Dutch

The Dutch territories that would later form the Dutch Republic began as a loose federation known as the Seventeen Provinces, which Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and (as "Carlos I") King of Spain, inherited and brought under his direct rule in 1543. In 1566, a Protestant Dutch revolt broke out against rule by Roman Catholic Spain, sparking the Eighty Years' War. Led by William of Orange, independence was declared in the 1581 Act of Abjuration.

The Dutch colonization of the Americas began with the establishment of Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas, which preceded the much wider known colonisation activities of the Dutch in Asia. While the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 (in present-day Indonesia), the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo River in Guyana date from the 1590s.

• Maximilian armor: Infantry and gunpowder units (+1/+1 armor)

• Rotterdam: War ships +1 of range