Indonesia's UA is secretly awesome?

Txomin said:

This is a bit off topic, but what is the correct pronunciation of Gajah Mada's name? It's been bugging me that I don't know how to properly say it.

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If I remember my Island Southeast Asian tongue properly, you can just pronounce it like a 'j' in "judge" or "rajah".

According to the way it's pronounced in game, it would've been spelled "Gaya Mada" or "Mayapahit" since there is a "y" sound. But then again, that would be the wrong spelling.

Something that might help, you can look up Majapahit History on youtube, it's more clear than I can describe.

As for the representation, basically this is not Indonesia, but the Majapahit Empire, named Indonesia for marketing purposes, as I bet you a good 95% of the population doesn't know what the hell a Majapahit is, but they at least get that Indonesia's those islands in Asia. The thing is your audience needs to know, at a glance, where this country they may or may not have heard of is. For most, that's not a problem, any kid knows where France or Japan is. For others, they rely on their image to be accessible: not many know who the Shoshone are, but one glance at Pocatello and you're pretty sure it's native American. The Songhai and Siam are a bit tougher to determine, but I imagine most people kinda get Siam's somewhere in Asia and the Songhai is in Africa or so.

Gajah Mada is...first thing's first, considering that Maria's the only female leader in the expansion, I would've preferred Tribhuwana, honestly, especially in this case since Gajah was mostly a general who later became prime minister, while Tribhuwana was direct empress regnant. I guess she's a bit less accessible (I doubt many have succeeded in pronouncing Wijayatunggadewi) and not as iconic, but eh, it's something, as the empires of Indonesia have had plenty of empresses.

ToodleElNoodos said:

If I remember my Island Southeast Asian tongue properly, you can just pronounce it like a 'j' in "judge" or "rajah".

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Yes, that's correct. The Roman transliteration of Bahasa is based on British and Dutch phonetics, so the sound the 'j' represents is the same hard j it would be in English. The narrator is pronouncing it as though it were Spanish. It makes sense that this is also the case for Javanese and other Southeast Asian languages.

As for the representation, basically this is not Indonesia, but the Majapahit Empire, named Indonesia for marketing purposes

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Except for the modern city names, which I continue to find a minor irritant. They used Siam as a modern, recognisable name but used a Sukothai-centred city list. They used Palenque as the Maya capital over the better-known (to the general public) Tikal or Chichen Itza.

For most, that's not a problem, any kid knows where France or Japan is.

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You haven't spent much time in the States, have you? Or the UK, come to that - the geographical knowledge in both countries is notoriously bad.

Gajah Mada is...first thing's first, considering that Maria's the only female leader in the expansion, I would've preferred Tribhuwana, honestly, especially in this case since Gajah was mostly a general who later became prime minister, while Tribhuwana was direct empress regnant. I guess she's a bit less accessible (I doubt many have succeeded in pronouncing Wijayatunggadewi) and not as iconic, but eh, it's something, as the empires of Indonesia have had plenty of empresses

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As I understand it, Gaja Mada is a particularly iconic figure to modern Indonesians, and a stated reason for including Indonesia in the expansion is that it's an increasingly large gaming market. He certainly seems to have been met with favourably here, and I think he represents more interesting diversity than yet another woman - the obese are people too...

TheKingOfBigOz said:

the UA, although very situational, is very beneficial because you geint a bonus luxury without haivng to find it, so you can plant an otherwise useless city anywhere and still benefit from h aving it around a luxury.

But the fact that you can trade this luxury also means, that you can gain access to other luxuries (if you trade a lux for a lux) that aren't inj your territory.

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That's kind of a waste, you'll generally want to be putting it on a two luxury, or ideally 3 if you can. The resource diversity will make it a trade hub, which works well with your candi.

Not trading Indonesia's luxuries would be the worst possibly way you could possibly play that civ.

Indonesia's UA is just too situational. If you play as Indonesia on pangaea or continents, you are stuck with the choice of either expanding on the continent you are on or looking for islands. Latter option compels you to beeline the naval techs a bit to astronomy.

However, with fractal and archipelago (-like) maps, Indonesia is indeed awesome.

I also wonder: if you are playing as any civ but Indonesia but there's an Indonesian civ with their own unique luxuries, will city states issue quests involving the acquisition of those luxury resources?

Txomin said:

This is a bit off topic, but what is the correct pronunciation of Gajah Mada's name? It's been bugging me that I don't know how to properly say it.

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How it looks is how you pronounce it.

Gajah Mada with a hard 'J'

The narrator mispronounces both Gajah Mada and Majapahit as Gayah Mada and then Mayapahit (then he says Gaha Mada the 2nd time)

Makes no sense at all, pretty much every word in Indonesian AND Javanese is a hard J like it looks. None of that Spanish sounding stuff

Strategist83 said:

Not trading Indonesia's luxuries would be the worst possibly way you could possibly play that civ.

