Opinions on Morocco

Lyoncet said:

Does anyone know if Berber Cavalry keep their special promotions on upgrade?

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From what I remember, they do keep their upgrades.

Morocco so far is my favorite team out of these new ones. The UA gives you a good head start and throughout the game the AI or more likely to trade with you. The Kasbah makes it easy to defend your land and makes those desert tiles you have actually useful. The Berber Calvary is ridiculous when defending in a Kasbah, all those bonuses make it so powerful. I honestly think making their UA scale would bring them over the top, but that might just be me.

I've liked them thus far, although I also don't see any bonus money or culture being applied in the trade route selection screen. How can I verify there is actually a bonus? Or is it a bug?

Hawaiian said:

I've liked them thus far, although I also don't see any bonus money or culture being applied in the trade route selection screen. How can I verify there is actually a bonus? Or is it a bug?

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It's not displayed on the trade screen. If you look at your GPT, you'll see it go up by the trade route yield +3 if you make a route.

It is not really good. A lux give you more, than all of your trade route bonus. And it come a bit late.
Until turn 100 it gives you 3 route / around 900G MAX

It IS an advantage, but a very small. (Compare it to the Netherland 'weak' bonus, that give you around 2-3 lux sell over your normal, granting twice the money. Paper maker for China, also give you 3g, and you normally have around 4 cities the beginning with library, but only 2 trade route.)
This UA is weak.

Kabash is fun, but comes a bit late. Petra is still op, where with Kabash, or without.
Desert petral hill + Kabash = 2f/4p/1g. Same with mine 1f/3p, 4p later, or even 5 with order.

Berbers are also fun, but the wars still won by mass ranged units in SP.

Overall - a fun but weak civ.

Arilian said:

Paper maker for China, also give you 3g, and you normally have around 4 cities the beginning with library, but only 2 trade route.)

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Also gives +1 culture and Engineering really isn't that far off. In most situations it is likely going to be about equal to China. True, if you try and game the system you will get more benefit from paper makers, but in regular games the gold should be roughly equal.

Not the best UA, but not sure I'd call it weak. Just average.

The UA works fine with the rest of Morocco. It promotes trading with as many different people as you can, and more people are bound to trade with you. Combine that with Kasbah, and you are making more gold easily. At the same time, you can defend trade routes near your territory easily. You can't just take one unique of a civ and judge it, you have to consider how it works with the rest of the Civ.

For example, the Netherlands UA was weakened in BNW with because the AI won't have as much gold in the beginning now, but Polders will still provide you with a great amount and Sea Beggars will easily defend sea trade routes.

The UA also encourages other civs to send trade-routes your way, which is significant in that in the early-to-mid game, when you are likely to still be behind in science, getting a bunch of AI trade-routes will also bring as much as +5 raw science per route, and with a glut of AI's sending trade-routes to you, this can become a surprisingly helpful tool.

The UI is very good. Combine it with Petra and/or Desert Folklore and even open desert tiles are useful, though I agree that in less-than-ideal circumstances (Petra is not often on the table at higher levels) you would definitely hope for flood-plains.

The UU is among the best turtling UUs. A bonus for both desert tiles as well as being in your own territory can be huge, and it's a very mobile unit type that the UU replaces. Only the Hwacha really stands out in my mind as a better defensive UU. Berber Cavalry is very good on defense, assuming you didn't get an odd no-desert-anywhere-for-miles start.

Overall, Morocco is one of the better BNW civs. Because trade-routes also bring science, and because the UA doesn't just affect trade-routes that you initiate, the UA ends up being pretty good until a point that is late enough that by then you've hopefully caught up much or all of the way anyways. The UI is good in many cases, and even at its worst, its still a fort you can put up that adds tile-yields with it. And the UU can be quickly shuttled across the empire to take on an enemy attack and likely hold it up far longer than it takes to start pumping out a larger army.

how early are we building trade routes?
i try to get them up relativly fast as the gold and culture is a boon early game but hunting barbs to clear trade routes makes me want to go honour.
and then im stuck deciding if i should fill out piety instead of tradition because the desert folk lore pantheon will be carrying a large amount of faith. opinions?

yes, they are a very good civ. Work wonderfully well with petra and desert folklore