Wow, Indonesia...

I can live with situational factors like needing islands and iron and river and another religion bearing down on me, but the negatives promotions really destroy my desire to bother with them.

It's just such a bad idea. Trade-offs are fine and dandy. Huge penalties like taking damage while in enemy territory stinks.

The design problem here is that units of a given type all look alike. We really ought to have some way to rename units, or have their promos float over them as part of their iconography.

steveg700 said:

I can live with situational factors like needing islands and iron and river and another religion bearing down on me, but the negatives promotions really destroy my desire to bother with them.

It's just such a bad idea. Trade-offs are fine and dandy. Huge penalties like taking damage while in enemy territory stinks.

The design problem here is that units of a given type all look alike. We really ought to have some way to rename units, or have their promos float over them as part of their iconography.

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Agreed.
I gave up trying indonesia when I read the list of Kpromotions.
So yeah change this please


I encourage Fireaxis game designer to have a look at this excellent list from zileas @riot games

Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns
Even so it is about another type of game completly , the relevance is still there :
Non-Reliability
Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough'. Let me give you an example: Let's say Kayle's targeted invulnerability ult had a 95% chance of working, and a 5% chance of doing nothing when cast. We'd have to make it a LOT stronger to make it 'good enough' because you could not rely upon it... and it would be a lot less fun. Random abilities have this problem on reliability -- they tend to be a lot less satisfying, so you have to overpower them a lot more. Small amounts of randomness can add excitement and drama, but it has a lot of downsides. There are other examples of non-reliability, but randomness is the most obvious one. Abilities that require peculiar situations to do their jobs tend to run into the same problems, such as Tryndamere's shout that only slows when targets are facing away from him.

why so there so much whining about enemy blade? just dont take them into enemy territory, its a defensive unit anyway IMHO.
the amount of complaints about this is ridiculously out of proportion to the minor negative modifyer u might get. esspecialy compared to how amazing the other promotions are. well worth the risk. after 1 round of combat either gift it away sell it or just leave it garrisoned in ur city.

steveg700 said:

The design problem here is that units of a given type all look alike. We really ought to have some way to rename units, or have their promos float over them as part of their iconography.

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You can rename units, you need to do it when they get a promotion IIRC.

Hpuk said:

You can rename units, you need to do it when they get a promotion IIRC.

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And the K-Promotions all have different icons in a different color scheme than anything else on the unit display. So when you look at the unit display, you can tell at a glance which k-promotion it has.

I haven't been playing much, so I'm still on my first game, as Indonesia on an Archipelago map. Not a single other civ had any excess lucuries (bar one, Casimir, who was not at all my friend at the time and consequently a hard bargainer), while I was swimming in them. How the hell Casimir managed to get up to 60+ happiness while I was barely breaking even is a mystery to me.

They have an excellent UU, a weak UB and a UA which is powerful situationally. A niche civ, with the potential to be powerful.

I don't really mind. It's a small percentage to get a negative promotion, and the positive ones are borderline OP. And about randomness...

Should Fireaxis also change the game because I managed to land a riverside, coast, mountainside desert hills start with salt all over the place? I mean, it was random...

Indonesia uniques are solid but they are all scattered, without a common focus. Can someone give me some good ideas for roleplaying them (close to their history/civ leader) ? Kris swords + Gaja Mada military conquests sound like early conquests would make sense from roleplaying perspective.

I think the devs are messing around with ideas for Civ 6 already. Tourism is also kind of strange, but at least it's sound as far as gameplay goes.

I think the Kris Swordsman is fun enough.. if you build like 12 it doesn't really matter much, so it's ok. The UA should be two-fold though - one for island maps and one for non-island maps..

Rhaegar7 said:

I think the devs are messing around with ideas for Civ 6 already. Tourism is also kind of strange, but at least it's sound as far as gameplay goes.

