Zigzagzigal's Guide to Indonesia (BNW)

Indonesia can support a vast empire, colonising and conquering new lands. From that the Indonesians can create more faith than pretty much anyone else. It's a tricky Civ to get the hang of, but this guide goes into plenty of detail about Indonesian strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

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)



The balance of power shifts in a brave new world. The old order of power has begun to change. But to understand the shape of the future, Prime Minister, you must understand your peoples' past. Two thousand years ago - as is the case now - this archipelago was vital to world trade, from East Africa to China and the kingdoms of India. Trade brought with it religious diversity - Hinduism and Buddhism took root in the middle of the first millenium, leading to the Majapahit empire which for the first time saw most of the archipelgo under one rule. Islam gained ground in the 13th century onwards, but direct contact with Europe in the 16th century would change things forever.

The Portugese, British and the Dutch seeked to control Indonesian lands to achieve a monopoly of local goods - the latter of the three dominating much of the islands by the 20th century, but in bringing a diverse range of peoples together, united many against colonial rule. A switch of power - Japanese occupation during the Second World War - only strengthened the independence movement. The nation was free, but throughout the next half-century, many of its citizens were not. It would take until nearly the dawn of a new millenium to finally achieve a more democratic society. And now, Indonesia is a growing hub of heavy industry for the world, and as important as ever for world trade. But can you handle the religious, cultural and economic pressures, Prime Minister? Will you bring your nation forward as the world power history has promised it to be? Can you build a civilization that can 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.

Beelining - Getting a technology early by only researching that technology and technologies required for it. To beeline Horseback Riding from the start, for example, you'd only research Animal Husbandry, Archery, The Wheel, Trapping, Horseback Riding and nothing else until Horseback Riding is finished.
Infinite City Sprawl - ICS for short. A strategy where you just keep building more and more cities - as many as possible. In other words, rapid expansion for the entire game.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
GP - Short for Great Person in this guide, rather than Great Prophet.
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three Great People who can make Great Works for tourism leading to a cultural victory.
Meatshield - A unit that takes plenty of damage on behalf of others. This is often the role of front-line melee units; an Invulnerability-promoted Kris Swordsman in particular is brilliant at that.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Rapid Expansion - REX for short. A focus on building lots of cities quickly, which Indonesia can do effectively with their UA.
Standard melee unit - In my guides, "melee" on its own typically refers to non-ranged military units. "Standard melee" refers to Spearmen, Pikemen, Warriors, Swordsmen and Longswordsmen.
Sniping - The act of taking out an enemy Civilization's capital when ignoring other cities. As you only need to be the last Civ left with your original capital to win, this is an effective strategy in the late-game to take out Civs with particularly large numbers of cities.
Spotter - A unit which allows a ranged unit (usually a siege unit) a line of sight with its target. Typically, siege units have a higher maximum range than their sight radius, hence the need for spotters.
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each. Not a good idea to go that way with Indonesia.
Turtle - As in to "turtle up". Refers to a highly defensive state where expansion is limited. An effective strategy in Multiplayer is to get other players to do this.
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building which can only be built by one Civilization.
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.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each. Your UA and UB both work best when building wide.

At a glance (Part 1/3)

Start Bias

Indonesia forms the world's largest archipelago, so it only makes sense they have a coastal starting bias. This helps you to colonise new landmasses and make good use of your UA.

Uniques

Indonesia's Unique Ability comes into play as soon as they colonise other landmasses. Their Unique Unit is in the classical era, and they have a medieval-era Unique Building.

Unique Ability: Spice Islanders

• The first three cities you found on different landmasses besides the one your capital is in...
  
  • Can never be razed
    
  • Provide two copies of a special luxury (Nutmeg, Cloves and Pepper) for a total of 12 without trading, or 18 with the Protectionism Social Policy (from the Commerce tree) and without trading.
• The landmasses may be of any size
  
• The cities must also be founded on separate landmasses to each other, so for the maximum effect you need at least four landmasses
  
• Capturing cities on other continents won't allow you access to the luxuries, nor will getting the cities via trading
  
• Placing one of those cities on a resource will displace the old resource!
  
• If those cities are captured, the capturing Civ gets the luxuries
  
• Tiles these cities are on generate an additional 2 gold

Unique Unit: Kris Swordsman (Replaces the Swordsman)

A standard melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Iron Working Classical era 2nd column** (5th column overall)	Steel Medieval era 2nd column (7th column overall)	Warrior (80 )*	Longswordsman (100 )*	75 *	390 *	1 Iron

*Assumes a normal speed game.
**Has no 1st column prerequisites, but the technology has the cost of the 2nd column of the classical era.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
14	N/A	2	N/A	2	None, unless the random promotion received from the first round of combat is negative	Carries the Mystic Blade promotion (see below) which carries over on upgrade if not replaced by one of the eight unique promotions

Mystic Blade

• Kris Swordsmen initially have this promotion.
  
• After the first round of combat, (capturing civilian units does not count) they'll unlock one of eight unique promotions, which will take effect immediately after that round of combat. The Mystic Blade promotion will be removed.
  
• All the unique promotions, positive or negative, will be kept when you upgrade the unit.

Negative Outcomes

Enemy Blade
-20HP/turn in enemy territory (must be at war with that Civ or City-State)

Evil Spirits
-10% attack, -30% defence


Mixed Outcome

Ambition
+50% attack, -20% defence


Positive Outcomes

Heroism
15% combat bonus to all land units within a 2 tile radius, including itself. Does not stack with a Great General.

Invulnerability
+30% defence. Recover 20HP more a turn while healing.

Recruitment
Heals 50HP when it kills a non-Barbarian unit. Capturing civilian units does not count.

Restlessness
+1 movement point, +1 attack (Can stack with Blitz for 3 attacks in one turn), can move after attacking

Sneak Attack
+50% flanking bonus (15% bonus to combat per friendly unit adjacent to the enemy rather than 10%)

Unique Building: Candi (Replaces the Garden)

Technology	Building required	Required to build	Production cost	Purchase cost	City restriction	Maintenance
Theology Medieval era 1st column (6th column overall)	None	None	120 *	580 *	None	1

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Base output	Output Multiplier	Specialist	Great Work slots	Other effects
2	+25%	None	None	+2 for every religion present in the city

Positive changes

• Can be built in any city, not just ones with an adjacent lake or river
  
• 2 extra faith generated per turn
  
• 2 further extra faith generated per turn for every religion with at least one follower in the city (if you had a city including followers of 3 different religions, the building would generate 8 faith per turn)

At a glance (Part 2/3)

Victory Methods

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: 6/10
Diplomatic: 8/10
Domination: 8/10
Scientific: 4/10

You can use promoted Kris Swordsmen to conquer the world supported by the happiness offered by your unique luxuries, or build wide, work lots of strong gold tiles and trade away your luxuries to provide funding for a diplomatic victory. Your strong faith output will help out both routes.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

Quite a few Civs have elements in common with Indonesia, but perhaps the closest is Spain. Both Civs are encouraged to settle distant colonies to make good use of their UA - Spain for natural wonders, Indonesia for unique luxuries. Both UAs offer happiness bonuses. Both can have a particularly high faith output - Spain from the One With Nature Pantheon and Indonesia from Candi. Finally, both have flexible front-line UUs. While Kris Swordsmen have flexibility through the many different unique promotions they can receive, Spain's Tercios have flexibility through lacking a normal weakness generic Musketmen have.

For maritime Civs other than Indonesia which can make decent stabs at both diplomatic and domination victories, look to Carthage and the Netherlands.

Same start bias

The coastal start bias is the most common in the game. Aside from Indonesia, it's also the start bias of Byzantium, Carthage, Denmark, England, Japan, Korea, the Ottomans, Polynesia, Portugal, Spain and Venice.

Similar to the UA

Having unique luxuries is a feature only Indonesia has, but a bonus encouraging you to trade luxuries is not - the Dutch Unique Ability lets them keep some happiness even if they trade all their copies of a luxury away, and Arabia's Bazaars double the quantities of luxury resources within the city's radius, giving you more to trade.

Other happiness bonuses intended to support a wide empire include the Celtic Ceilidh Hall (replaces the Opera House, offers +3 local city happiness), Persia's Satrap's Court (replaces the Bank, offers +2 local city happiness and +1 gold) and Portugal's Feitoria (a unique improvement which gives you access to a City-State's luxuries even if you're not allied.) Egypt's Burial Tombs (replaces the Temple, no maintenance and +2 local city happiness) can also be used to support a wide empire, but Egypt's UA discourages that usage.

Similar to Kris Swordsmen

Other Swordsman UUs include the Iroquoian Mohawk Warrior and Rome's Legion, but the advantages of Kris Swordsmen are very different to either of them.

