Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
This thread is intended to discuss the comparative strength of the Lanun previous to .33, where they were changed from using workers to build coves, to using workboats to build coves. The bonus yield of coves was also increased slightly at this point.
Discussion also whether or not the decrease in yield of coves in .34 is warranted or not.
Comments thus far:
Discussion also whether or not the decrease in yield of coves in .34 is warranted or not.
Comments thus far:
Blackmantle said:
Many, many complaints about an "utter overpoweredness" that was in reality beeing a nerf. (it was harder to do before, not less powerful. But people just took care to look at the numbers and jumped to conclusions.)
Don't try to discuss this much though (just an advice Lest you wan't to argue with a wall or want to be called a lanun-fanboy who has no clue really.), those people complaining won't really take time to even consider that fact.
If 100 people find this way overpowered because its simple to use (and was likely so hard to effectively use before than many people didn't really bother with it.) and has a big effect there is no point in a few people pointing out that its a nerf sadly. You won't really convince them.
But one thing is to consider which might give the critics credibility.
If those complainers whould have known and taken the time to actually use the real power of the old coves (grand yields from terraforming, including more food + tactical value + acess to sea-buildings for most / all of your cities) they whould have likely complained even far more. So what i wrote above isn't really a proof that their claims are wrong.
Just that the reason why those complaints were raised after a nerf seems rather very very odd. (And the main reason for the first nerf / cove enhancement was AI inability as well as player-comfort. So a very sound one.)
Especially if even just for the economic part the maths isn't all that hard...
Zechnophobe Said:
The difference between worker based coves and non worker based coves:
Worker:
You can do a little terraforming to increase the size of inland lakes, and occasionally connect routes otherwise unconnectable.
Allows some cities to get more ports than they otherwise would, by settling next to inland lakes they couldn't otherwise get to.
Can build a worker while researching fishing, to get an 'insta' cove on turn 25 to 34 (Depending on initial commerce).
Capital is size one when you get fishing. (Maybe two).
Workboat:
Big thing, is the cost difference. A work boat costs 30 production, and a Worker costs 75. You do get to add growth to the worker, but have the major cost of not growing.
City is size 3 or 4 on average when you get fishing, meaning you can work water tiles as well as production tiles while building a work boat. Immediate GNP boost is roughly equivalent.
Further more, a single high production city, such as your capital, can very quickly build cheap 30 prod work boats, to follow after a newly produced settler.
Coverage: At first blush it appears that you can always get more pirate coves from workers than workboats, because workers can work off of inland lakes. This isn't necessarily true.
First of all, a city on a peninsula, can often harber (pun!) 2 or three boats, while not sacrificing its PRECIOUS land squares, which produce hammers. The total productive output of the city increases more when creating a port at sea than from a land square (most of the time).
Consider:
Plains has 1 food 1 production. Old pirate Ports would change this into a 3 food, 1 production, 5 commerce square, a gain of <b>2/0/5</b>. (or 1/1/5 if you converted a grassland)
Coast produces 2 Food and 3 trade. New pirate Ports(.33) upgraded them to 4 food, 2 Prod, 9 commerce, a gain of <b>2/2/6</b>
Note only is the final better in yeild, but the interum effects are also greater. That worker gets to be a pirate cove right away, but turns a grassland or plains (Heaven forbid one with a forest on it!) into a 2 food 3 commerce tile, just like all the coast you have.
Whereas you immediately get a solid +2 commerce boost from the .33 pirate coves.
lastly, I think it is important to note the difference in production again. Any fishing based economy has felt the pangs of productionless that a Lanun empire fields. With the .33 workboats, not only did you get a greater yeild from your pirate ports, but doubled the amount of production you got, which accrues quicker (Due to cheap work boats vs workers).
Blackmantle said:
My experience is mainly with the worker-Lanun from playing quite some games (of highly intensive micromanagement and tests from early-midgame to somewhat around Turn 500. And yes, it was tendious + extremely heavy in planning before coving.
With 10-20 cities being all connected to the ocean as well as sorounded by large lakes of freshwater and quite some ports in the end of the game. Not much land left and also not needed. Lanun Navy is neat. And the overlords kick butt out there on the Sea. ).