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I think it would be better to trade only with a chosen civ instead, thus denying all other civs the WTTKD. The chosen civ could be a friend or a non-threat at the bottom of the ladder (typically put there by me, in my games )

sendos said:

Indonesia's UA is just too situational. If you play as Indonesia on pangaea or continents, you are stuck with the choice of either expanding on the continent you are on or looking for islands. Latter option compels you to beeline the naval techs a bit to astronomy.

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It's hardly situational at all. I've played several Indonesia games, on islands, continents and pangeaes, getting a grand total of one pangea where there were no outlying islands. You don't have to settle all three cities - the benefits from one are equal to many UAs, from two equal to the stronger UAs, and three exceptional, and this is the mistake people hypothesising without playing the civ are making when dissecting it - that it's all-or-nothing. Claiming Indonesia is only good when you can settle three cities on three different non-starting islands is much like claiming that Sweden is only good in a 22-civ map because that's the only way to maximise the DoF bonus.

seancolorado said:

How it looks is how you pronounce it.

Gajah Mada with a hard 'J'

The narrator mispronounces both Gajah Mada and Majapahit as Gayah Mada and then Mayapahit (then he says Gaha Mada the 2nd time)

Makes no sense at all, pretty much every word in Indonesian AND Javanese is a hard J like it looks.

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Or, as the narrator would no doubt pronounce it, Yavanese.

PhilBowles said:

It's hardly situational at all. I've played several Indonesia games, on islands, continents and pangeaes, getting a grand total of one pangea where there were no outlying islands. You don't have to settle all three cities - the benefits from one are equal to many UAs, from two equal to the stronger UAs, and three exceptional, and this is the mistake people hypothesising without playing the civ are making when dissecting it - that it's all-or-nothing. Claiming Indonesia is only good when you can settle three cities on three different non-starting islands is much like claiming that Sweden is only good in a 22-civ map because that's the only way to maximise the DoF bonus.

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And what if the islands are small with negligible resources nearby? Indonesia is situational because UA is highly dependent on map generation, i.e. pure luck, unlike Sweden, which is dependent on diplomatic skill (and you don't need 22 civs to see a GP production difference, 12 including yourself is enough). As I said earlier, you are stuck with the choice of getting naval techs to grab good islands before anyone else does and miss some good wonders as a result or expand a bit on the current continent so that your capital isn't right next to someone else's empire, as well as acquire some wonders on the way.

Anarchist said:

I think it would be better to trade only with a chosen civ instead, thus denying all other civs the WTTKD. The chosen civ could be a friend or a non-threat at the bottom of the ladder (typically put there by me, in my games )

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Exactly my line of thinking anarchist, give your selected friend all three in trades and deprive everyone else.

Their bonus being terrain dependent is kind of a farce considering so many civs are dependent on the terrain. Inca? Marrakech? Brazil? Obviously the difference is those civs have start biases geared toward their strengths but come on, is it really that hard to find an "acceptable" island? What on earth are your standards? 5-8 or more tiles is plenty for me especially if fish are around. And if youve got 4+ fish or sea resources around it then IDC how many land tiles there are im settling it its gonna be huge.

Not to mention does no one play continents/small continents? Pangaea is obviously a poor choice for them, dont play it with Indonesia. But otherwise, so many of the water inclusive maps tend to generate with more than enough islands to colonize. The UA is at no more of a disadvantage than portugals feitorias requiring specific tile types that may not be available or spain not necessarily starting next to a natural wonder.

Also i saw someone mentioned it earlier, does the AI even benefit from WLTKD? I have no idea and i guess my argument would then only be relevant to multiplayer (and if you try this in multiplayer people gonna kill you) so id love to know.

Well there is another thing that many of us would overlook about the Indonesia UA. The extra luxury means also that income of the trade routes from the peticular cities are increased. This is a small boost but it will make you also more desirable to connect trade routes with.

sendos said:

And what if the islands are small with negligible resources nearby? Indonesia is situational because UA is highly dependent on map generation, i.e. pure luck, unlike Sweden, which is dependent on diplomatic skill (and you don't need 22 civs to see a GP production difference, 12 including yourself is enough).

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The cases where the only islands available are resourceless are uncommon (indeed in that pangea game when I said there were "no islands", there was in fact a single one-tile island, it just wasn't worth colonising). More common is a situation I had in a previous Continents game, where the island is sufficiently close to the mainland that I could settle it and obtain the ivory on the nearby mainland.