The randomness of the unique promotions Kris Swordsmen can receive is unique to them - no other UU has an equivalent. In addition, no other UU can have purely negative promotions that carry over on upgrade.

Enemy Blade

The closest thing any other Civ has to this is Carthage's units getting injured if they end a turn on a mountain. In both cases, what needs to be done is simple - just don't end your turn in a way that injures the unit if you can avoid it.

Evil Spirits

A strong defensive penalty is also found on the Hunnic Battering Ram. You can minimise this risk by ensuring the unit is always near other friendly units which can take out enemies before they have a chance to exploit that weakness.

Ambition

The attack bonus of Ambition is double that of Ottoman Janissaries, but Ambition Kris Swordsmen lack the health-on-kills feature they have in addition to having a 20% penalty in defence.

Other UUs with very high attack relative to their defence include Byzantine Dromons, Korean Hwach'a, Zulu Impis, Polish Winged Hussars and Russian Cossacks.

Heroism

Having the bonus of a Great General without needing one is unique to the Heroism promotion, but in practice, it works alike unique bonuses to Great General generation - you'll end up with spare ones you can use to build Citadels with.

Here's a list of all unique bonuses to Great General generation (all those tied to UUs carry over on upgrade):

• China's Unique Ability (50% bonus)
  
• African Forest Elephant (Carthage, 100% bonus)
  
• Companion Cavalry (Greece, 50% bonus)
  
• Keshik (Mongolia, 50% bonus in addition to a 50% XP bonus which also increases contribution to Great General generation)
  
• Samurai (Japan, 100% bonus)

Invulnerability

Healing 20HP per turn is double the bonus offered by Persia's Immortals or the Fountain of Youth, and exceeds the healing bonus offered by Mongolia's Khans. Swedish Caroleans do not heal any faster per turn, but heals every turn making them also effective at recovering health.

The 30% defensive bonus is something which has no close parallels with any other UU. Perhaps the nearest thing to it is the ability of Byzantine Cataphracts to fortify and receive defensive bonuses from terrain - in both cases it makes the units better at soaking up damage without making them any better at dealing it.

Recruitment

The bonus offered here is identical to the health-on-kills attribute of Ottoman Janissaries - heal 50 health when you kill a non-Barbarian unit.

Aztec Jaguars heal 25 health when killing units, but it works when killing Barbarians.

At a glance (Part 3/3)

Restlessness

The only other UU that has a special double-attack promotion is China's Chu-Ko-Nu. Chu-Ko-Nu, as ranged units, can get more out of the second attack as the first won't injure them, but they have a strength penalty relative to generic Crossbowmen. Although in both cases the unique promotion is separate to a generic promotion that adds an extra attack per turn, Chu-Ko-Nu don't have enough movement points to make use of that while Restlessness Kris Swordsmen do.

Other front-line UUs with extra mobility include America's Minuteman as well as Denmark's Berserkers and Denmark's Norwegian Ski Infantry. The unique abilities of Persia and Inca make front-line units more mobile by giving them +1 movement during a Golden Age and faster hills movement respectively, while Zulu Ikanda offer +1 movement to standard melee units via the Buffalo Horns promotion.

Sneak Attack

Austria's Hussars have an identical bonus to flanking, and their higher movement makes it easier for them to make use of it.

Standard melee units built in a Zulu city with an Ikanda start with a 25% stronger flanking bonus (instead of the 50% offered by Sneak Attack) but they have access to further promotions that can raise this to 75%.

Similar to Candi

Austria's Coffee Houses work similarly to Candi in that they both offer Great People bonuses but are not unrestricted to a specific kind of terrain (unlike the generic building) allowing you more choice in where to build your cities to achieve the maximum potential.

Other UBs with faith bonuses include Mayan Pyramids and Ethiopian Steles. They offer smaller bonuses, but come much earlier, making them much more effective when securing a Pantheon or religion in the first place. The Celtic UA works similarly.

Unique Ability: Spice Islanders

Above: By the end of the game you'll have a very, very long list of luxuries.

The biggest constraint to expansion is happiness, whether you're founding cities or conquering them. Indonesia's game should involve both, as this UA requires you to found cities - not conquer them - and most types of Kris Swordsmen work better when you're actively seeking out wars rather than keeping in defence.

Progression

Before you go off on your voyage of discovery, however, you need to consider technologies. You need Optics before you can settle other continents and hence use this UA, but you need Iron Working for Kris Swordsmen - on the opposite side of the tech tree. And you'll want a good start and not wasting too much time on other technologies. As such, here's a possible tech route to go down.

• Mining
  
• Bronze Working (reveals Iron, meaning you know where to settle)
  
• Pottery
  
• Sailing (enables Triremes for coastal exploration)
  
• Animal Husbandry
  
• Optics
  
• Writing (to help stop your tech rate falling behind in the long-term. On higher difficulties, you'll probably have to take this earlier.)
  
• Iron Working
  
• Archery (earlier if you're likely to face an early rush)
  
• The Wheel
  
• Mathematics (for Catapults to back up your Kris Swordsmen)

This is flexible based on your game. For example, if you've scouted out your starting continent thoroughly and know there's no offshore islands you can settle before Astronomy, cut out Sailing and Optics out of the list.

In most games, once you have Sailing, you should be able to scout out new islands or continents. What you're looking for is iron, preferably iron spots with luxury resources nearby. Send a Settler over once you have Optics (the Liberty Social Policy tree will help here) and be sure not to settle the city on any resources.


Above: A mistake from an older game than the one you'll see in the other screenshots. I tried to plant a city on Iron. Bad idea. On the plus side, this screenshot also shows how the special luxury adds 2 gold to the city's tile.


Above: I've scouted out a nearby island and found iron. If I found a city two tiles east of the Trireme and buy a few tiles, I can grab that marble, too. Because getting Optics early isn't a priority for most Civs, I should be first to settle there.


Above: Before, and
Below: After. Notice my happiness stays at 6? Essentially the happiness of the unique luxuries cancels out the unhappiness from number of cities from founding them.


So, now you have a second (or third) city that causes you much less unhappiness than it otherwise would, and hopefully some iron too for Kris Swordsmen. You can use that lack of unhappiness to support another iron city - you'll need all of it you can get. Founding a city on a continent you've already got your capital or a special luxury city on won't give you another luxury, meaning it's safe to place further cities on iron resources to ensure no-one can cut your supply without capturing the city.

During the Kris Swordsman phase, it's a good idea not to settle new cities (unless you're really starved for iron or there's a really luxury-rich area) so you don't ruin your happiness when off conquering. Tech-wise, you should clean up any worker resources you need, then work towards Theology and Astronomy. Here's a possible technology path. Again, this is just a guideline.

• Trapping (Circuses offer a maintenance-free happiness source.)
  
• Masonry
  
• Construction (for Colosseums and Composite Bowmen)
  
• Calendar
  
• Philosophy
  
• Drama and Poetry
  
• Theology
  
• Compass
  
• Currency
  
• Horseback Riding
  
• Civil Service
  
• Education
  
• Astronomy

Once you've got Astronomy, scout out for new lands once more. Aim to get all three of the unique luxuries if the map makes it possible as the happiness contribution is still very useful. And from there, you'll need to work out how you want to win.

If other Civs forgive your warmongering (or those alive never knew of it) before, then trading luxuries for gold and building lots of trading posts for a diplomatic victory will work well. If you managed to churn out plenty of Kris Swordsmen and/or everyone hates you, then go for a domination win. A game based on colonising new landmasses gives you plenty of ports for building Privateers, brilliant at getting you a foothold into rival empires' lands.

The UA's Tricks

Now that I've covered the wider context of your UA, let's look at the details. Each luxury you have at least one copy of is worth 4 happiness by default, making a total of 12 with three landmasses settled. Because you have two copies of each luxury, you can trade one away, preferably for another luxury you don't have making a total of 24 happiness from your UA.

It's worth completing the Commerce tree for the Protectionism policy if you need more happiness in the mid to late-game. It can be worth up to 36 happiness in all - in other words, without working any other luxuries, the special luxury cities are self-sustaining happiness-wise up to at least size 9.

Now, let's consider trading carefully. In the early-game, you should be trading luxuries for more luxuries to support city-founding and conquest. But be sure to trade your unique luxuries last. Why? So if other Civs link up new luxuries, you can be the first to trade for them.

Once ideologies are around, however, happiness is much easier to get hold of, hence it's more useful to trade luxuries for gold. Trade your unique luxuries to diplomatic Civs like Greece or Arabia so no-one can ban them at the World Congress.

