barbs need an early naval unit

[trinket]

imo it's part of Polynesia's appeal. very early game you are the king of the seas, then it tapers off once others unlock sailing, then your advantage pretty much vanishes by astronomy. compared to other terrain-reliant civs theirs is quite tame.

in a slower speed game is to roam around the ocean for a number of turns off the start to find the perfect capital spot

isn't this a very risky gamble rather than an exploit? you'd need quite a lot of early game turns to make sure a spot truly is perfect, then more turns to bring the settler in, not to mention the risk of a barb camp getting spawned right over the spot. any ruin you get at that time would just be used to make up for those lost turns.
besides, other civs would also be affected. iirc Carthage is going to have a unique settler, this will affect their maritime expansion. authority civs might see less land barbs to farm early game. coasts will be more dangerous earlier which may pressure civs like Mayas to take detours in their tech tree strategy.

Initially they don't have boats and can't embark... So how is it they're able to get to all those little islands? Was Moses a barbarian?

I imagined it was the same way the Sentinelese got to their island.

 

[Tekamthi]

then your advantage pretty much vanishes

only if you let that advantage idle -- if you use it to develop further advantages, you're often in 1st place and snowballing by the time the game reaches astronomy. If not its almost always in reach. Its much easier to leverage this advantage than the other terrain advantages.

isn't this a very risky gamble rather than an exploit?

this is the very concern at issue here -- its not risky enough. Its not really risky at all to be honest -- or rather on some settings it isn't, and on those where it is, the risk is only slightly delayed starting yields, which poly's kit has contingencies available for. I've only ever abandoned games played with this start if a) i am developing mod and built a new version for test, or b) the game ctd's cuz i got too many yields pre capital (a semi-common occurrence playing this way -- i'm trying to report them all as i find them). Sometimes the play is a bit of a push, in that you get a little more yields from extra goodies found via 3 sets of scouting eyes off the start, but the improved capital position is only marginal -- such is civ.

the risk of a barb camp getting spawned right over the spot

you'll likely have a maori warrior nearby, and the likelihood of a camp occuring in the exact spot you want is pretty much nil. What you're more likely to encounter is you'll have vision on all but 1-2 inland plots and just assume its safe to land and found. 1/100 times those non-visible plots will have a hidden barb ready to capture. But you should play with one of your other units nearby to rendez-vous and help land. A few less plots revealed for guaranteed safety, and the ability to found directly next to camp for even more boosts to this strat.

you'd need quite a lot of early game turns to make sure a spot truly is perfect, then more turns to bring the settler in, not to mention the risk of a barb camp getting spawned right over the spot

this is very much dependent on map & gamespeed, but on standard map with earth-like land/water proportions, you can use the 1st 10 turns of standard speed no prob, plenty of time for revealing the immediate surroundings and at least confirming whether starting plot is where you should be for moai. Recall that using your settler in water gives it same moves as scout with upgraded vision over most players' actual scout. Thats like 20-30+ plots revealed per turn that others aren't getting. Plus the warrior can do this too. Fully optimized you should be revealing up to ~50 plots per turn that nobody else is revealing, with maybe ~half of these land plots (i'm just spitballing here, but the numbers shouldnt be that far off). Over 10 turns thats ~250 more goody-possible plots visible than the conventional starter! You're gonna find extra goodies in that, you'd have to be crazy unlucky not to.... and these extra goodies turn into extra gold which turn into extra scouts which turn into extra goodies which turn into extra gold and so on... once you exhaust all the goodies, you have army of highly mobile, high level classical UU's, sometimes still in ancient era! This can fix anything that went wrong off the start lol.

I think its maybe difficult to add up all the poly pieces here just via imagining how it plays -- poly's kit all works together in way that allows it to overcome what appears to the conventional start player to be 'risky', i get it. That risk is not zero, but it can be mitigated and negated. When you add everything together correctly, the late-found start rarely fails to create a viable game.

i think if nothing else its worth playing this style once; its fun, it takes a little thought and planning to fully optimize (i won't spoil all the details and possible adaptations, some things haven't been touched on in this thread, though its been fully described in bits and pieces on these forums), it will open up new gameplay paradigm to those that have only ever played a conventional start, and will at least get everyone observing what its like to roam around an empty ocean where nothing exists -- its the gameplay equivalent of clipping out-of-bounds in a 3d platformer to skip to the end of the 1st level... could be done better is all i'm saying here really; and in that regard, barbs are the early 'life' intended to fill the map's empty spaces

 

[trinket]

only if you let that advantage idle

I meant that everyone eventually gets your ocean crossing ability, unlike, say, the Songhai who retains a tactical advantage on rivers. Polynesian UA is like Poland's, where the main advantage is early access. Of the times I tried Polynesia I'd say the more snowball-y part is how much vision their embarked scout can get, couple scouts in the ocean for a few turns become super explorers.

I suggest adjusting Polynesia first, like maybe move their ocean-crossing ability to Fishing? Depending on the map it'd constrain them to the continental coastline while still presenting an early game migration option.

 

[Tekamthi]

I played the extreme case of this concern this wknd... Marathon game, extra huge jarcommunitu map, immortal difficulty. Founded capital around turn 15. (Relatively early for marathon late found, but I already hit 2 gold goodies by then and needed to spend). Got first religion, a religious building (later destroyed in hurricane) and a missionary before the second religion came online. Was first in tech, a full policy+ ahead of everyone, my capital had 10+ pop by 3000 bc, converted this lead into 5 ancient/classical wonders. Am slightly ahead of AI expansion pace as well, with my 4th city coming out at 1500bc while most are on their 3rd. Just saw first barb boat around this time (turn 195!). Back around 2000bc i got hit by hurricane and volcano (bad events are on) wiping out 9 pop (!) and most infrastructure in my capital, which has since recovered back to 8 total with many wonders and few normal buildings lol

Spoiler :

first barb boat (that i could see anyway) in marathon game -- turn 195!!

how much vision their embarked scout can get, couple scouts in the ocean for a few turns become super explorers.

