Cartography (Open Borders) (Map Trading) (City States)

[Gelvan]

I'd like to know your opinion on the tech Cartography.

At the moment it is available with Exploration for 200 and it provides you with:
- Open Border Agreement
- Map Trading
- City States

All three of them are in SP a very powerful weapon against the AI.

edit: had forgotten about Pact of Nilhorn - I'd say this could be switched to another early game tech.

Open Border
- You can spam and spawn religions
- You can spy out AI defenses, what units, how many, how strong
- you get a + diplomacy modifier that alters most often the negative modifier for being another alignment. ("the Bannor-Shaeim friendship founded in turn 5 lasts forever")
- there seems to be a problem with early religions regarding Open Borders (see the thread)

Map Trading
- You can on a round map surround the world without ever building a ship
- You know where all the resources are by trading maps with one or two AI
- it destroys the exploration, and therefore most of the recon line

Who needs to build Asassins, Shadows, HN units, when he just can trade maps and spy all defenses of an AI that you plan to attack?

City States
- It is better now, but still, I think this is a really powerful Civic, that shouldn't be available from the beginning, leading to empires with infinite city sprawl and research at 100 (escpecially combined with RoK).


Therefore I'd recommend to delay the research of Cartography to something like "after trade" when you had some time to research and fight for land, without knowing much about it. It has been mentioned by Nikis Night that Writing would be more reasonable. Furthermore it could be possible to link it to the Ship - and/or - the Recon Tech Line.

Well, that's what I think. What do you think?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

In a real sense, there's no map trading until trade unless your scouts get insanely lucky and survive long enough to explore much more land than they normally do. The AI knows how much of the map you know, and unless it's more than how much of it they can see, they won't do map-for-map trades. You need to throw in a tech to make them willing, even if it's some cheap crap like calendar (usually that's enough, but the point is you're not even capable of sweetening the deal till trade.)

God king is -the- early game government civic. CS is great, but it hits its stride well after cartograhpy becomes easy to research... moving cartography (or CS for that matter) wouldn't change this situation much.

So really cartography's immediate benefits are Open Borders + pact of the nilhorn. That doesn't sound so bad at all.

 

[Demus]

aye, city states at cartography is overpowering, i'd move it to something like education . Seriously though, even with city states and open borders on the same tech, it still doesn't compare to any of the worker techs you need early game, so i recon it's fine.

 

[Gelvan]

I'm with you that the AI won't trade maps without a goodie for him, but if you start with an AI that is small, you have a bigger map, this is more valuable, and in a short time you can map trade with everyone long before trade.
Also, I think Open Borders can ruin the early suspicion between civ's that don't share the same alignment. It's quite unthinkable in a dark fantasy setting, that Orcs and Elves make an Open Border and share their religions. Oh well, not completely unthinkable in FFH2 but still.. it's like having an Overcouncil at the beginning.
CS is great if you want to build MANY cities. Many cities that develop fast enough later on and give you a big empire with huge borders, therefore providing you with many resources.. the only cost is your cultural spread rate. Combine this with RoK and you never need to switch to less than 100% research.

 

[PanzerWolf]

As many of the other polls - I vote again for leaving it. Eventhough Cartography has all these nice bonuses, there is still a something "bad" about Cartograhpy that balances it: it doesn't lead to any other tech. I feel those early techs are often too important to prioritze a dead end and I find running God King more useful in the beginning where production and commerce and expanding your borders are crucial. You will not have any benefit from running City States anyway untill you have quite a few cities and that's hard to achive during the first turns.

I love having the Pact of Nilhorn, that will also put my development on hold for a while if I'm not lucky enough have it available when my basic infrastructure is up and running.

 

[Grey Fox]

City States is the most overrated civic of all times. The Tech is fine.

 

[PanzerWolf]

City States is the most overrated civic of all times. The Tech is fine.

True. In my current game, I ran Aristrocacy for the most of the game untill I started expanding on the other side of the map. Going City States wasn't that huge benefit....

 

[Capn Charlie]

I don't think I've ever used city states (god king ftw!) and find I rarely research cartography until much, much later. I usually have festivals and drama before I have this tech.

 

[Humakty]

Depending on the rate at which you expand, relatively to the growth of your economy, CS can be more or less usefull.

I'm a bit surprised : it seems I'm the only one who succeeds in having the AIs giving their world maps. They'll give it to you for free as long as you have correct relations with them (+2/3? can't remember, but not much more). But maybe it's a lot harder above monarch difficulty.

 

[Grey Fox]

It used to be a great strategy on the higher difficulties to scout the map (preferably as a barbarian civ which can do this at ease) and then sell the maps to the AI. This could often even yield in tech trades for the maps. Dunno if this is still possible.

 

[onedreamer]

the real two good things of this tech are:
- Open Borders
- Pact of the Nilhorn

But the points you have made about the tech being too powerful are all either wrong, incomplete, or not relevant. I don't think it's that important to go into details, let's just say that the real pluses of this tech are IMHO the commerce bonus due to Open Borders and the 3 Giants (a very powerful siege weapon), and since you haven't mentioned any of these I guess we are on a totally different channel when it comes down to defining what's overpowered. Still, some of your statements are just wrong and not a matter of opinions.

