Fixing the Cree

[Melchizedek]

In my limited experience with R&F so far, the Cree seem underpowered. Lots of civs are underpowered, but the Cree are strange in that their bonuses aren't weak, they're just awkward. Consider: they get a scout replacement that is basically a fast warrior without warrior promotions or upgrades. It's only useful for exploring, warding off barbarians, and protecting civilian units. They get a UI that is available early but costs builder charges, and a free trader along with a bonus to internal trade routes with camps and pastures, at a time when they won't have a second city yet, and probably haven't been able to build many camps and pastures. They get an easy golden age in the classical, when loyalty pressure usually doesn't matter yet, especially if you built unique scouts instead of a settler.

The unifying theme is that, while their bonuses are fun and interesting, they take too much early production to come on line, and you wind up not really collecting on them until long after they become available. That makes them easy to fix: The Cree should start the game with two Okihtcitaw, and either a builder, or an extra settler, or both, depending how much you want to boost them. I'd make these extra starting units count against the cost inflation, because the point isn't that they need to be free, but that they need to arrive sooner. This fix would be in keeping with the theme of the civ, since such an early production boost is exactly what they need to realize the strong ancient era the designers seem to have had in mind. They will get the trade route bonuses working about when they get a trader. The Okihcitaw will be worth something, since it won't be standing in the way of building either a military force or infrastructure, and it will have some civilians to protect. They can forward settle someone if they want, to get something out of the golden age loyalty. What do you all think?

 

[Sprenk]

My experience with the Cree is that they do great in the early game, which sets you up for the later stages. I see no reason to buff them further. Other factors to consider:

1). Yes, the free trader with Pottery might not be useful until you have a second city ready. So why not wait to complete Pottery? I usually start get it down to one turn and switch to something else I need until that 2nd city is ready.

2). Remember that the trader grabs new tiles as it moves between cities. Very useful.

2). The UU gets a free promotion, so they can scout much more effectively early on.

 

[Japper007]

they get a scout replacement that is basically a fast warrior without warrior promotions or upgrades. It's only useful for exploring, warding off barbarians, and protecting civilian units.

It only does all that, what a completely worthless unit!!!

They get a UI that is available early but costs builder charges

They all do, but at least the Cree one is actually worthwhile, with a guaranteed +1housing/production and easy extra food/gold added on top of that. Compared to the other ones it's one of the strongest, especially since it isn't all the way in the Rennaissance Era and therefore has an actual impact on the game when it still makes a difference.

and a free trader along with a bonus to internal trade routes with camps and pastures, at a time when they won't have a second city yet, and probably haven't been able to build many camps and pastures. They get an easy golden age in the classical, when loyalty pressure usually doesn't matter yet, especially if you built unique scouts instead of a settler.

So what if it sits idle for a few turns? It's still a free Trader at a point when everyone else doesn't even have more than one.

The unifying theme is that, while their bonuses are fun and interesting, they take too much early production to come on line, and you wind up not really collecting on them until long after they become available.

That is just your playstyle, I can get use out of their bonuses pretty easily, only place I ever notice this is with the trader, and even that mostly just sits idle for like 5 turns and you are already rather late with your second city at that point.

That makes them easy to fix: The Cree should start the game with two Okihtcitaw, and either a builder, or an extra settler, or both, depending how much you want to boost them. I'd make these extra starting units count against the cost inflation, because the point isn't that they need to be free, but that they need to arrive sooner. This fix would be in keeping with the theme of the civ, since such an early production boost is exactly what they need to realize the strong ancient era the designers seem to have had in mind. They will get the trade route bonuses working about when they get a trader. The Okihcitaw will be worth something, since it won't be standing in the way of building either a military force or infrastructure, and it will have some civilians to protect. They can forward settle someone if they want, to get something out of the golden age loyalty. What do you all think?

This isn't fixing, it's making them even stronger than they already are. Though I would approve starting with a scout for them (there's a mod for that though)

 

[acluewithout]

I don't really know if the Cree are weak. But it would be heaps of fun if they started with an Okihcitaw instead of a Warrior and or Okihcitaw cost the same as a regular scout.

