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hey guys Spirit of the law here in this civ overview
we're going to do an inquisition into the Spanish
heyeelahey
now they're a gunpowder and monk civilization and I'd actually consider them one of the easier
civs to learn with only a handful of pretty passive bonuses while they start with a bit
of a generic early game that leads into having a very strong Castle in Imperial age with one
of the most open Tech trees you can find in terms of performance they're pretty middle
of the road on Arabia leading sometimes to the perception they're a mediocre 1v1 civ
in general which I think undersells them quite a bit they're significantly above average on Arena
Hideout Four Lakes and mega random while also being hands down the best civilization on Nomad
by a pretty wide margin if you're someone who prefers playing a lot of offbeat maps or Team
games then Spanish can be a surprisingly underrated and versatile Choice with one
of the best unique units in the game nope not that one yeah that one let's check them out
we'll start off with their team bonus which is that their whole team's trade units generate
25 more gold than usual this is always in the conversation as one of the best team bonuses
in the game for pretty obvious reasons with a Spanish teammate you can get away with either
fewer trade cards or just pocket the extra gold it is pretty late game Focus though as you generally
don't trade until you're in Imperial but this is basically unlimited potential to rack up gold the
longer the game goes on also in case you're wondering it does apply to trade cogs as well
so you're even covered on water Maps moving on to their Civ bonuses the first is their Builders work
30% faster with the exception of Wonders which are built 20% faster to match treadmill crane this is
one of those bonuses you don't necessarily think about while playing but it helps in a lot of small
ways but can really add up to start their houses Mills camps Farms military buildings Etc are all
built faster saving anywhere from 5 to 12 seconds on most buildings this lets your villagers get
back to work sooner and for example in a typical fast castle at up to about two minutes of safe
construction time translating to about 40 extra resources they also have a neat trick where they
can build three houses at the start of the game and not get housed whereas other civilizations
need two villagers to focus on one house besides these little efficiencies faster working Builders
also means you're quicker to wall up your base and mix Castle drops much harder to prevent this bonus
alone even gives Spanish a decent Tower rush if used aggressively with a greater ability to also
defend against a tower Rush by having your own defensive Towers go up faster maybe the
largest benefit from this bonus though comes on Nomad where it allows you to get your first town
center up fast enough to end up one villager ahead of other civilizations from the start overall it's
just an extremely versatile and easy to overlook bonus though in case you're wondering it doesn't
apply to repairing which is done at the same speed for Spanish as any other civilization their second
sip bonus is their blacksmith upgrades don't cost any gold this is almost useless in the feudal age
as Fletching is the only Tech affected but by the end of Castle age you could have saved up to 670
gold already you probably won't make use of all of that in the mid game but to fully upgrade Knights
for example saves almost 300 resources right there adding in the Imperial age though you can
save nearly a combined 1700 gold which would then cover the Cavalier Paladin and how badir upgrades
gold cost for some perspective I find this is especially nice when transitioning to one or more
trash units where you might be grabbing the armor upgrades for a unit type from scratch their third
bonus is their gunpowder units fire 18 faster this applies to hand cannoniers bombard cannons Cannon
galleons and indirectly to the Conquistador which has its attack rate set to the same as the Spanish
hand cannineer it's hard to go wrong with a faster firing rate especially for range units though
again this is very late game focused for arena or Team games especially this makes your gunpowder
units just that much more dangerous and better in a supporting role and finally their last bonus
is their canning galleons have better accuracy essentially by giving them free ballistics and
have faster moving cannonballs that are harder to dodge the cannonball's speed difference is
pretty noticeable with Spanish cannonballs moving at seven tiles per second compared to the generic
three tiles per second dodging Canon Galleon shots probably happens more in campaigns than
competitive games but on top of a faster reload time this makes Spanish cannon galleons a little
extra dangerous against enemy ships and units that come too close to the shore so that's the Spanish
bonuses overall they're pretty straightforward with faster working Builders and blacksmith gold
discounts being your main equal bonuses followed by good gunpowder units and trade in the late game
reinforcing their gunpowder and monk identity they actually have two unique units which we'll take a
look at now we'll start with the Conquistador the game generally treats them as a Cavalry
Archer and I think that makes sense as a decent starting point though as we'll see they have some
key differences side by side the Conquistador is the more expensive unit costing nearly the exact
same as a knight though of course you also need to pay for a castle first stats wise they have
quite similar HP to the Cavalry Archer which can be increased by another 20 with Bloodlines
