The Netherlands (pre-release thread)

[Montov]

This is what we know of the Dutch:

UA: East India Company - Retain 50% of happiness from luxuries traded to other civilizations.
UI: Polder - Build on marshes, gives unique luxury (Tulips) <not confirmed>
UU: Sea Beggars - Ship replaces Privateer, can pillage coastal cities.

I'm worried the Dutch unique items are too situational now we know more about it.

UA: When would you want to trade away your last resource when it costs 2 happiness? In the beginning you want to fill the happiness bucket to get a golden age, or you need or to expand, or you need it to conquer other cities. And with the Piety bonus converting happiness to Culture and Rationalism has the Science bonus when happy, I don't see a lot of opportunities to make it work.

The only situations I can see it shine is during a golden age, when happiness is less important, or when you need money more than happiness (not very likely) or in case a Allied civ demands a resource you have temporarily (during razing a city).

UI: Polder likely requires marsh, and if it does, you need to be lucky with a couple of marshes nearby, and you need to leave it unimproved until the 18th century when the Polder is likely to be constructed. Only then can it be great.

UU: A ship is always tricky. They need good water maps to work. And although the navy game in G+K looks promising, I feel it doesn't add that much in comparison with a Privateer.

What are your thoughts about it?

[ampmclock]

yeah, honestly, I was really excited to play as the dutch, as I thought the UA was much better. I was under the impression trading luxuries as the dutch lets you keep ALL the happiness you would have traded away. Kinda lame it's only 50, but oh well. Also, yeah, I've been thinking, I RARELY see marshes in game, so there's that. And the sea beggar is cool, it's nice that it can pillage.

[Ajuga]

The UA really needs to be that you always keep happiness of a certain luxury even if you have traded all of those luxuries away.
It means you usually can get 750-1500 more gold on average out of trade in comparison to any other civ.
Right now it's as you say, completely useless. The AI already gets a lot more happiness than the player, why would anyone sacrifice what little happiness you have? I usually have none to spare to begin with.

[elprofesor]

Selling your luxury resources at the beginning of the game is a given. What you gain from those 240 gold per lux far outweights the loss of happiness. This ensures that you get 2-4 extra happiness early game.
It's not crazy powerful, but it is useful.

On the other hand, if you get that extra happiness even if you have more than one of the traded resource, it is quite a good UA (i.e., +2 happiness when trading a luxury resource, regardless of everything else).

[GoodSarmatian]

I ferquently trade my last (or rather first) luxury very early in the game. It almost gives you enough gold to buy another worker, an two luxuries sell for moe than it takes to buy a settler.
Later in the game you can can trade your last luxury for anopther civs luxury. Normally oyu wouldn't gain anything but with EAC your net gain is +2 (or 3 with the right policy).
It's not a top tier ability, but If you trade a lot it's far from useless and if you play the Dutch and don't trade a lot you're doing it wrong.
I reserve judgement on the Polder. The only thing we know is that it's built on marshes. If it doesn't have a tech requirement and the Dutch have a start bias near marshes it oculd be very powerful.

[glaivemaster]

As people have said, this ability is useful for selling Luxuries (at any point in the game really, but early on especially). It just means that you can stretch what you have that little bit further, which is especially important if you don't start next to many luxuries, as can happen.

As well, this can gain you happiness. Imagine trading your last luxury for an AI luxury. Normally, pointless, but in this case you still gain +2 happiness. That can be very important, occasionally (usually in the middle of a war)

[mitsho]

I still think it's way too similar to the Arabian UA, respectively the Bazaar.

[theadder]

Originally Posted by Montov

I'm worried the Dutch unique items are too situational now we know more about it.

UA: When would you want to trade away your last resource when it costs 2 happiness? In the beginning you want to fill the happiness bucket to get a golden age, or you need or to expand, or you need it to conquer other cities.

I agree that it isn't as good as I was hoping, but:

You trade away your final Luxury A in order to gain Luxury B at the initial part of the game. In gaining Luxury B, which provides 4 happiness, you only lose 2 happiness to do so.

There is a net gain there, albeit a small one. The idea seems to be that you can always exchange your final luxuries [all of them] for others that the AI has. The one thing that redeems this a bit is that they seem to be adding quite a few new ones [citrus {?}, salt, etc] and so perhaps it will be less viable to get hold of all of them and that might make something like this more useful.

I don't do the thing with selling final luxuries for gold, so I think that is why it seems more useful to me. Still, I think that it ought to be more powerful. It seems to me that it was probably more powerful earlier and they have attempted to re-balance it. Perhaps it will still change.

[Heinage]

Is there a chance that it works like this?
Say you have 2 sources of Spices.
This would normally give you 4 happiness because the extra one doesn't add extra happiness.
If the Dutch trade 1 source of Spices to another Civ, they "retain" 2 happiness of what they trade away.
So they get 6 happiness (4 from their own Spices, and 2 extra from "traded Spices").
This would encourage them to trade for more gold and happiness and give them something the bazaar doesn't give the Arabians...