I think the Kris Swordsman is fun enough.. if you build like 12 it doesn't really matter much, so it's ok. The UA should be two-fold though - one for island maps and one for non-island maps..

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IMO, if you settle on a coastal tile on the same continent, you should be able to get just one copy of the unique luxury.

steveg700 said:

I can live with situational factors like needing islands and iron and river and another religion bearing down on me, but the negatives promotions really destroy my desire to bother with them.

It's just such a bad idea. Trade-offs are fine and dandy. Huge penalties like taking damage while in enemy territory stinks.

The design problem here is that units of a given type all look alike. We really ought to have some way to rename units, or have their promos float over them as part of their iconography.

Click to expand...

The Kris really hurt the appeal to this civ. The UA is great for the mid-late game, and the UB is good synergy for having trade hubs on rivers/lakes.

But when i sent my army of Kris into enemy territory and 4/6 get enemy blade, thus ruining my attempted assault i just kind of rage quit; i've never quit out of frustration before but this time I was just baffled. What really gets me about promotions like the Enemy Blade is that it doesn't just render the Kris useless for aggression, it renders the entire upgrade line for aggression, and to me, constitutes a complete waste of Hammers for producing the unit. I build Swords to go and take cities, not sit in my boundries.

I wouldn't be so upset with the negative promotions if they came with a blanced positive modifier. i.e. Enemy Blade -20hp in enemy territory, +20hp when in friendly, to me thats a trade off. I'm turned off by this unit now, since I'll never fully know exactly how many i'll need for an invasion, nor will i be assured that my hammers spent in these units was worth it. I'd rather have 4 unpromoted swordsmen, than 2 OP swords, and 2 duds.

I do appreciate what the dev team is trying to do with Indonesia by making them a unique experience to play, but the swordsman just falls flat in my opinion.

well why don't you play some games other than Pangea?

Are you guys insane? first 3 cities w/o worrying for happiness + 1 unique trade item each. The best promtions in the game - by far - and an acceptable UB? If Indonesia is imbalanced, then because it is too strong. Seriousy... +50% power on attacks just like that? 2 attacks + 1 movement just like that? regeneration on kills just like that? Okay, I give you that every 4th or 5th time you get a bad promotion, but that is nothing compared to the benefits and you just have to know how some things work. First combat experience by bombardement of a city = enemy blade. Just don't let that happen.

Hint: don't wait till you open a round of attacks against another civ to find out what promotion the KSmen get. Go kill barbs or attack a city-state first to get them. It will help mold your strategy.

Eagle Pursuit said:

Hint: don't wait till you open a round of attacks against another civ to find out what promotion the KSmen get. Go kill barbs or attack a city-state first to get them. It will help mold your strategy.

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OK yes this is certainly a Pro-tip and has merit if you can execute getting Iron Working early enough to be able to field a few Kris' before barbs disappear. But even still, the Hammers used early on for Kris seems like an inefficient use of production on a gamble. My personal example was obviously a case of misfortune where the majority of units turned out to be duds; i'm sure others have had opposite experiences where 5/6 Kris get OP promotions.

Don't get me wrong however, I do like Indonesia, the UA alone makes up for my misgivings towards the UU.

Yes, in case you haven't noticed, "island" is in the name of their unique ability. Play on an island map! I'm in the middle of a game with Indonesia right now, large islands standard size map, I have 8 cities which were all settled within the first 100 turns, and because of their awesome unique ability my happiness wasn't even phased. Play on an island map, go for liberty, get some luxury techs then beeline optics, you may want to get bronze working early so you can know where the iron is before you settle all of your cities. Not only do the first 3 island cities not take anything away from your happiness, but you can actually trade one of the copies for another luxury for 4 more happiness. Also, since I got iron working fairly early on, I was able to get the colossus in Jakarta and I am absolutely banking off of sea based trade routes. I got a religion up on turn 90, and the fact that a wonder spamming Kammy right next to me built stonehenge and also went super religious meant that all of my cities have followers of two religions. Take peace gardens as a follower ability, and each candi can get you plus 25% great person generation, plus 2 happiness, and plus 4 faith. That to me is pretty darn awesome. I also recommend since you want other religious presence in your cities and you will be banking faith in the midgame that you go down piety and take religious tolerance. The kris swordsmen are hit or miss, but those are not what makes Indonesia in my opinion. Just my input, but I'm having a great time with them. Just don't be silly and play on a pangea. PLAY ON ISLAND MAPS!

