A Vox Populi(CBP) Guide: The Netherlands

A guide on how to play the Netherlands with the Vox Populi(Community Balance Patch) mod. The Dutch generate tons of gold and even a good amount of culture through some unconventional means, but where they excel most is in renaissance warfare.

Introduction

These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Netherlands!

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 - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
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 that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single 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.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Brief Unique Summary

Start Bias

The Netherlands have a coastal start bias. The Dutch UU being a naval unit benefits from this quite nicely

Unique Ability: Dutch East India Company

+3& for every unique luxury resource you import or export to other Civilizations and City States, scaling with era

Can import duplicate resources, and major civilization imports count towards monopolies

Unique Unit: Sea Beggar(Replaces the Corvette)

A naval melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades From	Upgrades To	Resource Needed
Astronomy Renaissance Era	Rocketry Atomic Era	Caravel (200 )	Ironclad (560 )	N/A

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
42	N/A	5	N/A	2	None	May capture defeated enemy units(Prize Ships) May heal outside of friendly territory. Heals +5hp per turn(Supply) +100% against cities. Damage from cities reduced by 50%(Vanguard)

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (42 instead of 40)
  
• Arrives at Astronomy instead of Navigation
  
• Obsoletes at Rocketry rather than Industrialization

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• May capture defeated enemy units(Prize Ships)
  
• May heal outside of friendly territory. Heals +5hp per turn(Supply)
  
• +100% against cities. Damage from cities reduced by 50%(Vanguard)

Unique Improvement: Polder

Technology	Enhancing Technologies	Terrain Requirement	Base Yields	Misc. Bonuses	Enhancement Effects	Final Yields
Guilds Medieval Era	Chemistry Renaissance Era Economics Renaissance Era	A tile adjacent to fresh water, or on a marsh	+2 +1 +3	+1 to adjacent villages and towns*	Chemistry +1 Economics +2 +1	+4 +2 +3 +1

*This effect stacks, meaning a village adjacent to multiple Polders will get the +1 from each Polder

Strategies and Victory Routes

Strategy Ranking

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Dutch uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking

Offense	Defense	Culture	Tourism	Science	/ Growth/Production	Gold	Diplomacy	Religion
7/10	4/10	8/10	5/10	4/10	8/10	10/10	5/10	2/5

The Dutch are a terrifying force on the sea, and can genuinely win the game off of it, but they lack any defensive or offensive options off of the seas, or even on the seas before their UU in the renaissance.
The Netherlands has very strong culture generation from Polders and their UA, but Polders will only give a little tourism, and the UA gives none
Polders also give a large boost to Dutch growth and production, but they lack any direct boost to science.
The Dutch are one of the best gold generating civs in the game from both the UA and Polders. Diplomacy is a decent route for them even if they lack a real diplomatic bonus, as they aren't sacrificing much by going Statecraft.
Finally the Dutch lack any bonus to religion, but can afford to build shrines early as they have nothing else specific to do in the early game.

Unique Ability: Dutch East India Company

The Dutch may not necessarily have much of a bonus to winning a diplomatic victory, but their early game is characterized by diplomacy. The Dutch gain more from making friends then anyone else


Above: The +6 from traits is simply from trading one luxury resource for another

Make sure you get your luxury resources up as soon as possible, and the moment you meet another civ you should be able to enjoy +6 culture and gold, assuming the other civ has something to give in return. It's even worth trading your last copy of a resource in the early game, happiness shouldn't be an issue, and you'll gain more from the culture and gold then what you would've gained from the happiness anyways.

The yields increase to +6 per resource in the medieval era, and then it increases by 3 every era, for a total of +21 per resource in the information era.


Above: Note in the top right how I already have a deal going with Shaka for cinnamon

You may only be able to get the culture and gold once per resource, but it is still worth getting as many as possible, as certain monopoly bonuses are quite strong. Not only as the Dutch can you buy duplicate resources, those you import from major civs count towards monopolies (For City State resources you need the Exchange Markets policy from Statecraft). Focus on resources you already own a few of yourself, and also on those with actually useful monopolies. A boost to a resource tile is useless if you don't own any of the tile. This part of the UA DOES work with strategic resources, so buying some of them might net you some military boosts, or maybe even the global monopoly bonus.

