Indonesia discussion

Lots of players' early war strategy now revolves around the composite bow, it would only be good if for some civs this would be different due to a good unique unit.
I still have to see the Kris break the mould. There's always the downside that you need iron. The common swordsman is not a very powerful unit; swordsman rushes are almost not happening anymore.
If a civilization were to get a composite bow replacement, then any sort of bonus for this unit would make it an over the top unit. The same concern isn't there for the swordsman. A replacement for that needs to be damn good to make it merely useful.

I agree with what Crafty Bison said there about swordsmen being tricky to use, and any known promotions for the Kris will not easily take that away.
 
Medan? This make me question: will there be Lake Toba natural wonder? Hell the lake was even referenced in Assassin's Creed II so maybe it is not impossible.

Medan is a four hour drive from Lake Toba, roughly. But even if it wasn't I don't think that would indicate Lake Toba as more likely

Lake Toba should gain :c5happy: if a truffles tile is worked nearby, if you know what I mean :mischief:
 
I can actually see some sinergy between some of Indonesia's bonuses (Spice Islanders and the Candi).

If you settle a city on the other landmass (let's say it is continents map type), you will most certainly see at least one major religion over there, usually two or even three. Your newly found cities shall provide you luxuries, so you can sell them to buy the Candis (or a second settler, or a crossbow, or not even sell them). Once you have a Candi there, you wait. You'll see that their religion shall spread to you. Could 1-2 religions in the city be reasonable? Then it is +6 faith. And the very last part: create a trade route between your capital (that should have a different religion) and that city, so it will start to generate religious pressure. +8 faith for the candi of that city. It should be a production trade route, so you can speed up that city's speed of army-training, as it shall need some defense. Buy a missionary from whatever religion is dominant there, go back to Jakarta and spread it there, +2 faith. There could be some cool ways to use that. This thing I just described is what I'd do on my first game as Gajah.

Of course, this theory could be knocked down easily if you find no rivers or lakes whatsoever. Still, it seems cool. Don't ask me about where to put the Kris Swordsguy, though...

EDIT: Also, the Candi is 33% cheaper than the regular garden! Just checked at Arioch's. Candi is 80 hammers, Gaden is 120. Nice :)
 
Of course, this theory could be knocked down easily if you find no rivers or lakes whatsoever. Still, it seems cool. Don't ask me about where to put the Kris Swordsguy, though...

Do we know whether the cities must be settled in other continents? If our first city on a different landmass is conquered, do we still get the luxury resource? If so, then using your (upgraded?) Kris Swordsmen to gain a foothold in the landmass might be a good strategy! They get a strong promotion from just fighting once, that's nothing to sneeze at! :)

Of course, if that's so, then it means you have to be careful when playing domination as Indonesia - don't capture trash cities if you haven't three other cities on a different landmass, otherwise there's no way to get rid of it!
 
firaxis should replace kris swordsman with bhayangkara pikeman! Thats it!
Kris wielding army is just never existed, it took years to create one, just how many blacksmith is needed to supply an army???
Kris is more of an authority symbol than a killing weapon, they are deadly though, but an kris wielding army = sceptre wielding army, deadly but never existed.
Most hilariously, the krises is even magical... Doh!
 
Do we know whether the cities must be settled in other continents? If our first city on a different landmass is conquered, do we still get the luxury resource? If so, then using your (upgraded?) Kris Swordsmen to gain a foothold in the landmass might be a good strategy! They get a strong promotion from just fighting once, that's nothing to sneeze at! :)

Of course, if that's so, then it means you have to be careful when playing domination as Indonesia - don't capture trash cities if you haven't three other cities on a different landmass, otherwise there's no way to get rid of it!

I though about that too, but I think they have to be settled. Not sure, though, what you say makes some sense. The Kris Swordsmen is great, IMO, it is something I'd love to build, and it seems quite awesome to get them upgraded with great promos to take over the other cities.

New strategy: Let's say you shall found Surabaya on the continent B. You started in A. On B, there is the Mayans, who founded Islam, and Ethiopia, who founded Catholicism. Settle Surabaya right between their borders. Disembark a bunch of upgraded awesome Longkrismen (?). Conquer a city from each. Make peace. Annex those cities. Buy an Islamic missionary in Tikal and a Catholic missionary in Harar. Spread these religions between your 3 cities on continent B. Create a trade route Jakarta-Surabaya for some production and religious pressure. Build cheap Candis. +alotofFPT

Looking forward to try this out! The ones who seem to have no sinergy at all end up being the coolest to play as, because you try to create that sinergy. I bet there will be many many many ways of playing Indonesia :)
 
I can actually see some sinergy between some of Indonesia's bonuses (Spice Islanders and the Candi).

