The Netherlands (pre-release thread)

If its plus 3 food on a marsh and doesn't remove the marsh then its only 4 food just like a grassland river tile. Unless its also affected by biology and civil service not amazing, and it affects floodplains too is that new info? If thats the case I doubt you get a tulip resource for every polder or you could get arab level excess.

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It's excellent at keeping enemies at bay on Marshes (which are one of the hardest terrains to cross).
Also note that 'Guilds' (polder tech) is at the same level of Civil Service in the tech tree, so claiming riverside farms give 4 food isn't completely right (you could just skip CS).
On the floodplains it's obviously better, as you can still build farms on FPs and replace them later on.

Uberfrog said:

"Oh! Hello!"

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I see what you did there. And it was evil. I had things to do this week, you know :/

I'm bringing this back up. In the past couple weeks I've been really getting into Arabia, and I'm just wondering...What makes The Netherlands the poor man's Arabia? If their UA allowed them to keep ALL their happiness, they'd be better...but what the hell! Its not!

I know that the consensus of all this pre GK speculation is that we just need to wait for it to come out...But still, I was really excited to play as the Dutch, and I'm just not so much anymore.

ampmclock said:

I'm bringing this back up. In the past couple weeks I've been really getting into Arabia, and I'm just wondering...What makes The Netherlands the poor man's Arabia? If their UA allowed them to keep ALL their happiness, they'd be better...but what the hell! Its not!

I know that the consensus of all this pre GK speculation is that we just need to wait for it to come out...But still, I was really excited to play as the Dutch, and I'm just not so much anymore.

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Yes it sounds like a weak civ. A naval UU, no thanks. A UA weaker than Bazar and if polder doesn't give a tulip resource (most likely it doesn't) then Dutch are pretty much doomed. If they add another trait to their UA like every different luxury u own give u extra GPT (whether u sell it or not) could make it quite powerful.

Has anyone noticed if flood plains are still as numerous as in vanilla? I haven't paid close enough attention to the screens and videos to know.

Montov said:

Looking at the techs, I think it will be between Machinery and Economics. Economics (currently) has the Windmill, which was vital for making Polders.

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The tulip craze is a popular economics lesson, so that tech might be it.

Polders are available at a new Medieval Era Tech called Guilds.

Though the Dutch are a kind of tricky civ with its abilities, I think people do underestimate them.

The idea of the UA is maintaining half of the original happiness from a product that you have gained. This means that, if you trade your 1-stock of gems at another civ for his 1-stock ivory, you end up with +6 happiness. Or you can trade your 1-stock for other sources but can still balance out your happiness better than other civs. This also means that as an AI the Dutch will be more willing (and perhaps less demanding) to trade its last stock, making them a nice trading partner (though this depends on how they will put together the Dutch AI).
There are two weaknesses in that ability. The first is that during time, when civilisations expand more and gain possession of other luxuries the Dutch ability will become less valuable during the game -> this might be balanced out though with the new added luxuries.
The second is that it also means that for the Dutch to benefit the most out of its ability it requires to expand enough to different territories with unique resources.

Interesting note: though the Dutch benefit the most at having peace with other civs, this does not count for CS. We've already seen some pics of warmongering Dutch against CS, and because of the new mercantile states it might be likely that the AI goes on a conquering spree against them. So if you have an mercantile state as an ally and the Dutch are in the game, keep a close eye on them.

Polder: I am not sure about its abilities yet, but it would make sense if they can produce tulips. If those are being added as a new resource (after all, the Netherlands exports about 80 to 90% of all tulips in the world). Depending on the settings that you've set, marshes aren't so much common that it would allow the Dutch to gain huge amounts of tulips. But we have to wait and see about this, its still a tricky thing.

Sea beggar: not much known about either. As far as I know it is an improved privateer that can also capture other ships. I'm guessing those would be embarked units, that would make sense to me. They sound powerful but this is again something that we'll have to wait and see.

It remains difficult to make some good conclusions about the Netherlands, but we can say that the Netherlands has its liabilities and is dependable on several factors. But if played correctly, they'll be a good civ to play with. They are probably going to be a civilization for the more experienced gamers.

Polder: I don't think the Tulips thing is likely now after reading the civilopedia entry for it. It can be placed on Marshes and Floodplains both. If it was just Marshes, The Tulips wouldn't be too much, but with both tile types, there would be too many Tulips.

Sea Beggar: Not much has been said. There was a slight allusion to them pillaging cities. Does this mean that it takes the money but leaves the city in enemy hands? Who knows. I haven't seen anything aside from speculation about it capturing enemy vessels a la Ottomans UA.

I do agree that the Netherlands are being underestimated.

A polder is a way to control floods, but how does that fit into the game? It says they use them for culivation, but what do they grow in them besides tulips? I saw a mention of peat. Like the Duke of Wellington, one thing I know very little about is agriculture.

Eagle Pursuit said:

Polder: I don't think the Tulips thing is likely now after reading the civilopedia entry for it. It can be placed on Marshes and Floodplains both. If it was just Marshes, The Tulips wouldn't be too much, but with both tile types, there would be too many Tulips.

Sea Beggar: Not much has been said. There was a slight allusion to them pillaging cities. Does this mean that it takes the money but leaves the city in enemy hands? Who knows. I haven't seen anything aside from speculation about it capturing enemy vessels a la Ottomans UA.

I do agree that the Netherlands are being underestimated.

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Civilopedia entry?

Until you have every resource in the game, a luxury resource for the dutch can be worth 1.5x a normal luxury.

If you swap all your luxuries for other luxuries that's 6 happiness per luxury you then own, and in early game that's some crazy expansion potential that no other civ has.