I don't like that they get a free trader. Just feels, cheesy? Unexciting? I mean, that first trader often gets pillaged. If that happens, it feels like you've just lost part of your Civ's unique abilities. I think I'd prefer if Cree just got slightly cheaper traders. That would be quite unique, and would be an ability that works throughout the whole game.

 

[Orlen]

When I saw the title of the thread I thought you'd be explaining how to nerf them because they're overpowered!

Getting tiles for free with trade routes is amazing, so is a free trader and extra route.

The bonus is not to internal trade routes it's to all trade routes and it's a good one because you're getting extra food and gold for each one you make!

The mekewap is also awesome - almost as good as a mine production-wise, but you get housing too and can build it anywhere. As an added bonus you get food/production from adjacent luxury/bonus resources!

Finally, the Unique Unit and Unique Improvement are both early, meaning you have an increased chance of early golden age.

I have no idea how you can think they're underpowered!

 

[bonafide11]

Cree are very powerful. I didn’t realize it until I played with them, they’re surprisingly much better than I expected. They definitely don’t need to be buffed.

 

[isau]

As a start I tweaked the Cree in my Quo's Combined Tweaks mod so the Trader unit can grab tiles up to 4 tiles away from the city center instead of 3. I was a fairly easy change (one line of code) and gives them something a little outside the ordinary to annoy other players with. I kind of feel like the Cree in the unmodded game would be more interesting if their Trade routes could grab that far away. Then they probably wouldn't also need the free Trader (altho it is fitting for my mod where each civ tends to be more powerful).

I'm thinking of adding a bit more for them as well, since the mod already gives all Scouts +1 Promotion.

 

[Portinou]

Man, Cree are limit OP if you use them smartly, the synergy « extra food from pastures and camps » + mekewap’s extra housing and production (best of both worlds) + 1 extra and free trader + Land grabbing for free placement of improvements on fastly growing cities is AMAZINGLY powerful. Last game with them, I peacefully expanded to 9 cities with 11+ population and 3 districts each on turn 100...

Also, the mekewap is by far the best UI of the game. Only Indonesia can contest it.

 

[Arent11]

they get a scout replacement that is basically a fast warrior without warrior promotions or upgrades. It's only useful for exploring, warding off barbarians, and protecting civilian units. They get a UI that is available early but costs builder charges, and a free trader along with a bonus to internal trade routes with camps and pastures

The traits of various civilization are highly unbalanced. However the Cree traits, while maybe not the absolute strongest, are very good. The UI is one of the few that provides production & is available earlier than australias UI. All civs suffer horribly if they happen to start without hills & forests. As Cree, you have a way out of that & can even make such starting locations work.
The scout replacement can get a higher share of stolen settlers, workers, goody huts & city state envoys & once it is promoted, you can easily wage war with them. Just supplement them with some archers.
In the long run, you can concentrate on commercial hubs & make use of your better trade routes, growing your cities, building more mines & UI & making your cities more productive than most other civs.

-> The only reason I'm not playing the Cree is because I'm not much of a trader.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Maybe it's just because I started out with a lot of camps and pastures in my game with them, but I found them to work extremely well in my game. Especially with magnus and his trade route ability. I probably could have done better with the map but it was my first game with the expansion and I was kind of fumbling my way through the new rules. Prioritize markets, plant magus in the capital and send early trade routes from your outer cities into it, for all that bonus food. I got the Reform the coinage GA dedication for the medieval era and at that point set them all to external, got wisselbanken and alliances for awesome yields.

Now my start was kind of isolated so I don't know how it would have worked if someone was closer.

The unit disappointed me a bit in playing, but I vastly underestimated the leader bonus. It's what makes them go.

All Alliance types provide Shared Visibility. Trade Routes grant +1 Food in the sending city and +1 Gold in the receiving city per Camp or Pasture in the receiving city.

