtain (Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

Iron Curtain lets you take cities without so much of a happiness penalty (and without the usual high maintenance costs of a courthouse) making it far less of a hinderance to conquest. If everyone's pillaging your International Trade Routes, they're now 50% more effective. If you have a Heroic Epic city, pour production trade routes into it so you can mass-produce a strong army.

Spaceflight Pioneers (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

If you have a good Polder city, you should be able to have a decent output of Great Engineers, which in turn can now save you a few turns towards launching the spaceship. Make sure the routes to your capital from your key spaceship-part-building cities are well-developed with railroads to save as much time as possible.

Religion is reasonably useful for the Dutch - not core to their strategies, but not something that makes little difference to the game. You should seek to found a religion, but it's not the end of the world if you don't.


Desert Folklore

Floodplain regions become even better with this belief, as now you get faith on top of everything else. Dutch floodplain cities will be fast-growing once Polders are around, so it can earn you quite a lot of faith.

Aside from Desert Folklore, other faith-giving Pantheons are useful to increase the odds of you founding a full religion.

Messenger of the Gods

Compensates you nicely for the rising science costs from every city you own. If you can expand quickly in the early game and link those cities up, you could set yourself on the way for a tech advantage by the time Sea Beggars come along.

God of the Sea (Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

The aim here is to maximise the production of your Sea Beggar-producing cities. It also helps in providing a little extra production in coastal cities you may have conquered with those very same units.

Sacred Waters

If you've got a large number of floodplain areas, or just have a wet region full of marshes and rivers, you can now squeeze a little happiness out of it and hence expand a little faster.


Papal Primacy (Diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

A higher resting point for influence means it's easier to make alliances with a City-State. If you have Consulates (from the Patronage Social Policy tree) as well, you can be permanent friends with the City-State so long as your religion is the majority one.

Tithe

Probably the best all-purpose Founder belief, enjoy a healthy extra source of gold without even having to have many cities following your religion.

Church Property

If you fail to get Tithe or there's a high number of small cities around lacking a religion of their own, there's always Church Property to fall back on.

Ceremonial Burial

This can help you expand a little faster, though simply buying happiness buildings with Church Property may be more effective.


Pagodas (Diplomatic/Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

That wonderful policy for wide-building empires, Pagodas provide two happiness, faith and culture each. If you've got a good floodplain city and Desert Folklore, you can really take full advantage of this already good policy.

Peace Gardens (Diplomatic/Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

Founding a city on a river gives it a bonus to international trading, and floodplain-heavy regions make good city spots for the Dutch for Polders. As such, it's not so hard to build Gardens and squeeze happiness out the policy.

Mosques (Diplomatic/Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

A substitute for Pagodas if someone else has taken them, or maybe a complement if your faith generation is good but your happiness is not.

Religious Community (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

If you decide to build tall, or manage to grab Petra in a good floodplain city (with nearby desert hills) this lets you really get the most out of production. Polders add production to a tile usually lacking it, so you'll have above-average production - all the better to extend it further.

Swords into Plowshares (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

Build on the growth advantages offered by Polders.


Religious Unity (Diplomatic Netherlands favoured)

Got Papal Primacy? You'll want to keep those City-States in your religion, so double the pressure! Don't have it? Then you'll probably be better off with something else, unless a rival diplomatic Civ threatens to use it against you. Keep in mind to get the double pressure bonus, the City-State needs to be in at least friendly relations.

Itinerant Preachers

This belief works well with wide empires, as not only can your religion influence cities further afield, but the longer range of religious pressure also means higher pressure generally, particularly in the middle of your empire.

Religious Texts

An easy faith-free way of spreading your religion more effectively.

Here's a list of the decisions and brief notes on importance of some. Ones missing depend greatly on the situation you're in. Voting choices may vary depending on your game - if everyone's pushing for a policy you don't want, but your strategy doesn't rest on it, then it may be better just to abstain (or vote for it for possible diplomatic bonuses.)