For a final trick, let's look at a minor aspect of the UA - the special luxury cities cannot be razed. How can you use this to your advantage? Well, it gives you safe wonder-building cities. No matter what, no-one can destroy them! Another use is in messing up another Civ's city placement (ones with Unique Improvements like Polynesia or the Incans are particularly good for this.) No matter what that Civ does, they can never get the optimum city they want.

Summary

• Get Bronze Working early to reveal iron and Sailing to scout out for new lands
  
• Settle near iron spots on new landmasses if possible
  
• Avoid founding new cities when taking Kris Swordsmen to wars
  
• The Protectionism Social Policy will make your UA up to 50% more effective

Unique Unit: Kris Swordsman (Part 1/3)

Above: The +29 XP is because I've just upgraded a Warrior into one.

The Kris Swordsman is more like 6 UUs than one (hence why this is an exceptionally long UU section.) The problem is, which one you get is entirely random, and there's additionally two straight-downgrade results making for a total of 8 possibilities. As all those special promotions keep on upgrade, you'll need a lot of Kris Swordsmen to take full advantage of that, which means you need plenty of iron, production and cash. Pull it off, and your enemies will feel what it's like to be up against six different unique units at once. Fall behind, and you'll end up with a small number of units too unique to risk in war.

So, as mentioned before, research Bronze Working early so you can locate that iron. Iron sources on separate landmasses are high priority as you can take advantage of your UA, too, but don't be afraid to expand in your home continent if need be. When you're building wide, you should nearly never have no iron whatsoever. Trading luxuries can give you cash, but the main source will probably be sea-based trading thanks to your coastal startbias.

So, you've got a bit of iron, your cities are reasonably productive and you have a source of cash. Now, once you've got Iron Working, it's time to churn out Kris Swordsmen like mad. Keep your iron mines safe from would-be pillagers, or have a contact you can trade for iron with if need be.

It's also important to bring ranged units to help deal with cities, as that's one thing Kris Swordsmen aren't particularly strong at. Composite Bowmen are good, and Catapults are fine too.

It's time to go into war.


Above: In the first round of combat a Kris Swordsman has, they'll fight identically to a Swordsman. After the random promotion is revealed, that's when it all takes effect. Any form of combat, offence or defence will reveal the promotion, though capturing civilian units will not. Be sure not to put Kris Swordsmen into highly dangerous situations before their promotion is revealed.

It's easy to assume the nature of random promotions makes Kris Swordsmen unreliable, but it's just like specialising a unit through promotions any other way. The special promotions don't particularly lean towards open or rough terrain, so your initial Barracks promotion depends on your circumstances, not a gamble on what special promotion you're hoping the unit to have.

Negative Promotion - Enemy Blade

Effect

If this unit ends its turn in enemy territory, it loses 20HP. By "enemy" it means you must be at war with them.

Unit survival priority

Low

More details


Above and Below: Before and after promotion. Yep, it carries over on upgrade like the rest of these promotions.


The temptation is to instantly disband these, or gift them to a City-State, and that's alright if you lack iron but have decent production to replace the units, but remember the penalty only applies in enemy lands - it'll still be fine in defence or repelling Barbarians.

Negative Promotion - Evil Spirits

Effect

-10% attack, -30% defence

Unit survival priority

Very Low

More details

This is the worst possible outcome as it affects the unit in nearly every situation. One exception is attacking cities, but remember you still have the 30% defensive penalty making it risky. As such, use the unit for exploration, Barbarian killing or a placeholder garrison unit for a city until you can move a ranged unit in. Or, just gift it to a City-State.

Mixed Promotion - Ambition

Effect

+50% attack, -20% defence

Unit survival priority

Medium-High

More details


Above: The combat bonus doesn't work on cities.

Ambition is lovely for sweeping up enemy units, weakening them ready for a Recruitment Kris Swordsman to finish off, for example. When attacking other units, you're essentially a technology tier above the current unit - Swordsmen fight like Longswordsmen, Longswordsmen outpace Musketmen, Musketmen fight like Infantry and so on.

The catch is the defensive penalty. This makes it dangerous to use Ambition units anywhere near cities or large armies of range units. To keep off melee units, you could arrange your units in a ( shape, with the Ambition unit being flanked by two other units (preferably Sneak Attack units) further forwards. That way, would-be melee attackers have to fight a strong flanking bonus. Keep a Medic-promoted unit at hand in case it is hit.

Good promotion choices

Getting to March is the first priority so the unit's not so much at risk after each attack. Keep a Medic-promoted unit nearby (Invulnerability Kris Swordsmen make great Medics) for maximum effect. In theory Blitz could work well afterwards, but you'll need to position other units to keep this one safe afterwards. As such, it may be more effective to get Cover promotions before Blitz.

Positive Promotion - Heroism

Effect

Unit provides a 15% combat bonus to other land units within two tiles, like a Great General. Effect does not stack with Great Generals.

Unit survival priority

Medium

More details


Above: No Great General in sight, but I still get the benefit.

Heroism Kris Swordsmen aren't greatly effective in themselves, but what they can do is free up a Great General to place down a Citadel, helping you edge towards a city. It also makes embarking the unit a little easier, seeing as embarked units cannot stack with each other.

These units are best-placed in the middle or back of your army to avoid being targeted too much by enemies.

Good promotion choices

The Cover promotions will work well to avoid ranged damage (you should keep the unit out of reach for enemy melee units.)

Unique Unit: Kris Swordsman (Part 2/3)

Positive Promotion - Invulnerability

Effect

+30% defence, +20HP per turn when healing

Unit survival priority

Very High

More details


Above: Poor thing looks hurt? It'll recover all its health in time for next turn.

This is the best possible outcome. The defensive bonus makes the unit particularly hard to kill - Swordsmen are already good at staying alive - and extra health healed a turn means that you can often rapidly recover from damage taken.

So, what can you do with a highly defensive unit? Many things. They make excellent front-line units to defend your other, more vulnerable ones from melee attacks.

Away from the front lines, if you don't have a Heroism unit nearby, they can protect Great Generals very effectively. But most importantly of all, they work brilliantly with the Medic promotion to help keep the rest of your army up. Both that and the Great General escort role tend to make your unit targeted by attacks, but the healing and defensive bonuses counteract this.

What the unit lacks is any form of offensive bonuses. Its role is that of a meatshield - to soak up damage for other units. Units that are already a bit damaged are more likely to be targeted by enemies, so initiate combat if you need to, but be careful not to overstretch the unit - pick weaker targets so you take less damage and thus can heal it up.

Good promotion choices

March is obvious. Medic promotions are also a good idea to keep the rest of your army going, and after March and Medic II are up, give it the Cover promotions so even being swarmed by Composite Bowmen won't be enough to take this thing down. You'll want to keep this thing alive and get all the promotions you can, basically.

Positive Promotion - Recruitment

Effect

Heals 50HP when it kills a unit (the ingame tooltip lies)

Unit survival priority

High

More details


Above: This thing just scored a kill, and it's not on full health. I repeat: the tooltip lies.

Recruitment Kris Swordsmen are like Ottoman Janissaries but without the 25% attack bonus. In conjunction with Restlessness units they do a great job of cleaning up enemy units - the Restlessness unit deals two attacks to weaken the enemy and the Recruitment unit moves in to finish it off.

Generally, the role of Recruitment units is similar to Invulnerability units - to soak up damage instead of others - but through a more aggressive route. Some moves might be risky to other units, but healing 50HP after killing a unit (and hence moving onto its tile) should help it survive the following turn.

Good promotion choices

Aim to get Blitz, as it means you can deal more damage and thus more easily take advantage of the healing bonus.

Positive Promotion - Restlessness

Effect

+1 move, +1 attack (stacks with Blitz for three attacks in one turn.)

Unit survival priority

High

More details


Above: More movement gets to the front lines faster.

The Restlessness promotion is one of the better ones. Not only can you deal nearly double the damage with two attacks and hence get double the XP, but an extra move on top of that means you can move in from up to two tiles away; handy if you're attacking cities.

Be careful that attacking twice means recieving damage twice. Your extra move will help, but keep out of range of cities if you're not directly attacking them with this unit. It works best at wearing down single units ready for others to finish off, not withstanding lots of damage - that's the Invulnerability Kris Swordsman's job.

Outside of main warfare, Restlessness Kris Swordsmen make excellent explorers, having more movement than other standard melee units while defending much better than mounted ones. If you're keeping defences in a region to a minimum to save on maintenance costs, Restlessness units are good at reaching the odd Barbarian unit before it tears apart your improvements.

Good promotion choices

High mobility is great for getting near Medic-promoted units or back into your lands, after the damage taken from attacking twice. As such, get March as soon as possible. Blitz, of course, gives three attacks, but you should get March first and provide a nearby Medic so they don't get killed the turn after multiple attacks. And thirdly, Siege lets you take full advantage of multiple attacks on cities. Just be sure to keep your Invulnerability Medic close at hand.

