Civ Discussion - Nepal

[bengalryan9]

After a quick detour to discuss the newest antiquity age civilization it’s time to head back to the modern age to discuss our next civ – Nepal. Nepal is a cultural and diplomatic civilization with a starting bias towards mountainous terrain. Their associated wonder is Boudhanath, which gives +6 influence and increases your relationship with all other leaders by 20. Nepal can be unlocked by playing as either Maurya or Chola earlier in the game, by choosing either Ashoka, Lakshmibai, or Pachacuti as your leader, or by having 3 settlements with at least 5 mountains each.

Their unique ability is Roof of the World, which makes it so that all warehouse building apply to mountain tiles at the cost of +1 gold and +1 happiness for maintenance.
Their unique military unit is the Gurkha, a line infantry replacement with higher combat strength and movement but which is also more expensive.
Their unique civilian unit is the Sherpa, a scout replacement with the ability to construct a highland power station on neutral or owned mountain tiles within 5 hexes of a friendly settlement. If claiming a new tile, all tiles between the city center and power station will also be claimed.
Their unique infrastructure is the Highland Power Station, which gives +3 production and culture to mountain tiles that it is built on.

Nepalese Civics:
Sagarmatha – gives food and science buildings bonus adjacency from mountains. At mastery, sherpas gain the ability to build power stations on unclaimed mountains within 5 tiles of your settlement centers.
Jyumdo Bagha – all districts adjacent to mountains receive fortifications as a one time effect following wall placement rules. At mastery, unlocks the Tundikhel tradition and allows units to complete fortifications in 1 turn next to a mountain.
Singha Durbar – unlocks Boudhanath and allows you to gift Gurkha units to other players to boost your relationship with them, and at mastery unlocks the Maitri Sanadhi tradition and gives culture buildings +3 influence.
Gorkhapatra – unlocks the Himal tradition and gives museums 2 extra great work slots.

Nepalese Traditions:
Tundikhel - +3 CS for all units adjacent to a mountain, doubled if in your own territory.
Maitri Sanadhi - +50% influence towards initiating endeavors if you have the fewest settlements and +20% if you don’t.
Himal – mountain tiles in your capital receive +4 culture, while mountain tiles in other settlements receive +2 culture.

Thoughts on Nepal? Are they strong, weak, or just right? What do you think they do well and where do you feel that they struggle? Any particular strategies you like to use when playing as them? Which leaders and other civs make for a good pairing with them? Let’s discuss!

 

[bengalryan9]

Nepal is a civilization I don't have a ton of experience with as I don't play with automatic unlocks and so they've always been tricky for me to get access to in a situation where I've had the right type of map to play them. When I *did* play them it was back before they were patched, when Highland Power Stations only worked on unclaimed tiles. I'd imagine they are much stronger now. I'm actually planning on choosing them when I hit Modern Age in my current game as I've got a lot of mountains and went Inca in exploration so it should make for a good fit. They sound fun to me so I'm excited to see what they can do these days!

Also, not a big loss or anything but didn't they use to have the ability to gift Gurkhas to other leaders to boost their relationship? I guess that was removed at some point?

 

[Leucarum]

After a lot of me badmouthing Modern era civs... We come to the modern Civ that I actually like! The Sherpa game is quite fun (gotta scale every mountain) and actually feels relevant for what you're trying to accomplish.

I don't know how I feel they rank up in terms of power level (it's tough to judge modern civs which just generally feel like they don't matter much). But I do like Nepal, both in terms of the mechanical design and in terms of the general vibes.

It's just a pity that they are map dependant so it's not always a good choice to pick then.

For the one and only time from me in Modern. Good job Firaxis!

 

[pjotroos]

I have played them a couple of times, post patch, and in both cases I've managed to have a good few mountains within the range of my capital, and a few other cities. Each time, I ended up with the same mixed feelings, for the same, odd reason.