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If Polynesia wants the International Games, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea putting International Games on the table.

Arts Funding

Low priority
Vote no

GWAMs aren't really the most useful things in the world to you, and you don't really want a cutback in Great Scientist, Engineer or Merchant production.

Cultural Heritage Sites

Medium priority
Vote no

Embargo City-States

Very High priority for diplomatic Netherlands
Medium-High priority for warmongering Netherlands
Vote no

Whether you've warmongered to the point everyone's fed up of you, or you need City-State trading for the Treaty Organisation tenet, trading with City-States is important, so you can't let it be banned.

Historical Landmarks

Low priority
Vote no

Cultural Civs will get more out of this than you, so vote against it.

International Games

Low-Medium priority for diplomatic Netherlands
Medium priority for warmongering Netherlands
Vote no

Polders offer you mildly above-average production, which helps with projects such as this one. It still mainly helps cultural players, so watch out!

International Space Station

Very high priority for scientific Netherlands
High priority otherwise
Vote no unless playing scientifically

Natural Heritage Sites

Low-Medium priority
Vote no unless you have plenty of Natural Wonders

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority for diplomatic Netherlands
Medium priority for warmongering Netherlands
Vote yes if you're playing diplomatically or you lack uranium
Vote no otherwise

Scholars in Residence

Medium priority
Vote yes unless you're in the lead technologically speaking

Sciences Funding

High priority
Vote yes

Standing Army Tax

Medium priority for diplomatic Netherlands
High priority for warmongering Netherlands
Vote yes if you're diplomatic or your economy is much stronger than rivals
Vote no otherwise

If you're a warmonger with a strong economy, consider that the standing army tax discourages other Civs to build up a defensive force of any great size. Freedom Civs can have a small number of units for free from the Volunteer Army tenet, but otherwise it affects everyone - warmongers and peaceful Civs alike.

World's Fair

Low priority
Abstain if you're playing diplomatically or you think you can safely spare the production if it does pass
Vote no otherwise

Building wide to take advantage of your UA is a bit of a hinderance to wonder-building, but here's a few that might be worth a shot.


Pyramids (Liberty Only)

Competition is pretty low for this wonder, making it easy to pick up. A faster Worker speed will get those Polders and roads up faster, which will help your empire to mature faster.

Temple of Artemis

The 10% food bonus goes well with Polders, particularly on flood plains. And faster ranged unit production helps you to defend. Cities growing too fast? Tick the "avoid growth" box on the city screen.


Colossus

While not as useful as Petra, you still get an extra Trade Route which you can use as you see fit. It's a good economic boost in a time before Polders really shine.

Great Lighthouse

Like the Exploration opener, this is good whether you're using naval units as the core of your strategy, or solely around the time of Sea Beggars. Retreating out of threats from ranged units is all the easier, and exploration is more effective.

Petra

A high priority wonder. While it doesn't affect floodplain tiles, you can still build it in a floodplain city (and there's bound to be other desert tiles in the area.) This can potentially create the ultimate in balanced cities - strong food from floodplain Polders, strong production from desert hills and strong gold from Polders as well. Not to mention all the faith from Desert Folklore if you have it. It's worth using your Liberty finisher Great Engineer to rush this wonder in an appropriate city.


Angkor Wat

When expanding via culture, cities tend to acquire tiles on or near luxuries. Good for your UA, not so good for taking marsh spots. You need every luxury, marsh and floodplain tile you can get, so the Angkor Wat will help make that task easier.

Chichen Itza

I've already mentioned how Golden Ages are stronger for the Dutch than many other Civs due to the gold present on Polders. Extending their length will give you even more of that precious money. Plus, you get a small amount of happiness from this wonder, so even if you're not considering Golden Ages yet, it can still help out with expansion.