Woodsman will give mobility in forests even better than mounted units, which is good in some specific circumstances such as picking off pillagers, or just to discover new, wooded lands.

Positive Promotion - Sneak Attack

Effect

+50% flank attack bonus (15% rather than 10% combat multiplier)

Unit survival priority

Medium-High

More details



Sneak Attack Kris Swordsmen are good at protecting your other units from melee attacks (seeing as flanking bonuses work in defence) as well as attacking enemy units in conjunction with others. They're your all-round units to fight other units with. Remember that multiple units surrounding a unit means higher flanking bonus - if you completely surround a unit, normally it's a 50% bonus, but now it's a 75% bonus!

Good promotion choices

Because flanking bonuses aren't useful when defending against ranged units, it's a good idea to cover that weakness with the Cover promotions. The rest is up to you, though defensive flanking bonuses mean they can make a decent Medic if you lack an Invulnerability unit.

Unique Unit: Kris Swordsman (Part 3/3)

Summary

• Get Bronze Working and Optics early to grab all the iron you can.
  
• Keep churning out these units, hold off Steel for a bit if you have to.
  
• Don't neglect backup - you'll still need ranged units to deal with cities.
  
• Evil Spirits or Enemy Blade units shouldn't head into war. Gift them to City-States, use them to explore or defend against Barbarians.
  
• Invulnerability units should be at the front lines, soaking up damage for other units. They make good Medics or escorts for civilian units.
  
• Sneak Attack units should be at the edge of your formation, helping to protect your other units with their flanking bonuses.
  
• Heroism units go in the middle of a formation, so all your units can gain from the Great General bonuses.
  
• Restlessness, Ambition and Recruitment units lack defence, so they shouldn't stay at the front lines for too long.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• Mystic Blade (Replaced by a random special promotion after first round of combat)
  
• Ambition (+50% attack, -20% defence)
  
• Enemy Blade (-20HP/turn in enemy territory)
  
• Evil Spirits (-10% attack, -30% defence)
  
• Heroism (Acts as a Great General in terms of combat bonuses)
  
• Invulnerability (+30% defence, +20HP/turn when healing)
  
• Recruitment (50HP healed on non-Barbarian kill)
  
• Restlessness (+1 attack, +1 move)
  
• Sneak Attack (+50% flanking bonus)

Note that this is the only case where a purely negative promotion can carry over on upgrade. Try to reveal the promotions of any remaining Mystic Blade Kris Swordsmen before upgrading them, so you don't upgrade a unit only to end up with Evil Spirits.

Speaking of upgrades...

If you manage to get Jaguars or Maori Warriors off militaristic City-States, you can upgrade them to Kris Swordsmen for very effective units. They obsolete at Metal Casting, so you can still keep getting gifted those units by allied militaristic City-States even while you're building Kris Swordsmen of your own.

Unique Building: Candi

Indonesia has an unusual UB with the Candi, which throws many of the conventions of religion out the window. For one, it comes later than most other sources of faith, meaning it'll mostly be useful in the mid to late-game, rather than the usual early to mid-game role of religion. Because the Garden which it replaces isn't normally a faith building, the Piety tree doesn't provide bonuses to it, but on the plus side, you get the faith of a Temple without needing to build a Shrine as well. But the biggest disruption to usual religious practice is this: it gets stronger the more religions you have in your land, therefore absolute religious dominance is actually a disadvantage!


Above: This Candi's making me 8 faith per turn. Thanks to my UA, I can sustain a wide empire giving me the world's best faith generation in the latter half of the game.

No freshwater requirement

Let's take a step back for a moment and look at one of the building's smaller - but still useful - elements. Lacking the usual restrictions of Gardens, you can have one in every city and reap the rewards of the 25% extra GP rate. But a more interesting use is this - you can gain 2 happiness in every city via the Peace Gardens Follower belief. Aside from being an effective way to support a wide empire, this offers a good alternative to taking one of the faith buildings (Pagodas, Mosques, etc.) in your religion, freeing up more faith for other uses.

Maximising faith gain

To make the most out of your UB, you need as many religions as possible having a presence in your cities. What you don't want to happen is a rival religion to displace your own in all your cities, so balance is necessary. A Civ with a strong religion near you is a prime target for Kris Warrior conquest so they can no longer give you any trouble. If there's two like Civs, fight one at a time. Capture any enemy Missionaries you can and send them into the other strong-religion Civ's lands. That should put their religious pressure efforts on the defensive until you can deal with them once and for all.

Now you've got your religion established, let's make sure it doesn't completely displace all the other ones. The simplest route is through International Trade Routes with cities of distant rival faiths. The pressure should be enough to sustain at least one follower (which is all you need for +2 faith) without displacing your own religion. An alternative is to keep cities of a majority rival religion and sending Missionaries to give a bit of the faith to far-flung reaches of your empire.

What you shouldn't do is send Great Prophets and Inquisitors around to deal with religion within your own lands, unless a rival's is absolutely dominant. This will merely have the effect of slashing your faith generation, making you less able to repeat the same act in future.

Using faith

First of all, strong faith means a strong religion - you can faith-buy lots of Missionaries and spread your religion far and wide (just make sure you don't utterly destroy all the followers of other religions in the process.) This works nicely with Tithe to get you a large amount of cash, though other follower beliefs can be effective too in a similar way.

But with great faith generation, you can get more than just Missionaries. While you can pick up the Holy Warriors follower belief and buy Kris Swordsmen, Candi come a little too late for that. The late-game reformation belief counterpart, Religious Fervour, is expensive for faith-buying units, and generally doesn't make enough of a difference.

More practical alternatives lie in buying religious buildings, (particularly Pagodas,) buying science buildings with Jesuit Education (helping to cover a weakness of wide empires) and buying Great People. So, all in all, Candi are there to support your other uniques, rather than be the means to victory in itself.

Social Policies: Early-game choices

Indonesia's route for Social Policies varies greatly. Typically, Liberty makes for the best opener, but if you want to increase your chances of getting a Reformation belief you want, then you could start with Piety instead. Generally, though, it's better to just stick with Liberty - many Reformation beliefs, including Jesuit Education and Religious Fervour work like Follower beliefs so the religion they're tied to needn't be your own.

After that, you could either pick up Piety if you haven't already and no-one's likely to pick the Reformation beliefs you want, go into Patronage if you want to go down the diplomatic road, take Commerce for the happiness and gold or Exploration for the gold and seafaring.

Finally, once you're into the renaissance era, switch to Rationalism if you're after a domination victory so you can keep up with military advances.

Liberty

Opener

In most games, pick this first so you can head towards Collective Rule for the fast Settler production rate. The policy itself gives you 1 culture in every city, helping to soften the blow of rising Social Policy costs and also allowing all those cities to start expanding borders without a Monument (or expand them faster with one.)

Republic

+1 production makes quite a difference in early-game expansion and infrastructure, where every point counts. In new coastal cities as well, it helps cut down the time before you can get a Lighthouse up (for further production as well as food.) And, of course, it'll help a little in churning out Kris Swordsmen.

Collective Rule

A free Settler! You can use it to grab a good iron spot and/or a good overseas colony. Colonising other landmasses quickly makes you particularly resilient to early-game warmongerers, as very few focus on naval warfare. On top of the free Settler, Jakarta can now build them faster, which will be useful later on for colonising further landmasses.

At this point, you could switch to Piety. Why? Because you're more likely to get the Reformation belief you want that way than putting it off until you've finished Liberty.

Citizenship

Faster Worker production is great for setting up far-flung colonies, which don't have overlapping borders with your capital and can't share improvements. It also saves a bit of production time on Workers which you can use for stuff like Kris Swordsmen instead.

Meritocracy

By the late-game, this could be making almost as much happiness as your UA, bringing additional support to expansion and conquest (providing those cities are either puppets or you have Courthouses up.)

Representation

This will make Social Policies a bit cheaper, but the Golden Age will be significantly more effective late in the game where you may have many cities with Trading Posts all generating lots of gold. Then again, the free Great Person from the finisher is very worthwhile. If you're playing diplomatically, it may be more worth your while holding this one off than if you're warmongering.

Finisher

Earlier in the game, you can plant a Great Scientist down to make an Academy to help keep up in the tech rate, or maybe a Great Engineer to rush a good wonder. If you decide to leave it until the late-game, an Entrepreneurship-boosted Great Merchant can get you plenty of cash for buying influence in City-States.

Piety

There's three routes to entry in Piety. One, that you start with it, which boosts your chances at a good Reformation belief but doesn't offer the wide expansion of the Liberty tree. Two, that you get it after Collective Rule in Liberty, which comes at the opportunity cost of Meritocracy's happiness, but still allows you access to cheap Settlers and not putting the policy off too late. Three, that you start once Liberty's finished and no-one else seems likely to take Reformation beliefs you want (meaning you have to get them yourself.)

