lanun

is there any chance we could upgrade the lanun with a few special buildings or something? to me there seems to be a few minor issues with the theme and playability imho.

1 - the +1 food in water tiles and the -1 food from farms needs to be adjusted , its a great concept but with the changes to agriculture the lanun get lost in the changes.

You got to be kidding...

+1food from water is hell of a lot better than farms. How many farms do you build in a game? And how many water tiles do you work?
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I`ve started to play on immortal to get some more fun and challenges, and if I in average have 1,5 farms/city, then I have a lot of farms. Most often I prefer to build cottages or other useful things. But I have a lot more water tiles, which means that the -1/farm is great to get the bonus of +1/water-tile...

My only farms are on either tundra (if I`m unlucky to get tundra near my cities) or on corn/rice++

It just means that the agriculture/aristocracy farm spam isn't a viable strategy for them. Just like a religion rush isn't so good for Cassiel.

Definitely. Forget Agriculture with the Lanun (besides, possibly, for a little while early on for the health) and work the sea. Upgrade ASAP and don't look back.

In my current lanun game I DO use agriculture. The main issue I have when playing lanun is getting good production sites since I can't rely on the usual farms + mines inland production center combo. Agriculture without Aristocracy allows spamming farms on grassland tiles (where the -1 production has no effect) which make up for zero food high prod tiles. I even found myself building workshops on plain tiles (workshops ! can you believe it ?). With sanitation and agriculture any farmed grassland tile is 5 food, which allows working a zero-food tile and still make a surplus. Any civ could do the same of course, and be even more efficient at it (because they'd get to swap to aristocracy or at least get an additional +1 food), but that doesn't make agriculture a no-no for lalun, even far from it !

Coastal cities don't take much benefit from this, but who cares ? My coastal cities are mainly commerce centers, they mostly get to whip-build the sci/gold multipliers they need as well as the usual basic infrastructure (granary, courthouse...) and that's all. They get cottages instead of farms, so they're pretty much unaffected by agriculture. Inland cities, OTOH, really benefit from agriculture as it allows them to make efficient use of the land even without food resource (which was pretty much impossible in 0.15, with the occasional exception of oasises and floodplains).

well in the late game Lanun start to suffer yield wise since they can't match the amazing yields that land can give standardly, and they don't get good production in the beginning, but they do alright in the midgame if they get loads of sea resources.

Well, it depends what you're doing with your lands. Base of 1 , +1 from the Lanun's special, combined with +1 from a Lighthouse, makes for 3 per water tile. As water tiles are plentiful, this gives a lot of room to work tiles that produce no food at all, or limited food... in other words, it becomes a viable strategy to Mine, Cottage, or Workshop every land tile (barring resources, of course), assuming that you're keeping your cities coastal. Non-coastal cities, on the other hand, WILL suffer for food until you've got terraforming... but assuming you're playing on water-centric map, this shouldn't occur often.

i guess my point was not getting across at all. i must have mis-stated what i mean. lets try this again.

the lanun are masters of water and this gives them a bonus to working water tiles. in previous versions water was on par or close to teh output of the land resources. so lets look at a breakdown

coast = 3 food 2 coin
lakes = 4 food 2 coin
plains = 1 food 1 or 2 hammer 4 or 5 coin
grassland = 2food 0 or 1hammer 4 or 5 coin

now typically i see
plains with villages as = 1 food , 1 hammer, 5 or 6 coin
grassland with farm = 4(5) food , 3 coin due to arist+agri

even if plains and grassland get non-common improvements there is no way atm that the lanun can make up on the water the increase that was given to the land tiles.

the net result i can see is an early lead on coin in the beginning, however even the launun need fishing in order to harvest water squares. so while they research fishing everyone else goes either for agriculture or education. in short order after getting these techs the lanun see a huge shortfall will no real growth potential.

in current standign they have 3 problem areas....
1 -- food , at best you can expect to see 4 food on a freshwater lake with 3 in coast as the norm. other civs are seeing 5+ food on many tiles
2 -- coin , at best you see 2 coin. this is hard to compare to what you can get from a village or aristocracy.
3 -- hammers , basically if you dont get OO religion the lanun are screwed hard on this front as far as water is concerned.

my suggestions could follow several lines of thinking...
-- allow them to build tile improvements in the water like in call to power
-- allow buildings and/or wonders to allow and increase in hammer/coin/food. in doing this i reccomend 2 food gains on 2 seperate trees (say calender and education). 2 or more coin gains (here i would recomend ways to increase the number and/or bonus of trade routes). for the hammers (this is hard really the 25% bonus to naval production is a great start but a 25% increase on very little si still very little. for control sake i think a flat number might be a better idea like <boathouse +2 hammer>)

i hope this helps explain what i mean a little better

Ah, but evryone else only gets those kind of yields when they tie themselves down to a highly rigid civic/improvement pattern. Sure, you CAN do somewhat better if you do Agriculture/Aristocracy and only build farms, but then you're screwed for Hammers. Lanun, on the other hand, have all the food they need from the water, can build mines and workshops for hammers without worrying, can cottage pretty much everything else, AND can benefit from superior civic choices.