Mechanically, they're quite strong. Each Power Station gives a lot of production, and a good bunch of food, culture and happiness.It's probably the single most powerful modern tile improvement, and it's also the cheapest one you can get. Sherpas cost 100 gold each to buy, and the cost doesn't scale. You can pre-buy and pre-position lots of them, to claim multiple tiles, the second you unlock Sagarmatha mastery. Crucially, and uniquely, they also cost you no population. I haven't realised you get automatic stations if you've already claimed the mountain tile, because I never do that with them. Using pop exclusively for specialists and using sherpas to claim the free population, the baseline mountain yields, and the power stations, feels so much better. And if you still have some mountains left after the first set of sherpas, five turns later you can claim same number again, at the cost of 0 gold, 0 production and 0 population.

What's the downside, then? It's odd, like I said, but I feel this is the only civlization where the unique art assets are actively detrimental. This might be a leftover from their initial design, where the power stations were not spammable, but once you convert all the mountains, the mountains are gone. The mountain-based civ looks like it's just built some moats in the flatlands. I mean, just look at this before and after:

Ther first image has a nice, long mountain range. Meanwhile, there are no mountains to be found in the second image. The niter mine actually looks taller than them. I dearly hope this gets re-visited and made prettier. I'd prefer for the sherpas to set up camps high in the mountains than to build power plants, anyway.

Love the music, though. One of my favourites. The wonder is solid, too, if you're trying to avoid a war. I have no opinions on the ghurkas, since I never warred as Nepal, but I did manage to gift one in my Lakshmibai game, so the ability must still be there.

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

Nepal is a civilization I don't have a ton of experience with as I don't play with automatic unlocks and so they've always been tricky for me to get access to in a situation where I've had the right type of map to play them. When I *did* play them it was back before they were patched, when Highland Power Stations only worked on unclaimed tiles. I'd imagine they are much stronger now. I'm actually planning on choosing them when I hit Modern Age in my current game as I've got a lot of mountains and went Inca in exploration so it should make for a good fit. They sound fun to me so I'm excited to see what they can do these days!

Also, not a big loss or anything but didn't they use to have the ability to gift Gurkhas to other leaders to boost their relationship? I guess that was removed at some point?

I recall that gifting Gurkhas was unlocked with Singha Durbar, but it could only be done with friendly or helpful civilizations. Not sure if it was changed in the new patch as while I did choose Nepal in my first game post-patch, it was in a game where my starting continent kind of just decided they didn't like me and then the AI allied together without me, so gifting Gurkhas wasn't something that was really on my mind.

Speaking of Nepal and that game, they feel quite solid in the new patch as that production is a lot more relevant with the changes to production costs. While I don't yet have a good basis for comparison within the new patch as my 2nd 1.2.5 game (where I don't intend to go with Nepal) is ongoing, I can say that I was fairly easily able to build everything I wanted to as Nepal and production in one of my cities reached as high as around 350 (one caveat is this is a game where I was playing as Pachacuti and so the food adjacency from Sagarmatha helped to boost production even further) and my other mountain cities all surpassed 200 production. In spite of the many Culture bonuses, my read on Nepal is that Culture feels like their weakest victory path (since you need to go out of your way in the Culture tree to even get the ability to make Highland Power Stations let alone getting to Singha Durbar and Gorkhapatra for those bonuses). They feel like a solid Economic Victory civ (since Highland Power Stations give a strong boost to production in your cities and gold in your towns) and I am curious how far those science adjacencies can be pushed if you plan for them for Science Victory. The new map generation seems to offer a lot more mountain tiles, which means there could definitely be opportunities to gameplan around those science adjacencies. I also realize that I never have actually tried to get the City-State Warehouse bonuses with Nepal, but those would be quite strong here I suspect.

Personally speaking, Nepal might be my favorite modern age civ. Boudhanath is a fun wonder and building power stations is a fun minigame with powerful rewards. The music is fantastic and there are a lot of little touches like the Sherpas specifically being able to climb Mt. Everest that despite not being powerful or useful, make the civ really enjoyable to play.