 

[jwin]

It may be a matter of difficulty levels. I always pass over cartography because I can't afford to delay the worker and defense techs, and won't have the time to build the Pact anyway.
I usually don't go back to get it until around writing or later(often it is just a throw in on a tech trade). By that time, I already have open borders with anyone who cares to because they all have cartography.
Also, until that point GK is usually better. I don't switch until at least 5-6 cities,

The Pact is very good if you can afford to build it early.

 

[Gelvan]

well, regarding the poll this seems to be clear enough, thanks for your insights

@onedragon
just out of curiosity which statements do you think are just wrong?
I've never said it was overpowered. I just think it gives you an advantage over the AI.

but well, since I'm the only one who thinks this, it's not very important I guess.

 

[Methuselah]

well, regarding the poll this seems to be clear enough, thanks for your insights

As the saying goes:

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

Some of your points apply both ways too - example, although you can spam/spread religion, so can the AI.

 

[Jules.lt]

Another important consideration is that as you crank up the difficulty city upkeep becomes more of a problem, so City States becomes more useful. But you don't want it immediately because you have more important stuff to do

A well-balanced and interesting tech, that one...

 

[Gelvan]

and so can he trade maps - I don't like map trading, I think I will disable it in my game. I want to explore the world. I think that's a strength of Civ/FFH. trading maps just destroys this strength.

"if it isn't broken, don't fix it"
true

 

[Capn Charlie]

I don't think I've ever used city states (god king ftw!) and find I rarely research cartography until much, much later. I usually have festivals and drama before I have this tech.

 

[Demus]

aristo is a decent alternative for CS now that aristo got the maintenance reduction, but before it was the only way to prevent the 10 gold per city maintenance costs (at least, untill your cities became big enough to build courthouses etc). CS and aristo basically require 2 different economy types (cottage / farm), but are an even match.

 

[onedreamer]

well, regarding the poll this seems to be clear enough, thanks for your insights

@onedragon
just out of curiosity which statements do you think are just wrong?
I've never said it was overpowered. I just think it gives you an advantage over the AI.

but well, since I'm the only one who thinks this, it's not very important I guess.

Why'd you ask to delay the tech or its features if not because you think it's overpowering as it is now ?

Open Border
- You can spam and spawn religions
- You can spy out AI defenses, what units, how many, how strong
- you get a + diplomacy modifier that alters most often the negative modifier for being another alignment. ("the Bannor-Shaeim friendship founded in turn 5 lasts forever")
- there seems to be a problem with early religions regarding Open Borders (see the thread)

1) even delaying the tech, you would still spam and spawn religions, so where's the point ?
2) you can spy out AI defenses in many other ways and the most effective is through hawks, since exploration is not up to date. Also, the AI can explore YOUR defenses as well, and I actually think that in this regard the AI has more advantage than the human player does, since the build priorities of the AI are highly predictable for the human player. Also, like point 1, delaying this feature won't change its effect.
3) the diplo modifier doesn't alter diplomacy in a significant way in FFH2 from my experience. Also, you must have gotten Cartography from a hut to have it at turn 5 (as Bannor, since you can't as Sheaim) and it must be Sheaim to ask you OB because they won't accept it if you ask it. Furthermore, it isn't beneficial at all for your overall diplomacy to sign deals with evil civs if you play a good civ and vice versa. I should also mention, that -again in my experience- FFH2 has a better gameplay experience with aggressive AI option turned on, which also makes OB agreements harder to be signed.

Map Trading
- You can on a round map surround the world without ever building a ship
- You know where all the resources are by trading maps with one or two AI
- it destroys the exploration, and therefore most of the recon line
- Who needs to build Asassins, Shadows, HN units, when he just can trade maps and spy all defenses of an AI that you plan to attack?

1) yeah but the only advantage in this is if you actually have ships, so where's the point ? Also, the AI actually performs better than the human player does in doing this because they have diplo bonuses.
2) again, both parties will know where the resources are, where's your big advantage ? Also, discovering marble at the other edge of the map isn't that big deal IMHO...
3) in order to trade maps, you must have explored, so I really can't agree with this statement. The AI will NOT trade you its maps if it has explored and you haven't. The recon line's point is to have UP-TO-DATE maps. Trading maps only reveals terrain but that's the minor part of exploration. Knowing the location of other civs' cities is the most important part.
4) if you trade maps, you will only see the territory and city placement without subsequent updates, but most importantly you won't see any defense, not even the % defense in the city, so this statement is just plain wrong. Furthermore, an assassin isn't better at exploring than a horseman or a disciple with movement I, and a HN unit is actually worse since it will be attacked by anyone on sight.

City States
- It is better now, but still, I think this is a really powerful Civic, that shouldn't be available from the beginning, leading to empires with infinite city sprawl and research at 100 (escpecially combined with RoK).

it is much more powerful later in the game than in the beginning, so I don't see WHY it should not be available from the beginning. God King is much more powerful in the beginning.

 

[Gelvan]

wow thanks for your time to answer this, I really see your point.
I think what bugged me most, was the instant world map, which (I suppose) is only a problem at pre-monarch levels. and religion spread which is a bit very fast IMHO. But well you showed me I was wrong, because it wouldn't change anything to delay it, so for me this question is solved now.