Askia

[Heinz_Guderian]

I have noticed that the description doesn't add up, but I thought I was stupid and missed something. Turns it I was right and the game is wrong then. We should change this ASAP

 

[pineappledan]

Like yeah individual Songhai unique components are fairly strong, but they're in no way the strongest. Yeah AI askia tend to steamroll other AI that settles cities on rivers, but the iroquois steamrolls anyone that starts in forest/jungle the exact same way. The Manducav is strong, but is it stronger than the cataphract? Not really. It is stronger the the conqusitador, but honestly the conquistador is pretty garbage as far as UUs go.
The Tabya is a solid UB, but that's also the only economic boost that the civlization has. If you gut it, can it compare to the Hun UI or the Ger or the Floating garden?

Regarding the rest of your comment @Gizmoman, I think you're way off base.

Yes, the Mandekalu Cavalry is, in fact, as strong as the cataphract. The cataphract has a much higher CS for its era, but the MandCav city malus reduction is stronger, and comes at a time when melee attacking cities is much more viable, the raider promotion it gets is much stronger than any bonus the Cataphract has, and it has the full 4 movement of a horse unit. And it's dirt cheap at 90; It's one of the strongest, most efficient UUs in the game, by itself.

The Tabya is very comparable to the Iroquois Longhouse but it is strictly better.

• It boosts rivers, which is just better than forests for many reasons:
  • They are already high value tiles that can be improved much earlier than forests.
  • They boost Flood Plains
  • You can put high value improvements like Great Person tiles and villages on them, but those would remove Iroquois' boosted forests
  • Rivers can't be removed, so you won't get any fewer of them for conquering foreign cities later.
• It is a stone works replacement that doesn't have the stoneworks' prerequisite quarry, so It's a building that most civs don't get the opportunity to build in all their cities.
  • It allows production ITRs from all cities much earlier
  • You can start building them immediately, instead of waiting for a nearby quarry resource to be claimed/improved
• In addition to this, the Tabya gives +10%towards buildings. The Longhouse has no comparable 3rd bonus.
• You mention the floating garden, which also boosts river tiles, but is much later, but not really much stronger. It's on rivers is worse than Tabya's on rivers. Its % during GAs is not really any better than +10% to all buildings.

So no, the Tabya is also an absolutely top-tier building as well.

So yes, the Songhai really do have an S-tier UA, an S-tier UU, and at least an A tier UB. Compare to Iroquois who have a very similar — but strictly weaker — UA, a very similar — but strictly weaker — UB, and a somewhat rubbish, C or B tier UU, depending on who you ask. They are very much fair game to be criticized for having no real weak links.

 

[Stalker0]

PAD highlighted the mechanical reasons, but we should also respect that in several pollings of strongest or most difficult AIs, Songhai consistently rose to the top.

It seems the community generally agrees that Songhai is a cut above the rest.

Aka if any civ is worthy of a nerf it’s Songhai

 

[Gizmoman]

Regarding the rest of your comment @Gizmoman, I think you're way off base.

Yes, the Mandekalu Cavalry is, in fact, as strong as the cataphract. The cataphract has a much higher CS for its era, but the MandCav city malus reduction is stronger, and comes at a time when melee attacking cities is much more viable, the raider promotion it gets is much stronger than any bonus the Cataphract has, and it has the full 4 movement of a horse unit. And it's dirt cheap at 90; It's one of the strongest, most efficient UUs in the game, by itself.

The Tabya is very comparable to the Iroquois Longhouse but it is strictly better.

• It boosts rivers, which is just better than forests for many reasons:
  • They are already high value tiles that can be improved much earlier than forests.
  • They boost Flood Plains
  • You can put high value improvements like Great Person tiles and villages on them, but those would remove Iroquois' boosted forests
  • Rivers can't be removed, so you won't get any fewer of them for conquering foreign cities later.
• It is a stone works replacement that doesn't have the stoneworks' prerequisite quarry, so It's a building that most civs don't get the opportunity to build in all their cities.
  • It allows production ITRs from all cities much earlier
  • You can start building them immediately, instead of waiting for a nearby quarry resource to be claimed/improved
• In addition to this, the Tabya gives +10%towards buildings. The Longhouse has no comparable 3rd bonus.
• You mention the floating garden, which also boosts river tiles, but is much later, but not really much stronger. It's on rivers is worse than Tabya's on rivers. Its % during GAs is not really any better than +10% to all buildings.

So no, the Tabya is also an absolutely top-tier building as well.

So yes, the Songhai really do have an S-tier UA, an S-tier UU, and at least an A tier UB. Compare to Iroquois who have a very similar — but strictly weaker — UA, a very similar — but strictly weaker — UB, and a somewhat rubbish, C or B tier UU, depending on who you ask. They are very much fair game to be criticized for having no real weak links.