Again, remember that Piety doesn't offer much in the way of bonuses to Candi, your main faith source, and many good Reformation beliefs can be used regardless of whether or not you founded the religion, so it's not always a good idea to go down this tree.

Opener

Shrines and Temples can complement Candi faith gain, but at the cost of building maintenance. In the early-game, these buildings will probably form most of your faith generation, so getting them up early gets a religion sooner.

Organized Religion

Again, this will complement Candi faith gain and lead to a religion sooner.

Religious Tolerance

Thanks to Candi, you want to keep other religions with some presence in your cities. As a reward, you can now use their Pantheons. This is particularly good if you miss out on a Pantheon you wanted, or for Pantheons only useful in specific cities (e.g. One With Nature.) If need be, you could always keep a city of a majority religion you want the Pantheon for, then make Missionaries in that city to provide the Pantheon elsewhere.

Reformation

Charitable Missions will be good if you're going down the diplomatic route, while Religious Fervour offers an expensive route to warmongering. Jesuit Education and To the Glory of God will help back up your efforts no matter the route you take. Other Reformation beliefs are less useful.

Mandate of Heaven

If you're aiming to add Pagodas or a similar building to your religion, this will make that cheaper and hence make you more able to squeeze more happiness out of your religion. Missionaries also become cheaper, allowing you to make your religion stronger, taking advantage of Founder beliefs.

Theocracy

Now, Temples will pay for themselves and then some. Trading post-heavy cities will particularly do well from this, especially as a Shine and a Temple together are faster to build than a Market (thanks to the Piety opener.) Of course, you can have both and stack the bonuses.

Finisher

Be careful using Great Prophets - destroying other religions' presence will damage your faith generation. Of course, you could send them to far-off lands (particularly ones that don't already have a religion present.) Or just plant them for faith, gold and culture.

Social Policies: Mid-game choices

Patronage (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

Opener

Want to take advantage of the cash from building wide? Patronage is a good route to go down, offering you the route to diplomatic victory. This opener, for example, helps to preserve City-State alliances for longer, helping out at the World Congress.

Consulates

Due to the nature of your strong religion with a wide empire, it's probably more worth your while to pick Tithe than Papal Primacy as the former can scale with your empire size (meaning it'll probably mean more influence,) and is more flexible. Hence, you won't be getting pernament friendships. Still, Consulates will cut down the costs of reaching alliance status.

Philanthropy

If you're able to, consider taking the Charitable Missions Reformation belief as well for maximum efficency, letting you quickly turn large numbers of City-States to your side before a World Congress vote.

Scholasticism

This policy is one of the few outside the Rationalism tree to offer science, and will help a little in compensation for building wide (putting up tech costs) and ignoring the Rationalism tree in favour of others. It's not a massive boost, but it encourages you to maintain alliances.

Cultural Diplomacy

You can't trade luxuries gifted to you by City-States, but if a luxury you're provided with is a duplicate of one you already have, you can always sell your copy. Together with Protectionism from Commerce, keeping up City-State alliances will provide pretty much all the happiness you'll ever need.

Merchant Confederacy

The bonus isn't particularly useful here, as generally the best routes are with other players. If everyone's still mad at you over Kris Swordsman warmongering but you still want a diplomatic win, it's a bit more useful, but the main point here's for the finisher.

Finisher

Another reason to maintain alliances - you can now get free Great People. Keep in mind they are random, so don't rely on them as part of your strategy. Still a very handy bonus.

Commerce

Commerce offers more happiness and support for diplomatic Civs than Exploration, but Exploration offers production and naval combat bonuses. Typically, because of Protectionism, Commerce makes a stronger first choice.

Opener

A straightforward gold bonus for your capital, and the ability to build the Big Ben wonder, which lets your gold go a fair bit further if you can get hold of it.

Wagon Trains

The point here isn't necessarilly the land trade route bonuses, but the slashed cost of maintaining roads and railroads. Unless you're in an archipelago-type map, you'll probably have a chunk of land which is costing you a fair bit to keep linked up.

Enterpreneurship (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

If you're warmongering, take this just before Protectionism. If you're playing diplomatically, however, getting this policy sooner rather than later offers you the chance of squeezing in more Great Merchants and all the cash and City-State influence they can bring.

Mercenary Army (Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

Landsknechte may be outdated by the time you reach the policy, but they can move immediately after being bought and hence be upgraded; buying a Landsknecht and upgrading it to a Lancer is a fair bit cheaper than simply buying a Lancer, and it keeps its special promotions. If you're going into a late-game war, get the last hit on a city with the special Lancer (4 moves lets you keep it out of harm's way until then) for double the normal capture gold.

Mercantilism

Another one of the rare non-Rationalism sources of science. Cheaper purchasing extends to all purchasable buildings and units, though it's a bit more useful if you're out warmongering as a diplomacy-focused Indonesia will be dedicating more cash to City-State alliances.

Protectionism


Above: Before, and
Below: After.


Your UA is now up to 50% more effective, essentially. On top of all that happiness from other luxuries. It might not solve your happiness problems, but it should make them an awful lot more manageable.

Finisher

When you're building wide, you don't want cities to grow too large or else your happiness will be in ruins. Hence, you may decide to have a few trading posts instead of farms. Now, that investment pays off with +1 gold for every single one of those things.

Exploration

Opener (Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

It's worth picking up at least the opener if you're out invading places overseas, as the speed and sight bonus makes it so much easier to catch up enemy ships. In the late-game, it'll helpfully allow your Destroyers to spot Submarines from further away, keeping your other ships safe.

Maritime Infrastructure

Besides the general usefulness at providing production in areas otherwise lacking, this greatly speeds up the development of new coastal cities, giving them at least 5 production per turn right away (with Republic in the Liberty tree.)

Naval Tradition

It may not be Protectionism, but it's decent happiness all the same since Harbours and Lighthouses should be in the majority of your coastal cities.

Navigation School (Warmongering Indonesia only)

Don't bother if you're going diplomatic, as Exploration's finisher is no good to you. For the warmongerers among us, however, faster Great Admirals (in both speed and production rate) can be just what you need to keep going in extended sea wars.

Merchant Navy

Claw back gold from certain buildings' maintenance costs. Simple, really.

Treasure Fleets

The gold potential here is quite large (though it doesn't scale with your empire's size like Merchant Navy does.) Warmongerers may have a bit of a hard time maintaining International Trade Routes that aren't torn to pieces by enemies, but this policy lessens the proportional difference between cash for long-distance, more dangerous routes and shorter, safer ones.

Finisher (Warmongering Indonesia only)

Hidden Antiquity Sites being revealed isn't of much help to you, whether diplomatic or warmongering. You can spend your Candi faith on Great Admirals, though, so it's not a complete loss.

Social Policies: Rationalism

Rationalism (Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

Although science is good for everyone, the extent to which it is varies. For domination-minded Civs, keeping up with military advances is very important. For diplomatic Civs, you can afford to fall behind as science offers little advantage in the World Congress.

Opener

Keep your empire's happiness level positive, and you'll be rewarded with a 10% global science bonus. This is applied after your entire empire's science output has been compiled, so the bonus is as meaningful late in the game as it is when you first get it.

Humanism

Take Secularism first if you want a more immediate science bonus.

As you can build Candi in all your cities, you can also have a very high number of cities which are decent at generating Great People. With Humanism, you should see a fair number of Great Scientists be generated.

Free Thought

Wide empires shouldn't be working too many food tiles, so instead, you can work plenty of trading posts for gold. With Free Thought, that'll also be giving you science on top. To make things even better, Universities now offer a 50% science boost instead of 33%, so you'll be getting 3 science out of every two trading posts worked.

Secularism

The fact your UB replaces the Garden encourages you to work more specialist slots than would normally be filled by a wide empire. Build upon that with Secularism's bonus to science for every specialist you have.

Sovereignty

Free up a considerable portion of the maintenance cost attached to all the science buildings in your empire to help support more units.

Scientific Revolution

Although warmongering may put many Civs off making research agreements with you, it's still often worth taking this policy for the finisher.

Finisher

Being able to use your colossal faith output to purchase lots of Great Scientists will give you the scientific edge you need to remain a powerful presence in the game. You also get a free technology from this finisher, which should be used on a useful, expensive technology you're not already working on for maximum impact.

Ideology

If you're heading for world conquest, take Order. Autocracy is a little more useful than Freedom for diplomatic uses as it offers you a good way to use all those former Kris Swordsmen (intimidating City-States with Gunboat Diplomacy) and offers masses of easy happiness with Fortified Borders.