 

[Softly]

Cree are an example of a balanced Civ. There UU is pretty terrible but their UI is incredibly versatile and strong. Their Civ UA and Leader UA, while not overwhelming, are available extremely early and continue to be helpful throughout the entire game. Don't underestimate the powerful synergy of the additional food from their trade routes with the extra housing from their UI.

 

[bonafide11]

Cree are an example of a balanced Civ. There UU is pretty terrible but their UI is incredibly versatile and strong. Their Civ UA and Leader UA, while not overwhelming, are available extremely early and continue to be helpful throughout the entire game. Don't underestimate the powerful synergy of the additional food from their trade routes with the extra housing from their UI.

I don't even think their UU is terrible. While it's not a game changer, I definitely had much more success exploring early with them than I do in my usual Civ game, and early exploration is definitely beneficial. Overall I think they work just fine.

 

[Softly]

I don't even think their UU is terrible. While it's not a game changer, I definitely had much more success exploring early with them than I do in my usual Civ game, and early exploration is definitely beneficial. Overall I think they work just fine.

I would almost rather have no UU then the Cree UU. I want my scouts to be as numerous and cheap as possible. The additional production and turns required to build them in the very early game is killer, and slows down eurekas/inspirations for Astrology, Foreign Trade and Writing and will likely lead to missing out on free first discovery envoys. The only good thing about the UU is the free first promotion if you start in the middle of dense forest/jungle/hills.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Given that the Cree are quite powerful already, "fixing" them by giving them additional bonuses would result in them being hilariously overpowered.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Not only powerful, but powerful and fun.

 

[Melchizedek]

I suppose I need to play with them more. I actually agree that their bonuses are powerful and fun, which is why I posted about it, but my first few games were frustrating due to needing so much early production to bring everything online, and what seem like anti-synergies undermining either normal mechanics (early archers, monuments, envoys, huts, and perhaps worker/settler stealing are all actually hurt by the UU; early builder charges belong to resource tiles that are usually better to work than the UI; ideal district placement contradicts best yields from UI) or pit their own uniques against each other. (They get bonuses to increase trade route yields and collect important tiles along the way, but how often is the same route going to get the best yields and the best tiles? You have to give up one to get the other. They only get the destination-city gold for internal routes, but stealing tiles from enemies only happens with external routes to very nearby cities you're probably going to have to capture anyway.)

Perhaps my mistake was in assuming they're oriented for the early game. I'll grant the UI is stronger when you have more tiles worked, and the UA is stronger when there are more cities with pastures and camps. Just because these become available early doesn't mean you have to focus on them early. So, help me out, what's a typical build order for a successful game with the Cree? Are you punting archers and monuments to get their UI and UU up, or just use the UI later when you have people to work it?

The free tiles still seem overrated. How often do trade routes go over the exact tile you need to hook up? As for stealing enemy city tiles, again, you're almost always invading a city that close anyway, and soon.

 

[Ornen]

The mekewap is one of the best UIs in the game, possibly the best –– bonus production food and housing, and it's extremely versatile. Their trade bonuses are pretty great too, and I love getting extra territory to fill in my empire. The scout replacement sucks, but overall they're still very strong.

 

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

I feel like there are so many civs in this game more in need of help than the Cree.

 

[aimlessgun]

To pile on with the Cree love, the mekewap's housing is really quite amazing. You don't need granaries until their cost is trivial, you don't need sewers or neighborhoods until extremely lategame, it lets your cities get really tall very fast and pump out loyalty and work more tiles. Just a great UI.

Also maybe I was lucky but the trader claiming tiles was incredible, snatching up luxuries/strats 3 tiles away I would have need to spend hundreds of gold on, freeing up valuable rush buy gold in the early game.

 

[KAL_MAD]

I don't think The Cree need a buff. The early free trader is very good at helping cities grow. Also, if planned well, you can grab free tiles. Their trade routes bounces are very good. UI is okay, not very great but not weak.

Georgia on the other hand... yeah