The work-boat lanun is a simple-maths affair (i couldn't possibly reach on a global scale what i had been able to reach with cove-terraforming lanun. In all stages expept perhapse some minor! spots in early game around turn 50-80. But those don't stretch for more than 10-20 Turns, the difference in yields is minimal during that time and turn sour all to fast in comparison because of roughly turn 30-50 and roughly turn 80 to games end.).
But what you depict as disadvantages are actually mostly advantages.
Mainly workers building with food actually makes Workers (from early-midgame until conquest / slavery or some other way to rush / utilize food as production) a faster build than boats for some time (in the old best city-setup which is different from what is now) despite their way higher cost (also note that workers can be captured from other civs while workboats cannot. And quite improtantly for early coves beeing able to be pre-built and pre-used for other things as seen fit. As soon as you get fishing you can build your first cove. I belive even earlier / that you didn't need to work them actively. But that might have been a bug and wasn't all that viable really because workers could do other valuable things.).
You clearly seem to underestimate how easy it was (as worker-cove Lanun) to get to the point were you could build a worker in 1-3 turns. I mean it! Firsthand experience.
Happycap and Healthcap are hard limits (which were very easy to reach as Lanun with the old coves and freshwater yields + early-cove output) so utilizing food as production is soo good that conquest and slavery (which are also not very late civics especially for a civ with a heavy focus on economy.) have been very viable for them. (unlike now and unlike quite some other civs).
In a way that xp-giving civics are for Sidar and aristocracy + agriculture + farm-economy are for quite some financial civs.
Also note that for Lanun lakes with coves were rather 5/1/5 squares (base 2, Lanun 1, port 1, Lighthouse 1) quite fast thanks to lighthouses (and the first cove or 2 comes earlier since you can't pre-build or pre-capture a workboat.) which are an early build for lanun (at least for the old lanun.).
You might be right that in some rare instances a city might be able to run more ports or at least with much less investment (which whould hard-force you to settle there which i belive should be clearly weaker than free-choice settling and still having all! the benefits of costal cities + lots of water).
But on Empire scale you could overall run 3-4 Ports per city (yes i mean every single city in your whole empire. Yes this takes very very long to get realized and is extremely intensive in micromanagement and planning, hence me saying i can see quite some sensible reasons for a change both from AI-perspective as from player-perspective) instead of a bit less than 2 on average (unless you strongly let your settling been dictated by outline of terrain which is a disadvantage in and of itself unlike an actual advantage of terrain before). Roughly a bit less than double the ammount of ports per city overall possible in max + all the terraformed lakes which are produced after razing ports.
(which all offer an additional food makeing those tiles 4/0/2 tiles (with lighthouses) modified by trait even without a cove (so 4/0/3 with Hannah). All in all yielding an additional food per tile at least.) + offer all! the additional advantages of costal cities (like Harbors + Lighthouses).
Then add that you can't conveniently pick on a single tile-yield but have to substract the measly yield of non-lake water-tiles on a whole-city tile-yield as well. Especially those not adjacent to Land which can easily make the additional commerce-yield of one full port moot (for example in case of Hannah and 3 Ocean-Tiles Which means 6 commerce! and 3 Food lost in comparison to worker-coves. Or in a more average case of 2 ocean-squares still 4 commerce and 2 Food. Which is roughly the difference between an old port and a new one.).
Is it easier to utilize the new coves (not in terms of power / net yields but by sheer time)? Clearly yes (you needed really lots of workers with the old coves. But with one built a turn or 2 (in bigger improved cities 3-4 in nonimproved) quite fast that is not taking a long time. Also note that non-costal cities can't build workboats. While inland-cities can. Further enhancing the number of workers which can be build in a comparable time.).
Is it stronger overall? Very very rarely it might in case of some few cities. On Empire Scale? Clearly no.
On experience with the old lanun. Their economy easily trumphed most other civs. That it was possible with the new coves still (as per 0.33.) is nice (i whould have liked to see further improvements like the new wonder without making the new coves weaker. But many other players seem to disagree for various reasons. Sadly.).