As ever, I'll go through the best options for the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets, so that's three from level one tenets, two from level two and one from level three.

Level One Tenets - Order (Warmongering Indonesia)

Hero of the People

Candi allow you to take Gardens' 25% GP generation bonus to any city in your empire, so you can take that further with this tenet. Take it first for maximum impact.

Socialist Realism

A massive amount of readily-avaliable happiness is yours for the taking here. If you already have plenty of happiness, it'll still be a good policy for chasing Golden Ages, which are particularly strong in a wide-building empire for the cash potential.

Skyscrapers

And you can use religious, Golden Age or trading post cash to get yourself buildings cheaply. This is particularly handy in newly conquested cities to rush defensive buildings or Airports.

Level Two Tenets - Order (Warmongering Indonesia)

Workers' Faculties

Science is important in a wide empire as the increased tech costs per city could make you fall behind if you're not careful. This offers a 25% bonus for cities with a Factory, as well as making Factory-building cheaper, making it an essential building in most of your cities.

Party Leadership

Why take this and not Five-Year Plan? Well, for one, a late-game Indonesian army consists mainly of upgraded old units or buying new ones so getting lots of production isn't your main priority. Two, it offers a little science and culture helping to cover weaknesses of wide empires and three, it's the only source of extra gold in the Order ideology.

Level Three Tenet - Order (Warmongering Indonesia)

Iron Curtain

It's important to point out Courthouses are only free in cities you capture after picking up this policy, so you won't suddenly have a rush of gold or happiness. Still, this policy helps your rate of expansion by cutting back unhappiness, and free Courthouses from this point on saves you the high maintenance cost (4 gold per turn!)

In addition, internal trade routes are 50% more effective - useful if there's no reliable trade partners and/or your enemy's trying to pillage all your routes. If you have the Alhambra, Brandenburg Gate and/or the Heroic Epic in a city, try funneling lots of production to it for maximum effect.

Level One Tenets - Autocracy (Diplomatic Indonesia)

Industrial Espionage

It may appear odd to use Spies to steal technologies rather than rig City-State elections or act as Diplomats, but you don't want to fall behind technology-wise. You can beeline Globalisation while using Spies to soak up other technologies, then turn those Spies into Diplomats to help you towards victory.

Fortified Borders

Walls are easy to build, maintenance-free and now offer happiness. Castles by this stage of the game are cheap too - consider getting the Neuschwanstein wonder for even more happiness and quite a bit of cash, too.

Mobilisation

To make Gunboat Diplomacy work, you need plenty of units. You might have quite a few former-Kris Swordsmen, but you'll probably never have enough units to be able to intimidate every City-State, making this tenet useful on your quest to get as many as you can. True, cash from buying units could be used to bribe City-States, but after a few turns of intimidation the units get you more influence than bribing would.

Level Two Tenets - Autocracy (Diplomatic Indonesia)

Nationalism

Recover some of that cash from using units for Gunboat Diplomacy! You can use that saved money to buy more units with help from Mobilisation, or just go for more City-State bribes. Either way is good.

Total War

Again, you may need a lot of units to get Gunboat Diplomacy working at its full potential, so building them faster will be a useful advantage.

Level Three Tenets - Autocracy (Diplomatic Indonesia)

Gunboat Diplomacy

There are two major reasons for picking Autocracy over Freedom if you want a diplomatic victory as Indonesia. One, that Freedom is more catered for tall-building empires while Autocracy is a bit more flexible in that respect. But more relevant to this policy is that the Kris Swordsman is designed to be built in bulk, which this tenet works particularly well with - large armies intimidating large numbers of City-States.

Religion

You can live without reforming your religion, but having a faith-based UB, it's important to at least found one to take full advantage of Candi.

Pantheon

Note: As usual, highly-situational Pantheons (e.g. resource dependent ones) aren't listed here. Some kind of faith-giving Pantheon is a good idea for giving you a better shot at getting a religion.

God of the Sea

An excellent choice, this Pantheon belief offers you much stronger production in places often lacking. As you have a coastal start bias, a good deal of the the time this will be useful pretty much as soon as you take it.

Messenger of the Gods

Another great option, as this is stronger the more cities you have, and offers quite a bit of science earlier on. It'll be most effective in the time after Kris Swordsmen when you're filling in important technologies you may have missed earlier.

Religious Settlements

When you're building lots of cities, you won't want to spend all your cash expanding their borders. This policy helps your cities expand towards good tiles (luxuries and strategic resource tiles are favoured) without you manually having to help them out quite so much. Not as good as the previous Pantheon options, but an interesting fallback.

Founder

Tithe

A belief tied to followers rather than having to be the majority religion in the city works well with the Candi UB as it discourages you from wiping out rival religious pressure in cities to keep them supplying gold (as may be the case with Church Property.) It's pretty amazing for gold by the late-game, which will be useful no matter the route you take in the end.

Papal Primacy (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

As mentioned before in the Social Policies section, Tithe can work better than Papal Primacy as the former scales with the size of your empire and the latter doesn't. Still, there's the old Papal Primacy + Consulates = pernament friends trick, and a higher resting point does make reaching alliance status easier.

Interfaith Dialogue

An interesting route, as the Candi UB and this belief both enourage you not to be excessively heavy-handed against other religions. It gives you no advantage if you're merely using Missionaries or Prophets to back up cities already of your religion, but you shouldn't be doing that as Indonesia anyway.

Follower

Peace Gardens

Seeing as you have a Garden-replacing UB you can build in any city, it makes perfect sense to pick up this policy.

Pagodas

The much-loved 2-happiness religious building for wide empires, and a use for all that Candi faith.

Mosques

Just in case you want to make your faith generation even higher. As you can't limitlessly stockpile faith until the Industrial era, it makes some sense to just dedicate faith to further boosting faith generation until the faith ceiling's removed, as it lets you faith-purchase Great People faster, or maybe units with Religious Fervour.

Asceticism

Together with Peace Gardens, you've got an easy happiness combination without needing to have any faith buildings as part of your religion. This frees up plenty of faith for other uses, like spreading your religion to get the most out of Tithe.

Holy Warriors

This is an interesting one. By the time your faith generation really gets going, it may be a bit late for Kris Swordsmen (you might get one or two, but don't expect this to be as effective as it is for Spain.) Still, if you want to keep the war rolling, then it can help you get Trebuchets and Cannons at the ready.

Enhancer

Itinerant Preachers

This belief's a great help in making sure your religion has at least some presence in a city, whether for the +2 faith with the Candi UB or to squeeze more cash out of Tithe. Be aware, however, that in the centre of the region following your religion, pressure may be significantly higher and could push out other faiths - be sure to stop it hurting your Candi faith more than it helps it.

Just War (Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

When you have the world's best faith generation, you can twist that into the world's strongest religion. All that pressure is hard for other Civs to stop, giving you a 20% combat bonus against them in their own lands!

Religious Unity (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

This is a good way to keep religious pressure up in City-States without damaging your Candi faith. Keep in mind you need at least a friendly status with the City-State for this belief to work. Best used with Papal Primacy.

Holy Order

If you want to fiddle around religion for maximum Candi faith, you don't want to spend more faith on Missionaries to do so than you get back in faith bonuses. This belief makes it a bit cheaper and hence more effective in that role.

Reliquary

Candi, are, after all, a Garden-replacing UB, so it encourages you to generate plenty of Great People. Reliquary gives you faith back from using up Great People, so you can make Candi even better for faith gain.

Reformation

Charitable Missions (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

Goes lovely with Philanthropy in the Patronage tree for more efficent City-State bribing.

Jesuit Education

The buildings on offer are very cheap to faith-purchase. This belief will be particularly useful in jungle or other low-production regions to get your new cities making up the 5% increase in tech costs.

Religious Fervour (Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

Late-game units are expensive to faith-purchase, even by Indonesian standards of faith generation. Additionally, you can still only faith-purchase land units (which you may have plenty of from the Kris Swordsman wars.) Still, it's something to pour your faith into.

To the Glory of God

Because of the high Social Policy costs from a wide empire, you may struggle to finish many Social Policy trees and hence need this belief to buy Great People in general. Alternatively, it might just be handy to be able to buy a Great Scientist or Engineer to help you out if need be.

World Congress

The World Congress is important for Indonesia to consider no matter their end victory type. If you're going into war, use your economic strength just before World Congress votes to prevent decisions that hurt you. Ignore the World Congress at your peril, as they can ban your unique luxuries, making them useless! As mentioned before, you can stop that happening by trading a copy of each to whichever other Civ has the most World Congress delegates.

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 the International Games on the table.

Arts Funding

Medium priority
Vote no

You don't need GWAMs, much. Great Artists have their uses in Golden Ages, but generally Great Engineers, Scientists and Merchants will be more useful to you.