I've personally been noticing more islands on maps in general. I have one game on Continents where I would have had three solid to brilliant spice cities, all before astronomy. They play much better on islands, of course, but I'd say their UA is far from useless on maps with more land.

I'm admittedly not a fan of the Kris Swordsman. I've been unlucky with promotions so far, so in the future I may try to upgrade warriors that already got some use as opposed to spending full gold/hammers on new ones. I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune once I get some good promotions though.

Okay, so I'm a good portion of the way through an Indonesian Pangea (Emperor) playthrough to test how bad the 'random' factor really is. Got some nice rivers, so candi are helpfully pumping out religion.

I haven't yet settled off-continent (no islands within range, and only recently teched to Astronomy). I got hit by absolutely brutal barbarians in the early turns - constantly razing my improved luxuries, leaving me so unhappy that rebels spawned to bolster their numbers. I even thought I was in with a chance of getting the 'barbarians ransom a city' achievement.

I did fight them off with the aid of Krismen - I built two (keep getting Legions from Budapest, so no pressure to build swordsmen), one of which was a little too ambitious and died as a result (-20% defence). The other got the dreaded Evil Spirits and ... it's really not that bad. -10% attack strength is an irritant, but by no means crippling against mostly technologically inferior units. Certainly it's hardly game-changing, particularly with the lack of warfare (Askia is upset with me for every reason imaginable and destroyed Morocco, but he still doesn't seem willing to actually attack).

Discovering El Dorado and settling Surabaya before turn 20 has had far more effect on my game performance than my moderately bad luck with Indonesia's uniques, and that can happen to anyone. Getting Kilamanjaro, also in a settleable spot, was almost compensation for the terrible early game with barbarian hordes, but since I haven't had any wars it can hardly be considered important either way - 2 culture a turn is not game-changing.

Moral of the story: this is about the worst luck you can have with the Indonesian uniques - negative promotions on all kris, and no islands reachable from the coast (a rarity in Pangea maps). And I'm winning, something I've experienced all too rarely in BNW (in fairness, Piety may have something to do with that - the times I've performed badly have been the times I've skipped that tree).

For those who didn't have a good experience with Indonesia, I suggest playing on Earth map, because it has some great spots for Indonesia to settle: Madagascar near Africa; Panama in Central America (dat cannal); the Malvinas/Falklands in South America; England if the map is huge; and finally the best of the best - the Pacific Islands, Australia & New Zealand.

If rerolling the start is acceptable for you, do it until you spawn around the Indochina region to make this a more... friendly endeavour. Settle your first 04 cities as usual, then after you have the most essential and/or desired national wonders, go settle the three best islands you can find and/or Australia. The results are guaranteed, I've never seen the AI colonize places like Japan, Malasia and Papua New Guinea.

I believe 07 cities as Indonesia aren't any disaster in comparison to 4 cities, unless maybe playing on Imortal/Deity (I'm a Prince/King player myself, so I may be wrong in my belief).

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Concerning the Kriss Swordman, I can only suggest new random seed + reload in case of negative rolls. I myself reloaded all my 05 units, to give them all the Restlessness promotion, which is absurdly powerfull (and VERY fun).

Why necro this?

Here I am wondering, "wow, why are all these people so ignorant and uninformed"?
Then I realize this was started a year ago on BNW's release.

So.... that was a pretty big waste of time. Thanks.