If you settle a city on the other landmass (let's say it is continents map type), you will most certainly see at least one major religion over there, usually two or even three. Your newly found cities shall provide you luxuries, so you can sell them to buy the Candis (or a second settler, or a crossbow, or not even sell them). Once you have a Candi there, you wait. You'll see that their religion shall spread to you. Could 1-2 religions in the city be reasonable? Then it is +6 faith. And the very last part: create a trade route between your capital (that should have a different religion) and that city, so it will start to generate religious pressure. +8 faith for the candi of that city. It should be a production trade route, so you can speed up that city's speed of army-training, as it shall need some defense. Buy a missionary from whatever religion is dominant there, go back to Jakarta and spread it there, +2 faith. There could be some cool ways to use that. This thing I just described is what I'd do on my first game as Gajah.

Of course, this theory could be knocked down easily if you find no rivers or lakes whatsoever. Still, it seems cool. Don't ask me about where to put the Kris Swordsguy, though...

EDIT: Also, the Candi is 33% cheaper than the regular garden! Just checked at Arioch's. Candi is 80 hammers, Gaden is 120. Nice :)

I think the candi is being drastically underrated (and didn't even realise it was cheaper than a Garden). The Garden as it stands is fairly viable, and will presumably become more desirable with the emphasis on the new GP types (presuming it affects their generation). On top of which, +2 faith for no cost is not a bad bonus by any means - it's a free temple on its own. +2 from every extra religion is an amazing boost for a unique that's rather desirable even if you have only one religion.
 
This is trivial info and unsurprising but in the Taiwanese preview we can see Medan as one of Indonesia's city. Just want to mention it for the record.

Haven't seen many Indonesian screenshots, but have we even seen Trowulan yet? It doesn't appear to be the second city, which I think is Surabaya.
 
why arbitary and gamey? not sure i understand where ur comeing from, to me they seem, thermaticly at least, spot on for the civ.
im assuming that its limited for 3 city's to stop ICS abuse. seems to encourage u to settle across islands or off continent, giving u nice trade booms for it, other civs will want to trade with u letting u get thos religions that travel with the trade routes.

All of which is why I say it's thematically strong - the effect it aims to achieve is indeed highly appropriate. But setting specific hard caps on what benefits you get from doing what is gamey and arbitrary - if indeed the goal is to stop ICS, then that is itself a gamey concern.

Very few (if any) other UAs set hard limits; rather they encourage you to play a certain way more subtly. India, for example, will penalise you for expanding too much, and Ethiopia will lose its UA bonus if you do. But neither says "You can't build more than X cities" or "You lose your bonus if you have more than exactly Y cities"; both can vary depending on how you play (e.g. the choices you make regarding happiness in India's case) and game context (how many cities other people have, in Ethiopia's). Indonesia on the other hand has a recipe for playing exactly the same way to benefit from its UA in every game.

Something that gave Indonesia a bonus for each new landmass it settled might be better, which will set a natural limit based on the number of available islands and the placement of other civs. Although it would make the civ somewhat map dependent, the game already has a couple of map dependent civs (most notably Polynesia). There's also no reason the Indonesian UA has to be as wholly reliant as it is on the archipelago theme - as it stands Indonesia will still have difficulties on Pangaea maps.

As for the resource 'planting', again this seems conceptually awkward both with the way the game works for other civs, and simply in principle based on motives for expansion - essentially you let the Indonesians settle in bad-quality sites and reward them for it to some degree, rather than prompting them to actually go and settle near resources in the landscape (although you do lose the tile yield bonuses). And once again we have an unnecessary hard limit.

I kind of wish that the Indonesian UA included instant embarkation. Make it coastal tiles only so it doesn't overlap with Polynesia?

Wouldn't that overlap with Denmark?
 
They might not have that as a city. They seem to be going the modern city route (Jakarta, Surabaya, and Medan)

I'd find that very disappointing if so - it's enough of a shame that it's not the capital. It would also be conceptually odd that it's in Gajah Mada's background but not in the game... Surabaya, like Jakarta, was at least a historical sultanate and influential before the modern era, unlike Medan.
 
Indonesia has to be the most unique civ to date. Both in it's UA, UU, and its inclusion of moobs. It's sort of confusing, though. The Kris swordsman's promotion are random universally known promotions, or are they unique ones?
 