Cultural Heritage Sites

Medium priority
Vote no unless you captured lots of wonders in the Kris Swordsman time

Embargo City-States

Low priority for diplomatic Indonesia
Medium priority for warmongering Indonesia
Abstain if you're playing diplomatically
Vote no if you're warmongering

While Iron Curtain encourages internal trade routes, you may still need to trade with City-States as a warmongerer to make up maintenance costs. If you're playing diplomatically, it doesn't really matter what happens to City-State trade.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote no

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

International Games

Medium-High priority for warmongering Indonesia
Low-Medium priority for diplomatic Indonesia
Vote no

It's mostly for cultural Civs. One interesting move could be to push it forward early so cultural Civs don't get as much out of it as they would normally, but it's generally better just to block it generally. If you're playing diplomatically, contribute a bit so you can get the influence bonus.

International Space Station

High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

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

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Medium-High priority
Vote yes if you're playing diplomatically or you lack uranium
Vote no otherwise

Scholars in Residence

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

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Consider the cut of Great Artist rate, however, giving you slightly less frequent Golden Ages. It's still worth pushing this vote through, but it's not the end of the world if it fails.

Standing Army Tax

High priority
Vote no

Both routes to victory rely on having a high number of units, so don't let this thing pass.

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote yes

Why vote yes? That free Social Policy you can win, that's why.

Wonders

You'll mostly be capturing wonders rather than building them, though by the mid-game, you may have so many cities you can easily spare one towards the persuit. Attacking wonder-spamming Civs like Egypt or India can really pay off.

Ancient Era

Pyramids (Liberty Only)

Liberty exclusivity ups the odds of actually getting this wonder (and even if you don't have time to get it at first, it can still be avaliable to build for quite some time before anyone else attempts it.) Out of it, you get two free Workers - handy for developing new cities or newly-conquered cities, and a faster Worker improvement rate. That'll be useful over in the modern era when railroads are going up, and also means you don't need to maintain quite so many Workers to keep a large empire sustained.

Classical Era

Great Lighthouse

Usually one better to steal than build, especially as you're probably busy building Kris Swordsmen at the time. Faster sea movement and more sight will make long-range invasions easier later on, or if you're playing diplomatically, you'll get sea units intimidating City-States sooner.

Hanging Gardens (Tradition Only)

You'll need Mathematics anyway for Catapults and Courthouses. You only need Tradition's opener to build this, which helps your cities to expand borders faster. Why would you want to build it? To get a free Candi, that's why. It's a slightly unconventional route, and just a possibility (after all, Tradition Civs are good at wonder building so this is far more competitive than the Pyramids) so don't base your strategy on getting this thing.

Medieval Era

Angkor Wat

A lot of cities means a lot of important tiles that need acquiring. Cheaper culture costs mean less purchasing, and cheaper purchasing means it hurts less if you have to do so.

Borobudur

I've listed all three of the Theology wonders here. You're unlikely to get them all, but all three of them are useful in their own right. The Great Mosque is best, followed by Borobudur then the Hagia Sophia in third place. Because Candi come with Theology, you'll have the tech earlier than other Civs (probably not as early as the Mayans, but still pretty early.)

Borobudur itself is great for spreading your religion quickly. If you somehow manage to build the Great Mosque and this wonder in the same city (build the Great Mosque first, a Great Engineer will help) you get 9 spread religion uses rather than the usual 6, allowing you to convert probably at least four cities to your religion.

Great Mosque of Djenne (Piety Only)

The top priority of the Theology wonders, as 50% more uses out of Missionaries is a very powerful advantage when you can already spam them thanks to your faith generation.

Hagia Sophia

The weakest of the three faith wonders for Indonesia as you shouldn't really be using Prophets to spread religion unless absolutely necessary. You could always plant it for faith (and gold and culture with Piety.)

Machu Picchu

If it wasn't for the awkward location on the tech tree, this would be a perfect wonder for you. All that City Connection gold is increased by 25%, and you get some faith on top! Because of its tech tree placing and mountain requirement, it can be difficult to build, but luckily it's quite distinctive in the world, so knowing which city has the wonder (and hence you can capture) isn't hard.

Notre Dame

In the consolidation stage after the Kris Swordsman wars, your captured cities may grow fairly quickly and choke off your happiness. Hence, Notre Dame's not a bad wonder to build.

Renaissance Era

Forbidden Palace (Patronage Only, hence Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

A great cut to unhappiness, and more delegates in the World Congress! Beelining Banking after Theology may be a good idea to ensure you can get this wonder sooner, and hence push those early World Congress votes. Pushing for a World Religion early on isn't too hard if you have this wonder and a few Diplomats in other Civs' cities to help vote it through, and that'll pretty much ensure you remain a powerful member of the World Congress.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

A highly-competitive wonder, but you have a good reason for wanting it, and that's because you already have a +25% GP rate in many of your cities from the unrestricted Garden; the Candi.

Taj Mahal

Something for your Great Engineers or if you manage to get particularly good production in a city - not the absolute highest-priority wonder out there. The main point is all the gold from the free Golden Age, though the wonder also provides a little happiness.

Industrial Era

Big Ben (Commerce Only)

A real cash-saver if you're buying units or buildings with gold, and it provides a little gold of its own too. Slightly better if you're going down the domination route, but still good for any Indonesia player.

Modern Era

Kremlin (Order Only, hence Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

Fast tank production is handy as that's a section of your army you may have neglected up to now, and the free Social Policy's a great help, too.

Neuschwanstein (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

The reason it's diplomatic-favoured is Autocracy's Fortified Borders tenet. Walls and Castles together now generate 3 happiness, 2 culture and 3 gold for 235 production - cheaper than getting a Colosseum and a Zoo (though with one less happiness.)

Prora (Autocracy Only, hence Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

Happiness! True, it scales with the number of Social Policies you have, but every bit helps.

Atomic Era

Pentagon (Warmongering Indonesia favoured)

All those former Kris Swordsmen may be costing you a fair bit in upgrade costs. Lessening the burden allows you to get them all up to scratch sooner.

Sydney Opera House (Diplomatic Indonesia favoured)

It seems a surprise in the mix, but consider this. For one, most of the cities you found will probably be coastal for City Connection reasons, meaning you have plenty of cities to build it in. The wonder's technology is on the way to Globalisation, which if you're playing diplomatically you should be trying to get as soon as possible. Finally, the free Social Policy will usually mean more gold as there's probably policies in Exploration or Commerce left unfinished at the time.

Information Era

CN Tower

Bigger cities tend to produce more gold as they can work more gold-producing tiles or fill merchant slots.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Indonesia's not the simplest Civ in the world to learn. After all, just look at the length of this guide's UU section! As such, don't be surprised if you make a few mistakes in your first Indonesia game. Here's a list of some so hopefully you don't make them.

Beelining Theology

You're not the Mayans, getting Theology early won't be a significant advantage to you. Candi are expensive if you've been neglecting Worker technologies to improve your cities' tiles, and the faith gain isn't really anything special until rival religions become established. It's important to get iron spots revealed early so you can take those spots before anyone else can; postponing Bronze Working will mean you'll lose out on iron and hence a chance to use Kris Swordsmen to their full potential.

Settling the first city on the first three new landmasses on resources

In other words, if the city will grant you your unique resources, plant it on a resourceless tile. If you do plant your city on a resource the city will destroy it!. Unfortunately, there's no gameplay mechanic to compensate you for if you settled somewhere which turns out would've contained a strategic resource you hadn't got uncovered at the time.

Over-relying on Holy Warriors

Your faith gain probably won't be particularly strong until Candi really get going, and that will probably be around the time Kris Swordsmen are going obsolete.

Disbanding Kris Swordsmen with negative promotions

If you want to dispose of them, gift them to City-States instead. You'll get 5 influence and give them slightly better defence. Also, consider that the Enemy Blade promotion doesn't impair your unit's ability to defend.

Going to war without siege or ranged units

A classical-era army lacking Catapults or Composite Bowmen is one that'll have a hard time taking down city defences. None of your Kris Swordsmen promotions makes them directly better against cities - most promotions concern fighting other units.

Bringing a Mystic Blade unit into high danger

The best way to unlock a promotion for Kris Swordsmen or former-Kris Swordsmen is when fighting a single unit or an army significantly weaker than your own. Don't go enabling the promotion in the middle of enemy land, in range of plenty of enemy units and/or cities - you may end up with Enemy Blade or Evil Spirits which could get the unit killed very quickly.

Excessive puppeting

Puppeting cities makes it easier to get National Wonders, Social Policies and less unhappiness in the short-term (and less maintenance in the long-term due to the lack of needing a Courthouse.) However, puppets produce 25% less science than normal cities while still raising technology costs. Puppets also don't build units, which means it's a bit harder to build up an army.

