Standard Immortal Communitas_79 (Tech Trading On) as America. DV on Turn 390.
This was a decently fun game. I was trying out the alternate America we have been debating in the leaders forum, and of course more look at spies.
This game was almost pangea-esque in how it came out. Effectively after the early expansion it was Huns + Mongolia vs Me and Babylon. The lines of friendship and hate were set early, and they lasted throughout the ages.
Babylon and I had a major trade relationship all game. We made deals and traded goods, really cementing the friendship. We had DoF and DP the entire game, and never so much as threw a nasty glance towards each other, eventually both embracing friendom (I mean freedom!). Meanwhile, the Huns and Mongolia warred on me over and over and over and over and over again...pretty much every 10 turns we were back at it. Indonesia joined their block, and brought their strong navy to the cause. Germany was mostly a neutral party until gobbled by Mongolia, and Polynesia threw me a war every so often just to feel relevant
The wars were mostly a wash, I killed scores of units but terrain made it exceptionally difficult to push out anywhere, so its was mainly a loss of TRs to babylon that the wars kept messing with.
Eventually my patience with the Huns was done. Mongolia I could understand, but the Huns had been "civilized" by my religion and should know better! Plus I was even willing to trade with them, the ungrateful brutes. So I released the greatest weapon of war, the atomic bomb! I nuked the capital and two side cities, leaving them to stew in their stupidity. This....calmed them down
Diplomatically it was a back and forth game. I steadily accumulated votes, but CSes were gobbled across the world, and there were only 3 CS in the whole game towards the end. As the first Hegemony vote came around, I was still 7 votes from the total, and though I could buy 3 off of Babylon for a strong but reasonable price, it was not enough. So I assumed I would be settled in for a longer game. But....a twist!!!!!! Babylon actually voted for me on Hegemony! He threw me 8 votes, and I secured hegemony on the first try! I will talk about that more in my votes below.
My notes:
- Got to see the new minefield in action, and it worked reasonably well. The AI did seem a little confused by it at first, as I saw fleets get stuck on the border, and seemingly retreated back out and back in. But eventually they settled in my territory for the siege. Ultimately the 5 damage does make a difference, though it takes a bit of time. I will say though that it makes Dauntless even more dominant than it already is (and I already think its best Tier IV promotion on that side of the tree). I personally think mine fields should bypass that....otherwise I can't see myself using any of the other dreadnought Tier IVs. I know there are some vanguard lovers out there, but honestly in long sieges (which on higher difficulty is every siege), dauntless gives way more bang for the buck....and if I am now dealing with these new minefields, you just doubled its effectiveness....heck maybe tripled.
- Spy Feedback I mainly give in the separate thread where I note a lot of specific things. As far as the feel of the new system: Right when I get spies, a few screws are useful. And the defense killing screw can be very effective. But then that tapers off a cliff, and eventually I just don't care about causing a few pillages or putting in some negative growth. Most of the time, I just want yields, and that part feels too fiddly right now, missions are too short and don't scale enough later on....so it just feels like I am managing a bunch of units for little gain.
- I had some beef with the Freedom tree recently that I codified in general balance. But to put my money where my mouth is, I have been playing several freedom games to try and really nail down if my concerns are valid. My overall conclusion, there are some weaknesses that could use a look but its not as bad as I had made it out to be, and I'll update my feedback in general balance towards that end.
- So lets talk the Hegemony vote. Babylon just voted for me out of the blue, which is a part of the new diplomatic updates that allow for that. Was this reasonable or gimmicky? In this game....I will say reasonable, if there was ever a game where a civ voting for me felt right, it was this one. Babylon and I had the perfect relationship, eternal friends, eternal DPs, fought in numerous wars together, had the same ideology, and basically the entire rest of the world was out to get us. I also protected Babylon on several votes from getting sanctioned. While I think another civ voting for you in hegemony (without bribes) should be extremely rare....in this game it did make sense.
- Tourism: So after several games, the tourism balance is looking alright. Its definitely easier to get a few influential under the belt without much effort, but taking over the top culture players still requires work. There still may need to be tweaks to the late game multipliers (CN, passport, etc), as I still have worry that a player going big tourism can just go to town....but the baseline seems solid enough.
- I did take Apostolic. Overall I did get a nerf but the faith bonus is not to be underestimated. This effectively lets me spread faster than I could before, so that compensates you a little for the loss of yields. Ultimately the belief feels reasonable from my first run with it.