This is true, and it very much affects this start as well, but keep in mind the starting units (settler/warrior) can also be super sight scouts when the all important early turn goodies haven't been snatched up yet. The extreme success poly sometimes sees is indeed tied closely to the ability of recon to exploit mass goodies -- this again is made very easy via the lack of any water traffic early on.

We could do artificial limits, blocks on abilities etc. But I'd still argue early barb boat would provide gameplay based brakes on poly play style without materially affecting the others. It's fun going on early voyages with poly, more risk in the water will enhance the gameplay -- other options make poly less fun to play. I'd rather see gameplay alternatives first, numerical limiters and nerfs 2nd

 

[azum4roll]

It's going to affect anyone with water resources. Barbarian ships are relentless at blockading your water tiles, and you can't do anything about it.

 

[Tekamthi]

blockading your water tiles

'cept barbs can't enter your borders, water or land, til roughly the same turn that barb boats currently appear (in the screen above my barb defense is lacking cuz they just started crossing borders in previous 10 turns and I was snoozing)

Idk how early land barbs are any different in this sense.

you can't do anything about it

...and we get player boat in same tech we get ability to improve water resource. The option to counter is there, unless we're concerned about barbs somehow blockading unimproved water resource from outside our borders?

I'm not following on this one? Blockade how? something i'm not thinking of here? seems a complete non-issue

 

[azum4roll]

Enemy units blockade adjacent tiles that don't have your unit. Unimproved water resources are still very worth working, unless you're playing a completely different game.

 

[Alpakinator]

Also, this early barb ship will mean many more barb ships on the map, at the moment they start entering your territory. It'll be harder to fight barbs with your galleys at that point.

 

[Tekamthi]

Enemy units blockade adjacent tiles that don't have your unit

So the worry is indeed that the barbs will sit outside borders but adjacent to water resource? If you need your unimproved water resources so badly in the early game, don't you build city with them in ring 1 or 2 so you can get to the quickly? You're telling me your early game strat relies on 3rd ring unimproved water resources? C'mon...

Anyway the gameplay choice already exists to counter. Just prioritize archers, or if these critical unimproved border water resources are too far from shore, fishing and galleys.

early barb ship will mean many more barb ships on the map, at the moment they start entering your territory. It'll be harder to fight barbs with your galleys at that point.

These barb fleets already accumulate in this way under existing ruleset. "Harder to fight barbs" is a non-issue from my point of view, that's the whole point here really, make barbs harder to play against early on. Just build archers n galleys to deal with the problem, same as status quo problems are dealt with

 

[Alpakinator]

These barb fleets already accumulate in this way under existing ruleset. "Harder to fight barbs" is a non-issue from my point of view, that's the whole point here really, make barbs harder to play against early on. Just build archers n galleys to deal with the problem, same as status quo problems are dealt with

They accumulate, but not from turn 1 like they would with this ship added. So on e.g on turn 80, on top of barbarian galleys, there will be a lot of these rafts. While you and I might like it, probably most players won't. This proposal needs a poll, when the time for new proposals arrives.

 

[Tekamthi]

there will be a lot of these rafts

in theory, some players will begin hunting them for auth bonuses -- there will be more certainly than the current zero, thats undeniable

This proposal needs a poll, when the time for new proposals arrives.

this thread is multipurpose, most immediately from my point of view, it serves market research for next mb+ mod update -- this raft already appeared in that mod but was removed for other reasons several years ago. We can expect poly-related proposals next round as well, so perhaps this will be pitched to congress, perhaps not. The skepticism suggests it will need play-testable prototype to have any chance at success, as the theorycraft-analysis has been mostly against...

on the concern of accumulating rafts in early game, i think this can be addressed (at least in modmod context) via upping the reward for hunting these units. However I don't want poly roaming all over with a big fleet to hunt them down for added rewards -- so i'm thinking of making them capturable by players IFF they are in owned territory or adjacent. This may also help address the unrelated concern of AI players only building very small navies early on. However this capture idea may be too far into modmod-style mechansim for mainmod, so I'm hoping to mine the responses here for alternatives.

Anyway, we've highlighted some valid challenges, so what are the options to mitigate, if we were forced to proceed with early barb boat?

 

[Alpakinator]

I'd give these rafts very low combat strength, so that they're one-shotted by cities or any ranged units. like 2-3 CS. It'd also limit the rewards from killing them cause they depend on CS.

 

[Tekamthi]

like 2-3 CS. It'd also limit the rewards from killing them cause they depend on CS.

agreed, they're not for combat so much as a nuisance to early ocean adventures

beyond CS i'm leaning towards a 2- or 3- move unit. 2 is a little low, all embarked units move faster -- but the effect i'm after is that you pick carefully where to land on a remote island, rather than scouting the whole thing from coast first. Also adds some risk to leaving said island. But I don't want exploration to become impossible, so making them faster than embarked is out of the question.

This is bit of a silly question, but I haven't disbanded a unit in my city for a long time. What is current effect of doing so? could this be part of the reward? ie we capture these junk barbarian boats and turn them in via disband in city for prod bonus? or does disband no longer do this?