Indonesia discussion

Matthew. said:

Also disagree with the folk saying you will need to focus on naval power. For the first third of the game the only thing patrolling the seas are the random trireme. Assuming you can get the bonus for settling on any land off of the coast, you could potentially set-up some very powerful cities just by researching embark. Luxuries are the number one thing that allows you to expand in the early game and getting them for free, if the map allows, is huge..

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Yep, happy is the biggest killer for me once I've got my first couple of cities up. If I can get those cities founded on an island with at least one other lux, I'm doing it, even if its a single tile with just the lux. I really want to see how this plays out, especially with the ability to export/import food and production between cities.

seancolorado said:

How much is a lot of faith for you?

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Really depends on the rest of the building features.

If you can build a Candi anywhere (non-river, non-lake), then +1 or +2 faith is fine.

If the Candi has the normal river/lake restriction of a standard Garden, then +1 or +2 faith isn't going to be enough to make it worthwhile. It would have to be extremely good (at least something like +5 or more) given that Gardens are low priority and very geographically dependent.

In contrast, look at Ethiopia's Stele (which is one of the best UB's in the game). It gives +2 faith, for a Monument. Monuments are cheap, easy to get, available from the beginning of the game, and are useful regardless of your strategy.

Gardens normally require Theology, many cities can't build them due to the lack of river/lakes, and provide a Great Person bonus which you can usually live without. (Hardcore Culture games might want faster GA's and maybe Science/Diplomacy could use slightly faster GS's but in the latter case I'd probably take a mountain city for the Observatory over a river/lake city for the Garden).

It's true that there aren't many building in the game that provide faith (other than Shrine/Temple, you have to rely on wonders). But once again, Gardens are poorly placed IMHO.

I think the civ is really unwhelming. I think that the UA and UB are at odds with each other because the UA is strongest on archipelago or small islands, but you mostly find rivers (which presumably you'll need to build the UB) on larger landmasses. Even if you CAN build it without rivers, you'd have to wait until Theology to get any civ-unique faith bonuses. If you're really trying to found a religion on higher difficulties, you're not waiting until Theology to get faith. And the unit has no bonus until AFTER you've already smacked someone in combat. And of course the bonus has to be random too.

From what I'm seeing from this civ I can't really find myself playing it. I guess it's good for not having to worry about happiness when expanding to other continents but otherwise I just don't like it much at all.

Unless the Hanging Gardens gets changed, it seems like a good civ to beeline the wonder, though. Free Candi for getting the wonder seems nice, and since you'd be expanding a lot (if you're on a water map) then the food would be good.

I am dying over how Leugi's paint job depicting the shadowed figure as fat was...actually pretty damn accurate.

The bulk is strong in this one. Stout Strength FTW.

I don't think rivers will be needed to build the Candi. Remember the Austrian Coffee House, a Windmill replacement which can be built regardless of hills...

I am kind of curious as to how the Candi will work. It comes after Pottery and will therefore be ineffective at garnering Indonesia an early pantheon; therefore, it must be strong enough to earn the civ a religion (which means a ton of faith) or have another bonus regarding religion. I suspect that there is more to this than a simply +x amounts of faith per turn.

Arachnofiend said:

I am kind of curious as to how the Candi will work. It comes after Pottery and will therefore be ineffective at garnering Indonesia an early pantheon; therefore, it must be strong enough to earn the civ a religion (which means a ton of faith) or have another bonus regarding religion. I suspect that there is more to this than a simply +x amounts of faith per turn.

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I hope you're right. Given the garden gives a bonus to great person generation, maybe it increases the rate at which you can generate great prophets.

So +1/2 faith, +25% great people generation, -25% faith requirement for Great Prophets.

It could alternatively affect the influence of the religion. Aside from the Grand Temple and a couple of beliefs, there hasn't been much toying around with that mechanic.

Do we know if someone who conquers one of the cities gets the unique luxuries? I would guess not, in which case the fact that the cities cannot be razed could be something of a disincentive towards attacking them. This is probably a fairly small consideration, and the AIs can probably ignore it with all those bonuses to happiness, but it might make them slightly safer in multiplayer.

HeraldtheGreat said:

That;s what I thought about Sweden, which is now one of my favorite civs.

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Sweden is useless in the competitive scene.

Indonesia is the the only civ that gets gimped with its UA due to map issues (pay attention to the wording before commenting). Carthage at least still gets it free harbors even on Pangaea as long as you have coast. Multiplayer wise, 50% of the games end up on Pangaea due to quicker to finish and the fact continent game play in Civ 5 is all about who gets their own continent first wins.

plokoon9619 said:

Sweden is useless in the competitive scene.