Indonesia has to be the most unique civ to date. Both in it's UA, UU, and its inclusion of moobs. It's sort of confusing, though. The Kris swordsman's promotion are random universally known promotions, or are they unique ones?

Unique from what I know.
 
All of which is why I say it's thematically strong - the effect it aims to achieve is indeed highly appropriate. But setting specific hard caps on what benefits you get from doing what is gamey and arbitrary - if indeed the goal is to stop ICS, then that is itself a gamey concern.

Very few (if any) other UAs set hard limits; rather they encourage you to play a certain way more subtly. India, for example, will penalise you for expanding too much, and Ethiopia will lose its UA bonus if you do. But neither says "You can't build more than X cities" or "You lose your bonus if you have more than exactly Y cities"; both can vary depending on how you play (e.g. the choices you make regarding happiness in India's case) and game context (how many cities other people have, in Ethiopia's). Indonesia on the other hand has a recipe for playing exactly the same way to benefit from its UA in every game.

Something that gave Indonesia a bonus for each new landmass it settled might be better, which will set a natural limit based on the number of available islands and the placement of other civs. Although it would make the civ somewhat map dependent, the game already has a couple of map dependent civs (most notably Polynesia). There's also no reason the Indonesian UA has to be as wholly reliant as it is on the archipelago theme - as it stands Indonesia will still have difficulties on Pangaea maps.

As for the resource 'planting', again this seems conceptually awkward both with the way the game works for other civs, and simply in principle based on motives for expansion - essentially you let the Indonesians settle in bad-quality sites and reward them for it to some degree, rather than prompting them to actually go and settle near resources in the landscape (although you do lose the tile yield bonuses). And once again we have an unnecessary hard limit.



Wouldn't that overlap with Denmark?

i have to agree it is gamey. It is a shame but i still do love the flavour they have captured with this civ.
As for it letting/rewarding Indonesia settle in bad spots, with that comment u have made me think this civ might be good on other maps other than archipelago. Quite often pangea, oval and contents will have smaller islands of the coast. islands that are not that great but wow now i think about settling there for 2 free lux. i find that pretty interesting.
 
I can actually see some sinergy between some of Indonesia's bonuses (Spice Islanders and the Candi).



EDIT: Also, the Candi is 33% cheaper than the regular garden! Just checked at Arioch's. Candi is 80 hammers, Gaden is 120. Nice :)

That's because it's Quick game as can be seen from the Spanish preview when they're setting up for Indonesia. Besides, Garden costs 80 too in Quick.
 
Is anyone else concerned how insanely powerful the kriss promotions are? Granted the random element mitigates this but not by much when they're all so strong? I mean +50% combat strength ( even with the defense penalty); fully heal at combat victory (which had to be nerfed on the ottomans and that's on a unit that comes much later and is meant to be stronger).

Most of UU have 2 bonus promotions/special powers.. However, Indonesia only gets 1 random promotion..
If that random promotion is not as powerful as 2 promotions.., that's meant Kris Swordsman is powerless than any other UU in the game..

CMIIW.. ;)
 
Most of UU have 2 bonus promotions/special powers.. However, Indonesia only gets 1 random promotion..
If that random promotion is not as powerful as 2 promotions.., that's meant Kris Swordsman is powerless than any other UU in the game..

CMIIW.. ;)

But there's already a case where one of the random promotions is more powerful than a UU because it was already on the UU. The full heal on killing a unit promotion was on the Janissary. It had to be nerfed to 50%, and now they think it won't be as overpowered on a unit that comes earlier in the tech tree?

But, I don't know, maybe I'm just over-reacting. Some of the new civs just seem way more powerful than the previous civs (in all three of their uniques). It makes me wonder if the vanilla and g&k civs will get a more massive overhaul than we think.
 
But there's already a case where one of the random promotions is more powerful than a UU because it was already on the UU. The full heal on killing a unit promotion was on the Janissary. It had to be nerfed to 50%, and now they think it won't be as overpowered on a unit that comes earlier in the tech tree?

But, I don't know, maybe I'm just over-reacting. Some of the new civs just seem way more powerful than the previous civs (in all three of their uniques). ...

Well.., unlike Janissary, "Recruitment Promotion" didn't grant any combat bonus when attacking.. And don't forget that not every KS got this promotion..
So Janissary and KS are roughly equal.. :p

That's natural..
When a new booster from a certain card game is released, I also feel that the new cards is more powerful than any cards in my deck.. :crazyeye:

... It makes me wonder if the vanilla and g&k civs will get a more massive overhaul than we think.

Let's pray for it.. :D
 
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