Unique Improvement: The Polder

Alright it's cool that we have reclaimed the land from the sea, but couldn't it be a little more, I don't know, pretty?

Continuing the peaceful Dutch life and definitely having no ace up their sleeve to murder everyone with, the Polder is a strong improvement for the Dutch mid-game. They give a good amount of food and production, a good bit of gold, and can be built pretty generously across the empire, merely requiring fresh water or a marsh tile. River tiles are generally worth building on due to the trade bonuses, and the Dutch can get even more out of them then most civs, so make sure to snap up river spots early. If you happen to have some tiles not next to freshwater, but next to tiles that are, don't fret. Build villages or even towns next to Polders, and you'll be getting even more gold then normal from them. Try to build your roads away from rivers if you can to maximize this, as villages and towns are better on roads.

One nice thing about Polders is that unlike most improvements, the enhancing techs for them come soon after Guilds, and very close to eachother at that, with both Chemistry and Economics coming in the renaissance, giving Polders more gold and production, as well as some culture.


Ah, there we go, so pretty. And so profitable too!

Unique Unit: Sea Beggar

Alright we're making lots of money on our own, but, and hear me out here, what if we took other people's money too?

Just when you thought the Netherlands wouldn't cause any problems, in comes the Sea Beggar, a truly monstrous unit. It comes with 3 strong promotions, Supply(faster healing, and outside of friendly territory), Prize Ships(May convert defeated ships to your side) and Vanguard(+100% combat strength against cities and 50% less damage from them). Supply means you can more reliably send your ships on long campaigns and not have to pull them back as far. Prize ships is decent, the ships you capture are going to be very weak and probably won't survive, but it does mean a shot that would've gone towards your sea beggars doesn't. Another nice thing is that unlike the base game, nothing else has prize ships, it is only Sea Beggar that have prize ships. Nonetheless, the most important promotion of the 3 though is definitely Vanguard. This makes your Sea Beggars almost immune to city damage. A single Sea Beggar is almost enough to take out a castled city, and two almost certainly can assuming they aren't taking fire from something else. This means that even if you only invest in Sea Beggars, you can still conquer.



Sea Beggars have great promotions, as well as a small combat strength boost over corvettes, but the most important thing about them is that they come at an earlier tech. Sea Beggars can already fight anything in their era, and they now come before anything in their era. With the large amount of money you've probably built by now, you can quickly build up a solid navy that no Civ can stand up to for quite some time.

Promotions Kept on Upgrade

• May capture defeated enemy units(Prize Ships)
  
• May heal outside of friendly territory. Heals +5hp per turn(Supply)
  
• +100% against cities. Damage from cities reduced by 50%(Vanguard)

War or Peace?

Sea Beggars are a very powerful unit, but they somewhat conflict with the Dutch wanting to keep peace to trade. There's no doubt you want to use them, but how much you commit depends on some factors.

You should go for domination if...

• Most cities in the world are coastal, or at least all the capitals
  
• Most of the world's civs are peaceful/militarily weak

You shouldn't go for domination if...

• There are a lack of coastal cities/capitals
  
• There are strong military civs, especially England or Denmark

Either route you go, there are ways to utilize both your UA and UU. If you get a vassal, it doesn't matter if the world hates you, you'll always have a trading partner. Even if you lose some potential from your UA, Polders should pick up some of the slack and still allow you to economically support a large army, so don't be afraid to do plenty of Sea Beggar conquest even if you don't see a domination victory as likely.

Social Policies

The Netherlands should start with Progress to get luxuries and Polders up quickly, then Statecraft to get a bit more out of their UA. Unless they are on a pangea map or there is really nothing to conquer on the water, Imperialism is best for the Dutch whether they plan domination or not.

Progress

Opener: If at all possible, try to avoid growing your capital much before you get this, you'll get more science that way. The culture you immediately get from this will likely almost be enough for the next policy

Liberty: The more luxuries you have improved the more culture and gold you're getting

Organization: Faster workers, settlers, and even great people all help infrastructure get built just a little bit faster

Expertise: Faster building construction is great, especially in the early game where production might be sparse.