Just putting it out there...I'm by no means sure of this, but would like to hear what others think of this...

[ampmclock]

Originally Posted by mitsho

I still think it's way too similar to the Arabian UA, respectively the Bazaar.

Whaaaa

[Montov]

Originally Posted by Heinage

Is there a chance that it works like this?
Say you have 2 sources of Spices.
This would normally give you 4 happiness because the extra one doesn't add extra happiness.
If the Dutch trade 1 source of Spices to another Civ, they "retain" 2 happiness of what they trade away.
So they get 6 happiness (4 from their own Spices, and 2 extra from "traded Spices").
This would encourage them to trade for more gold and happiness and give them something the bazaar doesn't give the Arabians...

Just putting it out there...I'm by no means sure of this, but would like to hear what others think of this...

That's quite different than the text implies. I don't think that will work either, because with trade you get both the benefit of the trade and even extra happiness. That doesn't look balanced.

My suggestion would be to keep 100% of the happiness when trading the last resource with a friendly civ and open borders, 50% when neutral, and 0% with civs with hostile attitudes. That would give incentive to work on good diplomatic relations.

[apocalypse105]

Why are you worried you just have to play like the dutch where in real life

A small nation who become powerfull because of trade If you trade all you're luxuries away you still have enough happiness to grow 3 cities

[Camikaze]

Yeah, I reckon allowing you to keep all your happiness from a luxury sale would be way too powerful. If you have three luxuries near your capital, that's 720 gold from trades before you hit turn 50. There needs to be some sort of trade off for that. 2 happiness means that there is some limitation on the extent to which you can trade (cutting it back to maybe 480), and you don't get a golden age as quickly. It still seems powerful, though.

I imagine the Polder will be assisted by a start bias.

[Arkangelus]

I'm going to love starting next to the Dutch. Steal their tulips with war and artists!

[Eagle Pursuit]

Originally Posted by Montov

UI: Polder likely requires marsh, and if it does, you need to be lucky with a couple of marshes nearby, and you need to leave it unimproved until the 18th century when the Polder is likely to be constructed. Only then can it be great.

I don't think it's that likely that the Polder will be a Late Renaissance improvement. I suspect it will fall more around the Medieval Era.

[Montov]

Originally Posted by Eagle Pursuit

I don't think it's that likely that the Polder will be a Late Renaissance improvement. I suspect it will fall more around the Medieval Era.

The 'poldering' of the Medievel Era is not the polders full of tulip fields we know today. But I hope the improvement is available midgame for gameplay reasons.

Looking at the techs, I think it will be between Machinery and Economics. Economics (currently) has the Windmill, which was vital for making Polders. Machinery could also work logically, and currently Printing Press is between them, so it could be a good compromise (Polder model ) although it doesn't fit the tech itself. With the rearranging of the techs its hard to say, but early Renaissance could work.

[Heinage]

Basically, this UA is worse than the UB of Arabia...

...and that disappoints me a lot...
unless it works differently to what we are assuming, or unless the UB of Arabia as been changed/nerfed.

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by Heinage

Basically, this UA is worse than the UB of Arabia...

...and that disappoints me a lot...
unless it works differently to what we are assuming, or unless the UB of Arabia as been changed/nerfed.

No it doesn't if you have a small empire this bonus is amazing

[Heinage]

Originally Posted by apocalypse105

No it doesn't if you have a small empire this bonus is amazing

But the bazaar does more.
With the Netherlands, you would trade away your last lux and retain 2 happiness.
With the Arabians, you would trade away your last lux and retain 4 happiness (if you have a bazaar).

And that "if" I just mentioned is not a "major IF", because you should be building markets/bazaars in all your cities (there's no downside).

The only up-side I can see is the following:
With the Dutch you can go and settle cities next to a single lux source you don't have and instantly trade it away while retaining 2 happiness.
However I don't see that as much of an up-side, due to the fact that it's costing you more than 2 happiness (I think) to actually settle that city in the first place.
With the Arabs, you could go and settle that exact same city, buy a bazaar (which in itself produces gold for you for free), and then trade away that lux while retaining 4 happiness.

Which one do you think is better?

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by Heinage

But the bazaar does more.
With the Netherlands, you would trade away your last lux and retain 2 happiness.
With the Arabians, you would trade away your last lux and retain 4 happiness (if you have a bazaar).

And that "if" I just mentioned is not a "major IF", because you should be building markets/bazaars in all your cities (there's no downside).

The only up-side I can see is the following:
With the Dutch you can go and settle cities next to a single lux source you don't have and instantly trade it away while retaining 2 happiness.
However I don't see that as much of an up-side, due to the fact that it's costing you more than 2 happiness (I think) to actually settle that city in the first place.
With the Arabs, you could go and settle that exact same city, buy a bazaar (which in itself produces gold for you for free), and then trade away that lux while retaining 4 happiness.

Which one do you think is better?

True bazar is better

but the dutch get a unique luxury tulps

and I don't know how good the privateer is So i can't say if arabia will be better in general