I was going off the knight Manducav, I still haven't actually seen it as a horseman, sorry. As a knight I don't think it's better than the cataphract, the ability to use tiledefense is massively undervalued.

As for the Longhouse, I honestly still feel like the Longhouse is one of the worst UBs in the entire game, and that's part of the reason why I never consider playing Iroquois. Yet Iroquois is probably among my top most annoying AI to face, the fact that they barely does anything after the medieval era doesn't matter because their insanely strong mohawk push that murders anyone close by is not a fun mechanic to deal with.

As far as the Floating garden being much later, it's just one tech, right? Also, feels like you kinda disregarding the yield per citizen bonuses of the floating garden, not saying it's way superior to the Tabya, they're too different to really be directly compared, but I don't think it's worse.

For other similar era uniques it's kinda hard to compare. Like how do you compare an infrastructure UB like the Tabya to a conquest power building like the Ikanda or the war-engine that is the Roman Arena. Can you compare the Tabya to the Terrace farm or the Eki? I think in general the Terrace Farm and the Eki generates more yields, but they also require more investment.

PAD highlighted the mechanical reasons, but we should also respect that in several pollings of strongest or most difficult AIs, Songhai consistently rose to the top.

It seems the community generally agrees that Songhai is a cut above the rest.

Aka if any civ is worthy of a nerf it’s Songhai

'Difficult AI to deal with' does not mean 'strong civ', as mentioned before, I find the Iroquois to be a nightmare to deal with, but I wouldn't even put them in my top 15 civs.


If one wants to adjust Songhai, which maybe they do need maybe they don't, what could you remove? Most suggestions I've seen you make here are bonkers, removing the +10% bonus to buildings from the Tabya would make it way worse than other UBs and would also make Songhai even more geography dependent, since their UB would literally do nothing without a river. Remove river-crossing from the UA would make the river movement borderline worthless. Moving the Manducav to the Knight slot? Yeah I'm still not sure why it was ever moved away from there.
If Askia treats river-tiles as roads outside of friendly territory, then yeah that's probably something that could be adjusted, just making them cost the same as flatlands is imho enough.


This is pretty weird, because it's actually a buff, but I'm kinda curious if it wouldn't make more sense to have the UA make city-connections with any freshwater tiles? It represents some sort of boat culture, right? I always found it weird that it would be stopped by lakes. Anyways this would just make more sense to me, no need to take it overly into consideration.

 

[pineappledan]

I don't think the Tabya needs to be touched.
If the UA ignored terrain along rivers (ie every tile costs 1 to cross), that would be way weaker. That would be a great change that both nerfed Songhai and made their UA easier to understand.
Mandekalu Cavalry coming at knight is a big nerf. +1 CS at knight is 4% stronger, while +1 CS at horseman is 8% stronger. Also castles exist.
I would also suggest that War Canoes promotion should be dropped. It's not really contributing to the Songhai's OP-ness, but it's not helping either.

• The Songhai weren't a seafaring civilization, so the war canoes bonuses aren't particularly relevant.
• The amphibious bonuses are stronger and less situational anyways, and it's a bit much for a civ to get 2 UA promotions on a single unit type.
• The visibility while embarked from War Canoes overlaps with Polynesia's UA. It's stronger too, on a civ that it makes less sense for

 

[Gizmoman]

I don't think the Tabya needs to be touched.
If the UA ignored terrain along rivers (ie every tile costs 1 to cross), that would be way weaker. That would be a great change that both nerfed Songhai and made their UA easier to understand.
Mandekalu Cavalry coming at knight is a big nerf. +1 CS at knight is 4% stronger, while +1 CS at horseman is 8% stronger. Also castles exist.
I would also suggest that War Canoes promotion should be dropped. It's not really contributing to the Songhai's OP-ness, but it's not helping either.

• The Songhai weren't a seafaring civilization, so the war canoes bonuses aren't particularly relevant.
• The amphibious bonuses are stronger and less situational anyways, and it's a bit much for a civ to get 2 UA promotions on a single unit type.
• The visibility while embarked from War Canoes overlaps with Polynesia's UA. It's stronger too, on a civ that it makes less sense for

Yeah Manducav being a knight instead of a horseman would definitely make them weaker, but it would make a whole lot more sense as well, and that's also how they were initially.
The only loss I can think of from getting rid of War canoes is that you can't attack from lakes anymore (the extra defense while embarked kinda made that viable), that said, maybe amphibious should already provide extra defense while embarked (even if amphibious is already a pretty strong promotion).

 

[KlHannibal2]

I don't think the Tabya needs to be touched.
If the UA ignored terrain along rivers (ie every tile costs 1 to cross), that would be way weaker. That would be a great change that both nerfed Songhai and made their UA easier to understand.
Mandekalu Cavalry coming at knight is a big nerf. +1 CS at knight is 4% stronger, while +1 CS at horseman is 8% stronger. Also castles exist.
I would also suggest that War Canoes promotion should be dropped. It's not really contributing to the Songhai's OP-ness, but it's not helping either.

