This is an in-depth guide for the United Provinces of the Netherlands . This guide will include unique units and buildings and where to build them, starting position info, recommendations for first targets, tips for research, tips on how to use your agents best, and more.

NOTE: This guide will be taking units added by DLC into consideration.

Starting Year:
1700

Starting Regions:
Amsterdam - The Netherlands (Capital)
Trincomalee - Ceylon
Punda - Curacao
Paramaribo - Dutch Guyana

Starting Government:
Republic

Religion:
Protestantism

Starting Funds:
7500

Amount of Starting Generals:
3

Amount of Starting Admirals:
2

Amount of Starting Gentlemen:
1

Amount of Starting Rakes:
1

Amount of Starting Missionaries:
1

Victory Conditions:
Capture and hold 25 regions by the end of the year 1799, including the regions shown:
Dutch Guyana (Already owned)
Flanders (Owned by Spain)
Bijapur (Owned by the Maratha Confederacy)
Ceylon (Already owned)
Curaçao (Already owned)
French Guyana (Owned by France)
Mysore (Owned by Mysore)
Hindustan (Owned by the Mughal Empire)
New York (Owned by the 13 colonies)
New Andalusia (Owned by Spain)
Netherlands (Already Owned, Dutch Capital)
Goa (Owned by Portugal)
Carnatica (Owned by the Maratha Confederacy)

Map Position/Starting Stance Strengths: The Dutch benefit from having territory in all 3 theaters, they also have some trade ships in the East Indies. The Netherlands borders a few German minors who work as good buffers from an expanding Austria or Prussia. In the Americas the Dutch are in a prime position to take out the pirates early on and in India they have an isolated Island that is a great launching point for taking over India.

Map Position/Starting Stance Weaknesses: The Dutch don't have too many weaknesses as far as their position goes, there is Spain in Flanders but they usually leave you alone long enough that you can go after Flanders when you want. You will want to keep an eye on French Guyana as you will need to go after it for your victory conditions so you'll want to occasionally build units there if the French do. You will also want to go after the Pirates as soon as possible so that they don't disrupt your trade routes.

Military Strengths: The Dutch army benefits from having good line and elite infantry, swiss infantry and scots are very good and can be recruited early one, scots also can eventually platoon fire basically making them low cost elite infantry. Eventually you can also recruit Holland Guards and Blue Guard which gives you 11 units of elite infantry when combined with your platoon firing scots. At sea the Dutch benefit from their unique trading ship the Fluyt which is comparable to a 4th rate ship of the line.

Military Weaknesses: The Dutch don't have any heavy cavalry unless they switch governments. Other than heavy cavalry the Dutch don't really have any weaknesses per say, their unit roster is standard and doesn't suffer from units having worse stats than any other nation's standard units.

The previous section covered the strengths of the Dutch army and navy this section will simply list the full roster of units available to them.

Elite Infantry:
Blue Guard
Holland Guard

Line Infantry:
Line Infantry
Swiss Infantry
Scots

Grenadiers:
Grenadiers

Light Infantry/Skirmishers/Irregulars:
Light Infantry
Riflemen

Militia:
Militia
Conscripts (lost if government isn't Republic)

Melee Infantry:
Pikemen

Cavalry:
Provincial Cavalry
Regiment of Horse

Dragoons:
Dragoons
Light Dragoons

Heavy Cavalry:
Garde de Corp(Requires government change to a Monarchy)
Horse Guards (Requires government change to a Monarchy)

Light Cavalry:
Hussars

General:
General's Bodyguard

Fixed Artillery:
Sakers
Demi Cannons
Mortars
Rocket Troop

Foot Artillery:
12-lber Foot Artillery
24-lber Foot Artillery
12-lber Howitzers
24-lber Howitzers
Puckle Guns

Horse Artillery:
3-lber Horse Artillery
6-lber Horse Artillery

Local/Colonial Units:
Colonial Light Infantry (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Colonial Line Infantry (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Colonial Militia
Colonial Light Cavalry (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Colonial Dragoons (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Company Infantry (Requires territory in India with military buildings)
Company Cavalry (Requires territory in India with military buildings)
Native Indian Cavalry (Requires territory in India with military buildings)
Native African Infantry (Requires territory in North Africa with military buildings)
Pandours (Requires territory in the Balkans)
Ghoorkas (Requires the Kashmir territory)
Dahomey Amazons (Requires territory in North Africa with military buildings)
Native Musketmen Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)
Native Warrior Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)
Native Bowmen Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)
Mounted Tribal Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)

Naval Warships:
Bomb Ketch
Brig
Sloop
Galley (requires territory in the Baltic Sea or the Mediterranean Sea)
Light Galley (requires territory in the Baltic Sea or the Mediterranean Sea)
Carronade Frigate
Razee
Rocket Ship
Sixth Rate
Fifth Rate (along with an Admiral's flagship variant)
Forth Rate
Third Rate (along with an Admiral's flagship variant)
Second Rate
First Rate (along with an Admiral's flagship variant)
Heavy First Rate
Steamship

Merchant Ships:
Indiaman
Fluyt

The United Provinces like every other major faction has two unique buildings along with a wide variety of unique units for it's army, this section will detail the effects of these unique assets and where to build them.