But that doesn't mean its better than with the old coves (+ the old coves also added quite a hefty tactical value which is completely gone.) now with the new values that doesn't seem all so much true anymore. (In fact i can't really see a huge incentive anymore to go much costal (costal cities still seem somewhat viable unlike for other civs. But not exeptional anymore) now with those new values. Especially with Hannah.)
Production is taken care of by Slavery or Undercouncil Slave-Rushing.
And no, i never had serious production-problems as Lanun. The stop on groth might seem an issue (and is the one point im willing to concede is a clear disadvantage) and is quite micro-intensive. But for me it worked out very well.
I never had serious problems with getting either my units or my buildings build from early midgame on.
Also since getting acess to coast without beeing tied to geography made it easier to settle in production-heavy terrain. No need to convert 3-4 hills each city because you need some strips of land to prevent your lakes from turning ocean anyways (more than 7 tiles for a body of water turn it to an ocean i belive).
My output of buildings and units was on-par with a normal empire from early-midgame on. Exept perhaps for production heavy civs like dwarves or runes-orcs.
Add Guild of the nine into the mix (which i never used intensively since i never really needed it but other players used quite intensively with the lanun) and you get quite some very viable sources of units and buildings even without all so much hammers.
Flat Tile-Yields alone work not so well because you have to take into account all the other sea-tiles which offer less yield than land-tiles (thats the real payoff for the new coves). And Lanun cities do grow quite fast with old ports as they should do with new ones as in 0.33. still.
And yes im all fine with strong civs across! the board. And cities beeing self-sustained early (which was not really hard before).
Im also completely! fine with the economy of the elves and FoL + guardian (for example 5% growth rate whould have really been enough of a nerf. 3 i think is another instance of balance-nerfing gone over the top. Even though im fine with a reduction from 10% which did sound a bit hefty.).
That may be the point were we have to agree to disagree on (and likely have quite different tastes regarding the importance of a game having a really good balance.) since i doubt we whould be able to convince each other here. And i find both opinions / tastes rather valid. If different.
Balance in my opinion is grossly overvalued by many players / testers here. Especially with the AI not fully done. To much balance can indeed impede on fun for quite a number of players. Including me.
If the new wonder on the other hand whouldn't be a wonder but a regular building (able to be built in each city) instead i might change my mind about that change. (or if something additional like that is added for lanun exclusively. a half hammer for such an additional building whould sound ok as well.)
Otherwise i will play the Lanun as just a regular (financial) civ with some possibilities to settle on coast. And be a bit sad about them rather losing their strong flavor. FFH2 will remain playable for sure. But for me the game will overall be less fun. If not on a huge scale. And in my opinion without any! dire need.
PS: Also note that the Turn numbers are not only dependent on initial commoerce but also on spot you settle (Plains-hill and the likes) and difficulty.
In Emperor and above the time to reach fishing could be a bit longer even with good initial commerce and cities usually have been size 5 or 6 (or even right at the cap) before a second worker was churned out (because unlike work-boats additional workers right away werent all so hot for about another 15-30 Turns depending on lay of the land. Hence the advantage of the new coves in about turns 50-80. But those are not all so huge as you seem to belive.).
So you seem to impose the new circumstances on the old strategy for Lanun.
But circumstances have been radically different enough to allow for a different style to build, settle and grow back then. You can't really compare the situation of the old Lanun to that of the new ones. You have to play them utterly different. (Up to the point were by luck the old lanun could cut off bridges radically reducing barb-incursions and thus the need to defend.)
A small example of this beeing that those old lanun could still build a workboat for hooking up a seafood resource while at the same time running a cove. With the new ones you have to decide for the first work-boat (which builds the first cove a bit later as well) if you want a cove or the seafood-resource (or you have to pass on the seafood if the lay of the land demands to build a cove on top of it.) which likely usually means the first cove wins (perhaps even the second one) resulting in the seafood-resource/s (quite often 2 for erebus mapscript) beeing used quite some time later usually. And its far from the only situation were the basics are radically different.
Now what i could see some sense in (if the early advantage is really beeing seen as 'oh so hefty') is reducing the first one or 2 Levels of coves beeing reduced in yields a bit (at worst!).
But i definately think that reducing the yield of the final stage (ports) is a rather major mistake. The cap is also quite important for overall strength of a civ.