but start with two of each type of armor compared to the Cavalry Archer zero making conquist stores
automatically a much tankier unit they also have doubled the attack per shot that a Cavalry Archer
does after blocking Arrow though once you throw in the thumb ring for 100 accuracy and
faster reloading the Cavalry Archer ends up with a similar damage per second to the Conquistador on
paper all of this so far leaves the Conquistador with a couple of big advantages first you save on
cost by not needing to pay for the Archer attack upgrades and thumb ring as neither affect it and
neither does ballistics parthian tactics or chemistry for that matter saving a lot
of resources and research time instead it's just bloodline's husbandry and Archer armor that you
need to focus on meaning conquistadors become an instant power unit in Castle age and don't really
need upgrades besides bloodbines to be effective their second big Advantage is their High attack
means they're much better against High pure server Target skirmishers for example have bonus
damage against them like any Cavalry Archer but a conquistador's high attack and extra armor means
it wins one on one which is not true for Cavalry archers or even manga die likewise conquistadors
hold it better against Eagle Warriors and do a surprisingly good job against Knights they
can beat an equal number of knights pretty easily with micro and can even be crossbows with balanced
resources given the popularity of those two units just those facts on its own make it a
top tier unit in Castle age another big Advantage for the unit is that a group of three can One-Shot
a villager making it incredibly effective at raiding even in very small numbers that said
everyone kind of knows that conquistors are coming when they see you pick Spanish so it's pretty rare
that you'll have the element of surprise to touch on a couple of their hidden attributes they are
a little slower than a typical Cavalry Archer and Cavalry unit they take bonus damage from anything
anti-cavalry or anti-archer as you might expect and they also have just 65 accuracy at long range
so if you really want want to hit something it helps to be quite close to it they also have a
sneaky plus 2 attack against buildings and a bonus against ramps to offset their slow fire rate now
while no one would dispute their eighth grade unit in Castle age for all the reasons outlined
they don't have the same overpowered reputation in Imperial age their Elite upgrade gives a similar
advantage to other Imperial age Cavalry archer upgrades with a little more attack accuracy and
HP for a pretty reasonable cost remember though they're unaffected by bracer chemistry ballistics
and thumb ring which means they don't entirely keep up with the improvements made to similar
mounted Archer units so in a relative sense they're a bit less impressive in Imperial age
though still frequently used in both 1v1s and team games moving on to their second unique unit we
have the missionary this is our first indication that Spanish are in fact a monk civilization and
ironically it's by giving you a unit that is not the monk side by side you can see they have the
same HP and actually the same conversion and healing ability being indistinguishable in
that regard their advantages are they move 60 faster closer to 75 faster after husbandry and
also that they're affected by Bloodlines giving them 20 more HP this is on top of being affected
by all of the techs at the monastery as well so far it sounds pretty good but there's also some
pretty major disadvantages they can't carry relics meaning you'll probably have to make monks anyway
they have two less range making conversions more dangerous have two less line of sight and also
take anti-cavorary bonus damage from things like Pikes and camels whether you decide to incorporate
some missionaries or to stick with monks I see as a personal preference depending on how much you
value speed against the shorter conversion range at least it's an option that you have and Given
the mobility that Spanish tend to have otherwise with conquistadors and knights the missionary
certainly fits that more mobile play style helping to push you even more in that Monastery direction
let's talk about the unique tags the first is Inquisition which is pretty cheap and gives your
monks and missionaries a faster conversion time on average in general it only seems to be about a
second faster but on the scale of 20 monks there's a noticeable difference in the fastest conversions
the average conversion time and it even moves the cap of the maximum conversion time a bit lower
keep in mind it has the same gold cost as three monks or missionaries though so I wouldn't pick
it up on a whim but if you are using a lot of mugs against enemy Knights or elephants there could
definitely be a situation where this makes sense to pick up moving on their second unique Tech is
the legendary Supremacy this basically turns your regular old villagers into long Swordsmen minus
the part where they'll aggressively seek out enemy targets combining this with the tech sappers gives
the old school version of Flemish Revolution where you can trade in your economy for a last-ditch all
an attack that said this Tech doesn't have to be used for particular strategies and trying to
get achievements and in fact it's straight up just a great defensive choice if you're being
heavily rated and even combines well with your faster Builders to make castle drops basically
impossible to stop for one reason or another I tend to pick this up basically every time I
play Spanish as it's cheap great for the memes and nine times out of 10 is actually a solid