• The Songhai weren't a seafaring civilization, so the war canoes bonuses aren't particularly relevant.
• The amphibious bonuses are stronger and less situational anyways, and it's a bit much for a civ to get 2 UA promotions on a single unit type.
• The visibility while embarked from War Canoes overlaps with Polynesia's UA. It's stronger too, on a civ that it makes less sense for

That would be 3 nerfs in total. I feel that's too much. As I stated before, in my experience Zulus snowball more often and more consistently than Songhai. It seems other people have a different opinion. However, I play with 3/4 UC, where Mandekalus are knights. That might be the reason for the different observations.

My point is, with Mandekalus as knights, Songahi already is nerfed to some degree. Why not try this change first and see how it goes? If people still consider them OP, add other nerfs.

 

[Bruhmoment]

I just played a game as Askia and holy crap I really need to turn the difficulty back to King.
Very nice production, but if you tech slow you won't get the mandes quick enough. You could say this is like the Iroquois (was in my game and attacks me with an army even though he's 500km away, the prick) in that you need rivers in order to benefit from the UA, and you aren't wrong. If you have few rivers, I'm not sure if the difference would be big enough, or generally just miniscule to do anything
Songhai snowball, but not everytime. They might conquer but if they don't, all they will be top in is production. Shaka in my games just doesn't... conquer much.
Make sure the rivers aren't plains or you'll have really bad growth.
Sadly they can't defend that well against a 4 (YES, 4) front war.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Actually maybe not, I played as songhai again and oh my god, does the snowball get rolling when you conquer a civ...
I think pdan's tweak mod buffs the mande even more considering they have more combat strength. The only civ to not need trebs to conquer...
Just put some sofas and mandes together and boom - easy city takes.
You just need to conquer a FEW cities and you'll have a crap ton of gold and start the production

 

[pineappledan]

Just nerfed the sofa in 4UC, so hopefully that helps.

Songhai continues to be a problem. I am convinced at this point that the main culprit is the river movement. Double-wide roads that are indestructible and exclusive to Songhai, that allow you to not only ignore terrain like hills and forest, but move faster through them than flat terrain, allowing your siege weapons not just +1 moves in enemy terrain like Sweden, but +2, increased to 5 at machinery, move *Twice* and shoot. Paired with a very strong, early production bonus on empire, and they are basically uncounterable.

Gameplay-wise, I also find it quite unsatisfactory, because the river as roads bonus mimics the Iroquois forest as roads bonus, but is better in several ways, like not being removable, and the game otherwise promoting your enemies to settle on rivers, giving Songhai consistent access to foreign cities in favourable terrain. The War canoes bonus also gives bonuses to vision on embarked units, another direct overlap with a civ: Polynesia. Many players have also voiced concern that the free amphibious and bonus defense on embarkation overlaps in theme with Denmark’s embarked bonuses too much. Overall, Songhai’s bonuses feel like they pull from a few, more cohesive civs that execute on the same ideas better while staying more balanced.

Here is my proposal for how River Warlord could work differently:

River Warlord
All land units gain the War Canoes promotion. Triple Gold from clearing barbarian encampments and Conquering Cities. Rivers create City Connections.

War Canoes promotion:
Crossing rivers costs 1 movement, and no penalty for attacking over rivers.
Costs no movement, and can move after attack while on River tiles.

Songhai loses the bonuses to embarked attacking that they previously had with amphibious, and the bonus defense and vision while embarked that War Canoes used to give.

so, Songhai don’t necessarily move faster, but their entire army can attack-move and kite on rivers. River movement can still be countered with ZOC. This bonus works best on ranged units, who won’t trigger ZOC on attack, and can extend their river attacks out 2 tiles from the river, while keeping the movement bonus. This minimizes the overlapping bonuses on mounted units like their UU, although they still do get some benefit from it, especially when attacking into rough terrain. No cost to attack is also a unique mechanic, that separates Songhai from Iroquois road-like movement, and Inca’s ignore movement.

Edit: After some investigation into the code, we determined that killing a unit on a river with melee and moving into the tile, for various reasons, would still constitute a move. Thus, melee-attacking a unit would be movement-free, but killing that same unit would still cost movement.

 

[Rekk]

Hmm. Generally, bonuses care about what tile is being attacked into. In this case, archers who attack tiles that aren't connected to rivers wouldn't get their movement bonus.

that's pretty awkward, though. You would have archers who are nowhere near the river attacking a river tile and getting the movement bonus.

Given it's new code anyway, this promotion could look at the unit's starting tile.

 

[KlHannibal2]

Just nerfed the sofa in 4UC, so hopefully that helps.