The thing is, although the Lanun do get maritime bonuses, they aren't ONLY on the sea... they can still do everything on land that everyone else can, except farm. Since they don't need farms, they build other, more useful things. After all, it's been a common axiom throughout civ that unless you're GP farming, you build as few farms as possible. Tweaks like Agriculture and Aristocracy don't change that. After all, every farm built is a town foregone. IF you're getting your food somewhere else anyways... why not cottage everything? The Lanun AI usually does this... and it's a perfectly good strategy.

Also, so far as synergy goes, do note that Hannah is Financial, and thus gets an extra commerce from all water squares, too.

Partly aggreing with you, If I'm not playing in a rock world, I find the lanun troubled in terms of Hammers. Specially end game. I usually have to capture an enemy's town to get good production cities.

I think Lanun should get a build, probably with fishing That yield +1 Hammer on water titles. And later on the tree one tech that improve it to +2. I will play a Lanun game today (Balseraphs are my new baby on this update) and will try posting something better.

What keeps them from spamming these improvements on their water tiles?

Well, there is the fact that Work Boats are one-shot... but yeah, +2 per tile sounds like a bit much.

That being said, improvements on water tiles does sound like an appropriately Lanun thing... so long as they're balanced.

As such, here are a few water improvements for the Lanun.

Lanun Fishing Boats: The Lanun can build Fishing Boats on any water tile. They grant +1 when not on a resource. Available with Fishing.

Lanun Trading Post: The Lanun Trading Post is a big barge that sits in place and sells goods. It grants +1 , plus an additional +1 from Mercantilism. Available with Optics.

Lanun Workshop: The Lanun Workshop is a big barge that sits in place and manufactures goods. It grants +1 , -1 , plus an additional +1 from Guilds. Available with Optics.

endovior thats exactly what i was talking about...
the +2 hammer was meant asa city building not a tille improvement though.

as far as offering more flexiblity with civic options , i feel the lanun are in exactly the opposite position. the limit of 3 food and 3 coin per tile grossly limits thier civic options also. they have virtually no flexiblity unlike all the other civs.

as far as hannah being financial , i am not talking about traits because i am trying to keep the discussion level in terms of tile production. if we are going to have to include her financial trait as part of this then imho she would need another trait.

also , the reason i am specifically refering to ther lanun and the water tiles is because water tiles are supposed to be thier strength. at the moment a water tile for the lanun is something you work when there is nothing to improve.

You make no sense... the Lanun have flexibility, because their power isn't tied to any particular civic. The only thing is that they can't effectively play the Agriculture/Aristocracy thing. That's about it. As such, they can play with any other civics they want.

The only limitation they have is farms. The conclusion: DON'T PLAY THAT WAY. Just like you don't rush a religion with the Grigori, or chop wonders with the Ljosalfar, you don't farm everything with the Lanun (indeed, you shouldn't farm ANYTHING with the Lanun...).

That being said, water tiles are indeed their strength... they have a nigh-limitless supply of 3 / 3 tiles. Most people have to pick and choose city locations, but the Lanun can thrive anywhere. Even a 1x1 tundra island in the middle of the north sea can become a great commerce city with minimal effort.

he makes sense, in the late game, unlimited 3 food/2 commerce isnt all that amazing, since even a farm + cottage for two grassland tiles averages out to 2+6/2 = 4 food and 0+6/2 = 3 commerce, so more than the sea for the basic tiles (grasslands are easy late game). that doesnt even take into account floodplains or ancient forests, which make it 7 food and 4 commerce for each average tile or 5 food/ 1 production/ 3 commerce for each average tile, respectively.

But the Lanun can build cottages, too. So you could average a sea tile with a cottaged grassland, getting comparable results. For that matter, you could also cottage the floodplains.

sorry endovior, but we seem to be looking at things from completely different perspectives. so much so that you appear to be argueing a counterpoint to a completely different debate. i wish i could explain to you what the difference is but tbh i gave up those debates with my wife along time ago also.

hopefully someone understand the point. i noticed sureshot did.... otherwise lets close this thread

All that this really boils down to is whether farms are more commonly worked than sea tiles. Pre-0.16, I had perhaps 5 farms in my empire, all on resources. In that same empire, I might be working 20 or so water tiles. So, the Lanun would get 5 less food from farms, and 20 more food from water tiles (in that empire). With 0.16, it's a viable strategy to cover your empire in farms, and then adopt agriculture and aristocracy. If the Lanun tried that strategy, I could see them working 40, maybe 50 farms. Since each farm gets -1 food, they'd be facing a penalty of -40 to 50 food.

This just tells us what we already knew. The Lanun's bonus outweighs their penalty in almost all situations, unless they're trying to spam farms, which is akin to Grigori religion rushing. Saying that the Lanun are more limited in 0.16 is only true in the sense that one of the new features is worthless to them. In fact, it could be argued that while pre-0.16, the Lanun had no way of generating excess food in inland cities, they're now able to adopt agriculture and potentially achieve what was once possible only with Sanitation for them.

no , actually what i am saying is that the lanun using sea tiles is about as useful of a tactic as the grigory rushing a religion.

it might be that atm coastal cities are jsut crap and the lanun jsut have the best crap available. personally i will continue to not play them til they are fixed and continue to not build coastal cites for much the same reasons (i tend to maybe , maybe build 1 if i need the health and a resource is there)

By all means, feel free to do so... build all the farms you want as someone else. I, meanwhile, will cover the countryside with more productive structures.