strategic choice to stifle enemy raids so that's the Spanish unique units and techs again largely
reaffirming their gunpowder and Monastery identity in many games players dial into the Conquistador
and make that their primary unit though Spanish actually have one of the most broad tech trees
to support it in fact now let's move on and take a look at their Tech Tree starting with the archers
right away it's a little dicey as you're missing crossbow and in fact they're one of only two
civilizations that tap out at archers thumb ring here is mostly just to taunt your archers and the
Cavalry Archer is essentially just an inferior option to the Conquistador for reasons we saw
earlier of course they have fully upgraded Elite skirmishers and faster attacking hand cannoniers
to give you some decent late game options overall I'd say it's a B for the archery range next up for
their infantry everything is fully upgraded though with the only relevant bonus being a discounted
gold cost on blacksmith upgrades fully upgraded halberdier and Champion certainly give you some
nice counter units and I'd say it's a b-plus for infantry especially in the late game the gold
savings really make a Barracks transition feel a lot smoother than usual in my opinion moving on to
Cavalry outside of conquistadors this is primarily how Spanish are played you have fully upgradable
hussar and Paladin again with the gold Savings of the blacksmith keeping you usually ahead on
your attack and armor upgrades a scout Rush isn't really helped out by your bone is all that much
but there's no reason you can't play them as a scout and night civilization all the way through
I'd say it's an A minus for Cavalry only held back by lacking a direct night bonus or the option of
camels next up for Siege they're missing Siege onager and heavy scorpion which isn't the end
of the world with your bombard cannons making up for that by having faster attack the big blemish
here is lacking Siege Engineers without which The Siege RAM onager and bombered Cannon just aren't
as good as they could be it's still enough to give them a B for their Siege but it's not really their
specialty moving on to the Navy right away it looks really good with a completely open Tech
Tree though given how snowbally water games can beat it's always nice to have at least one solid
Naval or Eco bonus faster Builders and discounted Fletching and Bodkin Arrow are the only relevant
bonuses here so Spanish get out to a bit of a slow start with just a c plus on water early
in the late game though I think they shine a bit more with the Canon Galleon in particular getting
a couple of bonuses despite being the seventh most popular pick Spanish actually aren't really
typed here on water maps and in fact the stats put them at just about a 50 win rate on Islands
I'd still say they get an A minus in the late game for a B on water overall certainly if you
can land with a few conquistadors or Castle drop someone's Island then Spanish have some potential
next up at the monastery you have every Tech available your missionary unique unit for more
speed plus Inquisition giving you slightly faster conversion times obviously the monastery is meant
to be one of their Specialties and there's lots of options here so I'd give them an A minus as I
think they're in the conversation but not quite at the top tier moving on to defenses this is
arguably where they Excel even more faster Builders makes any sort of Castle or Tower
strategy significantly stronger and you have all the different types of towers available in case
you're wondering the bomber Tower is not improved by your gunpowder firing rate bonus but it's still
a great option what makes them an A plus defensive civ automatically though is supremacy admittedly
Spanish are a little vulnerable to aggressive civs on open maps but once you get Supremacy Spanish
are possibly the most annoying civ in the game to raid as it seems like their villagers just never
die so I'm going to give it an Easy A Plus and finally to wrap up with our trash units that is
units that don't cost gold they have every option fully upgradable on top of the blacksmith gold
discounts making any of those transitions easier I'd also throw in the supremacy villagers here
again as there isn't really a trash unit that can handle them easily and it only takes a handful to
fight off a hussar for example personally I love trash Wars as Spanish and I'd give them an A minus
so to finish up with some final thoughts probably the safest way to play Spanish would be as a
traditional Cavalry civilization opening Scouts into knights with a transition to conquistadors in
the back of your mind whenever possible the only issue with this is it's all pretty predictable
leading to players experimenting with Spanish Archer and Tower openings just to do something
different the Conquistador is really what makes them more interesting than just another Cavalry
civ though and it should always be in the back of your mind as a safe fallback unit even if people
know it's coming it's just that good as I said off the top Spanish sometimes get a bad rap for
being a bit pedestrian on 1v1 Arabia but they're a great pocket in team games great on closed Maps
or really any time you can get away with a fast castle and bypass the weak futile age they're
going to be in a good position a core part of the Spanish identity on top of their many Tech Tree
options is really their smooth transitions between creating military buildings faster discounts on
blacksmith texts and the Conquistador being ready basically straight out of the box without a lot of
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