As I said earlier, you are stuck with the choice of getting naval techs to grab good islands before anyone else does and miss some good wonders as a result

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Everyone has this choice. It's no more forced on Indonesia than it is on anyone else - there's little value to getting the resources early when you already have ample happiness and likely few trading partners. If someone else takes the spot, you can always capture it - I haven't done it myself, but understand that the resource appears in captured cities if they fit the criteria otherwise, not just Indonesia-founded cities.

or expand a bit on the current continent so that your capital isn't right next to someone else's empire, as well as acquire some wonders on the way.

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As with any civ, I expand to where the best city spots are - it's ridiculous to invent a rule that the three luxury cities should be Indonesia's first three cities, or that because the UA refers to the "magic number" of four cities Indonesia is intended to be a tall Tradition civ.

Again I'd recommend playing as Indonesia rather than just commenting on the UA text in isolation.

I agree with you. One thing though, Indonesia is the only civ that can benefit from colonizing a normally "unlikeable" island. It takes no happiness to settle and gives a free luxury resource to give to your friends. As you said...Indonesia doesn't have to be 4-city tall.

Indonesia's play style is similar to how things really were, you gotta follow the winds of change and deal with what comes both ways.

They're versatile with their UA, UB, and UU. But...apparently, not showhorning a civ is considered bad.

Edit: Had a thought, maybe Indonesia is a faith warmonger. It fits, UU comes first, go capture a city-state or some other city far away, you gain spice islands. Later in the game, you may capture river cities in which annexing them and building candis give that extra faith. Extra faith is always awesome especially with Pagodas, Jesuit Education, and To the Glory of God.

ToodleElNoodos said:

I agree with you. One thing though, Indonesia is the only civ that can benefit from colonizing a normally "unlikeable" island. It takes no happiness to settle and gives a free luxury resource to give to your friends. As you said...Indonesia doesn't have to be 4-city tall.

Indonesia's play style is similar to how things really were, you gotta follow the winds of change and deal with what comes both ways.

They're versatile with their UA, UB, and UU. But...apparently, not showhorning a civ is considered bad.

Edit: Had a thought, maybe Indonesia is a faith warmonger. It fits, UU comes first, go capture a city-state or some other city far away, you gain spice islands. Later in the game, you may capture river cities in which annexing them and building candis give that extra faith. Extra faith is always awesome especially with Pagodas, Jesuit Education, and To the Glory of God.

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I actually thought that Indonesia was better off not getting a religion. If they don't, they can get more religious diversity, which is basically more faith which they can purchase stuff with.

seancolorado said:

How it looks is how you pronounce it.

Gajah Mada with a hard 'J'

The narrator mispronounces both Gajah Mada and Majapahit as Gayah Mada and then Mayapahit (then he says Gaha Mada the 2nd time)

Makes no sense at all, pretty much every word in Indonesian AND Javanese is a hard J like it looks. None of that Spanish sounding stuff

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Jajajajajajaja. Had a good laugh.

Viregel said:

I actually thought that Indonesia was better off not getting a religion. If they don't, they can get more religious diversity, which is basically more faith which they can purchase stuff with.

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There's a lot more to spend faith on in BNW, and a state religion will give you +2 faith from the candi for a start. It's not difficult to ensure you have multiple religions in a city even if you have a state religion, and there's a limited amount of point building candis and maximising their faith output if you don't have the freedom to determine what you want to spend that faith on but have to rely on someone with pagodas or Jesuit Education setting up as the majority religion in your cities. Indeed, if you have too many immigrant faiths and no religion of your own, you may have trouble having any majority religion in your cities.

SolDelta said:

One thing I've been experimenting with is building up a particularly expansive land empire before even planting those cities, and using them more as commercial outposts to trade to particularly attractive civs. I think I might try Indonesia in my next multiplayer game, with a nice iron intensive start I could get right onto expanding and denying people those lovely WLTK bonuses for the hell of it.

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This has been my strategy with Indonesia. I don't place the island cities until I have explored the entire map. I try to place them in spots which are within trading range of other civs' large cities and the spots already have one or more luxury and strategic resources present. Thus the island cities become lucrative trade outposts in addition to providing the unique luxury and hopefully at least one more that I didn't already have.

I have found this strategy to be effective and well worth the wait.

seancolorado said:

How it looks is how you pronounce it.

Gajah Mada with a hard 'J'

The narrator mispronounces both Gajah Mada and Majapahit as Gayah Mada and then Mayapahit (then he says Gaha Mada the 2nd time)

Makes no sense at all, pretty much every word in Indonesian AND Javanese is a hard J like it looks. None of that Spanish sounding stuff

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Yup, its iritating!
To those people wants to know how the 'j' on gajah sounds, its very strong, as used on the word 'jack'(of all trades).