How on earth do you spawn enough treasure fleets to win economic exploration?

[iheartdaikaiju]

Do you just have to cheese the game on easy difficulty?

[Skull]

You have to be choosy with how you place your settlements on the second continent. Always look for places where you can score 2-3 points and use those as your settlements. Expanding fast is also key, once you have enough happiness from the early exploration buildings it's fine to go one settlement over the cap. You should also look to prioritize the civics and technologies that give you +1 settlement limit.

If another civ has a large number of treasures in a city you can take advanatage of, you can always do a short war to take it off their hands. Just be prepared to deal with war's consequences ;).

[gmsh1964]

You need Treasure Fleet points. So if you found a city with two treasure resources, each Fleet spawned counts as Two points.
IMO, it takes a lot of overall game resources and frequently you might create some crappy cities just to get this.., so I tend not to focus on it too much. But you can get it.

[Marquoz]

Just got it in my Rome to Spain game following the above strategy exactly. You have to move fast and settle smart. Prioritize scouting out good settlement locations ASAP and grab them as fast as you can. Sail settlers and cogs across short stretches of open ocean even though it will damage them and move move move.

[kasnavada]

Depending on how the AI extends on the second continent, military conquest of a coastal city with 2-5 resources does also help.

In immortal I find that to complete this you do need 7-8 resources and to somewhat rush navigation.

[Tiberianus]

Originally posted by kasnavada:

Depending on how the AI extends on the second continent, military conquest of a coastal city with 2-5 resources does also help.

In immortal I find that to complete this you do need 7-8 resources and to somewhat rush navigation.

+1
I encounter every game AI-Cities with 2+ Treasure Resources around them.
Capitals sometimes even 4.

[Ambidex]

I don't really think it's possible to really win treasure fleet unless you got really lucky and found a city with like 3-4 resources within 2-3 tiles of your other cities. Otherwise, you basically have to go to war with people on the other side and take their cities instead.

Just not really feasible to win economy path without military usage.

[iheartdaikaiju]

Originally posted by Ambidex:

I don't really think it's possible to really win treasure fleet unless you got really lucky and found a city with like 3-4 resources within 2-3 tiles of your other cities. Otherwise, you basically have to go to war with people on the other side and take their cities instead.

Just not really feasible to win economy path without military usage.

Yeah military was the key for me, I just waged war and incorporated a bunch of city-states (which also helped me get my relics since you can't send missionaries until they have a friend)

[Rhapsody]

If you don't get lucky, the distant lands islands alone likely won't have enough treasure resources. But it can happen.

Songhai have a unique civic to spawn treasure fleets from their homelands settlements on navigable rivers, but that wasn't super reliable or quick the one time I got to try it so far, but I think those can begin before shipbuilding tech.

[Skull]

Originally posted by iheartdaikaiju:

Originally posted by Ambidex:

I don't really think it's possible to really win treasure fleet unless you got really lucky and found a city with like 3-4 resources within 2-3 tiles of your other cities. Otherwise, you basically have to go to war with people on the other side and take their cities instead.

Just not really feasible to win economy path without military usage.

Yeah military was the key for me, I just waged war and incorporated a bunch of city-states (which also helped me get my relics since you can't send missionaries until they have a friend)

Glad you found a way to make it work. IMHO, treasure fleets are the toughest objectives to go for because they’re so RNG dependent.

[deadsanta]

I found it pretty trivial to win with fleets: get the two exploration techs first, beeline for shipbuilding while you explore the new world. Have your colonists ready to go and send along a commander-army if need be (only way to send homeland military overseas until much later). I usually have 3 colonies producing 8 treasure resources (occasionally I need a 4th colony) and once you can produce the treasure fleets, I get the win in 20 turns. Don't forget you need a fishing quay to launch a fleet, and make sure it's as close to your homelands as you can make it.

Religion is the biggest PITA in my games, I hate that mechanic and the relic requirements always suck for me. Specialist stacking is also a drag, military and economic are the easier wins for me until explorers/artifacts... that mechanic is just too easy.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

It's a hard one to gauge because it depends on map generation.

Sometimes, a single settlement can do it... three or four of the right resources and you probably get it done just in time.

More realistically, and especially on higher difficulties, you may need to take one of the CPU's settlements, as they do get out to settle those resources fairly quickly.

Beelining to get deep-water travel and then bee-lining to get shipbuilding is, like one or two others said, pretty vital. The CPU moves fast to settle those resources, even on lower difficulties sometimes.

[yahboi1988]

Originally posted by Ambidex:

I don't really think it's possible to really win treasure fleet unless you got really lucky and found a city with like 3-4 resources within 2-3 tiles of your other cities. Otherwise, you basically have to go to war with people on the other side and take their cities instead.

Just not really feasible to win economy path without military usage.

Nah you just have to know what you are doing. Most of the other reply's here give good advice on how to accomplish it.

[iheartdaikaiju]

Originally posted by deadsanta:

I found it pretty trivial to win with fleets: get the two exploration techs first, beeline for shipbuilding while you explore the new world. Have your colonists ready to go and send along a commander-army if need be (only way to send homeland military overseas until much later). I usually have 3 colonies producing 8 treasure resources (occasionally I need a 4th colony) and once you can produce the treasure fleets, I get the win in 20 turns. Don't forget you need a fishing quay to launch a fleet, and make sure it's as close to your homelands as you can make it.

I think that was most of it for me, just needing to beeline shipbuilding. I now just do that and theology no matter what victory condition I'm going for. I've played a couple times, this is way easier than I thought, though I do find I have to play a bit more violently than you at higher difficulties if I want to basically forward settle everyone on the other continents, and with the insane razing penalties I find it easier to just kill the AI and take their cities, like it's 5 happiness either way (above settlement cap vs war exhaustion) so it's like, why not, the cities are right there and spawn a ton of fleets anyway.

But I have done it peacefully and agree it's completely feasible when you've teched out correctly and have settlers ready. Shipbuilding II is the only level 2 tech I grab before completing the tree just because civilian units on water is so important.

Also really loving keeping my cities between eras, I basically always go economic in ancient/exploration now, the other victory conditions serve no purpose to me really aside from the leader attributes tree being really good for military.