Kris Swordsman -- I'm not really a"WTF!!" kinda guy, but if I was...

[steveg700]

Got around to giving Indonesia a shot. I can see they have a lot of terrain-dependent effects, and I figured I'd see how could play a random map with them.

Sure enough, it turns out to be a big pangea (so no bonus luxes), I get no river (so no candi in the cap), and have to scramble to grab two iron. This is kind of a throwaway at this point, to be sure. But I wanted to check out the two swordsmen's bonus abilities and so a barb-hunting I went.

The first bonus was pretty nice (Recruitment: heal all damage after killing a non-barb unit). But the second? Enemy Blade: Take 20 damage if end turn in enemy territory.

So...it's singular unique bonus ability generates penalties? Or am I just interpreting the text wrong? Who else has seen this?

 

[ptoss1]

Yup. First battle you get a special penalty. Last game I got two Enemy Blades in a row. Never playing this civ again despite the awesome leader screen.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

A few of the promotions from the Kris' unique promotion pool are negative, making it more of a gamble.

 

[Ryoga]

Got around to giving Indonesia a shot. I can see they have a lot of terrain-dependent effects, and I figured I'd see how could play a random map with them.

Sure enough, it turns out to be a big pangea (so no bonus luxes), I get no river (so no candi in the cap), and have to scramble to grab two iron. This is kind of a throwaway at this point, to be sure. But I wanted to check out the two swordsmen's bonus abilities and so a barb-hunting I went.

The first bonus was pretty nice (Recruitment: heal all damage after killing a non-barb unit). But the second? Enemy Blade: Take 20 damage if end turn in enemy territory.

So...it's singular unique bonus ability generates penalties? Or am I just interpreting the text wrong? Who else has seen this?

It's been known for a while. The Kris Swordmen get random bonuses, most of which are very good and two of them are actually negative.

The chances are still in favor of the good ones, there's more of them, if you are unlucky though you get one of the bad ones.

Just use the failure as a sacrificial pawn and build another one.

 

[dino_yoshi13]

Nope, you are not reading it wrong. There's an achievement for taking an enemy city with a Kris Swordsman who has the Enemy Blade "promotion" though.

 

[ptoss1]

A few of the promotions from the Kris' unique promotion pool are negative, making it more of a gamble.

Not only is it a gamble, it's a horrible gamble. To make use of the UU you have to make quite a few of them, find someone to do battle with, and see if you get a really good bonus, or a really bad insta loss. If you get enemy blade your unit is pretty much useless and with the new gold restrictions any plans of invasion are kaputz.

With the new AI focus on science and culture, by the time you've amassed enough Swordsmen, they'll be out teching you EVEN IF YOUR BATTLES GO WELL. Without war your swordsmen are even more useless. They literally do nothing.

 

[steveg700]

Wow. This is really the lotto-players civ. You need islands, you need rivers, you need iron, and then you need to roll good abilities.

I don't mind the curse, but I would have expected a penalty to be part of a trade-off for a bonus.

Oh well, I needed to re-roll this game anyway.

 

[rastak]

Yup. First battle you get a special penalty. Last game I got two Enemy Blades in a row. Never playing this civ again despite the awesome leader screen.

I got a bonus which basically made the dude a great general....another with a flanking bonus....I guess I got lucky because it rocked big time.

 

[Gamewizard]

Kris swordsmen are awesome if you have the iron to spam them. Invulnerability (extra defense & extra 20 healing) and then get them to march (heal every turn) and you have a superman unit. Recruitment (insta heal after killing a unit) plus blitz is a good combo as well.

Indonesia is a good civ for the honor tree. Faster build times and extra experience.

 

[steveg700]

Good lord lol...."Evil Spirits" on my third try. -10% when attacking, -30% when defending. I had to double-take to make sure those were both minuses. It's like they completely rejected the idea of the curse being a trade-off, and just figured it should be a total hosejob.

Now, it was archers that I killed both times. Maybe the quality has to do with the quality of the kill? I'm just grasping here. This is actually pretty badly designed. It's patch-meat, assuming we make the effort to complain about it enough.