 

[Leucarum]

I think that's it. Nepal is a 100% flavour win. In modern where mechanics are meh, that's what sells a civ.

 

[The Civs 6]

Nepal? Like the national happiness quotient country? lol

 

[Leucarum]

Nepal? Like the national happiness quotient country? lol

That's Bhutan.

 

[Chefofrats]

I played Nepal once, before they were buffed, yet I still liked the civ. I settled largely empty distant lands and spammed power stations in their mountains, achieving ridiculous production output (I don't remember it exactly any more, but it was in the 200-300 range, if not better). Actually, now that Nepal has been buffed, I should play them again. Fun, unique civ.

 

[Siptah]

Nepal is one of my favorites in the modern era. The Sherpa/Power Station mechanic is quite fun and strong, and extra great work slots means you can get a fast cultural victory with few cities, while there is quite some bonus culture from civics/traditions.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I played them once, in the ludicrous snowball Isabella game where I managed to get a city near every Natural Wonder.

Confession: I don't think they're all that, mechanically. Conceptually? Sure. Mountains often feel like dead space and notionally, any Civ that manages to turn useless land not only into useful tiles but like, some of the best real estate in the game (shouts to Civ6's Canada and Tundra) should be right up my alley! Civ is all about map play and Civilizations such as Nepal turn that game right on its head!

The reality of Nepal OTOH, doesn't quite live up to the expectation. Maybe it's because Civ7 has ironed out SO much micromanagement but I found the Nepali sherpa mini-game a boring chore. Objectively, it's amazing that you can use your sherps to claim mountains up to five tiles away and turn every city into a hub of industry and culture, but there's a cooldown to that ability. Most of my modern turns with Nepal consist of useleslly cycling between my sherpa's while i wait for their cooldown to reset- which is possibly even more tedious than simply clicking the End Turn button every turn? Especially because I was in SUCH a dominant, winning position already omgggg lemme FINISH THE GAME AND GET THE ACHIEVEMENT ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Idk, I strictly like the 'Idea Of A Nepal' is what I want to say. Nepal itself though, eh. I went into them thinking I'd enjoy them and I sort of didn't! They sort of represent what I find wrong with playing Modern (boring, inconsequentual mini-games that exist to fill the time between now and your inevitable victory).

 

[UWHabs]

Power Station spam is definitely powerful, combined with all your mountains having crazy yields from all the warehouse buildings. Overall just a nice fun civ to play when you have them unlocked and have some mountains available to you.

 

[uppi]

No one mentioned the Gurkha yet: It is an infantry unit with cavalry stats. So essentially a cheaper cavalry (especially in upkeep). It is nice on its own, but becomes quite powerful when combined with other infantry abilities. For example, Friedrich with his infantry printer really likes having powerful infantry

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

I played them once, in the ludicrous snowball Isabella game where I managed to get a city near every Natural Wonder.

Confession: I don't think they're all that, mechanically. Conceptually? Sure. Mountains often feel like dead space and notionally, any Civ that manages to turn useless land not only into useful tiles but like, some of the best real estate in the game (shouts to Civ6's Canada and Tundra) should be right up my alley! Civ is all about map play and Civilizations such as Nepal turn that game right on its head!

The reality of Nepal OTOH, doesn't quite live up to the expectation. Maybe it's because Civ7 has ironed out SO much micromanagement but I found the Nepali sherpa mini-game a boring chore. Objectively, it's amazing that you can use your sherps to claim mountains up to five tiles away and turn every city into a hub of industry and culture, but there's a cooldown to that ability. Most of my modern turns with Nepal consist of useleslly cycling between my sherpa's while i wait for their cooldown to reset- which is possibly even more tedious than simply clicking the End Turn button every turn? Especially because I was in SUCH a dominant, winning position already omgggg lemme FINISH THE GAME AND GET THE ACHIEVEMENT ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Idk, I strictly like the 'Idea Of A Nepal' is what I want to say. Nepal itself though, eh. I went into them thinking I'd enjoy them and I sort of didn't! They sort of represent what I find wrong with playing Modern (boring, inconsequentual mini-games that exist to fill the time between now and your inevitable victory).

