(2-03) Proposal: Transfer Polynesia's ability to build fishing boats with melee naval units to Carthage.

[Legen]

Proposal:

The part "Melee Naval Units can construct Fishing Boats" from Polynesia's UA is moved to Carthage's UA.

Rationale:

The ability to improve sea resources with melee naval units had its share of frustrations for Polynesia and, formerly, Japan. At first, you want to use its potential to save gold/production from your cities from not needing to spend on fishing boats. The main issue is that the earliest melee naval unit is unlocked at Sailing, one tech column later than fishing boats. By the time your first trireme is built, you should already have built some fishing boats and improved the sea resources within your borders, leaving that ability for niche situations instead.

Carthage addresses this issue cleanly by having a UU trireme that unlocks earlier at Fishing, the same tech in which you unlock fishing boats. This civ can then benefit immediately, making it the most sensible civ to have this ability.

 

[nekokon]

That UA isn't meant to benefits your very first city, but every single cities you found after that, with extremely low cost of 1 trireme. Already balanced enough.
Being able to improve resource at the very start of the game with almost zero cost is extremely op. Stealing worker strat got nerf significantly due to this very same reason.

 

[pineappledan]

I would actually prefer to have an ancient galley boat available at fishing and push trireme back to late classical. Then Phoenicia can unlock the Quinquereme early at Sailing.

That would give Polynesia a boat unlocked at the same tech as fishing for their UA, and it would resolve Phoenicia's problem of having all the goodies from sailing either given for free by its UA or moved off the tech.

 

[Legen]

That UA isn't meant to benefits your very first city, but every single cities you found after that, with extremely low cost of 1 trireme. Already balanced enough.
Being able to improve resource at the very start of the game with almost zero cost is extremely op. Stealing worker strat got nerf significantly due to this very same reason.

Balanced by being borderline useless. This isn't a good design: it sets expectations in the minds of the players and delivers frustration instead. I've experienced it a long time before with Japan and you can see the same in the archived Polynesia thread. There, it attracted quite some discussion, including suggestions to make land units to create fishing boats instead. There's even this comment there:

People seem awfully pissy for reasons I can't understand re: the workboat thing.

So, it clearly left a bad taste on many of those that played Polynesia. Carthage has the potential to make it an actually fun ability without needing any extra change.

And about your concern that it would be op, Carthage's design revolves around being frontloaded with lots of free stuff in Ancient Era and falling off relatively fast in the following eras. This ability is in line with the civ's intended strengths and weaknesses and isn't likely to drastically change the civ's balance and dynamic. It is actually tame compared to the rest of their kit, and that kit shows that you can have such frontloaded stuff without breaking the game.

I would actually prefer to have an ancient galley boat available at fishing and push trireme back to late classical. Then Phoenicia can unlock the Quinquereme early at Sailing.

That would give Polynesia a boat unlocked at the same tech as fishing for their UA, and it would resolve Phoenicia's problem of having all the goodies from sailing either given for free by its UA or moved off the tech.

I wouldn't say stuff coming earlier counts as a problem when playing Carthage. If anything, your idea causes a lot of problems to Carthage by messing the timing of their UU: no early reconnaissance xp, delayed CS tributes, no longer getting off before their rivals can build a navy, likely costing more gold to purchase, introducing a dilemma on whether to delay naval exploration until the UU is unlocked for the Reconnaissance experience (on a civ that needs and is meant to be extremely active in the Ancient Era), and so on.

 

[pineappledan]

I wouldn't say stuff coming earlier counts as a problem when playing Carthage. If anything, your idea causes a lot of problems to Carthage by messing the timing of their UU: no early reconnaissance xp, delayed CS tributes, no longer getting off before their rivals can build a navy, likely costing more gold to purchase, introducing a dilemma on whether to delay naval exploration until the UU is unlocked for the Reconnaissance experience (on a civ that needs and is meant to be extremely active in the Ancient Era), and so on.

Moving the Quinquereme back from fishing to sailing takes it from needing 3 techs to 5. Still very rushable, and not a significant delay to naval scouting.

The Quinquereme is a classical ship, a modification and expansion of a trireme, and I never much cared for its small window as the only ship in the game, which is both not very historical and very asymmetric with other players. It's the only case of a civ gaining early access to an entire unit domain.

I'll make a proposal to outline it soon.

 

[DeAnno]

Moving the Quinquereme back from fishing to sailing takes it from needing 3 techs to 5. Still very rushable, and not a significant delay to naval scouting.

As of now Quinqs take two techs. I agree pushing them off of fishing pretty much ruins the ways you actually use them as Carthage.

A lot about Carthage is OP for the sake of being OP like the city gold and the trade routes but I think the UU is the actually cool part of the set and I don't like the idea of messing with it.

 

[Rekk]

Why not let Polynesian land units improve resources at Fishing? They have a unique model for being embarked.

 

[Legen]

Why not let Polynesian land units improve resources at Fishing? They have a unique model for being embarked.

It's a good alternative, if you want to make a counterproposal. I just think that giving the original ability to Carthage is more elegant for two reasons:

• Timing. You can't improve sea resources until you have researched Fishing. Carthage has incentives to focus on this tech due to the Quinquereme, while Polynesia tends to focus Construction instead to unlock the Moai.
• This enhances Carthage's uniqueness, as no other civ is able to make such good use of the "naval units can build fishing boats" ability as they can. Meanwhile, any civ could use an "embarked land units can build fishing boats" at Fishing just as well as Polynesia, so it wouldn't enhance their identity nearly as much.

 

[KlHannibal2]

Regarding the original proposal: I don't like that the stroger civ (Carthage) is boosted and the weaker civ (Polynesia) is nerfed.

 

[Legen]

I can sponsor this.

 

[Rekk]

Note that if https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/2-17-proposal-early-naval-unit-rework.680296/ or its counterproposal is passed, then this proposal loses its rationale and there is no reason for it to exist. It just steals an ability from Polynesia to give to Carthage, without changing how early either civilization would be able to use it.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by legen.