 

[ptoss1]

Good lord lol...."Evil Spirits" on my third try. -10% when attacking, -30% when defending. I had to double-take to make sure those were both minuses. It's like they completely rejected the idea of the curse being a trade-off, and just figured it should be a total hosejob.

Now, it was archers that I killed both times. Maybe the quality has to do with the quality of the kill? I'm just grasping here. This is actually pretty badly designed. It's patch-meat, assuming we make the effort to complain about it enough.

It has nothing to do with the unit you fought. It's completely random. Total RNG.
I know it probably seems too bad to be true but yes, the only UU for Indonesia is actually a nerf to the regular unit. Watch as a regular swordsmen obliterates your Kris. Ofc you can get the op upgrades.

Invulnerability: +30% Combat Bonus when defending. +20 HP when healing
Sneak Attack: Flank attack bonus increased by 50%
Heroism: Unit awards combat bonus to nearby units as if it is a Great General
Ambition: +50% Combat Bonus when attacking. -20% penalty when defending
Restlessness: May attack twice, 1 extra movement
Recruitment: Heals all damage if the unit kills a non-Barbarian unit
Enemy Blade: Takes 20 damage if the unit ends its turn in enemy territory
Evil Spirits: -10% penalty when attacking. -30% penalty when defending

Essentially you have a 2/8 chance on all your Kris to be completely useless. Unfortunately if you are strapped for iron, that 2/8 chance is pretty darn horrible.

 

[Karmah]

Now THIS is an actual issue. Randomness in strategic games is not that good to begin with but you can have one civ based on it , after all ....but this is bad randomness , a full nerf promotion ???
You should never ever make an extreme outcome on a roll , whatever the odds , it s anti fun when it happens. Turning your unit into an unkillable one or getting it trashed on promotion makes no sense at all.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Do these promotions stick with the unit if it upgrades?

 

[ptoss1]

Do these promotions stick with the unit if it upgrades?

Yes. They are forever.
Bad promotion, money/production wasted.
Good promotion, hope next one isn't bad.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

At least with Enemy Blade, you can still use it as a regular swordsman in your own territory and neutral territory.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Yes. They are forever.
Bad promotion, money/production wasted.
Good promotion, hope next one isn't bad.

Thanks for the response .

At least with Enemy Blade, you can still use it as a regular swordsman in your own territory and neutral territory.

I was thinking that. I use a swordsman as a defender in each city, upgrading it gradually through the unit line up to the Mech Infantry.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Guys, please stop moaning, other abilities are godlike so I have no problem with one bad among eight others (as Eagle Pursuit noticed Enemy Blade is fine when used within your borders).

Indonesia is strong.

 

[crawf0rd]

Can i claim to be the first to get Indonesia's special achievement? I got it by total accident on the 9th.

 

[Dysus]

I see people complaining that Indo are useless on pangea maps... I played a game on continents plus and so I set up two of my first three settlers on one tile islands off the coast and guess what - I got the unique luxury! It might seem that the word 'continents' is misleading as any land not on the main continent is considered as 'another' continent. Of course each piece of land cannot be connected. Honestly in my game I simply spammed out the settlers, settled them, and suffered no happiness penalty, plus got +12 happiness as i immediately traded the unique luxs to other civs to keep nice and friendly in diplomacy.

Basically Indo can easily get +12 happiness from their unique ability soon after optics - since 'other continents' really just refers to 'separate pieces of land not on your current continent'.

After you get cargo ships from these settled 'spice islands' (that's the unique ability trait name) you can send food to Jakarta and make it and incredible mega city (I think the developers intended this to mimic real life, as Jakarta is one of the biggest cities in the world)

The +12 happiness is great as it allows for you to either go wide (say by combining with religion) or tall (send food from spice islands to capital + candi for great people).

 

[Morningcalm]

Can i claim to be the first to get Indonesia's special achievement? I got it by total accident on the 9th.

Bah, I upgraded the Kris Swordsman with Enemy Blade to a Longswordsman, and took a city with him, but did not get the achievement. It looks like the unit MUST be a Kris Swordsman.