Equality: This will be nice to reduce unhappiness as your cities get large, especially in the mid-game

Fraternity: The food won't be a big factor soon, but the extra science is pretty decent.

Finisher: This should be a good bit of gold, a little overkill, but you can never have too much

Statecraft

Opener: Small bit of gold and a few extra yields in the capital can't hurt

Trade Confederacy: This helps to make sure you don't have to keep sending diplomatic units just to keep a City State above 60 influence.

Foreign Service: A big boost to gaining and keeping City States, plus the spy is great

Shadow Networks: A big boost to science, because you need more incentive to get City State allies

Consulates: Helps encourage exclusive trading with City States, and gives some unorthodox tourism if you want to go that route

Exchange Markets: An extra trade route, bonus tourism modifiers from having trade routes with other civs, possible monopolies, a fantastic boost.

Finisher: A few yields every world congress session, not terrible

Imperialism

Opener: The Dutch have a large, strong navy, and it just got better

Colonialism: You'll have lots of monopolies by now, especially if someone still likes you, get some more use out of them.

Regimental Tradition: Faster Great General and Admiral generation, as well as making them stronger, good to have on the land or on the sea

Martial Law: You'll definitely have plenty of puppet cities, and conquered ones too. Both of them will be less of a burden now.

Exploitation: A good bit of yields across the empire.

Civilizing Mission: Gold from conquering cities, and production in said conquered cities, everything you need to push the front line.

Finisher: Your naval units you get from Prize Ships might actually survive now.

Ideology

A Diplomatic Netherlands should go Freedom but a domination one should go Autocracy

Level 1 Policies(Freedom)

Civil Society: Polders now give even more food cause you needed to grow faster yeah?

Economic Union: 2 trade routes, 2 more City States getting influence.

Covert Action: Makes your spies better at getting those tricky city states your diplomatic rivals don't want to give up.

Level 2 Policies(Freedom)

Universal Healthcare: A free hospital in every city, possibly before you even have biology researched, is amazing.

Arsenal of Democracy: Get a bit more out of your great people with extra influence whenever you use them.

Level 3 Policies(Freedom)

Treaty Organization: Save your trade routes for City States and you should be able to keep them loyal

Level 1 Policies(Autocracy)

Military-Industrial Complex: Cheaper unit upgrades are nice for those last expensive, bulk upgrades, plus you'll get some science out of Polders now

Elite Forces: Need some new units? They're better. Have lots of old units? They upgrade faster

New World Order: The Dutch may handle happiness better then many warmongers, but they will still struggle once conquests really get going. This helps

Level 2 Policies(Autocracy)

Commerce Raiders: A little bit of production is nice, but you mainly want this for the better ships, the extra resources is decent if you are keeping up city state allies too.

Lightning Warfare: Gives you punch on land to keep up with your navy

Level 3 Policies(Autocracy)

Air Supremacy: You'll probably need some land units, and while you'll probably have naval superiority, air travel will still be faster.

Wonders

Ancient Era

Pyramids: You'll want to get up cities quick to get luxury resources

Temple of Artemis: Will really help your cities explode in the mid-game.

Classical Era

Great Lighthouse: Increase the dominance of Sea Beggars.

Roman Forum: Gives your diplomatic units just that little edge, and a free great diplomat for long or short term gain

Medieval Era

Forbidden Palace(Progress Only): You already have lots of gold but it can always go farther

Renaissance Era

Summer Palace(Diplomacy): Almost a necessity for any diplomatic game.

Industrial Era

Palace of Westminster(Statecraft Only): Will give you a big leg up in the world congress, either to help in victory, or to prevent anything passing that will hurt conquest

Bradenburg Gate(Domination): A little bit of extra experience for one city, and you can afford to just do one city for the most part since you can largely purchase your army

Neuschwanstein(Domination): Should help happiness issues a good bit.

Modern Era

Prora(Autocracy Only): Should pretty much eliminate any happiness issues you were having.