Using Inquisitors

Except in extreme circumstances, this action will only hurt you by cutting Candi faith gain. Same applies to using Great Prophets on your own cities with your religion as a majority. Still, creating an Inquisitor can be useful to put off rival Great Prophets from entering your lands, even if you never use it.

Gajah Mada Goes Mad: The Counter-Strategies

Indonesia's strengths lie in strong late-game faith production, the ability to sustain more cities than most players in the mid-game and a versatile Unique Unit. They lack cultural strength, Social Policy gain and aren't exceptional at science either.

Playing against the Spice Islanders

One important thing to note about Indonesia's uniques is that they require different tech paths. Their UA relies on the sea techs at the top row of the tech tree, their UB requires Theology on an upper-middle row and their UU is on the bottom row. As such, they play to a careful tech order. Disrupt that, and they'll struggle to make the most of their uniques.

How do you do this? Well, an early rush is the conventional way of catching out the unprepared. Getting to use their UA and UU tends to mean they may put off getting Archery and Horseback Riding, giving a notable weakness in their defences.

It's probably worth your while to let them set up a colony before you wipe them out, though. When you conquer a unique resource city, you keep that resource for yourself. Essentially, you can steal another Civ's UA and add it to your own!

Of course, war isn't for everyone, and there's ways to peacefully exploit Indonesia's UA. The standard way is to ban their unique luxuries at the World Congress, costing them at least 4 happiness. If you want to really cause trouble, you could try colonising good spots on other landmasses before them, though that's only really practical if the number and size of non-starting landmasses is not particuarly large.

If you're playing peacefully and want a slice of their luxuries rather than stopping them, be sure you get their unique luxuries first in trade deals before trading for other luxuries, as it's more reliable than other luxuries (Barbarians can't pillage it, for example.)

Playing against Kris Swordsmen

Kris Swordsmen are greatly limited in effectiveness if Indonesia can't reach iron, so consider taking Bronze Working early so you know and can take such spots.

Generally, most Kris Swordsmen promotions are better in attack than defence and as a result, they're fairly prone to archery units. If they get wise to this and start using Cover promotions, Horsemen are another possible option. The exact counter-strategy varies depending on the promotion:

• Ambition - Avoid letting them attack. Try a hit-and-run attack to put them on the defensive to heal up that damage, then you can easily finish them off.
  
• Enemy Blade - If they're in your lands, use Zone of Control to stop them escaping, if possible. Outside of the lands of Indonesia's enemies, they're no better or worse than normal Swordsmen.
  
• Evil Spirits - As a weak unit, you should leave taking these out until last. They're bad at attacking and even worse in defence, so should be little trouble.
  
• Heroism - If Indonesia's got one of these, they've got a free Great General they can set up a Citadel with. These should be high-priority units to pick out.
  
• Invulnerability - Hard to kill, but keep in mind they're not particularly good in offence - as such, you can safely leave them alone until you've killed other strong Kris Swordsmen.
  
• Recruitment - Never leave a weak unit vulnerable near one of these. Horsemen will work better than Composite Bowmen for picking out these because you can more rapidly retreat the unit. A fairly high-priority unit to kill.
  
• Restlessness - If this unit does attack twice, it'll lose a fair bit of health in the process and thus is left vulnerable. After that, it'll probably try and do a pillage-spree or pull back to heal up, so take that opportunity to finish the unit off. Slightly more important to take these out than Recruitment, but not as much as Heroism.
  Sneak Attack - Keep your units together, or have a route to escape so these units can't excessively use flanking bonuses. They're not particularly high priority units to kill.

So, in the order you should kill them in, starting from the first to kill (not including other units they might bring in and assuming no further promotions):

• Heroism
  
• Restlessness
  
• Recruitment
  
• Ambition
  
• Invulnerability
  
• Sneak Attack
  
• Enemy Blade
  
• Evil Spirits

If you beeline Gunpowder, you may be able to catch Indonesia out as they'll probably be putting off Steel to get all the Kris Swordsmen they can.

Playing against Candi

Candi require a variety of religions to be present in the same city for maximum faith gain. However, this makes the job of converting Indonesian cities to your own religion easier as they won't be prone to making Inquisitors or Great Prophets. You can use this in the mid-game to slow their progress down, though by the late-game such a move will prove difficult and probably impractical.

So, how else can you stop Indonesia dominating with their religion? One way is to cut the uses they have for faith, thus reducing their incentive to build lots of Candi. You can do this by grabbing beliefs they want. Because of their reliance on Candi for faith, you can probably easily outpace them in faith before the medieval era as they'll probably not bother too much with Shrines and Temples.

A note about the Netherlands

While Portugal and Arabia are also effective at exploiting Indonesia's UA, none can do it better than the Netherlands. The requirement of founding cities on continents besides Indonesia's capital for unique luxuries means they'll usually have a sea-based empire - prone to Sea Beggars.

But once the unique luxury cities are captured, that's when the fun really starts. The Dutch can trade both away - not just one - and still get half the happiness out of them. Due to the luxuries only being obtainable via those specific cities, the Dutch can price them highly to get more off Civs greatly in need of more happiness.

Strategy by Style

Early-game Aggressors - Take plenty of Archers or Composite Bowmen to deal with their Kris Swordsmen.

Mid-game Warmongers - Beeline your UU (if your mid-game warmongering relies on your UU) and send an invading force to Indonesia while their army is still upgrading (or before they've even begun bringing it up to standard.) Take advantage of them putting off Steel.

Late-game Warmongers - Use bomber-class air units to deal with their former Kris Swordsmen. If they're playing diplomatically, invade them about half-way between World Congress sessions when their City-State influence is at its lowest.

Cultural Players - Sending a Great Prophet into their lands (the sooner, the more effective) can mess up their faith generation thus preventing their strong faith generation derailing your midgame plans (most cultural Civs do well to have a decent religion of their own.) Good culture generation means you can more easily pick up the Piety tree to keep your religion competitive; Indonesia can struggle to complete it with their wide empire.

Diplomatic Players - Embargo Indonesia's luxuries in the World Congress; place Diplomats in other Civs' cities to assist with that. If you succeed, either Indonesia will spend precious voting rounds trying to repeal the decision or they'll have to cope with a happiness (and potentially gold) cut.

Scientific Players - Beelining Civil Service gives you a unit with a slight combat advantage over Kris Swordsmen without having to diverge from your tech path much. If Indonesia's likely to be a bigger problem than Pikemen can handle, it's not too hard to work towards Chivalry. Knights can run in, deal lots of damage to those Kris Swordsmen and then run out to avoid being hit - useful seeing as many Kris Swordsmen prioritise attacking.

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• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
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• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Hydroxycutz]

I'm shocked you responded to this due to civ 6 being out for so long and now civ 5 being over a decade old, but thanks for the response. Curious what you cook up with civ 7, hoping it starts out better then the one before em unlike its 2 predecessors

[Zigzagzigal]

I don't really think too hard about build orders or the like because I want to avoid being overly prescriptive about how to play. Certainly getting faith output off the ground early is a big help though.

[Hydroxycutz]

I know this is even years farther back then your last comment, but what would you suggest for a build openere? My usual for most civs is 2/3 scouts into shrine, but for this strategy would you suggest another?

[Dennis[DK]]

@Zigzagzigal: Thanks, I will try Terra too.

[Zigzagzigal]

Small continents is pretty good, yeah. Terra's very effective if you can start near the main island chain that appears on the map, as you can still reach enemy lands on foot to make good use of Kris Swordsmen.

[Dennis[DK]]

Indonesia probably have the most situational UA in the game. So which map type do you recommend to make the best of the UA? Small continents?

[Zigzagzigal]

Generally, I'd recommend taking different reformation beliefs instead, simply due to them being more effective overall. Unity of the Prophets can be very effective against a Great Prophet-spamming opponent, but many other options are more consistently useful.

[Benzombie]

You said that you shouldn't use prophets and inquisitors to get even with religions but would it matter if you chose the Unity of Prophets belief? Or is it just easier to use missionares?

[C0untzer0]

With Indonesia, you don't always have to vote for your religion to be the world's religion. Odd as it sounds, you can use the other faith's spred to your own advantage, then cut it off when ready.

[8point5]

The easiest way is going Forbidden Palace+Founding WC and bribing someone to vote for your World Religion proposal ASAP.

But oftentimes I have enough of a presence to pass but not enough to win diplomatically.

I do also enjoy a Science victory with Space Pioneering and To The Glory of God. That is very powerful late game. The bonus to GP generation and faith can really help late game. I find Indonesia reasonably similar to Austria, actually.