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Because rifles that get March right out the gate are totally useless, mirite?

I HATE their colors

Indonesia should have had a UA bonus to domestic trade routes since their Empire is basically a bunch of cities that rely on each other for trade.

True_Candyman said:

I hope you're right. Given the garden gives a bonus to great person generation, maybe it increases the rate at which you can generate great prophets.

So +1/2 faith, +25% great people generation, -25% faith requirement for Great Prophets.

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Amen for this candi..

loserforsale said:

It could alternatively affect the influence of the religion. Aside from the Grand Temple and a couple of beliefs, there hasn't been much toying around with that mechanic.

Do we know if someone who conquers one of the cities gets the unique luxuries? I would guess not, in which case the fact that the cities cannot be razed could be something of a disincentive towards attacking them. This is probably a fairly small consideration, and the AIs can probably ignore it with all those bonuses to happiness, but it might make them slightly safer in multiplayer.

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I'm pretty sure that the conqueror will get the luxuries..
Remember about mercantile CS before they overhauled?? IIRC, You will get their unique luxuries if you take their city..
I think that incident inspiring the dev to create the current Indonesian UA..

My theory is.., CS cannot be razed to prevent them getting eliminated from the game, while Indonesian cities cannot be razed to prevent unique luxuries pop up from their city ruin..

But I hope my theory is wrong..

Edit :
Horay for 100th post..

I'm worried that Indonesia will always be the first one attacked, to get access to his luxuries when playing as another civilization.

Also, will those unique luxuries be worth more than regular luxuries since they're so rare? Seems realistic.

digrosz said:

I'm worried that Indonesia will always be the first one attacked, to get access to his luxuries when playing as another civilization.

Also, will those unique luxuries be worth more than regular luxuries since they're so rare? Seems realistic.

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In terms of trading them to the AI? I doubt it.

And yeah, if you get the resources upon capture they're a walking, talking bag of goodies waiting for the taking and as they have to be on a different landmass to the capital odds are pretty decent that they're going to be exposed.

The more I think about it the worse it seems to get. That said, they have one badass looking leader.

I hope indonesia will get embarkation promotion from optics right away so that their ua would be usefull from the start, since their ua is situational already.

Veneke said:

In terms of trading them to the AI? I doubt it.

And yeah, if you get the resources upon capture they're a walking, talking bag of goodies waiting for the taking and as they have to be on a different landmass to the capital odds are pretty decent that they're going to be exposed.

The more I think about it the worse it seems to get. That said, they have one badass looking leader.

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Yup, great "synergy" with the Dutch Unique Ability. I love it when history and gameplay come together.

stealth_nsk said:

You need Optics for settlers to sail. You need Iron Working to build these Swordsmen. They are different trees and it would be very difficult to go war with Swordsmen after you research both as AI will have massive army of advanced units by this time.

And don't mention religion as synergy. Candi requires Theology. By the time you get it, Swordsmen will be obsolete.

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Yes, there's little synergy between their bits, but the Kris gets a random promotion. Promotions stay with a unit, so the Kris may become outdated, its benefit will stay, you just need to make sure you use this Kris in at least one battle before promoting it.
But barbs will be largely gone, and Steel can come around fairly quick. Your window of opportunity isn't very big. It's indeed a tricky special the Kris has, I agree.

Hakan-i Cihan said:

I hope indonesia will get embarkation promotion from optics right away so that their ua would be usefull from the start, since their ua is situational already.

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That's the first thing I do when modding this civ.., adding free embarkation bonus to their UA..

Seriously.. Their bonuses mostly are situational..
- The UA is extremely hit and miss.. Good luck to find any empty island in pangaea map..
- The UU is depending on the availability of iron.. And their random promotion make it more unpredictable..
- The UB is derived from Garden, a situational building.. Hoping the Candi didn't have the same restriction..

There's no reason to expect that the Candi will require fresh water. The Garden requires fresh water because it's full of trees and whatnot; a Candi is a temple, you don't need to water it. As others have said, look at Austria: Windmills need flatlands, but Coffee Houses can be built in hills. Because coffee houses aren't powered by wind.

Do we know for sure that the Kris Swordsman requires iron?

Is there any possibility that the inclusion of Indonesia in a game could affect the map script, ensuring that, e.g., they always start on an island? Or islands are always present?