Songhai continues to be a problem. I am convinced at this point that the main culprit is the river movement. Double-wide roads that are indestructible and exclusive to Songhai, that allow you to not only ignore terrain like hills and forest, but move faster through them than flat terrain, allowing your siege weapons not just +1 moves in enemy terrain like Sweden, but +2, increased to 5 at machinery, move *Twice* and shoot. Paired with a very strong, early production bonus on empire, and they are basically uncounterable.

Gameplay-wise, I also find it quite unsatisfactory, because the river as roads bonus mimics the Iroquois forest as roads bonus, but is better in several ways, like not being removable, and the game otherwise promoting your enemies to settle on rivers, giving Songhai consistent access to foreign cities in favourable terrain. The War canoes bonus also gives bonuses to vision on embarked units, another direct overlap with a civ: Polynesia. Many players have also voiced concern that the free amphibious and bonus defense on embarkation overlaps in theme with Denmark’s embarked bonuses too much. Overall, Songhai’s bonuses feel like they pull from a few, more cohesive civs that execute on the same ideas better while staying more balanced.

Here is my proposal for how River Warlord could work differently:

River Warlord
All land units gain the War Canoes promotion. Triple Gold from clearing barbarian encampments and Conquering Cities. Rivers create City Connections.

War Canoes promotion:
Crossing rivers costs 1 movement, and no penalty for attacking over rivers.
Costs no movement, and can move after attack while on River tiles.

Songhai loses the bonuses to embarked attacking that they previously had with amphibious, and the bonus defense and vision while embarked that War Canoes used to give.

so, Songhai don’t necessarily move faster, but their entire army can attack-move and kite on rivers. River movement can still be countered with ZOC. This bonus works best on ranged units, who won’t trigger ZOC on attack, and can extend their river attacks out 2 tiles from the river, while keeping the movement bonus. This minimizes the overlapping bonuses on mounted units like their UU, although they still do get some benefit from it, especially when attacking into rough terrain. No cost to attack is also a unique mechanic, that separates Songhai from Iroquois road-like movement, and Inca’s ignore movement.

Edit: After some investigation into the code, we determined that killing a unit on a river with melee and moving into the tile, for various reasons, would still constitute a move. Thus, melee-attacking a unit would be movement-free, but killing that same unit would still cost movement.

These suggestions sound reasonable. I also think the river movement is the crucial factor here. I ran some AI only games on huge maps. On pangea maps with long river systems, Songhai can snowball like no other. I even witnessed a game where Songhai AI was well on the way to get a domination victory done. The game crashed eventually because he had too many units. He started on a river system and took out several AIs that were on these rivers. Then he had enough critical mass and was not blocked by chokepoints. So he killed most of the other AIs until it crashed.

When Songhai does not have a river connection to other AIs, he hardly gets to conquer anything though.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

The biggest problem with River movement bonuses is that Rivers will always consume all movement. Unlike, with Hills, Forest, etc. where your mounted/ armored units can have enough movement to still get around. Rivers are one of the biggest hurdles GDR's would face.

 

[Rekk]

The biggest problem with River movement bonuses is that Rivers will always consume all movement. Unlike, with Hills, Forest, etc. where your mounted/ armored units can have enough movement to still get around. Rivers are one of the biggest hurdles GDR's would face.

Except in this case, all land units would cross rivers at the cost of one move.

 

[azum4roll]

This is my spin on it (copied from Discord):
River Warlord: Triple Gold from pillaging Encampments and Cities. Units ignore terrain costs when adjacent to rivers. Land Units gain the War Canoes Promotion. Rivers create City Connections.
War Canoes: Attacking while adjacent to a river costs no Movement, has no Combat Strength penalty, and can move after attacking.

Same thing, but units get to keep ignoring terrain costs on all river movements instead of while crossing rivers only. It's also linked to the trait instead of the promotion (so units gifted to CS won't get to keep it, for example).

Main reason for this is that while rivers create City Connections, movement between cities is very slow with only a cross-river bonus, so you end up having to build roads anyway.

 

[pineappledan]

Rather than switching to being a ripoff of the Iroquois to being a ripoff of the Inca, why not just get rid of the city connections?

If it is so necessary that faster movement accompany connections, but we've already established that is very busted on Askia, then maybe it's best to leave that behind? It's one more thing that overlaps with the Iroquois as well. They will still have their +1 on all river tiles.

You could increase the Gold on Encampment clear and city capture from 3x to 4x or more in exchange. That's the 1 actually unique thing from Songhai's whole kit, and it's the least impactful right now:

River Warlord
All land units gain the War Canoes promotion. Quadruple Gold from clearing barbarian encampments and Conquering Cities.

War Canoes promotion:
Crossing rivers costs 1 movement, and no penalty for attacking over rivers.
Costs no movement, and can move after attack while on River tiles.