Machu Picchu

Wide empires have a lot to gain from the gold bonus from city connections (it's based off population points, though wide empires tend to have a higher overall number of population points than tall empires, even if the population statistic in the demographics tab tends to show tall empires as having more people.) Plus, you get a bit of gold anyway and faith. If that wasn't enough, it's easy to build - Guilds gives you Polders, so you'll want to grab the tech early anyway, and the mountain requirement often means little competition.

Notre Dame

Might be hard to pick up as many other Civs may research Physics before you, but the happiness bonus helps out with expansion.


Forbidden Palace (Patronage Only)

A very high priority wonder. Even warmongering players should find this useful, as it makes it harder for other Civs to gang up on you at the World Congress (not to mention the nice cut to unhappiness.) The only way to lose those delegates is to lose the city the wonder's in, which is clearly a lot less likely than losing a City-State alliance.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

The Printing Press technology establishes the World Congress and leads into Economics, hence it's a good tech to get sooner rather than later anyway. That helps in building this competitive wonder. You can use the Great People bonus to get more Great Merchants for Trade Missions and hence lots of gold for City-State alliances.

Porcelain Tower (Scientific/Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

You can't complain about a free Great Scientist and the good boost to science it offers. A bonus to research agreements isn't bad either - with Scientific Revolution from the Rationalism tree, you'll always make more science from them than the other Civ.

Taj Mahal

A bit off your main tech path, but Polders make your Golden Ages particularly gold-rich seeing as Golden Ages add 1 gold to every tile with at least 1 already.


Big Ben (Commerce Only)

Economics feeds right into Industrialism, meaning it's not too difficult to get to this technology. Commerce exclusivity just makes it all the easier to build. If you're quick enough, you can use the cheap purchasing to build up your Sea Beggar armarda. Otherwise, it's just a generally handy bonus for a Civ with a strong economy.


Kremlin (Order Only, Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

The Dutch are best at sea battles, but on most maps you can't win that way alone. Enter the Kremlin, offering an enormous boost to armoured unit production. It doesn't affect the costs of armoured unit purchasing, so use your gold for other things for maximum efficency.

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only)

All specialists gain 1 production point, which is a great help to late-game production for churning out units to feed to City-States, other late-game wonders or spaceship parts.


Great Firewall (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

Make your best scientific city immune to tech-stealing.

Pentagon (Warmongering Netherlands favoured)

Lacking the Professional Army tenet from the Honour tree, you may find your upgrade costs somewhat expensive - particularly for all those Sea Beggars you might want to bring up to a higher level. The Pentagon will save a significant amount of cash there, letting you develop your navy faster and free up more money for other persuits.


CN Tower

Consider the economic potential of a free citizen in every city of your wide empire. That extra person could be working a Commerce-boosted trading post - multiply that gold by the number of cities you have and that's quite a bit of extra disposable income for the crucial end-game.

Hubble Space Telescope (Scientific Netherlands favoured)

Get that spaceship up sooner with more science and more production.

Here's a selection of possible mistakes while playing as the Dutch.


You get 50% of the happiness from a luxury when you've traded your last copy away. But you get 100% when you still have at least one copy. If you can't manage to trade that last luxury for another luxury in the early-game, it might be better for you just to hang on to it for now.


For the maximum possible income, you need to build wide, which puts pressure on your happiness via the unhappiness-per-city mechanic. But Polders may cause them to grow tall quickly, too, plunging you into near-constant unhappiness which is not good for your long-term potential. Sometimes you have to avoid growth for the greater good. The easiest way to do that is checking the "avoid growth" box in the city screen. Be sure to uncheck it when you've got enough happiness again.


Without Armouries, Sea Beggars cannot start with Logistics. Logistics is crucial to Sea Beggar strategy as the promotion lets them move to safety after attacking (in addition to more damage, gold and XP from the extra attack.)


Although Sea Beggars do have the ability to capture ships, you'll find war easier if you start out with at least a couple of Frigates. Frigates can attack land units (useful for dealing with troublesome Crossbowmen) and can attack without being hurt themselves (handy for weakening a ship for a Sea Beggar to capture.)