Statue of Liberty(Freedom Only): A good bit of production is pretty nice, but you're mainly here for the free policy

Atomic Era

Pentagon(Imperialism): Why have any land units when you can just have planes fight the land units instead

Information Era

CERN: Two free techs is awesome for any situation, and the extra influence is good for a diplomatic win

Pitfalls to Avoid

The Dutch are certainly a bit odd, combining strong growth, as well as friendly relations and trade, with a strong naval UU that warrants plenty of warfare. These seem contradictory, and mistakes can easily be made.

Buying Too Many Luxury Duplicates

Buying duplicate luxuries is something that should be done carefully and sparingly with the Dutch. It does you no good buying duplicate resources if you can't get a monopoly out of it, and not all monopolies are created equal, especially for the Dutch, so you also need to keep an eye on that.

Ignoring Sea Beggars

It can seem easy to just try and turtle up and make friends with everyone, the rest of the Dutch uniques support this, but the Sea Beggar is easily the strongest naval unique, and you are losing a lot if you ignore it.

Not Vassalizing Civs You Conquer

The big downside of going on Sea Beggar conquest is that civs will start to hate you, and may stop trading with you, significantly hurting your UA. However, this problem can be somewhat subverted if you get vassals. They should always be willing trading partners. It also doubles as protection against an embargo, as vassals ignore embargoes, normally a crippling counter for the Dutch

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?: Counter Strategies

The Dutch have a scary strong economy, and it backs a monstrous naval unit. However they are dependent not only on the sea, but also on others.

Bankrupting the Dutch East India Company

On the surface, this seems one of the easiest UAs to counter. Simply don't trade with the Dutch and they lose a lot of power. But of course the Dutch can trade with other civs, so it isn't a total loss if you refuse to trade with them, but it certainly will hurt them. If you neighbor the Dutch make sure to take any luxuries near them that you can and you deny them even more. The best thing you can do though is embargo the Dutch, and then their UA becomes pretty much completely useless.

Flooding the Polders

Similar to denying them luxury resources, settle near rivers if you neighbor the Netherlands as well and they won't have as many Polders. Other then that there isn't a lot you can do about them besides just conquering them of course

Sinking Sea Beggars

Sea Beggars are strong and come earlier then they are supposed too. You can't beat the Dutch on the water in the renaissance. If you can't take the Dutch out early for whatever reason, just try and avoid settling many coastal cities. Build up lots of siege units as well, they should be able to do decent damage to the sea beggars. If not settling coastal isn't an option, just hold out with siege until you can get to navigation, and then you stand a fighting chance if you can get superior numbers. Once you get to ironclads and cruisers the Netherlands should lose superiority, although they'll definitely still be a threat, especially to your cities.

Strategy by Style

Early-Game Warmongers: The Dutch might actually put up more fight then you might think, since even at this point their economy is going to be strong and they will probably be able to buy a good sized force, but it'll probably be behind in tech, so it still won't be too bad.

Mid-Game Warmongers: How easy this is depends on your proximity to the Dutch. If you are close, specifically connected by land, they shouldn't be difficult to conquer, but they might conquer you back on the seas depending on how your cities are placed. Bring more siege then usual, not for their cities, but for their ships

Late-Game Warmongers: The Dutch will still have a strong navy, but it's certainly not unbeatable, and on land they will probably be pretty weak. Just try to have a stronger force then them when you start fighting, they can definitely out attrition you with their economy.

Diplomatic Players: An Embargo on the Dutch will destroy them, hopefully they've angered enough people with Sea Beggar conquests and you'll have support on voting it up.

Scientific Players: Rush to navigation as fast as possible, and then quickly to industrialization or dynamite to counter the Dutch navy, and you'll be fine.

Cultural Players: Not much to do other then the normal counter strategies

Other Guides

Meta Guides

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

Civ Specific Guides: Alphabetized

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)
  

[TheAvenger]

This is all very well made, and a great way to ease newer players into Vox Populi. Congrats

[lifeordeath2077]

But nah seriously thank y'all so much for viewing, and hopefully learning from and enjoying my guides, it means the world to me that so many people are seeing this stuff

[lifeordeath2077]

I just happen to see this in 999 visitors (feelsbadman)

[CAPTAIN AVR]

BRO You're the king for this. You're The Man.

[isaiaht77]

Do Celtrs next please! Loving these guides