Eagle Pursuit said:

Polder: I don't think the Tulips thing is likely now after reading the civilopedia entry for it. It can be placed on Marshes and Floodplains both. If it was just Marshes, The Tulips wouldn't be too much, but with both tile types, there would be too many Tulips.

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I agree, which is a shame. A new unique luxury would be fun.

Sea Beggar: Not much has been said. There was a slight allusion to them pillaging cities. Does this mean that it takes the money but leaves the city in enemy hands? Who knows.

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I think every attack will reward money, even if it damages the city from 100% to 99%. Hopefully the amount of gold is based on the amount of damage done. It could be a good way to milk cities/CS for gold.

nokmirt said:

A polder is a way to control floods, but how does that fit into the game? It says they use them for culivation, but what do they grow in them besides tulips? I saw a mention of peat. Like the Duke of Wellington, one thing I know very little about is agriculture.

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The main defences against floods are dykes and dunes, not polders. They have been used for claiming new lands (which is by the way quite costly; quite some investors lost quite a lot of money because of the time it takes to drain and put some use of the land). Polders can be used to keep the ground water level at a certain point that is most beneficial for the farmer, for example letting extra water in during the summer (better for the grass which in turn is useful for livestock) or keeping the water level low during the winters.

A remarkable invention because it allowed humans to have a near to total control an area for own profit. It is also remarkable in a negative way for the enormous environmental damage that has come with it.

Bakspatel said:

The main defences against floods are dykes and dunes, not polders. They have been used for claiming new lands (which is by the way quite costly; quite some investors lost quite a lot of money because of the time it takes to drain and put some use of the land). Polders can be used to keep the ground water level at a certain point that is most beneficial for the farmer, for example letting extra water in during the summer (better for the grass which in turn is useful for livestock) or keeping the water level low during the winters.

A remarkable invention because it allowed humans to have a near to total control an area for own profit. It is also remarkable in a negative way for the enormous environmental damage that has come with it.

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Thanks for clearing that up.

I am not too worried, as I think that the Netherlands will be improved shortly if they are too weak.

Eagle Pursuit said:

Polder: I don't think the Tulips thing is likely now after reading the civilopedia entry for it. It can be placed on Marshes and Floodplains both. If it was just Marshes, The Tulips wouldn't be too much, but with both tile types, there would be too many Tulips.(...)

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I disagree for 2 reasons. How often do you start near both an abundance of marshes and floodplains? And the most tulips you will ever have is equal to the amount of players in a game because any more than that is excess luxuries that you can't trade. There won't be many times you can trade with everyone in the game at the same time anyway due to diplomatic factors. And the point of the Dutch, if anything, is that they should be able to get the most out of trade than any other Civ. IMO, it's not too much to be able to trade tulips to each Civ in the game (if you have enough marshes/floodplains), and in fact, if this is limited (as well as the UA), then they'll be bland, almost non-unique ([SARCASM] yay, i can build farms that produce 1 extra food on marshes and floodplains and I have a UA that is less than half the strength of the Arabian Bazaar, woohoo [/SARCASM]), and way understrength.
I'd be very disappointed if they don't have tulips.

True_Candyman said:

Until you have every resource in the game, a luxury resource for the dutch can be worth 1.5x a normal luxury.

If you swap all your luxuries for other luxuries that's 6 happiness per luxury you then own, and in early game that's some crazy expansion potential that no other civ has.

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No no no no. I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. If you trade away your only pearls for ivory, trade the only native source of ivory for gems, the trade your only native gems for pearls, you're not getting 18 happiness from the three. I'm pretty sure the ability says you keep 2 happiness when you trade away all of a resource. So if you trade your only copy if resource X, then trade back into it, you wouldn't get +4 from having it AND +2 from trading it away, because you still have it. You'd just have the normal 4.

Also, the AI only trades its last copy of a resource for an exorbitant price, so that I'd never a good strategy. And I'm pretty sure it won't work out like you said to "you get +50% from your resources until you have every resource" for the reasons I pointed out. You just get a bonus in the cases where another civ has something to trade you but you don't have any surplus to trade them.

I'd also like to point out that some people have said this compares well to the Bazaar, since giving only half benefit is made up for by the opportunity cost of building Bazaars. But that misses the bigger picture. Bazaars are great because you can get tons of money from selling resources, and occasionally get extra happiness if it becomes restrictive. East India doesn't let you turn the extra happiness into money unless the extra 2 happiness will let you sell another resource, which isn't often, and again, it only does that half as well as the Bazaar. On top of that, if you have 3 cotton in your borders, you can trade 3 cotton away and come out ahead by 2 happiness. But with a Bazaar, you can trade five away, get an extra 8 happiness over what you'd normally get (or +480 gold) and still[\i] have 1 left for 4 happiness or a 240 more gold. Basically, for every copy of a resource in your empire past the first, East India gets you less and less return in comparison.

So on the surface, it's only half as good, but easier. Beneath the surface, it's way, way weaker than it looks in comparison at first.

It would be cool if you gained a tulip resource as long as you had at least one polder. I believe it would be reasonably well balanced this way, plus you'd be sure to always get some mileage out of their UA, since you would never have more than one tulip resource.

My 2 cents.

Lyoncet said:

Also, the AI only trades its last copy of a resource for an exorbitant price, so that I'd never a good strategy.

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You can also exchange its last resource for your last resource. That usually works out pretty well, and I've done it before to gain some influence of CS.

I think the Dutch UA makes more sense if they have got rid of trading luxuries for lump sums (which is pretty exploitive anyway) and just allowing lux for lux or gpt deals, thereby allowing you to trade luxuries that you deals have got from other civs or city states. That would really be what the East India Company did.