Koninklijke Kweekschool voor de Zeevaart
Built in your national capital (which should be Amsterdam)
Category: Naval
Level: 3
Turns to build: 8
Building cost: 10000
Effects:
+1 Happiness (Nobility)
+1 Happiness (Middle Classes)
-5% Upkeep Costs for all Naval Units
Enhances National Prestige

Teyler Museum
Built in your nation's Capital (which should be Amsterdam)
Category: Culture
Level: 4
Turns to Build: 8
Building Cost: 10000
Effects:
+5 Happiness (Lower Classes)
+5 Happiness (Nobility)
Enhances National Prestige

Unique Units:
I mentioned the Dutch's entire unit roster in a previous section but here I will explain where to build the more unique/DLC units and any technology that is required to build them.
Note: Some of the buildings required to build some of these units do have technology requirements.

Scots:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Drill School

Swiss Infantry:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Drill School

Holland Guard:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Army Staff College

Blue Guard:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Army Staff College

Horse Guards:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Army Board

Garde de Corp:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Army Staff College

Fluyt:

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Local Fishery, Trading Port, or Shipyard

In this Section I will be going over what are think the best first moves while playing as the Dutch. Including first targets, research, agent priorities, and diplomacy moves.

Government

The Dutch start as a Republic, I recommend staying as a Republic because many of your conquests will result in you gaining control of more education buildings and being a republic reduces public order issues caused by education buildings. If you get any real troublesome ministers just fire them, though keep in mind you can only fire one minister a turn. Also keep in mind that as a republic you cannot recruit any of your heavy cavalry units, one of which is a DLC unit.

Diplomacy

I recommend allying with Hanover and Westphlia, these are only for your defense from them, you should be focusing most of you military spending in other theaters so you don't want either of these 2 sniping your only home region while you are spending your money else where. When you eventually get Flanders France will constantly demand territory with you and eventually declare war on you, so keep that in mind.

Research

For technology I recommend going for plug bayonets and continuing down the military part of the tree.

Agents
Send your gentlemen into your school, you will most likely be getting agents in your conquered regions in India so you probably won't get many in Europe to steal techs. Your missionary in Ceylon should go with your first army to your first conquered region on the Indian mainland to deal with the immediate religious unrest. Your rake can be used to sabotage the Spanish shipyard in Flanders to prevent any kind of naval build up there so it can be easier to fight Spain later on.

Army
The first thing you should do is recruit a handful of units in Curaçao and kill off the Pirates right away.


Your Starting Army in Amsterdam should be sent to India, somewhere on the western part like Sindh.


While you send those forces to Sindh you should start recruiting Sepoys and VOC regiments in Ceylon. When you get about 10ish units you will want to send them to Bengal.


Something to keep in mind about India is that you will have to deal with Rebellions, you should be too worried however because the rebel armies are extremely poor quality here is an example screenshot.

These rebellions have units like landless rabble and armed peasants and are very easy to repel.

Navy

For navies, in Europe you will want to send the Fluyt to a trade theater, leave the 5th rate for defending Amsterdam, and the rest of the ships to take the starting army to India. In the Americas use your ships to take out any pirates. In India use your ships to take you Sepoy/VOC army to Bengal. For defending your trade nodes, you want a few Fluyts for each node, 3-4 fluyts the rest being indiamen, Fluyts are expensive so you shouldn't use them instead of indiamen.

In the Americas, once the Pirates are dealt with you should direct all your attention to India, in India you should focus on the Mughal Empire first then deal with the Marathas, keep in mind that this will be somewhat of big undertaking but securing the entire India sub continent is well worth it. In Europe you should build a few units, slowly building up for when its time to deal with Spain, once India is secured then Spain is your main target, getting Flanders will get to a shipyard to start building up your navy, those forces used to take out the pirates should be used to take out Spanish and French colonies, this war with Spain and France should garner you the rest of your victory conditions with the exception of one New York. After you have dealt with Spain and France you will need to go to war with Great Britain for New York, there is a small chance that France might have it but Great Britain is dominating North America more times than not. Going to War with Britain also makes the British Isles a target for expansion, you should have a good navy at this point because of the shipyard you secured in Flanders with the riches you conquered in India funding it, the British navy shouldn't be an issue.

Once you have your victory conditions you can do pretty much anything, having India and any other colonies you've seized should make funding any other conquests easy. If you have not already done so destroying France is recommended as having them as a neighbor just results in them demanding land and declaring war.

Thanks for reading, feedback and comments would be greatly appreciate. Leave any questions as well and I'll be happy to answer them.

I plan on writing guides for all the other nations too once I get playthroughs of them done (I'm playing this game after a long time and am playing all the nations again) The other factions that are done is the USA, Great Britain, France, and Austria here is the links:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1735435353
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2151572392
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2184430847
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2410842538

I also have a Multiplayer guide too, the link for that one:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624134097