Yeah, I do completely agree on the micromanagement side. I have gotten used to activating all of my Sherpas at the same time so that I can put them all on Alert and just check 1 each turn for the cooldown, but such a workaround isn't always ideal. That said, it would be incredible if they implemented an automatic wake up for Sherpas for the first turn where they can make a Highland Power Station and then let them continue to sleep if you had an opportunity to make a Power Station, but decided against it. It seems like one of those simple fixes that could even be useful if there are future abilities that work similarly to the Sherpas.

 

[bengalryan9]

A couple of corrections/answers now that I've actually chosen Nepal in my current game:

1) My original post originally said that Sagarmatha unlocked the highland power station and automatically put them on previously claimed mountains... this is not the case (which makes sense as that could potentially be an insane boost right at the start of the age). Don't know why my source for info had that in there but it appears to be wrong and I edited my OP.
2) Nepal can still gift Gurkhas to other players once they've got the Singha Durbar civic. Once again, not sure why my source omitted that but I've edited the OP to reflect this.

That said, now that I've got some more experience with them I can say that they seem really strong if you get the right type of map generation.

 

[MutilationWave]

Yeah, I do completely agree on the micromanagement side. I have gotten used to activating all of my Sherpas at the same time so that I can put them all on Alert and just check 1 each turn for the cooldown, but such a workaround isn't always ideal. That said, it would be incredible if they implemented an automatic wake up for Sherpas for the first turn where they can make a Highland Power Station and then let them continue to sleep if you had an opportunity to make a Power Station, but decided against it. It seems like one of those simple fixes that could even be useful if there are future abilities that work similarly to the Sherpas.

This hits at a deeper issue that's close to my heart, which is the lack of basic unit functions like a wait function to make a unit go to the end of the queue so you can make other decisions first. Or the lack of a unit list unless you're running city hall mod. It's ridiculous she was able to put that together already, with shortcuts.

I think unit selection order was given a change this patch, and it's for the better. I don't find myself getting pulled back to the same unit over and over no matter what I'm doing.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yeah, I do completely agree on the micromanagement side. I have gotten used to activating all of my Sherpas at the same time so that I can put them all on Alert and just check 1 each turn for the cooldown, but such a workaround isn't always ideal. That said, it would be incredible if they implemented an automatic wake up for Sherpas for the first turn where they can make a Highland Power Station and then let them continue to sleep if you had an opportunity to make a Power Station, but decided against it. It seems like one of those simple fixes that could even be useful if there are future abilities that work similarly to the Sherpas.

yeah that's a change i'd like to advocate. @FXS_Sar: can you pass this on to the team? I (and I believe most players) would enjoy Nepal more if our alerted Sherpa's woke up once their cooldown reset.

 

[disjointaccount]

As with most modern civs, I haven't played them a ton. They seemed solid enough the times I have; like all terrain-dependent civs they obviously only work if your game thus far has led you to have the right kind of terrain. I was pretty underwhelmed by the highland power stations - for how involved they are to set up relative to every other improvement in the game, the yields didn't really feel super impactful.

 

[pjotroos]

I just went for them in my Pachacuti run, and the combination basically broke the game. Kathmandu has 12 mountains on the 3rd and 4th ring, and the Serpent Mount wonder. All other cities have between 5 and 8 mountains. This is turn 13, after I was finished with Sherpas:

And this is what production looks like in Kathmandu, with 6 cities total:

The difficulty's only Immortal, which definitely factors into turn times, but this is outpacing what I normally have around turn 30-40. 300 production as a baseline, not counting resources, is mad.