You can win by diplomacy if other major Civs hate you, but it'll be harder as you'll face an uphill struggle in the World Congress and may have to spend more time/resources building up a defensive force in case you're attacked back in retaliation. Not to mention if anyone declares war with you, they could ruin your International Trade Routes. If you're aiming for a diplomatic win, try use your Sea Beggars for liberating cities, not capturing them.

The Dutch build wide effectively and can be a real threat in the Renaissance, but their land forces can suffer.


The Dutch can use this UA to earn themselves lots of happiness, but to do so requires trading other Civs luxuries - make sure you're their main trading partner. Getting a monopoly on a resource may be hard, but if possible, it'll force the Dutch to trade with you or lose potential happiness. Or, of course, you could just deny them that luxury.

When forced to decide between a Polder spot or a luxury resource, the Dutch would probably choose the first of the two. That's a good opportunity to slip in a city and take the resource yourself.

All very good if you're building wide, but what about warmongers? Well, that's the easy bit. The Netherlands is probably more focused on expansion (due to this UA) than defence - you should aim to take them out as soon as possible for this reason.

Tall-building Civs don't really have a particular response to this UA, but don't worry, you have other ways to deal with them.


Polders are awkward things to face as they're difficult to pillage. Avoid moving units onto marsh Polders when at all possible, as you'll suffer a combat penalty making that would-be pillager an easy target. Instead of pillaging Polders, therefore, if you want to hurt a Dutch city, go for the production improvements. Polder production does not make up for the loss of mines and lumbermills.

Like any UI, (besides the Portugese Feitoria,) if you manage to capture a Polder, you can use it yourself for the lovely bonuses (the +1 production and +2 gold is tied to you having Economics, not them if you capture the improvement.) For cities likely to be recaptured, you could try draining marshes, but that comes at the cost of what Polders offer you if the city's returned to your hands once more.

Not a warmonger? Well, you'll have to start early. If the Dutch start near you, then try to place cities somewhere near drainable marshland, or floodplain regions (be sure to defend well in case they want it for themselves.) If you can scout land fast enough, even tall-building players can put a dent in the Dutch plans this way.


They may have a great bag of tricks, but when defending, Sea Beggars are no better than normal Privateers and are hence vulnerable to attacks by Frigates or even land-based ranged units. Like Hunnic Battering Rams, they rely heavily on actually reaching cities to unlock their full potential, so try to prevent them getting that far. A weaker, earlier sea unit could suffice as a block.

If Sea Beggars are convering your Navy to the Dutch, carry on attacking the Sea Beggars, not the seemingly-vulnerable units they've just captured. The Dutch aren't the Ottomans - only their Sea Beggars and units upgraded from them can capture other ships. Speaking of capturing, though, remember that your Privateers can capture their Sea Beggars! Batter one down with Frigates and then move the Privateer in for the kill capture, maybe?

The Dutch at war suffer on land. A land-based pillaging force is a possible way to annoy them into cutting back their war operations without requiring a large army to confront them.


Early-game Aggressors - Destroy the Dutch before they can really defend their fast-expanding empire.

Mid-game Aggressors - Focus on land warfare, but also keep a couple of Frigates ready to take on Sea Beggars.

Late-game Aggressors - Combined land and air forces will do well here; be wary of their ship-capturing former-Sea Beggars. Fast-moving units can successfully pillage Polders (before it'd be too risky.)

Cultural/Scientific Players - You should see little clash here. For cultural Civs, your tourism generation will probably cause them trouble in the late-game, with plenty of unhappiness for example. Scientific Civs can attempt to hold the Dutch back by out-teching them in naval strength. The push to Guilds for example generally means the Dutch neglect naval technologies at the time.

Diplomatic Players - If the Dutch are using all their uniques to their full potential, they should be taking Sea Beggars to war. A good opportunity to try and persuade other Civs to declare war on them or at least denounce.

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These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)